We shoot double episodes in 15 days in Los Angeles.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I did a network show in the U.S. before, and I loved it, but you have eight days to shoot an episode, and it's just a ridiculous pace.
On 'B&B,' we shoot so fast and eight episodes a week, so we have to always be on our A-game. There's really no time to make certain adjustments. We usually shoot a scene in one take, maybe two or three only if needed.
In TV, you're basically shooting an episode in 10 to 14 days; 14 days is a luxury situation. And in film, you have anywhere from a month to three months, or it can be even longer than that, depending on what the production is.
We do 32 episodes a season and will have shot 267 episodes by the end of the ninth season... It's impossible to sell that many episodes in the foreign market.
TV is designed a certain way where you have three, four days on stage and three or four days out. You're basically making a feature every seven days. You have to shoot an hour's worth.
Hollywood has a longer pre-production period and they juggle shooting schedules more carefully for each cast. In Korea, we shoot day and night without much break.
A lot of times when I've been offered film series and stuff, if they shoot in Los Angeles, I lose interest.
Last summer a second unit production crew went to France and shot scenes for several of this season's episodes. They shot costumed actors in and around real castles and landmarks, we couldn't possibly have duplicated here in Hollywood.
The show originally started out as a ten hour mini-series. We shot two hours and then were excused for a while, for no apparent reason. Things went very quiet for a time and then a few months later we were called back and told that it was going to be a full season.
I've never seen a schedule where you just go in two hours almost every day of the week and then all day on one day. Then you shoot it at night with an audience and you're out of there.