In message , at 08:58:08 on Thu, 1 Apr 2021,
Anna Noyd-Dryver remarked:
Recliner wrote:
MB wrote:
On 31/03/2021 23:38, Recliner wrote:
Like you, I've never watched them, but assume the fans find them some sort
of comfort blanket. I wonder, do characters in the soaps currently take all
the Covid precautions? Are the pubs closed, everyone wears masks, and
stays 2m apart?

There have been quite a number of articles on how they have managed to
record soap operas.

One technique is to use actors'partners for scenes needing close
contact, like "snogging". One recent article said that one programme
was having a problem so one actor rang his girl friend, who had done
some acting, she was taken on as an extra and substituted for the real
actress during the close-ups.

I wasn't referring to Covid precautions on the shoot. I was asking about
whether the supposedly contemporary story lines include shut pubs, no
mixing indoors, staying 2m apart outdoors, and wearing masks?


Part of the problem with that is that scenes are filmed (or in The Archers
case, recorded) weeks or months in advance [1]. I don't know what the TV
soaps did, but TA (initially at first, anyway - I haven't followed later
developments) decided they'd be a fictional world without Covid - not least
because they'd need to re-record months of material just as it became
significantly more difficult to do so.

The only one I've seen (and it's not from a very wide selection) is
Casualty [I rate as a soap rather than a drama] and that seems to
embrace COVID, but as medically themed you might expect them to make an
extra effort.

The same is true of USA-based hospital soaps vs others.

[1] TA will occasionally re-record one scene at short notice to mention
significant current events, but it wasn't considered practical to do that
for the entire output at 3 days notice.


Anna Noyd-Dryver


--
Roland Perry