All: Claire Labine Interview

[Sylph]

Correct. But I still have a dilemma: did you want to just widen, exdend the hero rule so that it includes the pre-decision period or to overthrow the thesis...? That is, I don't think what quartermainefan posted excludes the existence of a (looong) indecision period. But it does have to end with a decision.

[NorrthCafe]

Excuse me, but with all due respect, I know enough people in the entertainment industry (outside of daytime) to know that writers in the entertainment industry do not write primarily for themselves. The ACT of writing is something you do 'for yourself'. WHAT they write is for the audience. Even in Labine's interview she makes it clear that writers have to swallow a little pride and do what they're told on occasion. She's just suggesting that the only time you do so as a writer is when it comes from the top, instead of from the fans. BULL. Some novelists have the luxury of writing what they want and hoping that their intended audience loves it - and even then it takes someone who has had success and has developed a forgiving fan following. Even still, many of those writers have editors who are very careful to try to manage new products so that they keep the following the writer has cultivated.

You maintain your integrity as much as possible as a writer but you're not writing for yourself. It's why entertainment writers wave the white flag and B.S. the audience about 'getting back to basics' when they write for themselves and ratings drop.

Entertainment writers are still able to develop a 'vision' for their work, but that 'vision' has to fall within the parameters of what the audience finds tolerable. Very GOOD writers can write their 'vision' and satisfy the audiences' needs/wants/desires. Very GOOD writers can help an audience want something they never realized they wanted. NONE of them survives doing it 'their way' if it's not what the audience wants.

The same is true with singers and any person in the entertainment field. When they switch musical genres or styles, they all risk losing their audience and will do so only IF they can gain an all new following, or drag their old fans along. Otherwise? They're unemployed, too.

[MarkH]

Installment 5 is up

http://www.welovesoaps.net/2009/11/soaps-hope-claire-labine-interview-part_07.html

[CSF]

I love this part:

[Sylph]

I hope Damon L. Jacobs gets to interview Lorraine Broderick.

[DRW50]

Thanks for the next part. I was hoping for more OLTL questions, but so be it.

That's odd they are going to ask her about Crystal, is it because she's such a buzzword these days?

I do think that the Labines did a lot to reposition Olivia into being more than Josh's latest unstable wife. I remember her becoming much more business involved and basically flirting with every man in and above her age group (and with Holly too).

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Aw, I love Wendy Riche, the woman worked her ass off and fought heavily to out out a quality product at GH.

[MarkH]

I don't suppose the Labines were writing for Crystal at OLTL, were they?

What I am not liking about this interview...and I think that is from Labine...is that there is no EMOTION. In other words, this woman got continually shafted. Fired. Even her ally, Wendy Riche, mounted a competing proposal for a show (the one that became Port Charles). Labine doesn't talk about how she FELT during all of this. Whether she regretted leaving these shows...or whether they were just "gigs".

[DRW50]

I think Claire has been around long enough to cut her emotion off in how she's been treated. If she didn't she wouldn't be able to carry on.

Yes, you're right, she did write for Crystal at OLTL. That was the infamous clown school storyline. I wonder if they will ask about that...

[Sylph]

Go figure! I was hoping for more GH.

Excellent observation. It's almost... Bitter. In a peculiar kind of way.

I like Labine a whole lot less after this interview.

[Ann_SS]

Excellent post. It ties into my post on the Ratings thread about the difference between prime time and daytime writers. My favorite daytime writer, the late Doug Marland always considered the audience in his writing. He thought it was important to not be driven solely by his own opinions so he read fan mail so he could understand what the audience was thinking. I do think that headwriters should ignore fan bases, but that does not mean that they should ignore of the audience completely. Stop writing women as if it is the 1950s, embrace diversity, stop killing off characters and bringing back their portrayers in different roles, and insulting our intelligence in general.

[R Sinclair]

Not only that, but an audience, sometimes, is NEVER FRIGGIN' SATISFIED!!

And if a writer does write something the audience enjoys, it's just has to be that either Phillips, Marland or Bell sent out scripts from beyond the grave... or ABC has Agnes Nixon sequestered in a windowless room in the basement of ABC, chained to a desk, ghostwriting.

There's a difference between playing up to your audience, and catering to it.

You're excused.

[MikeGoldy]

This has been a great interview so far. Really looking forward to hearing more about her time on GL. God the show was awful then!

Here is another Labine interview that I found, not sure if it has been posted before.

http://www.totallykate.com/ryanhope/labine.html

[Ann_SS]

I never like Roger Howarth or Todd and that parrot. I did like Mel and Dorian, fantastic couple.

[CSF]

I wonder why, when Labine returned to ABC, they offered her OLTL as opposed to AMC.