DramatistDreamer

As a general rule, I don’t make assumptions as to what could have caused this, but people need to be aware or keep in mind that the vast amount of bridges in the U.S. are in severe disrepair, meaning that, it would not take much for a collapse to occur. Hopefully everyone will be safe and no further injuries will ensue.

I’m watching a miniseries called Nolly starring Helena Bonham Carter as Noele “Nolly” Gordon, an actress who became a legendary soap star and a British television staple who, in the latter stages of her career was unceremoniously fired from the soap she starred in, Crossroads.

Not to mention, L.A. is very much known as a union town, while Atlanta is…er, not so much. A series like this is probably going to want full access to unionized labor that, preferably has some experience with working in daytime?

Haha, for that reason, I never personally mentioned Atlanta, although I can understand why others would jump to that conclusion. Also, we saw with the TOLN soaps that shooting a daytime soap outside of the usual milleu where there is infrastructure already in place can cause extra challenges that may negate the potential cost savings.

The GOP is chaos personified. How many House Republicans are leaving now? I’ve lost count.

True. I can even remember watching some early-mid 80s soaps that had some flimsy sets (walls that shook when an actor slammed a door) but you didn’t care because everything else you were seeing was so compelling. Ha! Yes though, truly good writing is the #1 priority. Without this, nothing else works, no matter how high the production values climb.

^^ My point is that this type of shooting scenes was never one that ATWT adopted, so I am not why it’s being associated with being a P&G thing.

As far as I recall, ATWT didn’t truly adopt that Peapack style of filming. From what I recall, that was specific to Ellen Wheeler’s production model.

We’ve bandied about quite a few names for wishful casting. Ultimately it will be the decision for tptb to make but I want to put another name out there, so if anyone who has an “in” with the development of this soap peeps this, in addition to the names I had mentioned like the likes of Tonya Pinkins, Tamara Tunie, Amelia Marshall, Victoria Rowell, Count Stovall and Petronia Paley, I want to suggest that they do not sleep on the talented and beautiful Loren Lott who was criminally underutilized on Y&R. Because of how little storyline she received, she’s still a relatively fresh face but one with valuable soap experience. Another name I would suggest is Lamman Rucker whose charisma and magnetism was used an abused during his time on ATWT. Another thing that I wondered/mused about is what industry/field will the wealthy family(families) make their wealth on. I feel like at least one family should be a haircare magnate, right? There are some opportunities for some gifted hairstylists to really get creative here. Black hair is not just about creative expression, it can also be an art.

Jason Canela (Arturo Rosales, Y&R) seems to be keeping booked an busy since his days on the soap opera. He’s in the cast of the Apple TV+ series Palm Royale. https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/other/palm-royale-cast-on-laughing-and-playing-wordle-with-co-star-carol-burnett-to-work-with-her-is-beyond-a-dream-come-true/ar-BB1keFFr

Giving this post a bump because I think you posed some interesting question here. On a previous page, I asked about whether we might be privy to the story bible once it’s been completed because this will give us a clearer idea of how these issues will play out, at least initially, knowing that there needs to be room for flexibility in storytelling. I know that it’s common for scripts for award nominated screenplays to be available for download (whether through above-board platforms or underground vendors, in the very early ‘00s when I was in grad school.👀) With the current technology, it would be quite easy to read and would be great if we all don’t have to wait 20 years to read it. I realize some people might now want to take a look behind the curtain but for me, it would be instructive to see how the process itself plays out. For me personally, it’s not interesting enough to have a bunch of rich people cloistered behind a gated community. Maybe for 6 weeks but then I would need something more than that. And because he refused, he had a career! Coming To America alone solidified his place in movie and pop culture history.

I think a show needs that balance. The problem with Good Times was not because of having a low-income Black family on screen. The problem was that the one Black writer on the show left over disagreements with upper management about the content and the direction of the characters and storylines. I think with good writing, you can have a balanced depiction of a low-income but striving Black family and Michele Val Jean being an accomplished Black woman writer makes the difference. Frankly with the story of a wealthy Black family and a low-income white family, the criticisms of an unrealistic or unbalanced portrayal is just as likely because we know that statistically, this is more of an anomaly, an exception to the rule. Let’s not dive headlong into a “Talented Tenth” type of scenario, that is a potential minefield too.

Somehow this bit of news missed me. During my teens, I used to pour over their catalogs but somehow by the time they made it to my area mall, I rarely purchased their products. The journey of the company is a solemn one, even before this closing news. Seems like the brand ventured far away from its roots.

^^ Ask Shuzo Matsuoka whether a cramp can be serious enough to warrant attention.

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.

Is it like rain on your wedding day? 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.

It ends at about the 20 minute mark. SORRY everybody, back to the regularly scheduled thread.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. Geez, just saw this post after I made mine.

I respect and love the fact that Rowell embedded in Jamaica and utilized a lot of Jamaican talent, including cast and a Jamaican crew when she was filming The Rich And the Ruthless. She really endeared herself to the Jamaican people and the Jamaican art scene.

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. 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.

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.