2008: The Directors and Writers Thread

[sheilaforever]

My dear friend Janice Ferri Esser - @ Sylph - was still credited on Monday - just to set the record straight...

[Sylph]

Apart from the obvous - stiff, atrocious, cheesy dialogue - she also seems to be some kind of überb!tch who wants to have two megacovetted posts in daytime at the same time (she wanted to consult on B&B and do something over at Y&R). Basically, has ego issues.

I always felt as if some big dull hammer thumped me on the head after watching her episode. You didn't know if she wanted the whole world covered in darkness and gloom, if she was bored to hell with what she was writing, if she wanted to be hip and trendy. And this is especially true for her B&B work.

There were so many scenes you didn't know what they were about, it was...

Like Amanda L. Beall, she is adored on SON and has some kind of reputation in the business. Don't know why...

Thank God we will have GH to save the day. But that might not last for long, sadly...

Magnificent! Although, she stayed there longer than she should have...

Who cares about Monday if she's gone forever!

[Ryan]

Not everyone on SON likes Beall. As the former Founder and President of the "Friends for Amanda L. Beall" Alliance, part of my reasoning for defending her was because R Sinclair hated her. That alone was enough for me to do it . Then I began to realize there was a serious method to R Sinclair's presumed (at least I did anyway) madness. She's horrible. It's not just an opinion, it's fact. Then rather than disband the alliance, I just quietly removed all support for her.

[MarkH]

I don't want you to rehash...but as someone who missed the origins of this...can you give a 2-sentence summary of why she is horrible? (E.g., "She wrote dialogue like this..." or "She did this goofy thing in a breakdown" or "Her episodes always...."). I apologize for asking this.

[Sylph]

You can read partial reasons here.

[Ryan]

Oh I must find R Sinclair's post where he goes into his reasons for such an intense loathing of Amanda L. Beall.

[MarkH]

Okay, I get that. Was she by any chance involved with the INTRODUCTION of Colby? Because I remember watching some of those episodes and then realizing I might never be able to watch AMC again. For all the reasons R. Sinclair mentioned. (Except I thought this was a show-wise edict to be 'young', and I didn't pay attention to the script writers).

I then feel deep concern that she might be coming to my show....but we'll soon learn what is her fault, and what is her context.... Plus, she may have learned lessons if she was asked to leave AMC.

[Toups]

She left on her own.

The new AMC writing structure is creating a bad working environment. There's a lot of unhappy writers there.

[MarkH]

You mean having to go straight to scripts without breakdowns?

Not good if Pratt has to deal with morale from day one.

Would he have the power and/or budget to bring back BDWs? Would he have the inclination?

[Ryan]

I say fire 3 actors if that means you get more breakdown writers for the show. There are some people that NEED to be fired from that show.

[LeClerc]

Just great.

I've noticed Chip Hayes' episodes tend to be a bit better than the others, probably because he has that breakdown experience.

So is this all Carruthers' idea and OLTL and GH keep their breakdown writers because Valentini and Phelps said so? AMC wasn't forced to ditch it's breakdown writers?

[sudz4u]

I heard it's JHC's idea to save money. Also heard Pratt's allowed to bring back breakdown writers if he wants to. Would be great if he'd bring back writers who actually know the show.

[brimike]

The AMC approach to writing ONLY works if your team of script-writers are... oh, say... the old Santa Barbara script-writing team, or HS's old ATWT team of Culliton, Simon, Demorest, Mary Ryan... you guys get my meaning. It can absolutely be done if you have a team of people with TONS of experience in ALL ASPECTS of soap writing, from head writing to breakdown writing to script writing to editing. Unfortunately, you've got a team of writers at AMC who have (with the exception of a couple like Walsh, Beldner and Hayes) ZERO experience in anything other than writing scripts. And it's really creating a problem for them.

OLTL is VERY happy with their team (why wouldn't they be?), and from what I've heard, Guza really went to bat for his breakdown team when JFP thought about going the AMC route after the strike.

Sadly, once these jobs go... like any other business... the chances of them ever coming back are slim to none. And the writing will just get lazier and lazier because there just isn't enough time to give individual scenes and moments the care they deserve.

[LeClerc]

Can anyone explain to me what the difference is between what AMC is doing versus what is going on at Days or ATWT? Haven't they done the same thing?

[sudz4u]

Also heard from a friend in the business that tracking's a nightmare (on all shows using this 'method') because there are no outlines/breakdowns-- scriptwriters are spending way too much time calling/emailing each other trying to figure out who's putting what in which day. More than most 'fans', people posting on this board seem to know that if it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage. Writing's the backbone of any TV show, especially soaps. To try to cut costs by cutting writers, hiring inexperienced newbies at cut-rate prices, requiring the writers you do have to do two or more jobs while paying them less and less makes no sense at all. It really makes me wonder if the networks are TRYING to kill the soaps...