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.

Diagram showing a single-camera setup