Slightly shorter post tonight. I'm not planning to make this blog a daily thing, but I thought I'd write whilst I'm in the mood!
In my last post, I wrote about the main ingredients needed to make a soap work. But what about the little things, the seasoning, so to speak. One thing I've noticed about all the soaps in recent years is a lack of production values. I'll leave Hollyoaks out of this, as their style is rather cinematic and completely different to the big three. Although EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale all differ very slightly in their aesthetic styles, one thing is for sure; they all very much feel as if we are watching a television show filmed on studio sets with actors, rather than real people just living their day-to-day lives. It's hard to pinpoint why this is, but I'll try my best.
Let's start with EastEnders, the only soap I watch religiously. The Vic is devoid of any atmosphere at the moment. When was the last time we had a whole episode involving characters in and out of the pub during all hours of the day; allowing them to interact with other characters and generally give the show a community feel? This used to happen in every episode a few years ago. The last time I felt like the pub had a real, believable and fun atmosphere was in the New Years' Eve episode (and even then it was still odd seeing Abi and Lauren's friends gallivanting around the establishment from which they had tumbled only a week prior).
One reason is arguably the dull, repetitive stories given to the Carters- an overused family who lack any real chemistry and who should not be at the helm of the pub, let alone the programme. However, I think the set is an issue which is just as important. At the moment, the best way to describe the set and the scenes in the Vic is cold. It feels like the scenes in the pub could just have easily been filmed on the low-budget mdf set used in your local, unheated community theatre. It looks cheap, the music is always so quiet that it's not worth being played in the first place, and the only scenes of any note that happen there follow the Carters. The lack of extras and appropriate sound design to mask the obvious miming of the (sparse) background artists is another problem which really shouldn't exist. Think back only a few years, and we had the Mitchells running the roost- a family with great on-screen chemistry, fantastic storylines, and who always had a packed pub to stir up some drama. Now the pub is so dead that it could almost pass for a Little Chef.
And then there's the houses. Most scenes feel almost uncomfortable to watch, with no outside sounds (except for the occasional train) heard permeating through the windows from what is supposed to be a bustling market square in the middle of a large city. Just take a look at Drama's 1985 re-runs and this becomes ever clearer. The older episodes always had funky music playing in the market which could be heard around the square and inside the buildings. It helped to stitch together different stories and give the show some energy. Perhaps it's also worth noting the lack of market scenes at the moment. It's the middle of summer and yet the market is practically invisible on-screen! What a change to only a few years ago, when the market and the pub were the beating heart of the show!
And let's not forget the lighting. Now, I don't know if I have just been struck down with an unfortunate curse which condemns me to always ending up with terrible brightness balances on any television I watch, but the lighting on EastEnders at the moment is atrocious! Every scene feels like it's been lit with overhead LED strips akin to an office. Everything feels so washed-out in the studio sets. Of course, I understand that soaps strive to keep a naturalistic style, but the fact that outdoor scenes suddenly have a rather delectable, but un-soapish attention to colour grading, completely ruins any sort of aesthetic consistency and believability.
Then there's the ITV soaps. I can't speak much for them as I'm not a regular viewer, but the atmospheres in ED and CS are part of the reason I've never bothered to get into them. Corrie has got almost the exact same sound design problems as Easties, and ED, although admittedly set in a quiet, rural area, feels like it's set in a ghost town! Indoor scenes are so lacking in any sound design that it just becomes awkward for me to watch.
Now, I think there are several reasons for these problems. The first is obviously budget cuts- need I say more. The second, as I think many would agree, is the move to HD transmission. I can't quite put my finger on why, but seeing the soaps in such high quality is oddly jarring. It doesn't feel right being able to see every flaw in every set, and seeing the background of an empty, extra-less studio because of the 16:9 aspect ratio. I can't really explain it further than that. I was watching a YouTube video of an old EastEnders episode from 1996 the other day, and decided to cast it onto a small television. This really confirmed it for me: the slight decrease in picture quality and 4:3 aspect ratio just felt right. It felt real, it felt natural, and it felt like soap.
The reason I'm dwelling on the small things tonight is because of today's episode of EastEnders. It was vastly better than yesterday's offering. Maybe it was the lack of Mick and Linda - thus allowing for far more characters to feature and for us to see some new interactions. I loved seeing the Mitchell family getting on with their day-to-day life; it's something we don't witness often. It also gave the opportunity for some under-used actors to shine: Emma Barton as Honey, Danny Walters as Keanu and Bleu Landau as Dennis. It was refreshing and I'm enjoying seeing where the material with Keanu, Sharon and Dennis is heading. It was great to see Keanu get the cliffhanger, too. I know this isn't really related to production values, but it all comes under the bracket of little things making a big difference. Just seeing some different characters than the usual offering made for a much more enjoyable episode, in my opinion.
Little by little, the soaps can build back up by starting at the bottom. No need for rash stunts or misleading press releases. This may seem irrelevant, but when you're cooking a roast, it's not the meat that makes the meal; it's the sides, the gravy, the seasonings, which make the dinner so delicious. It may take hours of hard graft and effort to include such extras and get to that end result, but it wouldn't a roast dinner without all the trimmings. No matter which way you look at it, the same applies with soap - the little things support the production just as much as the big ones. Hopefully all that rambling actually made sense.
Until next time,
-ASIS.
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