In television circles, they are called “dailies”. The most knowledgeable are even content to talk about it by acronyms, as if there was no longer any need to specify what “DNA”, “ITC” or “USGS” means. Tomorrow belongs to us, Here it all begins, Such a big sun and now the new version of More beautiful lifeback on TF1 since January 8 under the title More beautiful life, even more beautiful : daily soap operas have established themselves in recent years as an essential television format.
Often mocked, even despised, these productions nevertheless proudly trace their path, generating millions of views (at least two million per episode) and hundreds of jobs. From writing to post-production, they are the result of a relentless manufacturing process where all the cogs are essential and interdependent on each other.
An industrial process
On a large screen hanging on the entrance wall, the week’s schedule is dizzying. We are in Sète (Hérault), where are filmed Tomorrow belongs to us And Here it all begins, in a small building which houses the post-production teams of these two series broadcast on TF1. Mixing, editing, calibration… Job lines scroll across the screen coupled with names and episode numbers, crossed with the columns of available days and rooms, all decorated with a clever color code covering the entire Rainbow. The table reflects the manufacturing process for daily newspapers: industrial.
“Making a daily is a bit like producing industrial pastry, it can be very good but you need output, it’s still a factory”judge Marc Kressmann, who was an author and artistic producer on DNA. The cardinal principle is to produce as much as we broadcast, knowing that these series are on the program five days a week all year round, with the exception of a fortnight in summer.
Another metaphor often used is that of the TGV which never stops: for the train to move forward and for production to be able to deliver its twenty-six to twenty-eight minutes a day, a well-established method is required in advance.
Pioneer of the genre in France, More beautiful life, launched in 2004, was the matrix of this process, and Olivier Szulzynger the project manager. Today treasurer of the French Screenwriters Guild, the author is very proud to note that the method implemented on the Marseille soap opera has flourished.
You have 90% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.