2008: The Directors and Writers Thread

[Toups]

I didn't tape the end credits today. Who was credited as remote sequence director? Morina? Stich? Both?

She seems to be heavily involved whenever Kay or Victor's stories are playing. I'm not surprised since she has the most history with the show.

[SOAPSFOREVER]

Ferri is also helping edit now with Beth M. This probably accounts for her being credited more this week.

[Toups]

Thanks for the news, SF.

I bet JFE will be all over

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Two script editors? What's the use? Beth should be demoted to writing breakdowns or something, and Janice should edit and write scripts by herself, since she has the most history with the show.

[DaytimeFan]

My bet is that Beth Milstein is editing the scripts that don't have much to do with history...at the very least the scenes that don't have to do with history. Janice Ferri Esser appears to handle the history stories...I think it's working.

[SOAPSFOREVER]

Believe it or not, on both Bell shows, there's more than one script editor. On B&B, three or four different people edit (Bell, Minnis, Alden). In the day, it was the same way on Y&R. Maybe Beth takes the initial pass, then Ferri does a second edit, who knows?

[MarkH]

Indeed! After the ATROCITY of FORGETTING Victor's vasectomy, this level of quality control is needed. I am delighted. For example, today when praying to her saint, Eileen Davidson ROCKED when she remembered that he was the patron of BOTH "dead babies" and "the falsely accused". The script and the actress played the back-story of the abortion that changed her life. THAT is why you need a historian.

Since the lack of a consistent "voice", the lack of day-to-day consistency, and the lack of honoring history/character were all decried in the LML regime...can there EVER be too much quality control. Kudos to Y&R for investing the extra $$ to produce a better written and more consistent show.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Michael Stich was credited first; "Remote sequences directed by Michael S. Stich."

Anthony Morina was credited under Stich; "second Remote Sequences directed by Anthony Morina."

[MarkH]

We all saw some actual scenes, and then we also saw some establishment shots/random Paris scenery/backdrops for green screens.

I'm guessing Stich directed the actual scenes with actors, while Morina went out and shot the general scenery.

That's actually pretty efficient, and I'm not really aware of soaps having done "second units" before. Is this common?

[Toups]

Thanks for the help, Alvin.

Yeah, same here. I've never seen "Second Unit" in the credits before.

[brimike]

Second Unit surprised me too, but once I thought about it, it makes sense. You wonder how they can pull off a location shoot on a shoestring budget, but there it is - you can shoot twice the footage in the same amount of time, and save money. The directors get paid per episode, so they can just shoot the footage for two episodes simultaneously.

[sheilaforever]

Likely,

same thing happened during B&B's Portofino remote if I remember correctly. Stich did the actual remote scenes and Jennifer Howard did the scenery shots. Interesting to see him credited as Michael S. Stich, for the first time ever.

I'm curious about the rest of the Parisian shoot...

[MarkH]

Portofino was amazing. The ultimate template for what a remote should be.

Sydney, on the other hand.... (They did a lot of that scenery remote stuff there too...not very interesting).

I wish CBS would promote the heck out of this remote, but they are not.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Toups, do you have any November scoops for us?

[Toups]

Nope. I only had the Lisa Seidman info saved for November, but for some reason, nbc.com had her name up so early.

I think OLTL has another new script writer, but I don't know the name.