GL Should Have Tried to Emulate 'The City'

[JackPeyton]

I do think they were too ambitious with the amount of sets and should knock some down so bedroom sets could be larger. Whatever Gus and Natalia were in was way, way too small, as was Jonathan's motel room. It would be nice to keep one around so you could have a realistically poor character, but Jonathan and Gus shouldn't be sleeping in a fricking box.

Overall the look is improving and has gotten me to watch GL again, despite the bad writing. It was unbearable to watch previously with the poor set design. This has it's problems, but is a million times better than what we were getting. I hope they burned that Main Street set. I also must say that I never realized what a fierce bitch Crystal Chappell was. TVGC was right when they called her the sexiest woman in daytime. She doesn't even have to try!

I agree all around.

And you are so right. fierce bitch is the best way to define Crystal Chappell. She is flawless.

[RoseVioletDaisy]

Ah, so basically after years upon years of millions of fans begging, literally begging on hands and knees, for some halfway decent writing, character development, and intelligent storytelling, all they care about is getting feedback on their disastrous, ultimately doomed experiment in The Mysterious and Crappy Ways of The Blair Witch Project? Why does that not surprise me?

You wants opinions and tips? Okay, here goes: This show is dying Ellen! Slowly, painfully, and, most tragically of all, by it's own hand. It is literally destroying itself from the inside out. As to the filming format itself: monkeys on crack could shoot straighter and wobble less. I'm not even gonna get into the atrocious lighting which has left several actors and actresses looking like pale, sickly gargoyles. But asthetic problems aside, the real problem is that much like a handsome man who looks incredibly ugly to you once you find out that he beats his wife and neglects his children, the outward appearance is now simply mirroring the inner soullessness. Even though it would be jarring at first, I'd have no real problem watching Jerry VerDorn, Liz Keifer, Maureen Garrett, and Grant Aleksander acting out intelligent, well-scripted scenes shot in refrigerator boxes, with muzak in the backround, and the cameras zooming up in their faces. I would gladly forgive a little technical incompetence if it served a greater artistic good but the show now simply looks as cheap, tacky, and shameless as the characters and stories had already become and that's the real problem. Always has been. Even if this experiment was a raging success and everyone loved the new look unconditionally, it would only be a small band-aid applied to a gushing artery. It wouldn't be enough to keep people tuned in to a show that seems almost designed to dumb-down, insult, and offend. While the visuals have been subpar for years, it's never been GL's biggest problem and even with the recent nosedive in production values, it still isn't. Wake up, GL! You can only ignore so many wakeup calls before you end up sleeping forever. As in dead.

[MichaelGL]

Excellent post!!!

[stenbeck212]

I disagree. It's been said on this very board that the techniques GL has implemented in a half-assed way work much better on foreign soaps, natural light included. Eroded viewership makes it obvious that soap writing doesn't cut it anymore, so why should the shows maintain a look that goes with plot-driven melodrama? Besides GL, every other production still uses methods pioneered by I Love Lucy 2 generations ago. I'm glad there was an evolution to Sex and the City, a show no less funny without 3 cameras and a studio audience. Ellen Wheeler's failure doesn't mean her attempts can't be improved upon.

[AddictedToSoaps]

Yeah it looks pretty nasty..but that's definitely not the Beacon!!

Same here - the writing is bad, but I am back watching GL full time again.

[GoldenDogs]

I don't think the production model still in place for most US soaps is indicative of "plot-driven melodrama". The writing is horrible across the board and, like so many others have said, it makes no difference how the show is presented if the writing is crap. I'm not one for being innovative or doing something different just because or for whatever weak reasons Ellen Wheeler has offered (apparently ignoring the fact that the stories suck). In the world of broadcast, there has to be a compelling reason to break away from proven techniques of production and presentation... and, for crying out loud, if you're going to do it -- you damn sure better do it right. Again, Ms. Wheeler has failed on all counts here. When I first started working in TV, I worked for a news director (this guy was a real hardass and ruled with an iron fist) that would not allow digital video effects, like squeezes or flips, etc., because he felt that added no value to a quality presentation... unless there was a GOOD REASON to do it. He called an abuse of technology in TV "visual masturbation". I thought he was a jerk... but looking back, I guess he was right.

Again, crappy writing aside, look at the proven production model as offered by Y&R. They improved upon the existing model when they moved to HD. The look of the show has always been enhanced with smooth-as-silk camera movements and a terrific score. The "soft look" of the show has never been my cup of tea, but it's clean and consistent. People usually expand on successful techniques... the problem with improving upon Ms. Wheeler's effort is that most people don't want to expand on failure. As for foreign soaps, the ones I've seen look good because they know how to light a scene and clearly have skilled operators who know how to get the most out of decent equipment... they obviously don't use gear that came out of a Crackerjack box. I know part of the deal here was to cut costs by canning studio personnel... but that bit of cost cutting sometimes hurts where it counts.

[mamasita]

british soaps and latin american soaps are 90% (or more) taped on-location. none of these soaps look like GL. GL's shaky camara and the extreme vertigo close-ups are just plain terrible, something you never never see in these foreign soaps which look like primetime series compared to GL.

[PJA]

There has been a huge decrease in the shakiness of the camera. They still have work to do though. And the audio still needs work too. On one episode when they were doing faraway shots of Bill and Beth, you could here Bill good as if he had on a microphone but you could barely hear Beth.

[brimike]

WOW!

I haven't watched this since it first aired, but I'm SOOOO amazed at how NOT dated it looks. It seriously looks like it could have been shot yesterday.

THIS is how you do a location soap. I agree with the original poster - GL should have looked at this as a model.