2023: The Directors and Writers Thread

[RavenWhitney]

Also, in the months leading up to the strike, the following writers were terminated or retired: Cheryl Davis, Jazmen Brown, Dorell Anthony, Richard Culliton and Carolyn Culliton. And exec producer's wife has now written some scripts (again) and FiCore writer (Fran Myers) son, Henry, was added to the writing staff.  Seems to me that Sony/Peacock is making dramatic changes to the writing staff.  I am hoping Ron never returns to the show.

[Contessa Donatella]

Carolyn & Richard retired in April. She tweeted that news to me two weeks ago. Jamey has another gig, a primetime soap I believe. Cheryl won a screenwriter's competition & her play will be produced. Dorell was gone months ago & Jazmen's last week was also 2 weeks ago. Sonja Alaar has now written days's script a few times & so has Henry Newman. Yes. In the case of Dorell & Jazmen I believe their contracts had dates that just came up. Dorell still watches the show & tweets about it a bit. When Lorraine Broderick retired earlier Carolyn tweeted that she & Robert were still there "for now" etc. indicating that they were thinking about retirement, too. She said they wanted to give the younger writers a chance. Their daughter is writing at GH. 

Carolyn was funny. It was around the time of the AW Endiversary & I asked her how she felt about being symbolically represented as a gorilla for all time. She "effin" hated it. LOL 

I just would hate to see them pay a hefty fine. That's why I'd like to see it be Ron's choice to leave. I heard it was a good hunk of change when he fired Hogie. 

[lucaslesann23]

Tommorows episode of YR, No script writers listed. Just Josh Griffith, Amanda Beall and, Jeff Beldner..

Did Amanda go FI-Core or will she disapear Soon As well?

Edited July 18, 2023 by lucaslesann23

[glfaninnyc]

The HWs and breakdown writer were listed on today’s GH, but no script editor or scriptwriter.

[RavenWhitney]

As a multi decades long soap watcher, I remember being concerned in past strikes about my soaps not having their head writers for long periods.  I remember Edge of Night 1981 (which was actually well written by Laurie Durbrow and Lois Kibbee) and GH 1981 (which never recovered from Thom Racina strike material freeze the world plot) which ruined Smith's plotting.  It was hit or miss. But this strike is potentially a blessing at least to GH which has been awful under Van Etten/O'Connor and Days under Carlivati.  I have to bleieve that Sheri Anderson will do a capable job at Days. And I'm guessing (ficore) Gary Tomlin will have a hand in GH stories given he was Valentini's choice for OLTL in 2007/08 and is on staff at GH.  There's no hope for Y&R given Griffith remains.  And I can't speak to Bold because I've never been able to stomach that show since its premiere.

[LeClerc]

Amanda Beall and Jeff Beldner no longer listed as writers as of Monday's (US) Y&R.

Beall is still listed as a producer. So I guess she can discuss story with JG, she just can't put pen to paper?

[cassadine1991]

Shannon Peace says that starting next week GH will air scripts written by scab writers https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cu-oOaVgZu_/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== 

Edited July 22, 2023 by cassadine1991

[lucaslesann23]

So. He has:

 Exec producer duties

He is the Head Writer

A Breakdown writer

And now a script writer.

 

Has this ever been seen before? One person doing all this work.

[Contessa Donatella]

Pete Lemay did all of the Writing but had Paul Rauch as EP of course, so close but no cigar. I suspect back in the day there were other writers who did it all themselves but never had EP duties. For that reason I'm betting this is a first.

Further, thinking about this, I wonder if Bill Bell ever did this at Y&R. I simply do not know how much he might've done as a Showrunner. And, today, I don't know how much actual EP work JG does. 

Edited July 23, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges

[Paul Raven]

I would imagine the EP title is more of a vanity/financial thing that does give him some power but he is not running the day to day production of the show.

Hopefully with all those duties he'll burn out and be gone because at this point I'd be happy for someone else to take over. 

[Contessa Donatella]

AMC has an interesting history about strike writers in that it was scab writers who killed off Jesse & later other, different scab writers brought him back to life, writing a tale where he was never dead, just had faked his death. In her autobiography Agnes was very expressive about watching her show & them killing off Jesse & how horrified she was. Personally, it amazes me that she wasn't consulted about what the scabs were writing. 

This might be a good place to talk about writer's style of working. Irna Phillips talked out loud all of the parts & action & thoughts, using different voices for different characters. Her secretary took it all down in her own note hand & then typed it up. We know this from several different accounts. Both of her proteges did the same thing.

Agnes spoke everything into a Dictaphone & someone typed it from that. We know this from her autobiography.

Bill Bell did the same thing only he himself typed it up after on his IBM Selectric. We know this from an interview with Michelle Stafford earlier this year.

Jamey Giddens does the same. I discovered this in communication with him on #SoapTwitter this year. Of course, I presume he types it up on a computer. He does do different voices. He is a huge fan of Irna's so I assume that is why he does this. 

And, yes, including Jamey here does make this an example of "One of these things does not fit with the others."

Edited July 23, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges

[lucaslesann23]

I don't think that'll happen. He's about to surpass MABs stint. We'll see tho

Edited July 23, 2023 by lucaslesann23

[RavenWhitney]

During the 2007/08 strike, some soaps listed their Ficore writers, some didn't list but used Ficore and others may have only used scabs.

Days is interesting. Corday immediately hired Dena and Mark Higely and Victor Gialanella, the latter two had gone ficore in 2007. Dena didn't but the guild found out and she later had to go ficore in 2008. None of these writers were ever listed in the credit crawl during the strike.  Hogan Shefer and Meg Kelly, the pre strike writers declared ficore status at the start of the strike but Corday didn't want them but he had to pay them while they sat and did nothing.

OLTL had Tomlin, Jean Ford and Fran Myers Newman (all ficore) listed in the credits.

GH had Wolf and Conforti who were listed in the credits.

GL and ATWT didn't list any writers during the entire strike.  

AMC had Daran Little and Brown/Estensen. Not sure if Daran declared ficore initially or was pulling a Dena Higely but he eventually declared ficore.  I believe Brown/Esensten were listed as the writers during the credits of the strike episodes.  I believe Marla Kanalos and Stephen Demorest were fired after the strike and replaced by Daran and maybe one other scab, and they sued.  Not sure the outcome but Stephen never returned to soap writing. 

Y&R had ficore writers listed almost immediately: Griffith, Maria Bell and Paula Cwikily.  

It will be interesting to see which shows list their ficore writers as their material starts to air.  

On Amanda Beall, my guess is that her producer title includes job duties that put in squarely involved in script editing etc.  Do you think she's not going to produce a day's script just because she's not "writing" as co head when she's in the studio, behind closed doors with Griffith?  

Edited July 23, 2023 by RavenWhitney

[Contessa Donatella]

I know that at GL 2007-2008 Jill Lorie Hurst is listed as "Story Producer" as opposed to all her other credits which are all writer's titles. I also know she was considered a Producer. But I am sure she & Ellen were writing the show, maybe even in the evenings in  Ellen's kitchen. 

[cassadine1991]

I wonder who they’ll pick for GH