The Modes of Drama: Stage & Screen
I once saw a t-shirt (probably worn by a theatre student) which displayed the following graphic:
Theatre is Art
Film is Business
Television is FurnitureLike many aphorisms, this one is an exaggeration, yet is humorous because there is also some truth in it. Stage, film, and television are all manifestations of dramatic art because of their common heritage and overwhelming similarities. Yet they do have significant differences. These differences allow us to make useful and meaningful distinctions between them. We will make detailed comparisons between them in later lectures, but for now let's look at some general distinctions.
"Theatre is Art"
Anyone who hangs around theatre folk for any length of time will encounter occasional flashes of an attitude of superiority over film and television. In some ways this is justified and in others not. Certainly the theatre has much to be proud of. First, the stage has been around much longer and has a distinguished pedigree. It has behind it a body of work that has withstood the test of time. It is "old school" and has nothing to prove. Second, it is the most rigorous of the three forms. Stage actors simply have to work harder in that they must learn all their lines at once, and have the endurance to perform them night after night without interruption. There are no cue cards, teleprompters, or shouts of "Cut!" and a retake. Any actor who has trained for the stage will be the best prepared for any mode of dramatic art, much in the way that dancers who begin with ballet or musicians with classics will have the best foundation in their arts. Theatre is also less tainted with non-artistic applications of its medium. By that I mean the stage is used exclusively for dramatic art whereas television includes commercials, news, sports, and other forms of programming. Film is more artistically pure than television in this sense, but on the whole most plays tend to be more intellectually challenging and less simplistic than most films.
On the other hand, some of this sense of superiority is no doubt inspired by jealousy. Actors in television and especially those in film tend to be much better paid and have better working conditions. In addition they get more exposure and as a result are much more likely to become well known. Those who work only in theatre tend to be known only by their peers and real theatre fans. Nevertheless theatre does expend much more of its energy and resources in the service of art, so there is truth in the t-shirt graphic. One of the things that distinguishes the stage from the other modes is that it is more art centered.
"Film is Business"
You simply cannot understand film without understanding that it is money-driven. Not by design, but simply as a result of the sheer quantity of it. The vast amounts of money involved in the production of an average film dwarfs that spent on an average stage production. Just the catering budget on a major film could finance an entire season of plays at a small regional theatre! Vast amounts of money mean vast amounts of risk. To minimize risk it is often the bean-counters who make what should be artistic decisions. Films tend to play it safe by copying other recent successes and following proven formulas. They use the same marketing techniques as other businesses, such as test audiences and focus groups. They most often think of what they create as a product, not art. Not "is it any good?," but "will it sell?"
Does this mean that film is bad and theatre good? Does it mean that all theatre is high art and all films are trash? Does it mean that films are produced by financial geniuses, and plays by those wholly ignorant of modern business practices? Of course not. Each medium has differing agendas and a different focus. Some films are very artistic, and some plays silly and insignificant. But in general, film is much more profit-driven than theatre. Again, there is truth in what the shirt says.
"Television is Furniture"
This final line on the t-shirt is also the most dismissive. Television, the newest of the modes of dramatic art is fighting for respect. It is on the bottom of the pecking order, looked down upon by both stage and film people alike. But does it deserve this dissing?
What most distinguishes television from the other modes of dramatic art is that it is broadcast. This means that you don't have to go anywhere to see it. It is delivered to your home like pizza. What you see before you is not the architectural edifice of a great playhouse, but an appliance--a piece of furniture. One can see how easy it is to denigrate television in this way. But in fairness, television is no better or worse than its programming. Is there a difference there? Yes, the downside of being the most convenient and cost-effective of all the modes is that it must serve more than just dramatic art. In fact, dramatic art as such is only a small part of its overall programming. T.V. never closes, it is open twenty-four hours and must deliver programming--any programming--to fill the time. It also has to pay the bills. PBS and cable aside, most television is commercial television. This means that instead of you buying a ticket to pay for the cost of production, time is sold to advertisers. You do pay, but you pay indirectly through the loss of your time (whatever that is worth to you) watching commercials, and the increased price of the products you buy due to the high cost of television advertising. Therefore whatever dramatic art television does contain is crowded out and diluted by other kinds of programming.
Newton Minow, former head of the FCC said in 1961 that television was "a vast wasteland" in decrying its lack of overall quality and worth. While this is certainly still true to a great extent, television has also proven its ability to deliver dramatic art of very high quality indeed. Public Television does so on a regular basis, and even commercial networks have had their artistic successes. Think of how Roots moved society. More recent shows such as Twin Peaks and Sports Night have shown that even television can be artistically adventurous. The quality of writing on some network series, both comedy and drama, is at an all time high.
Television is the quickest of the dramatic arts--it's all about time. Whereas a film may shoot only two to three pages per day, an hourlong TV drama must shoot six to eight in order to finish within seven days. Rehearsals are perfunctory at best and quality is hard to maintain when you are being pushed. Art takes time.
But television is not an art form in and of itself any more than a stage floor is. It is merely a platform for the exposure of whatever is placed upon it. It, like stage and film, is a mode for the delivery of dramatic art, or anything else. Because it is so much a part of our daily lives, mumbling ubiquitously in the background, it is like a piece of furniture--the final piece of truth on the t-shirt. And while I have made the point that film is all about money, the membership of the Screen Actors Guild actually earn more for their television than their film work! Television does carry a burden, however, that the other modes don't. It has taken over from film the mantle of mass media leader of the arts.
The Curse of Mass Media
The mass medium is that mode which delivers communication most easily and effectively to the maximum number of people. Prior to the age of television it was film, and in some respects radio. Why is this a curse? Because whenever you must please most of the people most of the time, you have to seek the least common denominator of taste. In other words, nearly anything that might offend somebody or appeal only to a small group is eliminated. What remains is a kind of blandness that is not unlike fast food in a world of fine dining. The upside is of course high volume--lots of people watch. "Over 60 billion sold," to extend the fast food analogy. Cable TV with its hundreds of channels has remedied this problem to some extent, making it possible to have programming that is narrowly focused on small groups: the Bass Fishing, Sci Fi, or Bravo channels for instance. But for the most part television must appeal to groups large enough to buy enough products to please the sponsor, and avoid offending anyone who in turn would complain to the sponsor. As in the world of film there is much money at stake, so sameness is rewarded and creativity discouraged.
Another Take on Differences
There is another fundamental difference between theatre, film and television that has to do with who each "belongs" to. The three prime creators of dramatic art are the writer, director, and actor. In each medium one of them is dominant.
Theatre belongs to actors. Ultimately, the theatre director has little control over the final output. When a play is in performance, it is the actor who is delivering the goods to the audience. Even the playwright has more control than the director, since plays are written directly for performance. There is no shooting script that can change things around.
Film belongs to directors. The director has control of how the written script will be converted into action. The actors have no control once the cameras stop. When they have finished their work, it is the director and editor who will shape the finished product that the audience sees.
Television belongs to writers. The most successful writers of series television today are producer-writers who own the product and control every aspect of it. In this case the television director is the writer's employee, and is often hired for only one episode. Like film actors, the work of television actors is under the ultimate control of others.
The Bottom Line
Many who actually work in the profession feel that the differences between the modes have been exaggerated. Annette Bening (Bugsy, The American President, Siege), who began her career as a stage actress, said in a recent television interview that she was intimidated by all the things she had heard about a career transition from stage to screen. Yet, she was so impressed by the numbers of people that could be reached by a great film performance that she was willing to take the chance. She was afraid that she would be "too big" on camera, and that she wouldn't be able to "hit her marks." She was later to learn that these matters required only slight adjustments for a well-trained actor, and that this transition is easy for most. Indeed, the stage/screen dichotomy is almost unknown in England where actors move easily between Shakespeare on stage, feature films, commercials, and TV movies-of-the week. Part of this may be due to the fact that in England theatre, film and TV are all in one actors' union. Another is that London is the center of all things dramatic. In the United States we have a bi-coastal split between the business centers of stage and screen. This geographical divide has fostered the myth that there is some kind of essential and unbridgeable difference between the dramatic arts of stage and screen.
The Business of Show Business
Since it is clear that the amount of money involved is one of the main practical distinctions between the dramatic arts of stage and screen, some specific examples may be useful. For theatre my lecture on Musicals offers a detailed look at the largest kind of theatre budget. The lecture Theatre Today, examines the more modest area of public versus private funding. The film industry, as we have said, possesses the largest budgets. The budget for an average feature film released by a major studio today often exceeds $50 million. Television is in the middle with costs rising all the time. The budget for an episode of a one-hour dramatic series runs about $1.5 million. Even a half-hour sitcom now costs around $850,000. If you multiply these figures by the twenty-two episodes in a season you can see how expensive they have become. Yet, even an entire season of twenty-two hours of drama costs less than a two-hour film. Let's take a closer look at where the costs go in the production of a one-hour prime time television drama.
Prime Time Television Drama Budgets
First of all, it is customary in the television industry to divide costs into what are called above-the-line and below-the-line costs. Above-the-line includes those costs that are required to get the project "packaged," or ready to go into production. The package is essentially the cost of hiring actors, directors, and writers. If a series has become very popular and goes into its fifth or sixth season, the above-the-line costs rise exponentially as the leading actors demand higher and higher salaries. For example, during its last season, Home Improvement's Tim Allen commanded $1.25 million per episode. Below-the-line costs include all the technical areas such as production design, costumes, and special effects. Normally below-the-line costs are smaller and remain fairly constant. Exceptions are shows which rely heavily on special effects like Star Trek: Voyager and The X-Files which have higher below- than above-the-line expenses. The X-Files recently rose to a total cost of more than $2.5 million per episode.
Runaway Productions
One of the current trends in television is the rapidly escalating costs of production. Actors' agents who control A-list stars are demanding "packaging fees" from producers to supply entire casts. Personal managers are demanding to be listed and paid as executive producers for merely making their clients available. Producers are especially resentful of this trend because they maintain that the title "producer" should indicate that the bearer has made some artistic contribution to the product, not just supplied raw materials. They refer derisively to collectors of such fees as "cling-ons." As a result, producers have resorted to moving production out of the U.S. in order to save on costs; so-called "runaway productions." Xena: Warrior Princess is shot in New Zealand, and until recently The X-Files was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1999 the unions began to intensify their lobbying of Congress to counteract the incentives that foreign governments are offering American producers to lure projects overseas.
Lecture Exercise
Why is television the least artistic of all the modes of drama?
The purpose of these exercises is to show me you "attended" this specific lecture by employing the relevant points from the lecture in your answer to the question. Review the lecture and be sure you are answering in terms of what's there, not just your opinion.
Note that when submitting the answer start the subject line with:
TH101DE -- YourFirst&LastName -- L-3
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