Science Fiction On Television - Science Fiction Television Production Process and Methods

Science Fiction Television Production Process and Methods

The need to portray imaginary settings or characters with properties and abilities beyond the reach of current reality obliges producers to make extensive use of specialized techniques of television production.

Through most of the 20th century, many of these techniques were expensive and involved a small number of dedicated craft practitioners, while the reusability of props, models, effects, or animation techniques made it easier to keep using them. The combination of high initial cost and lower maintenance cost pushed producers into building these techniques into the basic concept of a series, influencing all the artistic choices. By the late 1990s, improved technology and more training and cross-training within the industry made all of these techniques easier to use, so that directors of individual episodes could make decisions to use one or more methods, so such artistic choices no longer needed to be baked into the series concept.

Read more about this topic:  Science Fiction On Television

Famous quotes containing the words science, fiction, television, production, process and/or methods:

    Until politics are a branch of science we shall do well to regard political and social reforms as experiments rather than short-cuts to the millennium.
    —J.B.S. (John Burdon Sanderson)

    The obvious parallels between Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz have frequently been noted: in both there is the orphan hero who is raised on a farm by an aunt and uncle and yearns to escape to adventure. Obi-wan Kenobi resembles the Wizard; the loyal, plucky little robot R2D2 is Toto; C3PO is the Tin Man; and Chewbacca is the Cowardly Lion. Darth Vader replaces the Wicked Witch: this is a patriarchy rather than a matriarchy.
    Andrew Gordon, U.S. educator, critic. “The Inescapable Family in American Science Fiction and Fantasy Films,” Journal of Popular Film and Television (Summer 1992)

    History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.
    In Beverly Hills ... they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.
    Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.
    Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)

    Perestroika basically is creating material incentives for the individual. Some of the comrades deny that, but I can’t see it any other way. In that sense human nature kinda goes backwards. It’s a step backwards. You have to realize the people weren’t quite ready for a socialist production system.
    Gus Hall (b. 1910)

    At the heart of the educational process lies the child. No advances in policy, no acquisition of new equipment have their desired effect unless they are in harmony with the child, unless they are fundamentally acceptable to him.
    —Central Advisory Council for Education. Children and Their Primary Schools (Plowden Report)

    There are souls that are incurable and lost to the rest of society. Deprive them of one means of folly, they will invent ten thousand others. They will create subtler, wilder methods, methods that are absolutely DESPERATE. Nature herself is fundamentally antisocial, it is only by a usurpation of powers that the organized body of society opposes the natural inclination of humanity.
    Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)