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“Hairspray Live!”…Bravo Again For Live Television!

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Eyes Of A Generation.com

“Hairspray Live!”…Bravo Again For Live Television!

This was NBC’s fourth venture into holiday event live musicals, but their first go at a broadcast with an audience and studio sets as opposed to a more traditional proscenium-style approach.

Perhaps taking a cue from Fox’s live broadcast of “Grease” last winter, NBC did this show from two sound stages at their Universal Studios in LA, rather than the huge Grumman Studios in Long Island. The addition of the live audience was a new twist too, and like it or not, it did give a little extra time between scenes for actors to be ferried from set to set on golf carts.

Live TV is live TV, and that is part of the electric atmosphere for the performers and 750 crew members. With a dozen plus cameras in use, many of them handheld and Steadicams moving in and out of scenes, shows like this are hard to direct, and occasionally things get a bit frantic, but Atlanta’s Kenny Leon (director), and his all pro crew did a masterful job on the production.

As for the cast…BRAVO! Perfect in every way! The period/prop cameras are mock up RCA TK 11s…sort of. The side handles are wrong but they do resemble GE camera handles, which makes these a mashup of “period appropriate” cameras. These were built by History For Hire for the “American Bandstand” themed TV series from 2003, “American Dreams”.

What did you think? -Bobby Ellerbee

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14 responses to ““Hairspray Live!”…Bravo Again For Live Television!”

  1. Zach Camerino

    Who directed?

  2. Doug Herendeen

    I’m not really into the material, plus had to work, so watched the start mainly to see the technical aspects. I saw one missed lighting cue or set cue (on or the other didnt go as planned) but the direction and execution made it seem so good you wondered if it was really live. Very cinematic and clever. Shows you how could lice TV could be if more of it was done.

  3. Darren Thornton

    Unlike previous productions, the cast got a decent curtain call.

  4. Bruce A Johnson

    Why air it on a Wednesday night, though? Kinda screams out for Saturday or Sunday. (I, of course, was working.)

  5. Glen Norman

    Nice reference to “Pink Flamingos” on the street set …

  6. Steve Dichter

    DVR’d the show. I’ll view it today. Like the live tv concept. Makes for a more exciting viewing experience.

  7. John Bolin

    Jim Elyea’s History for Hire!

  8. John Bolin

    Lots of props in last nights show from Jim History for Hire. Cameras, Mic boom, monitors. My only prop criticism was the use of the EV 635L for Corney’s hand held mic. Wrong era, in 1962 it would likely have been an EV 654, like the one Dick Clark always used. Guess the set designers just weren’t around in those days to know the difference.

  9. Dennis Degan

    If anyone saved the entire BTS video from Facebook Live, I’d be interested in having it.

  10. Dennis Degan

    I noticed a lighting cue error and some shaky cameras a couple of times, but nothing obviously bad. Overall, it was a fantastic night of live television, though not as smoothly run as Fox’ Grease. Grease set the bar pretty high for these kinds of special programs which has not been touched yet.
    It was a lot of fun simultaneously watching the Facebook Live Feed of the behind-the-scenes activity with Darren Criss. Jennifer Hudson’s showstopper song was just that : A showstopper!

  11. Tom Williamson

    They even kind of look like the DuMont cameras we still had at Channel 8 in Houston around 1965.

  12. Steve Finkelmeyer

    Was pretty decent overall. I didn’t like how they kept the prop TK11’s out of most of the shots and chose to keep them back by the modern cameras (what was the point of having them then??). It was a weird mix. Also noticed what looked to be the TK11 they used in Grease Live (the one with the boxy “electrazoom”-style lens to hide a modern lens inside) in the background in one shot.

    I think the movie got things more “historically accurate” in regards to the TV studio scenes… Some of the prop lights scattered around the set looked like they came from the silent film era, and then there were the modern intelligent lights and LED strip fixtures. Some of the scenery looked more like the modern-retro kind of stuff that the Price is Right set has going on.

    In the end, the cast and crew did a fantastic job pulling this off!

  13. Scott M Bryant

    It was a well done production, a few anachronisms (intelligent lighting?) but it was fun to watch. The audience helped enhance the “Corny Collins Show” segments.

  14. Antonio Roque

    Very good work reminds the live shows in the golden age of television

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