The multicam comedy is on life support. Meet the editors trying to keep it alive

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Set us as preferred For most of television history, comedies were filmed with multiple cameras on two or three main sets in front of live studio audiences.But the multicam sitcom has fallen out of fashion, including at the Emmys: Not since “The Big Bang Theory” in 2014 has one been nominated for comedy series, and not since “Everybody Loves Raymond” in 2005 has one won.

But one category remains exclusively dedicated to celebrating the art form: picture editing for a multi-camera comedy series.“[Multicam sitcoms] are one of the things that the Emmys are founded on,” says editor Russell Griffin, nominated this year for “Leanne.” “It’s a category where you realize, ‘This is what created this industry.’”Now the multicam editing community is fighting just to keep their category at the Emmys.Multicam cinematography and directing have failed to meet the 20-submission threshold to remain separate categories in the last few years, leaving those series to compete against single-camera shows with much larger budgets, like “The Studio,” in all-encompassing categories.“We were low on submissions,” says Angel Gamboa Bryant, nominated for “The Upshaws,” of this year’s crop.

“We were like, ‘Oh, are we gonna get the category or not?’”Multicam sitcoms are produced differently than other scripted TV shows.There are traditionally four cameras rolling at once: two on the main characters in a scene, one wide shot of the room, and a tracking camera that can follow any movement.Editor Jennifer Viola, nominated for “Tyler Perry’s Assisted Living,” says her background in unscripted TV — which also shoots with multiple cameras — became an asset when editing the sitcom.

“Your eye gets trained to watching all the angles at the same time.”Editors on multicam sitcoms learn to work quickly with ...