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Post by River on Nov 3, 2011 20:16:11 GMT -5
after the first season of LHOTP you rarely see them in winter clothing...wonder if costuming budget is limited because of the large cast, it would cost a lot to have coats, sweaters for so many people. DR. Quinn, LHOTP, and Waltons all have decent sized casts, so to clothe that many people would cost a lot. I mean JohnBoy wears the same clothes over and over again and so does Olivia. Wonder what the clothing budget was for an hour long show set in a period time?
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Post by JeriJet on Nov 3, 2011 20:23:16 GMT -5
C'mon.... a popular network tv show can't afford some additional wardrobe? A hundred bucks a person? They DID wear winter garb from time to time so that just can't be the problem.....
I think wearing the same clothes all the time was done as a sign of the times and evidence of a large family going through the Depression. We didn't have much money when I was a little kid and I remember starting school each year with just two new outfits (to be alternated every other day).... and those clothes were made by my mother.....
I think it was more a case of comfort for the actors and general laziness of the production staff.
Man, I hate it when shortcuts are taken !! But, heck, nothing is perfect.
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markb
Typesetter
Posts: 80
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Post by markb on Nov 4, 2011 8:57:45 GMT -5
Jeri, you raise a good point about how different TV was in the early and mid 1970s, before cable and the internet and all the rest. The networks were the absolute KINGS of media. Think of how much power Walter Cronkite et al had. And the really popoular shows like LHOP, MASH, the Waltons. Almost everybody watched them because there was nothing else. Still, it would be interesting to know what kind of budgets these shows had.
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Post by JeriJet on Nov 4, 2011 11:28:32 GMT -5
I had a great uncle who was business manager to Douglas Fairbanks Jr, et al. -- He died at 92 in 1989. Rats. He probably could have found out for us !!! All kidding aside, there was little evidence that The Waltons was on any strict shoestring budget. Look at all the beautiful restored autos..... On the other hand, maybe they spent most of their budget on old cars, refrigerators, washing machines, stoves
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Post by River on Nov 4, 2011 18:46:49 GMT -5
They didn't have beautiful restored autos. I believe Eric said one time, that you never knew what would happen when someone was in a scene with the car. He said they had a terrible time with the vehicles, all of the vehicles. I read that on the forum a long time ago. You can't just slap on a coat or sweater and call it cold...the scenary has to match. It looks stupid for them to wear coats, when the trees are all green and it is clearly spring/summer time. They tried it a few times, but styrofoam ice just doesn't cut it. As Eric said, "And also as mentioned, the cost to tweak nature is very expensive." Once you pull the leaves off some of the trees, you can put them back when the winter episode is over. So I think that the extra cost of clothes (everyone needs to have outerwear including the extras) and the scenary to match is just too much for the producers to worry about and so they decided to concentrate on character development. They didn't rely too much on electricity anyways (they had an icebox, they did not get a phone right away, only a radio, so losing power was not that important to them). They had an episode where the power company turned off the power and it really did not affect them too much. They had a fireplace (for heat) and an old wooden stove to cook on so they didn't need power. Livvy hung the clothes to dry and she didn't have a washer at first. They did the dishes by hand and they didn't have a vacuum. Grandpa used an old water bottle to heat his bed, but did use a heating pad in the Burnout. Overall, not much going on in the house, electricity wise, so loss of power is minimal.
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Post by Marilyn on Nov 4, 2011 19:10:03 GMT -5
This isn't about a budget, it's about them being poor and only having so many changes of clothes to wear. Typical for that era. I also noticed that in the winter scenes, the trees still had leaves on them. ;D
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Post by bmcgill on Nov 4, 2011 20:31:15 GMT -5
I'll bet time played a factor in this also. I'm sure it took a lot of work just to get things ready to film an episode or scenes for different episodes and I'm sure they had a schedule to meet. I've heard that the actors worked 12 hour days themselves.
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Post by JeriJet on Nov 4, 2011 21:31:07 GMT -5
They didn't have beautiful restored autos. I believe Eric said one time, that you never knew what would happen when someone was in a scene with the car. He said they had a terrible time with the vehicles, all of the vehicles. I read that on the forum a long time ago. You can't just slap on a coat or sweater and call it cold...the scenary has to match. It looks stupid for them to wear coats, when the trees are all green and it is clearly spring/summer time. They tried it a few times, but styrofoam ice just doesn't cut it. As Eric said, "And also as mentioned, the cost to tweak nature is very expensive." Once you pull the leaves off some of the trees, you can put them back when the winter episode is over. So I think that the extra cost of clothes (everyone needs to have outerwear including the extras) and the scenary to match is just too much for the producers to worry about and so they decided to concentrate on character development. They didn't rely too much on electricity anyways (they had an icebox, they did not get a phone right away, only a radio, so losing power was not that important to them). They had an episode where the power company turned off the power and it really did not affect them too much. They had a fireplace (for heat) and an old wooden stove to cook on so they didn't need power. Livvy hung the clothes to dry and she didn't have a washer at first. They did the dishes by hand and they didn't have a vacuum. Grandpa used an old water bottle to heat his bed, but did use a heating pad in the Burnout. Overall, not much going on in the house, electricity wise, so loss of power is minimal. Sorry -- I disagree with almost everything said here. But, heck, who cares! No sense getting into it all....
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Post by River on Nov 4, 2011 22:22:28 GMT -5
i'm glad to see we can agree to disagree.
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Post by Marilyn on Nov 5, 2011 0:23:12 GMT -5
Yep Buck, some days were 12 hours and some of the meal scenes took hours too, so they didn't eat much of the food as it was cold, etc.. Had to be tiring days!
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Post by catindakota on Nov 5, 2011 9:23:35 GMT -5
I remember the cast talking about the meal scenes - Kami mentioned that Ellen was wonderful about helping her remember her marks and such. And yes, the food got cold during breaks, and they would cover it with a napkin and come back later and take up where they had left off ! Back to weather - they did a great job with The Homecoming, but of course, they didn't know that the public would fall in love with it and write CBS to see more. I am under the impression that all the exteriors of The Homecoming were filmed in Wyoming. If you start to think about the cost of flying all cast and crew to some area of the country that has actual snow on the ground, and temps cold enough to see your breath when you are exhaling, I'm sure it would add tremendously to the cost of those episodes. I still see some programs on t.v. today, where it is obvious that they are using 'fake' snow, and it's still just as obvious that it's fake snow as it was 40 years ago.
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Post by JeriJet on Nov 5, 2011 13:50:11 GMT -5
I'd rather have fake snow than no winter scenes at all....
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Post by Marilyn on Nov 5, 2011 19:00:53 GMT -5
;D
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Post by JeriJet on Nov 15, 2011 10:23:23 GMT -5
Hey Everyone- Great Subject!! . We would start filming every year in May for the September shows so by the end of summer we were doing the "winter" shows. By January we were doing the spring and summer shows. In the first season finale "The Easter Story" you will notice they took all the leaves off of the main trees around the house set plus put "snow" on the ground. Since Southern California is mostly evergreen, this is not something they could do to the entire area plus when we would get to the summer shows , the leaves couldn't be put back on!! And also as mentioned, the cost to tweak nature is very expensive. The final thought is : you want the shows to move through the character development, we already had alot of distractions, kids, animals, large cast and the concern would be, are we getting away from what the show is based on which is relationships. i feel the balance was successful. Great spending time with alot of you last week, look forward to having more of it in December. Eric Scott Eric -- Just a comment about your "final thought" .... I believe most, if not all, fiction is based on human relationships -- and, with a series like The Waltons, character development is a major thrust. I don't believe themes distract from this at all -- in fact, they usually enhance it, providing additional ways to develop the characters and their relationships.
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Post by dfnmeows44 on Nov 17, 2011 17:58:05 GMT -5
Early on The Intruders Ben leaves home and goes to work for the Murdocks. It rains and Olivia says that Ben is out there rather than being safe at home.
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