Shooting a TV show can be a brutal undertaking. Not to suggest that making a movie isn’t equally challenging — if not more challenging — in some ways. That said, TV shows are often working on incredibly tight schedules, rolling right from one episode to the next. That was certainly the case for “Bones,” which was working on a network schedule of 20 episodes or more per season. There’s little time to waste and it typically has to be done on a tight budget, even if “Bones” broke the budget on occasion. That being the case, it requires getting creative sometimes, like having to shoot a scene that takes place at night in broad daylight.
In “Bones: The Official Companion,” the cast and crew discussed the season 2 episode “Judas on a Pole.” Due to filming curfews in Los Angeles where production was taking place, the opening scene, which depicted a burning body that was central to the episode’s plot, was written as a night scene. However, they had to film it during the day. “Bones” co-executive producer Steven Beers explained how they did that, exactly.
“We used a technique that isn’t done a lot called ‘day for night.’ We went back to an old form of cowboy [movie] photography so we could go up on that roof and make it look like nighttime in the middle of the day. That was fun to figure out. Usually you hide the sky as much as you can when you do day for night. But we were on the rooftop, so instead we had to embrace that.”
Interestingly enough, “The X-Files” star David Duchovny directed the episode, ranking as one of just several directing credits to his name. The episode also did pretty well in the ratings, pulling in 8.62 million viewers. That’s a far cry from the show’s peak during “Bones” season 1, but it’s a sizable audience, to be certain.
Day for night is an old trick used frequently in TV shows
In the episode, a man’s body is found gutted, burned, and hung up like a scarecrow on the roof of the Federal Building. Naturally, Booth and Brennan are called in to solve the case. They determined the victim was working within an organized crime syndicate. Adding to the mystery, Brennan’s brother tells her he got a mysterious call from their estranged father, warning him they’re in danger. Brennan is then contacted by a priest who delivers a message from their father who insists they drop the case.
It’s easy to see why getting that burning body shot was so crucial. While Beers did credit it to old Westerns, this is a technique that is still employed regularly by Hollywood. Sometimes it works out better than others. “House of the Dragon” season 1 had some much-scrutinized night scenes that employed day-for-night techniques. The difference here is we’re talking about a very expensive HBO show filming far fewer episodes per season. The larger point is that this technique is used all the time to accommodate complex production schedules.
This show also used quite a few tricks over the years to make magic happen on the small screen. “Bones” utilized at times barf-worthy tricks to make dead bodies, and there’s the infamous lab explosion that helped bring the show’s final season to a close. It takes a lot of ingenuity and tried-and-true tricks to make 20-plus episodes of TV per year.
“Bones” is currently streaming on Hulu and Amazon Prime Video.
