Soaps on the 'Net

[Cat]

I'm not sure if that's true. 10 minutes for me is the prologue before the credits and first commercial break. It's a taster, a sneak peek... into tomorrow's episode. Those 15 minutes soaps of the 1950s melded into the next day and the next and the next. 10 minutes and then an interminable 6-week wait does not cut it. Speaking for me, that is. Though I have loved catching the brisk 1960s Love of Life and Love is a Many Splendored Thing episode on YouTube. Something about those shows drew me right in, and I'm not sure what that was. Even with limited time and budgets, I never felt short-changed watching those episodes. Time felt elongated on those shows, strangely. In a good way! They really got to the core of the drama in a no-nonsense way.

Couldn't agree more regarding your second point. I will say that only the man who played Billy Lewis on GL has impressed me with how how he disappeared into totally different character in Venice.

[DRW50]

I think it's about having a basic structure for your show that never changes, even if the characters may change. Love of Life, Search for Tomorrow, etc. had this for many years. So did the radio soaps.

The websoaps have no structure. They just either throw you into things or they spend so much building up and ambling along that no one can get involved. It's the equivalent of staring at a hotel room painting.

[Khan]

This...

...and then this.

[Khan]

If they just show up, on-camera, that'll be enough, right? Wrong. It might be for some of your fans, but not for all your fans, and certainly not for this fan. Not even if you're Larry Bryggman or Elizabeth Hubbard. Because, if all you've got to show for things is your pretty face? Then I could just make do w/ your 8x10 glossy, thank you very much!

[All My Shadows]

I think ten minutes for a show is fine. Squeezing a 60-minute show into ten minutes is what sucks. All they need is one or two storylines, a tiny cast, and a tight focus, they'll have a show. The fifteen minute soaps of the 50s didn't have like...four core families, several characters in each age range, various storylines running on the front and back burners, etc.

I love the idea of following one story in ten-minute episodes, but a lot of people would say that's not a soap opera, so idk...

[Khan]

Because, those shows, as opposed to most websoaps, featured "real" characters and stories.

EXACTLY. To all of that.

You can't just throw a bunch of people in front of a digital camera and have them perform, no matter how pretty they are. As I've said before, many who are writing and producing websoaps are guilty of this same issue which is hurting the "real" soaps left on TV. (In particular? "The Bay." Don't know why, but that show and its creator/writer/producer get my proverbial goat.)

You only have, say, 10-15 minutes to convince me yours is a story I want to follow on the web (no matter how infrequently). The story of a random bunch of twentysomethings "hanging out" - clubbing, looking pretty (while wearing little or nothing), making painfully obvious pop culture references and sexual innuendo that would make even a 19-year-old twink groan (and not in a good way!) - is NOT. DRAMA. Nothing can suffice for story except story.

[~bl~]

The part about just looking at the pictures, that is how I've been. I'm like hey new photos and cool a new interview online. I look forward to that more than any series, which is pathetic. Part of the issue is that not all actors can read a script and know it is good, while others may but they are involved due to friendship and can't really say that sucks either.

I can understand things starting slowly, but I need more than random people hanging out regardless of whether I know the actors or not.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

EastEnders did a good 10-minute episode recently regarding Whitney's sexual exploitation story. I think it shows, if you use your limited time wisely, the episode can still resonate as good as an hour-long episode.

Then again, this was aired on the telly as part of a special event, but really, the web soaps have no excuse for their lousy structural problems and just doing nothing with their time.

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[SFK]

Yeah I'm not against that idea at all and it's perhaps something the soaps could have explored to be more foused and cost efficient. You don't have to bounce around to a lot of different characters to hold our attention when the material for one set of charaters is rich. There's also no rule saying that you can't cover several days' time in your ten minutes. How long were those Castillo webisodes?

[Khan]

You know, even the 15-minute soaps of yesteryear were not exactly fifteen minutes. Even they had to make time for commercials that ran at the top of, at the end of, or even in the middle of, each show. And don't give me this [!@#$%^&*] about product placement hurting the shows, Mr. Wisner Washam. Loved your work on AMC, you're as influential on me as Doug Marland and Patrick Mulcahey, but if you and anyone else who hates product placements hates 'em b/c you think they ruin the storytelling, then you never listened to an episode of "The Romance of Helen Trent."

Anyways, AMS, you were saying?

A lot of people would say that. Then again, a lot of people have forgotten what a soap opera is, too.

As you said, AMS, the early soaps didn't have multiple core families and storylines. Most - the Roy Winsor shows, the Irna shows, "Ma Perkins," the ones from the Hummerts and Elaine Carrington - featured one or two central characters with a small, tight-knit, revolving group of supporting players who would come and go as story dictated. Daytime dramas on the radio were a lot like their primetime counterparts, in fact, except their stories were serialized and, of course, they were sponsored mostly by soap manufacturers. That's it. Otherwise, there was little, if any, difference between "Ma Perkins" and "Duffy's Tavern," for example.

Although there were exceptions to this rule, of course, the soaps remained this way as they moved from one medium (radio) to another (TV). And even as soaps expanded in length to 30 minutes, cast sizes remained very small, often featuring just one family, and stories remained very compact. It's only when they expanded to 60 minutes in the '70's that they became as byzantine as they are now. (And one might argue, too, that a big reason why they're in decline now is because the average soap canvas is just too damn big for its own good.)

I'm not saying the Internet cannot ever support a Marland-esque soap opera. I'm just saying it cannot support one right now. No matter how advanced the technology might be in comparison to radio or TV, until there's adequate, sufficient financial backing (to pay for actors, sets and costumes, if need be), no one has that kind of money to burn. But the only way to convince the financial backers to invest is to prove a websoap can be a sustainable and profitable enterprise, and that's by thinking "small" rather than "big." Essentially, they must replicate 1950's soap opera, but w/ 21-century resources.

[Khan]

WORD. IMO, though, Jill Lorie Hurst's increased involvement w/ "Venice" is a positive step. Not just because of the work she did on GUIDING LIGHT (any glowing moments that show experienced in its last six months belong to her, IMO), but b/c it's a situation of a professional writer, and not just so-and-so's business (and sexual) partner, being in charge of the writing.

(BTW, I'm sorry I keep harping on "Writing Is Everything!", both on this thread and throughout the boards. I'm starting to annoy even myself w/ that axiom, lol.)

[All My Shadows]

Something that I noticed in some of those old radio episodes of GL was that sometimes a day would pass in between two episodes, and I guess they did that to make up for when they'd have a day spread over two or three episodes. There are probably all kinds of little tricks like that if you just think about it.

[Cat]

Well, let's put an old episode of Love of Life to the test. 1970. The first 7 minutes. It includes a pretty good confrontation between Victoria and her manipulative mother, Amanda. In my mind, that scene could be lifted almost in its entirety and be effective on any soap today.

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This makes me think that webisoaps might have to plunge us STRAIGHT into the action as soon as they start -- perhaps even right in the middle of the action -- and from there it can carry the story forward as well as piece together for the audience the context of the opening scenes. You know, kind of like when Lost started with the immediate aftermath of a plane crash (except, obviously, nothing as expensive and high-concept as that).

[DRW50]

I think the main thing with a websoap is to make you care, make you wonder what will happen, and to set up the structure of the show - what is driving these people? Who are they? What haunts them?

You can do that with a one minute opening credits sequence. Imagine if this happened, instead of:

BARBECUE BEACH

....

GEORGE PILGRIM

....

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER GEORGE PILGRIM

....

HEAD WRITER GEORGE PILGRIM AND MR. BILL

....

AND TINA SLOAN

[Cat]

LOL @ BARBECUE BEACH.