Is it that soap operas use lower quality film/recording media?
In: Technology
Frame rate is just a small aspect of video quality. A $5000 DLSR and a $50 Camcorder can both record HD at 30fps but there is a noticable difference in quality due to various factors outside of how fast a camera takes a picture per second.
As for the poor quality, it more often it comes from the lighting setup in the studios. Their sets tend to light the whole stage rather than have focused lighting on individuals. Three point lighting in-particular helps separate the characters from the background and helps add a cinematic feel where as lighting a whole set means it all just blends together visually. There are a lot of other reasons but it mainly comes down to how cheap they can be and how willing their audience is to accept poor quality visuals.
TL;DR – The main reasoning behind soap operas poor look comes down to budget. Cheap and broad lighting setups make for bad video quality.
I think an aspect people are missing here is the psychology: when (due to HD) the soap opera looks more *real*, that makes it seem more *fake*— because instead of the familiar slightly-different-from-reality look of a fictional world, instead we see actors, wearing costumes, using props, on a set.
Latest Answers