Single-camera setup

Multi-camera production generally results in faster but less versatile videography, whereas the single-camera setup is more time-consuming but gives the director more control over each shot.

Though multi-camera was the norm for U.S. sitcoms during the 1950s (beginning with I Love Lucy), the 1960s saw increased technical standards in situation comedies, which came to have larger casts and used a greater number of different locations in episodes.

To this end, many comedies of this period, including Leave It to Beaver,[2] The Andy Griffith Show, and The Brady Bunch, used the single-camera technique.

In the case of Get Smart, the single-camera technique also allowed the series to present fast-paced and tightly edited fight and action sequences reminiscent of the spy dramas that it parodied.

By the mid-1970s, with domestic situation comedies in vogue, the multi-camera shooting style for sitcoms came to dominate and would continue to do so through the 1980s and 1990s, although the single-camera format was still seen in television series classified as comedy-drama or "dramedy".

The early 21st-century Golden Age of Television saw a resurgence in the use of single-camera in sitcoms, such as in Malcolm in the Middle, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Arrested Development, The Office, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Community, Parks and Recreation, and Modern Family.