2009: The Directors and Writers Thread

[dm.]

I loved every single joke that came out of Norma and Edna's mouth, that's for sure...

[Bright Eyes]

OLTL with a good writer? Thank the effing Lord.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I don't know, it's so glaring to me knowing a couple of those Passions SW's wrote for GL in the early 90's - yet the dialogue content on both shows was so different. I can still pop in a GL episode from 91 to 94 and the dialogue is generally brilliant, crisp, contemporary, and true to the heart of the characters and the show. Hell, I know Nancy Williams Watt in particular was Nancy Curlee's Script Editor, so she edited some amazing scripts back then, I also know Patrick Mulcahey adored Watt too.

Has Watt retired? I know she's old, but I think she would be great at one of the more traditional soaps, Roger Newman as well.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Oh, OLTL is Salmons first ABC soap. She was always a P&G girl until Y&R...

She'll do great, I mean, she was a SW for GL during the late 80's/early 90's.

[Toups]

And Julian, Endora, Tabitha, Rebecca, Esme, Timmy. Ahhh.....so many hilarious characters. I loved their dialogue.

I think so. Same with Thoma, Schibi, Gail Lawrence, Rich, Newman (for sure).

[Khan]

AFAIK, Y&RWorldTurner, Nancy Williams Watt has retired. As has Roger Newman. Of course, I was wrong about Melissa Salmons not having worked before w/ Frederick Johnson (thanks, Toups!), so don't go by me, lol.

Ah. Thanks, R Sinclair, for the clarification! Am I allowed to ask your cousin's name?

[SouthOfSoap]

My gripe wasn't so much with the dialogue than it was with the pacing/breakdowns. I think it was a challenge to flesh out 10 minutes of real scenes into a whole episode. The AHWs had it easy to write breakdowns - effectively 3 storylines with no movement and little character interaction for an entire episode. The SWs had to write a full episode based on hardly anything - that can't be an easy or rewarding task, so I think the SWs got a bad rap for some challenging and thankless work (and I'm guilty of that too, because I redicule it as much as the next person...)

And I totally agree with you about the great one-liners and romantic dialogue - they excelled in that - one merely needs to browse some you tube clips to be reminded. Of course I am thinking more fondly of JER's first stint on DAYS, but I can see the occasional brilliance in his other work too.

Some of those writers also worked on DAYS during JER's first stint as well, so they must have been very loyal to JER to follow him around from soap to soap. But I think JER did want his iconic style to be seen on screen and briefed his writers to follow accordingly. When JER left DAYS and Hogan took over, the dialogue produced was high quality a lot of the time - and this was from the same writers who had been writing scripts for JER, before the bulk of them were let go. Obviously some were better than others - like Sofia Landon Geier, who really should be working in daytime again.

[Toups]

Y&R:

- Peter Brinckerhoff first listed as Director on May 5

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Wow, he's freelancing everywhere these days, huh?

Why couldn't they just call up Kathryn Foster? Mike Denney is back, and Foster freelanced at B&B a few weeks back.

I like Brinckerhoff though...

[Khan]

I like (Peter) Brinckerhoff, too. He's one of my favorite L.A. soap directors.

[R Sinclair]

Raynelle Swilling. She was an Executive Story Editor for Moesha's final season with her writing partner Cynthia R. Harris. Fred Johnson, Warren Hutcherson and Jacque Edmonds were the showrunning executive producers that season. She's currently writing on a spin-off of The Family Guy. Granted, I haven't talked to the woman in ten years, so it's not like we're tight. She's ten years older than I am.

[Khan]

But she is a contact, and in Hollywood, contacts are everything.

[brimike]

American Dad? Right on - the writing on that show is MUCH stronger than Family Guy. :-)

[Khan]

Seriously?

Well. If you say so.

[RavenWhitney]

Toups:

For April Y&R writer list: how do we know that Lisa Conner wrote both breakdown and script last Thurs and Amanda Beall wrote both script/breakdown in early April?

Isn't it possible that Milstein wrote the script for both? Or that LC and AB wrote the respective breakdowns and MK wrote the dialog?

thanks