I got to go to a taping of “The New Adventures of Old Christine”. I had never watched the show before, nor have I ever been to a taping for TV before. So it was a really interesting experience. It was most of the audience’s first time there too, so they showed us a previous episode to get us familiar with the characters. While watching it, I was saying to myself, “Hey! That was taped on that part of the set right there!” I kind of do the same thing with movies too, but it’s not as interesting because it was shot there, not still is being shot there. Although every time I see my school’s library, I call it the Starfleet Academy because that’s where it was shot for Star Trek.
After watching an episode of The New Adventures of Old Christine, the warm-up guy started to make jokes. I don’t remember his name, but he was really good at making the audience laugh. He even made mini-events that involved individuals of the audience. By the end of the night I felt like a lot of us knew each other. It’s cool how some people came from the other side of the world just to be there. Between the taping, he would make jokes about the cast/crew too. Most of them had no reaction because they were too busy working and are probably use to it. It was really funny for the audience though. Some of the mini-events the audience had even made the crew watch, which I thought was interesting. It reminded of Jay Mohr at BlizzCon and some of the events he was part of. Sometimes the audience would be in the middle of something and the buzzard sounded. They would have to get back to their seats fast. It was funny because it was like we were in our own world between the taping, and then in another world during the taping.
It was really interesting watching how a taping of a TV show worked. I’m more familiar with movies. I was surprised how the monitors we watched during a taping looked just like a completed episode. For movies they usually have to put filters in post if shot on video to get the film look, but for this, it looked like that of a released episode already. I was also watching the crew and how they worked. During the taping, there are a bunch of them watching their monitor. After the scene is done, they all move like ants to attend to their jobs. It’s interesting how specific each person’s job is. One guy’s job is just to move things, like a ladder, and then another person climbs it. It was also interesting how if the audience didn’t laugh much on certain parts, they would change the script on the spot and redo the scene. The parts that they left unchanged were not as funny the second time, but the new parts usually were. It’s funny hearing the new line when the audience are expecting the old line.
I like watching the behind the scenes features for movies, so this kind of felt like that except I was actually there. The experience is so different watching it with my own eyes rather than what they show us on the monitors. I enjoy watching bloopers too, so when the actors/actresses messed up on something, it was funny to watch. Sometimes they hid it so well I couldn’t tell they made a mistake until one of the crew said to start over at a certain part. Sometimes they made the same mistake several times and ended up laughing themselves. The effect is so much better watching it live.
I think I would still enjoy being on set for films more, but it was a really interesting experience to be on one for a TV show. I learned a lot.
