Shooting audience sitcom has all kinds of unique production problems compared to other types of television.
After all, any TV show has to decide whether to shoot a given scene on location, or in the studio. Each choice has advantages and drawbacks: you don’t have the expense of building a set on location, but you also have less control than in a studio. With audience sitcom, though, you start running into further problems. Is there room in the studio for that extra set in front of the audience? And yet if it’s a dialogue-heavy scene, surely you want to do it in front of the audience, so the actors can play off their reaction?
Squaring this particular circle can lead to some interesting results. Let’s take a look at three of them.