Someone asked if the night scenes on TAGS were actually filmed at night or during the day. I wasn't going to answer this because I'm no expert on the subject, but since no one else has, I will give what information I have.
If a night scene was shot on a soundstage, then they simply lit the scene to produce a night-time look. They did have a set of the outside of the courthouse and barbershop. You can tell whether the scene was shot on a soundstage or on the 40-acres lot by examining the lighting. If they wanted to shoot an exterior night-time scene, they actually did the filming during the day. Back in the black-and-white days, this was pretty simple. As I understand it, they put a red filter over the lens to boost contrast and make the sky darken, then underexposed the shot to make the scene look dark. (Any of you photographers who shoot/shot black-and-white film will understand about the red filter.) In many exterior scenes, you can tell that they were really shot during the day because (unless the scene was shot entirely in shadow) the main light source, presumably the moon, is way too strong to be moonlight. If the scene includes a moving vehicle, it will have its headlights on to give the impression that the driving is being done at night, but the lights only show up so well because of the underexposure and filtration. There aren't too many scenes like this on TAGS, but I've noticed them more often on shows such as "Perry Mason" because much of the action takes place at night and somebody's usually driving somewhere. When you know what you're looking for, you can easily spot whether night scenes in old TV shows or movies have been shot by artificial light on a soundstage or by daylight on location. Thelma Lou (Janet) _______________________________________________ WBMUTBB mailing list WBMUTBB@wbmutbb.com http://mail.wbmutbb.com/mailman/listinfo/wbmutbb_wbmutbb.com http://www.mayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/
