Television is looking more like the movies
Noel Holston

In case you haven't noticed, a revolution is being televised. Weekly dramas and made-for-TV movies, which once had the visual pizazz of yearbook photos, now aerobicize the eye with bustling choreography, meticulously furnished sets, unconventional camera angles and moody lighting.

Watch the long, seamless tracking shots of "ER" -- doctors and nurses moving with daredevil precision through twisting corridors roiling with activity. Watch those alien-chasing FBI agents Scully and Mulder slice the dark with flashlight beams on the stylishly ominous "X-Files." Watch Hercules and Xena patrol a mythic landscape populated by demons, giants and scores of extras in medieval regalia.

And then remind yourself that 20 years ago, TV could get by quite profitably with series such as "Dallas," whose visually interesting elements began and ended with the opening chopper shot of Southfork. TV shows are becoming more movie-like all the time. They're even starting to look as good as the commercials that surround them.

We've entered an era in which "The West Wing" is richer visually than "The American President," the 1995 theatrical film that inspired it, and a made-for-TNT movie, Sunday's "Witchblade," approximates the graphic panache of "The Matrix." Competitive pressures, affordable technology and viewer sophistication are driving TV's growing ambition.

"Audiences are accustomed to the [first-class] production values because of all the big movies that they see," said "Witchblade" director Ralph Hemecker, whose credits include "The X-Files" and "Millennium."

"Also, as technology evolves at a quicker rate, things that were only feasible on the big screen with a big budget several years ago are now eminently more do-able on a fraction of that budget," Hemecker said.

"Witchblade" cost just under $5 million, about what the makers of "The Matrix" spent on Keanu Reeves.

"Through each generation, people's taste [and their] visual literacy improve tremendously," said cinematographer Geoff Schaaf. "Kids today have been exposed to so much more film and visual images than my generation. You see it in the [editing] styles today. The cutting pace is so much faster than it was, say, in the '70s and the '60s. Older people will often watch this fast-cut stuff and get very disoriented, very confused, even angry. But kids consider it necessary to keep their interest.

"What you're really talking about is density of information -- how much information you can pack into the show -- whether you're talking about each individual frame, really making it rich and having lots of points of visual interest, or the cutting style, the amount of movement in the frame," Schaaf said.

Mirroring that development is the ability of viewers to digest more detail.

"They not only like it -- they demand it," he said. How we got here Let's back up a little. We didn't go from "Adam 12" to "Ally McBeal" overnight. There were hints of what TV could do cinematically as early as 1971, when a young hotshot who had been directing episodes of "Columbo" and "McCloud" applied a little Hitchcockian montage to a potentially forgettable made-for-TV cheapie about a motorist stalked by a big, bad truck. But little Stevie Spielberg's acclaimed "Duel" remained a rare exception to the TV rule for a decade.

"Content was never important to the networks," said Steven Poster, vice president of the American Society of Cinematographers.

"Sales were important. Now they're realizing that sales are driven by content."

But the change was gradual. Although it looks relatively stage-bound today, "Hill Street Blues" startled viewers in 1981 with its jumpy, hand-held camerawork. More influential still was the way its directors packed the screen with movement, and not just in the foreground. Camera shots had depth. Even extras in the distance seemed to be moving with purpose.

"'Hill Street' may be what started this current trend of layering -- achieving depth in the frame not through [photographic] depth of field but through layers of motion, lighting, colors," said Schaaf.

"It was revolutionary in its time." During the run of "Hill Street," TV producers began to hire independent-film veterans to work on their shows. Ron Garcia, whose credits include the incomparable "Twin Peaks" pilot in 1990, was recruited for TV in the mid-'80s to spruce up Stephen Cannell's flagging cop series, "Hunter." Garcia moved back and forth between film and TV thereafter, bringing his eye to series as diverse as Cannell's "Stingray" and Michael Mann's mobster serial "Crime Story." It may surprise graphically savvy viewers that the pros consider "Crime Story" (1986-88) a more significant show than Mann's earlier, bigger hit, "Miami Vice," which aped the style of music videos.

Garcia says that Mann wanted a show characterized by a movie-like darkness -- think "The Godfather" -- that made the guardians of broadcast standards at NBC blanch. They feared that it would end up dim and muddy on the recieving end. Mann said it was his way or the highway. NBC quietly adjusted its technical standards, and "Crime Story" paved the way for darkly ambient, color-saturated shows that include "The X-Files," "Felicity," "The Practice" and "The Sopranos." Now that TV's creators have the tools, the only barriers to excellence are pride and will, suggested "West Wing" executive producer Thomas Schlamme.

"If you're committed to the quality, if you do not succumb to being mediocre, if your attitude is that this episode means as much to me emotionally as if somebody just gave me a feature [film], mountains can be climbed," he said.

"I know we can make this look as good as we want to make it look."

What price graphics What's truly impressive about TV's graphic renaissance is that it is being accomplished on a relative shoestring. Technology is a key. Today's breakthrough movie technique shows up in tomorrow's Gillette razor commercial and the day after that on "Babylon 5." Computer-generated imagery is one aspect of this revolution.

"Witchblade" director Hemecker said his production team "ended up with some of the same effects as 'The Matrix'" but through different means -- and "on a fraction of their craft-services budget."

There also has been improvement in more basic movie-making.

"As Kodak delivers better film -- more sensitive, with different types of color rendition -- and the equipment that we use -- for instance, the lenses and equipment from Panavision get better and easier to use -- and more and more students come out of better schools, the general quality is increasing," Poster said.

"Moreover, the quality of TV transmitters and sets has improved, allowing "a greater range of detail, a greater range of brightness to dark," said Schaaf.

But if new inventions affect TV's capacity to approximate the theatrical look, so does old-fashioned discipline and ingenuity.

"You have to be very precise going in," Hemecker said. "It's a process of visualization, with storyboards, visual references and finding out the most economical way to get what you want -- and also not to dilute your resources trying to do too many effects. Just do a few and do them very well, as opposed to doing a bunch of mediocre ones."

"Tricks of the trade" also help deliver more bang for the buck, he said: "Sometimes extremely tight shots can be more productive than giant shots -- less expensive but equally interesting. You know, a tight shot of sweat dripping down somebody's face can tell a big story."

Schaaf said a simple switch to night shooting invigorated the USA Network's "Swamp Thing," which was closer to no-budget than low-budget.

"I would put a lot of back-lighting on things, which would define shapes but wouldn't give you too many cues in terms of texture and detail. That meant the [monster] suit could look incredibly wonderful and ominous, and you couldn't see the zippers and the Velcro."

The next generation With digital broadcasting and high-definition TV hovering like a "Roswell" UFO, it's safe to say that we ain't seen nothing yet.

"In the relatively near future, anything you can envision can be rendered in a way that feels realistic," said Hemecker.

There may be a bit of backsliding before we sail off into video utopia, however.

"Not that digital and high-definition production are bad, but it's a different quality; it's a different medium," said Poster.

"You're not using the 'mystery' of film. You're using the directness of videotape to express yourself. It's limiting in certain aspects of the visual quality."

In the shakedown stage, digital production may deliver a picture that looks "like a local auto dealer's commercial," he said.

All the more reason to savor TV's here and now.

Witchblade
*** Out of a possible four stars
Review: This entertaining comic-book adaptation -- about a policewoman (Yancy Butler) who discovers she's the heir to a miraculously powerful armored glove -- is closer in style and special effects to theatrical films such as "The Matrix" than to TV's "Wonder Woman" despite its TV-movie budget.