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DramatistDreamer

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Posts posted by DramatistDreamer

  1. Is it me, or did there appear to be little urgency in getting to a player who’s just collapsed on court? Hope he’s alright.

    Sabalenka is experiencing the ‘best of times and the worst of times’ this season. It does seem Dickensian.

  2. 51 minutes ago, Taoboi said:

    Given how people get...hmmm picky...about using that particular word, I chose not to. ;) 

    Is it like rain on your wedding day?

    Alanis Morissette 90S GIF

    29 minutes ago, Vee said:

    Thanks for both of these.

    You’re welcome. Sadly, some of the video quality of these YouTube uploads seem to have gotten worse over the years. 

    Question: Once the story bible has been written, how long do you all estimate before it’s available to read? In this digital age, I hope it will available to read online.

  3. It ends at about the 20 minute mark.

    16 minutes ago, DramatistDreamer said:

    It can get a bit dizzying if your focus is on the background characters but the camera work during this sequence is stellar, the way it moves the sequence along in a fluid manner.

     

     

    Watch the entire sequence, it’s long but has a great payoff in visual quality.

     

    SORRY  everybody, back to the regularly scheduled thread.

  4. It can get a bit dizzying if your focus is on the background characters but the camera work during this sequence is stellar, the way it moves the sequence along in a fluid manner.

     

    20 hours ago, Vee said:

    I'm not super familiar with this technique despite immersing myself in Marland ATWT over the 2020s. I'd like to know more if you have a post you can point to sometime, thanks.

     

    Watch the entire sequence, it’s long but has a great payoff in visual quality.

  5. 20 hours ago, Vee said:

    I'm not super familiar with this technique despite immersing myself in Marland ATWT over the 2020s. I'd like to know more if you have a post you can point to sometime, thanks.

    There’s a sequence in this episode that happens in the Mona Lisa restaurant that is one example of the dexterity of camera work that I mentioned. Starting around the 22nd minute.

     

  6. Thank God that’s over! The only reason why I watched the final two episodes was I felt obliged to finish the series. The writing and overall direction of this series began in an interesting way but increasingly became a slog as it wound its way to the end. 
    Also, I read that one of the grandchildren of Babe Paley is crying foul on this series. It is a work of fiction but when the writing starts playing with the sequence of events in addition to relationships, it’s a sure bet that someone will be crying foul.

    I wonder how this series would have played out had it been 5 episodes instead of 8? It might have been much tighter constructed in terms of the storytelling and perhaps had spared us some of the excess dreamscape filler.

  7. 11 hours ago, Vee said:

    I'm not super familiar with this technique despite immersing myself in Marland ATWT over the 2020s. I'd like to know more if you have a post you can point to sometime, thanks.

    I will have to see if I can find the clips that illustrate this. It may take awhile since I no longer (re)watch like I used to.

  8. 1 hour ago, vanguard said:

    And now for their names:

    Wealthy black family:

    Patriarch: Gregory Montgomery

    Matriarch: Valyncia Montgomery

    Adult son: William Montgomery aka Gregory Montgomery, Jr.

    Oldest adult daughter: Olivia Montgomery

    Youngest adult daughter: Tracy Montgomery

    Adult nephew: Curtis Montgomery

     

    Middle class black family:

    Patriarch: Charles McMillan

    Matriarch: Gracelyn McMillan

    Adopted daughter (niece): Sharon McMillan

    Adopted son (nephew): Trayvon McMillan

    Matriarch's sister (biological mother of Sharon and Trayvon): Yvonne Harris

    Patriarch's male cousin: Damian Ross

     

    Semi-wealthy white family:

    Patriarch: Jackson "Jack" Hampton

    Matriarch: Jillian Hampton

    Adult son: Bryce Hampton

    Adult daughter: Caitlyn Hampton

     

    A couple of "lone" characters (more to come later when I think of some).

    Sylvia Rivera: Highly paid housekeeper for the Montgomerys.

    Reynaldo Rivera: Sylvia's very gorgeous hunk of a son who owns a highly renowned strip joint in ATL. Gorgeous, but also very shady.

     

    The name of the Montgomery made me giggle because ATWT had a Montgomery family. It made me muse about the aspect (down the road) of a brief story arc where the Black Montgomerys find out about the white Montgomerys (only if Scott Bryce and Hillary Bailey Smith could make the appearance though).🤣 That could be some P&G synergy between the present/future of soaps linking with the past. 

    1 hour ago, Soapsuds said:

    I wonder if Tamara Tunie would return to do daytime again? I'd love to see her on the new soap paired with her good friend and former co-star Scott Bryce. I think they'd be golden on the new soap.

    I could see also lawyer Jessica appearing from Oakdale to lure in ATWT viewers. Just like Y&R did with Colleen Zenk. Even though Colleen isn't playing Barbara.

    Geez, just saw this post after I made mine.

  9. 16 hours ago, All My Shadows said:

    - Going back to old-fashioned things that I already know most people will say the new show should avoid. I want this baby shot on video tape, please and thank you. Three cameras, please and thank you, and all three cameras better know how to get all up in some faces for the tight close-ups. If we're gonna do a soap, then let's do a soap.

    As The World Turns was my favorite daytime soap and I have posted about the shooting techniques such as continuous shots with almost no cuts that were used in groups scenes that I loved so much. I just wonder whether anyone really knows how to do this anymore, especially with a multi camera setup. I would love to see those beautiful fluid shots but I won’t get my hopes up for that because it seems like it went away in soaps about a decade before ATWT got cancelled.

    16 hours ago, All My Shadows said:

    I really wish I had more time to go crazy and speculate a million things about this new soap, but once summer is here, I expect to be obsessed.

    Some random thoughts I've had...

    - I love the fact that it's rumored to be replacing THE TALK. Get that outta here! Nothing would be sweeter than to see this new soap avenge the death of one of the old guard. Even if the random talk show survives this, I like the conversation centering.

    Listen, ATWT was my favorite soap so I have been relishing the possibility of The Talk getting bumped by a soap that is in part being produced by P&G.

  10. 44 minutes ago, Khan said:

    At the same time, I think a mistake that many modern-era soaps have made is throwing too many characters at their audience before they have had the chance to learn about them.  Even if TG ends up being an hour-long soap, I hope they learn from the mistakes made by PASSIONS, SaBa, SuBe and others and really use that hour in the beginning to concentrate on a select number of characters before broadening the canvas to include others.

    That’s the most manageable way to do it at the outset. It will be interesting to see how much the traditional approach to storytelling for the soap opera will be incorporated in this new series and how much innovation will be incorporated, perhaps leaving behind some methods that have shown to be less effective. 
    I have long wondered why daytime soaps never at least tried to use the repertory system where you have some characters in active storyline for a period, rest them, rotate others in and you can even overlap and have parallel stories but don’t keep running the same characters ragged until everyone, including viewers get exhausted. I remember during the mid-late 1980s when ATWT was running hot and the stories were firing on all cylinders, they seemed to have problems retaining actors. One reason was obviously because these actors were getting other opportunities because they were on such a highly regarded series but others cited the fact that they needed a break from being so heavily involved in so many back to back stories and couldn’t get that break, so some eventually left. And it’s not as if everyone was being utilized similarly, a few actors were underutilized at the same time. From what I heard in interviews with some of the actors, it seemed as if execs wanted to focus on certain couples (a strategy that seemed smart in the short term but eventually marginalized any character that wasn’t part of a coupling) apparently, to take advantage of the super couple phenomenon of the 1980s and 90s. 
    ‘I hope this new series can avoid these pitfalls.

     

     

  11. 1 hour ago, DeliaIrisFan said:

     

    Not only that, but RH's title worked (until it didn't, when ABC kept trying to sideline the titular family, but that's another story) because it was a half-hour show.  Every good story that show ever told tied back to the Ryans in some way.  I don't see how an hourlong, daily soap could feature one family nonstop, and I fear the rest of the characters' stories would feel like filler if the show were named after one family.

    Anyway, I love being able to quibble over the title of a new, promising soap opera.

    Interesting point about the fact that RH was a 30 minute serial.
    In this day and age, I don’t see a network soap being able to center one family, unless they are going to make that world really cloistered, to the point of being nearly claustrophobic. A radio soap, sure- a script to screen with a beginning, middle and end, yes, but a continuing drama, somehow I don’t see viewers putting up with that. Today’s viewers definitely expect more.

  12. I do give Leon credit because, as I said upthread, she did look the part even though, honestly, Y&R botched what were good storyline opportunities that were right in front of them, if only they had opened their eyes. Seriously, the writing for her was pretty awful. To call that reliquary story convoluted is an understatement.

  13. 4 hours ago, Liberty City said:

    I honestly would love a mixture of veteran east coast soap actors, as well as newcomers. A mix of both worlds. S

    Oh of course, you absolutely need both! 

    Fresh faces and experienced veterans and if this is to be a 60 minute serial as has been suggested, there should be sufficient room for both. That first episode, you need strong talent to do the heavy lifting.

    4 hours ago, Liberty City said:

    I really want CBS Studios, NAACP and P&G Studios to focus on east coast talent

    I agree with this. No offense to the West but I have seen how B’way works up close and personal, as I once interned for a B’way producer and that discipline involved— actors, even the relatively young and newbies always show up prepared.

  14. Everybody’s gonna try to get in on this. I’m interested in who is going to be doing casting duties.

    In the old days of P&G soaps, it was common to see certain actors circulate their soaps (EON, ATWT, AW, GL, etc). Back then, it was not uncommon to even see an actor appear in a commercial for one of their products before later appearing in one of their daytime soaps. It’s been nearly 15 years since P&G has produced a daytime soap so I think we can assume that things will be slightly different this time around, and P&G appears to be assuming the role of partner, rather than primary production company as they were in the past. 
    Still, the list of actors who once performed in P&G soaps is pretty impressive- Tonya Pinkins, a pre-Y&R Victoria Rowell, Amelia Marshall, Petronia Paley, Count Stovall and Tamara Tunie, to name a few. 

  15. Considering that elections are going on in Russia and we’re unlikely to be informed of anything other than the most predictable outcome, coming across this vintage Phil Donahue episode that took place in Moscow (an episode I have never seen) seems especially timely.

     

  16. 5 minutes ago, Vee said:

    I was never a fan of Adrienne Leon on either Y&R or GH. I agree they should've just negotiated Fonseca's time.

    With Leon, I was never sure whether the crappy writing or her performance was the biggest problem I had with the character but I found her characterization of Colleen to lack that endearing quality. And in Fonseca’s performance , even when Colleen was being rebellious and made me want to ground her, she was irrepressibly endearing, kind of like Traci. Sursok, well, about her, I was just indifferent.  Today’s soaps waste their legacy characters like nobody’s business.

  17. 3 hours ago, Liberty City said:

    Casting Adrianne León was a mistake; they should have cast Melissa Claire Egan as Colleen instead. Had they done that, I do feel like Colleen would still be a presence. But between León's short run, and Tammin Sursok's tenure, it just... ran the character out, and Arena wanted the role GONE (wrongfully). Traci deserves to have her daughter on the canvas, and it's a crying shame she does not. At this point, Traci rolls into town to be the "sound voice" of the Abbotts, and that is it.

    I wasn’t against Adrianne Leon’s casting per se, only because she had Traci’s build and there were some potential but missed opportunities to have a body positive character, that would be the inverse of where Traci was at that age. But the writing was awful during Leon’s tenure in the role, only exceeded by the atrocious writing in Tammin Sursok’s time (plus she was completely wrong for the role). Even if in a reduced role, I wished they would have worked something out with Lyndsy Fonseca to show up occasionally especially seeing as Fonseca’s performance abilities got considerably sharper over the years and she and Luckinbill have great onscreen chemistry, the were really good together on that television series based on La Femme Nikita.

  18. 3 hours ago, Liberty City said:

    Well, from what I recall, it was a choice between Brad Carlton or Paul Williams, and Maria Arena [wrongly] chose Brad Carlton to OFF, and what a mistake it was. If anything, they could have easily paused the character for six-to-nine months, and then returned Brad refreshed and ready to go, because now Don Diamont is trapped at Bold in a shïtty role that is corner-written, whereas Brad was multi-dimensional with a lot of deeply-rooted history.

    Wow, really?! I didn’t know that! That was some poor choice making, a particular standout in a sea of poor decision making over decades of this show’s history.

  19. 2 hours ago, Liberty City said:

    Know where she would have fit? The Carlton family with Colleen AND Brad!

    Why oh why did those dumb writers kill off the Carltons? If they felt it was too confusing to have Don Diamont occasionally visit Genoa City, could they not have recast the role? Brad Carlton was one of the few characters left on the canvas who had solid working class roots (aside from Jill and Sharon, both of whom have been terribly underutilized and misused) and I feel that connection to striving and ambition has been lost. Y&R, in its heyday was always ambitious and had at least a handful of characters who embodied this.

    It’s also sad that, you have Ashley and Jack who have grandchildren that they allegedly dote on and you have Traci, who has demonstrated the greatest capacity of unconditional love, has been left without a daughter or grandchildren. Colleen could have made occasional visits to Genoa city sometimes. Honestly, instead of going there with the hair brained stories they plunged JT Hellstrom into with the Newmans, they should have had he and Colleen run off and elope (with Colleen only sending Traci a cryptic message to show up to a particular destination alone where she finds her way to a rustic chapel somewhere), and return for brief story arcs during the numerous storytelling lulls on this show.

  20. 9 hours ago, j swift said:

    @DramatistDreamer & @DRW50Don Lemon's show was supposed to premiere on Monday, 3/18, so it was cancelled before it began.

    Now, he's going to host it on his own website with the full Elon interview.

    But, the biggest irony is that he was on CNN as an “exclusive” last night, after they fired him last April.  I don't know who I expect to have more self-respect, Don or CNN.  But, don't go back to the folks that scorned you last time, to tell about being scorned by someone else today!  It's like crying on the shoulder of the last guy who dumped you, when your new boyfriend cheats on you.

    Thanks for satisfying my curiosity. 
     

    Hm, from my brief experience working behind the scenes of a television show…I mean, not to make generalizations or cast aspersions or anything but, in my experience, a lot of media people are fairly spineless and often focused on hunting down their next opportunity, wherever they can find it, no matter where it comes from or where it leads them. No lie, I was once told by a television producer that I had too much integrity to be working for her. By then, the job had made me so sick that I agreed with her.

  21. 3 hours ago, Sapounopera said:

    Perhaps the family will be called Gates as well. 

    The last daytime soap opera that used the family’s name that I can think of is Ryan’s Hope, which at least, wasn’t too straightforward thankfully. As soap fans, I think we’re generally used to titles that are a little more elaborate on some level. I think that’s why it comes off as a working title for so many.

    If the writing and performances are top-notch, I can overlook a generic series title.

    3 hours ago, dragonflies said:

    I thought it was cause wasn't something mentioned about a "Gated community" lol 

    The family has been described as living in a gated community. The title comes across as very ‘on the nose’ is probably why it reads like a working title but hey, if the quality is great (and ups the ante for the remaining soaps to improve their storytelling), tptb can call it Bebay’s Bay Ridge Hideaway and I would deal with it.

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