The "foreign soaps" topic

[Sylph]

Ha-ha, that's when I used to watch. It involved some character named Selena or something, Irene's foster child, and Stephen Mattheson and Melissa George... Ages ago.

[Sylph]

Welcome, Toups! Join the club! Apart from regularly keeping an eye on American writers' market, I do that too for Australia and UK.

Has anyone here watched McLeod's Daughters (staff on that highest rated Aussie drama is full of ex-story editors and storyliners on H&A and Neighbours and All Saints)?

[JamesF]

It should be noted that the SP position is vastly different between the UK and Aus. In the UK the story power really rests with the Producer and EP. In contrast (and I'm basing this mostly on my knowledge of Neighbours) that show's producer Peter Dodds is solely a money man while the EP Ric Pellizzerri simply encourages or vetoes story ideas.

An ex of mine had to interview the SPs for both Neighbours and Home and Away a couple of years ago and in those situations, they were most definitely headwriters as far as long term story arcs are concerned. The entire tone of the show was dictated by them. On a block (week to week) basis, they meet with the storyliners who also contribute ideas but primarily act as breakdown writers.

That said, Neighbours' SP indicated that perhaps it was a more collaborative show than H&A. Bevan Lee, Coral Drouyn and Daniel Bennett all had very, very different interpretations of the show being notably responsible for the Sarah Lewis saga, Angela Russell and the Summer Bay Stalker respectively. Neighbours also rejigged its department last year and changed a lot of the titles - for instance the script producer title is obsolete - so what applies for H&A isn't necessarily the same under this regime.

[heatherwebber]

I've seen some McLeod's Daughters.

[Sylph]

JamesF, do you have those interviews - I'm interested in what those SPs talked about?

Do you have any info as to why Brigie got the sack? (Apart from the obvious reasons...)

[Sylph]

And who revamped H&A to become "about surfers & kids who run around on the beach"?

[Sylph]

So Daniel is the most outlandish? And what was Angela's story?

[Toups]

Thanks, JamesF.

So the "Script Producer" (Head Writers) drive the story and write the arcs. There isn't individual breakdown writers and script writers, right? The "Writer" of the episode writes the script and breakdown. The "Script Editor" edits script for continuity. The "Story Consultant" consults on the story arcs.

I wrote the HAA credits.

Episode #4374 - March 15, 2007

Script Producer

Cameron Welsh

Script Producer

Leigh McGrath

Executive Producer

John Holmes

Director

Geoffrey Nottage

Writer

John Hanlon

Script Editor

Fiona Bozic

Associate Script Producers

Faith McKinnon

Phil Lloyd

Story Consultant

Sarah Walker

[JamesF]

Soz I don't have the interviews. They were for my ex's journalism portfolio and I don't think he ever got them published. Essentially they dealt with the treatment of mental health in Aussie soapies and the propensity in 2004 for these "psycho" characters. I don't remember the details of what was said. Can't help with Brigie either unfortunately.

H&A -- I think it really always was about surfers and kids running around the beach but in the early 90s it just embraced doing outlandish stuff and eschewed any genuine social realism it at least aimed for in the pilot. Bevan Lee has had several tenures with the show and barring Sarah Lewis tends to be somewhat more grounded.

Coral Drouyn's biggest story about Angela Russell was part of a significant revamp the show had a few years back to offset Big Brother on Ten (similar to the revamp Neighbours is getting in July). Angie was a schoolteacher who had a secret lovechild with married Rhys Sutherland. I don't remember the details but she turned into a really dark character. Not physically agressive but totally deranged and played mind games. She broke up the Sutherland marriage and tried it on with her pupil Nick before insinuating to social services that he was being sexually abused by foster mother Irene. Later she accused him of attempted rape. It was all totally twisted and eventually she was exposed before being found dead. A big murder mystery began with a total dud ending -- her son Dylan had shoved her in an argument and she hit her head. Another big story Drouyn did was pairing Kirsty Sutherland with Kane Phillips. It was a hit with the teen fangirls but more than a tad icky given he raped her sister Dani a year earlier.

Daniel Bennett just took the show up a notch and it really became too much. The Summer Bay Stalker story worked in getting a buzz around the show -- it also coincided with the show's rating being bumped up from G to PG meaning a little more sex and violence. The problem was Bennett tried to recreate the success with psycho after psycho. Every week and I mean that literally, there would be a near death experience for a major character for little reason. I lost count of the number of characters who fell over cliffs during his tenure.

Coincidentally Bennett is the new drama exec at Ten which means he is now overseeing Neighbours. It's ironic given that that show is trying to steer away from the psychos and bombs that it's attempted since 2005.

Toups - you've pretty much got it re: H&A. That is a main difference. On Neighbours back in the day (it may have changed) the Story Producer had the headwriter role while the Script Producer was the overseer though there was a lot of fluidity between roles. Storyliners pitched in with ideas for each block and also acted as breakdown writers which are passed on to freelance scriptwriters. As far as I know, H&A has no breakdown writers though the SP gives a lot of guidance.

[JamesF]

Another bit of trivia while I'm at it. John Hanlon is the writing pseudonym used by Aussie actor Shane Porteous. He writes for Neighbours too and does some really great stuff. He, Ray Kolle, Katrina Foster and Judith Colquhoun are a sample of those who do double duty and they're the cream of the crop.

[heatherwebber]

The 4th week of BBC America's run of Hollyoaks and the parents are now starting to show up a lot more.

One thing that's clear is the show has a lot of people relating to each other. There are friends, rivalries, lovers, bullies, all sorts. Most of which has been lost on American soaps in the rush to provide bang bang bang audience-grabbing.

What I haven't seen yet is the sort of gripping emotional gut-wrenching drama Eastenders pulls off on their special episodes but to be honest Eastenders hasn't pulled any of that in a very long time.

[Drew]

wasn't she Rhys Sutherland's ex, or someone he had an affair with? I know she was a teacher, and I've seen the youtube clip where the students exposed her for seducing one of her students. I know she went ape [!@#$%^&*] and died, and then the actress came back as her sane twin or cousin Josie. Angela was also Tasha's mother.

[Drew]

LOL - that pretty much sums up what I was watching in 2006. The stalker/Zoe returns story and all its false starts and fake scares for 6 months. (considering Zoe only appeared in like 4-8 episodes the whole year, and most of them during the last month of the story) Then that stupid chopper crash. And all the numerous falls, car accidents, druggings, deaths, abductions, and weird baby worshipping cults etc.

It was definitely not the same Home and Away we got here in Canada (eps from 2000-2001). They certainly didn't have a single police officer in a major role then, let alone the 3 they have now. And I don't recall a single crime story from that time, and now that's a major factor in the show. It's similar to how OLTL has morphed over the last 3 years into being this overly crime and cop centric show, to it's detriment.

I have noticed since Cameron Welsh has taken over it's getting back to the Home and Away I recall from the days when he was one of it's stars. (I'm playing catch up, watching episodes from mid-feb)

[Sylph]

Thank you, James. I presumed you didn't have them, but just wanted to give it a try. Just in case.

Well, yes, it was about surfers, beaches and summer time. Just that it focused more on these foster parent - foster child relations, there were also some high school dealings (a la Heartbreak High), but the show was bad, although I barely remember it, the production values were horrible, stories dragged and so on. It was like waatching a soap opera for children, something like that.

[Sylph]

Thank you for the recap of Angela's story. Now I remember what it was all about.

And Bevan is some sort of network script executive or something. I read somewhere that Bennett is going to change Neighbours, make it more like it was in the beginning and so on, if I find a quote, I'll post it. What a contradiction to his stories on H&A.

I'm not sure if the breakdowns (synopses) exist in the American sense (an episode outline), mostly if anything is written in prose it's a breakdown of a particular story or something like that.