how are soaps filmed?

[Dean Winchester]

Originally Posted by db108108

That must be hell for the actors on Passions considering that one set scene can last for weeks.

yea, but record a months worth of episodes over a few days and then get the rest of the month off Sounds like a pretty nice tradeoff.

[spunkygirl]

Same for Days, I mean one day on that show lasts a month

[factsoflife]

Ok here is the real scoop...

Soap operas tape daily. every single day of the week. monday through friday. They record episodes in order; but they record the scenes out of order. They will film heavy dramatic scenes first, early in the day and lighter scenes later in the day.


Soap episodes usually tape about 4-6 weeks before airdate, giving editors enough time edit together the different scenes. As a television major at school i've learned enough to know that they likely tape a whole episode on the same week, not necissairly the same day. They want to make sure that all the scenes for an episode are contained sequenced tapes, meaning they don't want to shoot scenes for episode A on monday and then on Tuesday shoot episode D, because then the editors would never be able to figure out where to look for the scenes (yes, the tapes would be logged and such) but in order to aviod confusion and missing tapes they likely tape entire episodes in sequential order. Meaning on monday and tuesday they would likely tape 1 episode and than on Wed and Thursday they'd likely tape another.

i can tell you that the ABC and NBC soaps are indeed taped, not filmed. My guess based on the look of the shows is that Guiding Light and Y&R may be filmed. however ATWT and B&B may be taped. that however i cannot be 100% sure on.

Usually an actor only has to memorize the scenes in which they appear in. Most actor memorize only their lines, however some actors have been known to memorize their lines as well as the lines their scenemates. this helps them because they then remember to say their line immeditely after their scenemate says their lines.

They also tend to group scenes based on who appears in them. If a certain two actors appear in only the first and last scenes of the show they will film those scenes together. However scenes are also shot based on difficulty. the more difficult scenes are shot first and the simpiler scenes are shot last.

on a soap set an actors call time can range anywhere from a tyipcal 9-5 workday to later nightime hours.

The crew however tends to work into the wee hours of the night. breaking down and putting up sets. rotating props and such.

One thing important to soaps is that they usually they have like two or three main sets that they permnantely keep up and film on. and then they have other temporary sets that are taken down after a scene is shot.

A set being shot on is called the "hot" set.

Soap Operas store a lot of props and stuff and will take them out when needed.

Oftentimes if they need to reshoot a scene or they need to shoot another scene that is supposed to take place later in a day or something they will keep a set up and call it the "hot set" so that nothing on it is touched. This is because they need to make sure that the continuity of the show is correct. For example if someone is holding a ciggarette in their left hand they want to make sure that in the next scene it is not in their right hand.