Known not only for being the longest-running comedy show on TV in the United States, but also for constantly reinventing itself over the years, Saturday Night Live (SNL) made history once again this Saturday (11) by becoming the first comedy show to be broadcast live via video conference. 4pe16
This “quarantine” edition of the humorous was made possible with the use of Zoom, the program for group video calls that, despite have some security issues, has become the most used app worldwide by people who need to work from home or just communicate with friends and family.
And, more than a tool, the Zoom was one of the main characters of the episode, having been used as the subject of several frames and jokes during the 90 minutes of the show. And, as there was no possibility for the comedians to interact in person with each other – one of the show's highlights – the end result was very different from a standard episode of SNL.
Saturday Night Live remotely 4fg55
The need for social distancing created several difficulties for the recording of the program Saturday Night Live – after all, all the sets, props and professional cameras from a TV studio were exchanged for the home environments of the program participants, who recorded everything using their webcams and microphones that are far from having the same quality as we are used to seeing. on TV.
At the same time, the comedians who make up the cast of Saturday Night Live also had their own limitations, because in addition to not having the possibility of sharing the same scene with another person, the fact that the entire program was recorded on webcams prevented the use of a more physical comedy, since practically the only part of the body that what was always in focus was their face.
Still, that didn't stop the cast from Saturday Night Live to create a version as close as possible to what we are used to watching, and there was an effort to try to keep the same format of a guest opening the show with a monologue, which is then followed by the different moods of that episode.
And, for this very special episode, the guest to present the program was none other than Tom Hanks. The acclaimed actor was one of the first celebrities to reveal that he had contracted the COVID-19 and to recover from it, and presented a monologue in which he talks about his experience with the disease and about being able to present a live program from the kitchen of his home.
As was to be expected, not all of the shows presented were well received by the public, and some of them could be seen to be much better if the show was being recorded in the studio, but the show presented some good comedy versions via Zoom.
One of them was a painting where the cast pretends to be participating in a meeting of a sales company via Zoom, and that ends up making fun of two very common things for those who continue to work in this period of quarantine: the fact that, even at a distance, many companies still have no idea who the important employees are to participate in a meeting (such as, for example, , calling the receptionists for a sales meeting) and also about the difficulties that older people often go through when having to deal with new technologies.
Another highlight was the traditional weekend update with Colin Jost e Michael che struggling to try to comment satirically on the top news of the week. And even if Michael correctly put that making jokes for the camera with no audience present looks like those videos of kidnappers asking for ransom, the duo manages to do a good job via Zoom.
Of course, this is not the future of Saturday Night Live, which will certainly return to the traditional studio format as soon as possible, but it's a different way of thinking about a comedy show in times when everyone must be stuck in their homes - and, who knows, it won't serve as an inspiration for the emergence of a whole new style of audience-oriented comedy on the internet.
Source: The Verge
