Go for classic, not for fad

GL, you cannot know how much I am pulling for you to succeed. I truly feel you are the canary in the coal mine. You've perfected, in my opinion, the production model. Now, bring the writing along!

I wasn't planning to write this, but I stumbled on this item. I don't usually mention Perez Hilton here, but in this case...

In a pst today, the gossip blogger writes:

Viewership for The Hills is down.

Way down!

Original episodes have tumbled 26% in the coveted 12-34 y.o. viewer demographic in the fourth quarter, compared with the same period last year.

Okay, now...sigh...

This is actually a lesson soaps (should have) learned after Gloria Monty elevated General Hospital to all-time highs. As Roger Newcomb's blog reminds us today, the viewers attracted for a pop culture phenom were not the "foundational" audience that stays with a show for decades. Two years after the Ice Princess, GH was in freefall.

The lesson then, as now, is that you have to program for mom and grandma, but do it in such a compelling way that they suck their daughters (and sometimes sons) into watching too. That is not the MTV model. But it is how soaps are built.

So how is this relevant to GL? Remember this article about GL?

The villain in this piece is the reality show. When veteran soap-opera producer Mary-Ellis Bunim created The Real World for MTV in 1992, soap opera’s exclusive grip on emotionally manipulative programming began to loosen.

Notice the Laguna Beach mention in the next quote. That is, ahem, the progenitor of that falling morass mentioned by Perez, The Hills!

Where other daytime producers are amping up the supernatural plots and onscreen text messaging to attract viewers, Wheeler has given her show an extreme makeover, reality-show style. For the first time, fans can see the actual streets of Springfield, a midwestern town in an undisclosed state—which look suspiciously like the streets in Peapack, New Jersey, where one-fifth of the scenes are being shot, all with handheld cameras. “We finally get to come into their world,” says Wheeler, who was inspired by shows like Laguna Beach and Friday Night Lights.

The elusive quest for 12 year olds....

With its face-lift, Guiding Light is banking on pulling in a whole new generation of viewers. “I do think if you were flipping through the channels you wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, this is a soap opera, I’m not going to stop,’ ” says Wheeler. “You wouldn’t know what it was.”

...leaves 39 year olds behind...

When the “new” show debuted on February 29, there was the expected backlash. Fans immediately hit CBS with online complaints about the artsy flourishes (producers have toned them down). “These shows are created to be romantic fantasy and fantastical adventure,” says TV Guide’s soap columnist, Michael Logan. “We don’t want reality when we’re watching a soap. We want a ‘Calgon, take me away’ moment.”

I wasn't planning it, but I think this blog post serves as a kind of companion for the other one I wrote today.

I deeply believe that Ellen Wheeler/GL's production model can and should work. It produces a cheaper show to make, and it looks pretty darn good on my (computer) screen. I applaud the show for conducting the experiment! Michael Bruno said (in last week's SOD) that GL is actually making money! So, by that metric, GL is a success. And these shows have to make money to survive! (If you don't like conceding to the commercial demands of television, go to some art house film or an experimental theater).

GL has exemplars that show it can be a storytelling success too, even with this lower-cost production model. We know there are pop culture hits (critically and/or box office) that use a similar style, it can work! It is now time to invest, though, in some writers of immense vision. Don't let the inspiration be MTV's Real World. Even if you draw in 12 year old viewers...they won't stick around. It doesn't work that way anymore. Let your models be Cloverfield or the Office or both. Those things entertain.

The secret is to stay away from the pedestrian (e.g., a routine conversation in an autumnal field), and give us the exciting. Give us big stakes that are in our face. Let the narrative make use of the intimacy and immediacy of the form, and the shaky anxiety of its hand-held cams, and write to that!

Form and Function

Check out these clips, and tell me what they have in common?










Cloverfield. Blair Witch. Friday Night Lights. The Office. By my reckoning, each one has powerful similarities to GL's new production model. Admittedly, each of these shows has much higher budgets, but at the core, it is the use of digital video, intimate hand held cameras. In the case of all four clips/shows, the production model conveys a "you are there" feeling that is actually quite remarkable, and contributes to the power of the show.

For Cloverfield and Blair Witch, the limited perspective was actually used to create suspense and confusion, so that we were suffering through the un-named horror with the same lack of information as the protagonists. This made the film far more effective. The intimacy, limited perspective, shakiness all worked together to ramp up the tension.

In a strange way, The Office works the same way. The Office is all about the cringeworthy moments that emerge from people caged like rats...too closely spaced, too different, yet thrown together every day. So, again, the "you are here" feeling really works. We hide our faces when Michael Scott does something especially boorish, because he is in our faces.

Now, Friday Night Lights, which I have watched with less frequency, uses the same quality in a more traditional drama. Again, it is effective. When characters are having conversations in cars or homes, we are there with them. In the locker room, we're in the middle of disputes and conversations. And on the field, we are pacing with coaches or privy to heated exchanges. Since football is fundamentally action, and the characters are mostly the action-filled young players and the people in their lives, all that movement works to give us a feeling of verisimilitude that simply makes us feel more involved.

The production model, which I am not the first to point out, is pretty similar to what Ellen Wheeler and her team are trying to accomplish at Guiding Light. Yet, pretty widely, many viewers and critics seem to feel that the model just isn't working for GL.

Notice the common theme for each of the foregoing examples. Action, tension, suspense, nervousness. In each example case above, the production model works perfectly with the writing, almost a kind of "partner" to create the tone and atmosphere that supports the narrative goals of the piece.

Now, at GL, we have something different. We see an attempt to use the technique for very pedestrian scenes with very little tension--conversations for the most part. The scenes are not narratively filled with high emotion or unrelenting energy, so there is a mismatch between this potentially effective style and underlying story and tone.

Imagine if GL had been revamped not just in production style, but if the narrative style had been shift to more nervous, high energy, anxious, high stakes. It would have been an abrupt departure from classic GL...from classic daytime in general...but it could have worked. Indeed, with a constant level of anxiety and stress and speed and movement, the show could have been edgy and could have attracted the attention of those young viewers everyone wants.

I think a mistake that GL has made is that they are patterning themselves after a reality show...but reality can often be boring. Their production model lends itself perfectly for high-stakes adrenaline storytelling...and I think that could have attracted an audience.

It all comes back to the same point: form should follow function. If GL sought to remake itself, it should have remade its narrative structure too. Storytelling at GL seems to have taken a backseat to the production model. In this next critical year, it is time for nothing less than a wholesale reinvention of the script writing, probably with the help of a fresh eye. Imagine if some hotshot young auteur were matched with a senior consultant who knows the story bones of GL (think Nancy Curlee or even Pam Long). That could be something. If the show played a more constant state of emotional tension and intimate high stakes, with that very fresh and modern production model, I think we might actually not be able to stay away!