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Post by Kpatch on Jun 6, 2012 21:36:28 GMT -5
Haven't seen this posted here yet. It's from Soap Opera Network. Days of Our Lives makes massive changes to its writing staff.Breakdown writer Victor Gialanella and scripts writers Pete T. Rich, Roger Schroeder, Nancy Williams Watt and Lacey Dyer have been let go – all of them joined under the previous writing regime. Joining DAYS is breakdown Dave Ryan, and scripts writers Melissa Salmons and Janet Iacobuzio. www.soapoperanetwork.com/news/inside-the-writers-room-june-edition-2 |
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Post by slyn11 on Jun 6, 2012 22:32:53 GMT -5
Thank goodness ...maybe Hallmark is hiring
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Post by DancingDays on Jun 7, 2012 9:18:56 GMT -5
Were the breakdown writers the ones responsible for all the crappy day to day stuff? Then good riddance.
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Post by slyn11 on Jun 7, 2012 10:06:24 GMT -5
I was more concerned about the appalling dialogue. Remember all the great lines the show used to have? Back when Victor was funny? Those people must have gotten canned with the reboot.
I swear it was like DAYS was trying to throw the fight and get cancelled last September. Who could have thought those changes would be good? I knew from the moment they said "unsoap the soap" they were doomed. And family values and soaps have no place in today's reality show crazed world. What was Corday thinking? OR maybe smoking?
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Post by sportsgirl on Jun 7, 2012 11:51:51 GMT -5
I don' see the names of Andre, kpatch or Slyn on this new list  |
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Post by Tom Horton on Jun 7, 2012 13:03:54 GMT -5
Dave Ryan should be an asset to Days, otherwise there is nothing remarkably good or bad about these changes. Pete Rich and Nancy Williams were both long time Passions writers and Days needs a smaller writing staff so I’m glad they were among the ones chosen to exit. Victor is no loss IMO and definitely a good trade off for Dave Ryan. Roger Schroeder and Lacey Dyer are both new to soap writing and I have a feeling that they may have been the unfortunate victims of the typical “last hired, first fired” practice. Were the breakdown writers the ones responsible for all the crappy day to day stuff? Then good riddance. They can be, but Victor was the only breakdown writer of the exits and he just got there. He didn't come on staff until February and with how far in advance Days’ writing/filming is to what is shown onscreen I’m not sure if anything he was involved with even had time to make it to screen yet. The rest were script writers and though certainly a significant job, it’s not a high-level decision making one. It's a little like expecting a company to run better because they switched out their administrative assistants; important role but hardly the root of the problem. |
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Post by fluffysmom on Jun 7, 2012 13:47:26 GMT -5
It still boils down to the people deciding on the storylines.
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Post by jwsel on Jun 7, 2012 15:04:11 GMT -5
It still boils down to the people deciding on the storylines. They are definitely a major part, but the breakdown writers are responsible for pacing storylines and creating drama from scene to scene, and that has definitely been disastrous. The safehouse explosion is a perfect example. The instruction from MarDar would have been along the lines of -- six characters are trapped inside when the explosion occurs, but they are revealed to have survived after the cliffhanger. That got translated into six people in the living room and the timer counting down while they engaged in a last-ditch effort to build a protective wall. At 10 seconds left, we saw Rafe and Carrie lift a rug. Then the counter finished and the explosion occurred. On the next episode, we find out that when Rafe and Carrie lifted that rug, they found a trap door to a reinforced basement, everyone got inside, and everyone survived. Setting apart the absurdity that Shane did not know his ISA safehouse had a basement or that 10 seconds was not enough time for everyone to get to safety, the whole thing played out without drama. Wouldn't it have been far more dramatic if it had played out along these lines: Once they discover the bomb, Shane and Roman try to get schematics from the house to see if there is some last change way of stopping people. But the block on cell transmissions is making that impossible. They have to rush away from the building to get a download, which takes time. With a few minutes left, they return, having discovered that there is a basement. They report that to the people inside, who rush to find it. Once they do, they momentarily struggle to get it open, but manage to do so. While this is going on, the scene is cutting between the events at the trapdoor and the timer, which is counting down. The last minute would intercut between the characters inside trying to get into the room, while there is some argument -- Hope and Marlena won't leave Bo and John, despite their insistence. Carrie goes first. Then Bo forces Hope inside. People are struggling and crying. The scene could cut between the people still in the upstairs, Shane and Roman outside, Carrie and Hope in the dark basement, etc., as Marlena starts to go in, then John, leaving Bo and Rafe upstairs. Clock is now at 5 seconds. And it counts down until "boom" and the screen goes dark. Now you have to wait until Monday to see who survived. And on Monday, Shane and Roman would still struggle to get to the house and would be stuck wondering if anyone managed to get to the basement in time. Then, when the survivors emerged, we could have see that Bo and Rafe dove into the basement as the blast occurred, just barely surviving. (Some cuts and bruises, maybe even a broken bone or two, would be good too.) Since no viewers really were going to believe that all six of those characters would die at once, there was no reason to pretend otherwise. That the sequence played out so lamely rests squarely on the shoulders of the breakdown and individual episode writers. As headwriters, MarDar bore ultimate responsibility for approving such a terribly written sequence, but they were not alone in deserving blame. |
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Post by Tom Horton on Jun 7, 2012 15:53:40 GMT -5
Certainly the breakdown and script writers have an important role to play but they are just writing it. They don’t make the editing and sequence decisions of what is shown onscreen and when. It’s like in any business, the whole team is important and can build or damage the final product, but ultimately the responsibility lies at the top, and the HW is not the top. MarDar (like previous HWs) sketched out a broad plan for storylines that had to be approved by the execs at Days and NBC. So all that noise we are hearing about how the execs weren’t happy with MarDar’s work – at some point, those very same execs approved all the same stuff they are complaining about now. So while I agree that MarDar aren’t the only ones to blame, it’s the ones up line from MarDar, not the ones even further down the totem pole that hold the real power and therefore the most blame.
That said, some individuals in any position can make a huge impact on a company's success. There are some writers in the same positions at Days that I do think would have been a huge loss to Days and some that I would be a lot more upset about seeing come on board. I just don't see these particular changes as anything significant - other than Dave Ryan as I noted earlier... and even that remains to be seen.
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Post by sportsgirl on Jun 7, 2012 15:58:14 GMT -5
As is with any business.
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Post by nrod9224 on Jun 7, 2012 18:28:14 GMT -5
TFP! They don't control what is being written as far as what storylines are being decided, breakdown writers. They just breakdown the decided stories into scripts, right?
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Post by jwsel on Jun 7, 2012 18:52:05 GMT -5
Certainly the breakdown and script writers have an important role to play but they are just writing it. They don’t make the editing and sequence decisions of what is shown onscreen and when. According to the Maureen Russell book, the breakdown writers on Days create the outline for the week and identify what will happen in each scene in each episode during that week. That is then given to the daily script writers who the book describes as "dialogue writers." The book is old, so I don't know if that is still how they do it today, but if it is, it would be the breakdown writer who visualizes the sequence of events and decides what beats will play out in each scene. And while I haven't seen any Days scripts, I've seen plenty of scripts that describe quick cuts. That's not always left to the editors to decide. |
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Post by nrod9224 on Jun 10, 2012 17:51:40 GMT -5
Certainly the breakdown and script writers have an important role to play but they are just writing it. They don’t make the editing and sequence decisions of what is shown onscreen and when. According to the Maureen Russell book, the breakdown writers on Days create the outline for the week and identify what will happen in each scene in each episode during that week. That is then given to the daily script writers who the book describes as "dialogue writers." The book is old, so I don't know if that is still how they do it today, but if it is, it would be the breakdown writer who visualizes the sequence of events and decides what beats will play out in each scene. And while I haven't seen any Days scripts, I've seen plenty of scripts that describe quick cuts. That's not always left to the editors to decide. Wow, that is very good to know. Thanks for explaining.  |
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