on The 17th of march last, all the shooting stopped abruptly in France. Containment requires. After two months of stop, activity is gradually picking up across the country. The spotlights are turned back on last week, at the Plaine-Saint-Denis, in the studios of the groupe JLA, which produces The Mysteries of love. Actors and technicians are again hard at work in Sète, on the plateau of Tomorrow belongs to us. The resumption of the shooting of A big sun, will take place on the 1st of June, said at France Télévisions ; a few days after one of the Most beautiful life in Marseille, who takes his side, on Tuesday, may 26, according to the company Newen, which produces the series.
These soap operas daily, who gather every evening, more than 10 million television viewers (cumulative), will be back on the small screen in the first few days of the month of June. If the new delighted the fans of these soap operas to the French sauces, it also relieves the Union syndicale de la production audiovisuelle (THERE), which brings together about a hundred and fifty production companies. This organization believes, in fact, around 200 million euros of the shortfall of the sector, since mid-march.
also Read " PBLV ", " DNA ", " A great sun "... the battle of The soap operas
New methods of work
But how does shooting at a time when the epidemic continues in our country ? "The answer to this question is not simple," admits Toma de Matteis, producer of so great A sun. The charter, adopted by the social partners to protect the health of personnel working in the audiovisual sector, details an impressive list of gestures barriers to adopt. "This document requires to reduce the maximum number of people present in the studios. It requires to maintain a minimum distance between individuals, to predict the course of circulation, reported on the ground. But it forces us also to regularly disinfect the objects on the trays. This will inevitably lengthen the time of manufacture of each episode, " says the producer of the flagship series of France 2.
the Two doctors will, in addition, be mobilised in the morning to the evening in the studios in montpellier of France Télévisions, to be able to intervene at the slightest alert. "Taken of temperature made at regular intervals and serological tests carried out in the case of a suspicion on the health status of the members of the crew... Nothing will be left to chance," says Toma de Matteis. "In case, by misfortune, one of the employees would contract the disease, we take the maximum of precautions so that it does not spread within the studio, as we had done previously during an outbreak of gastro," continues the producer, concerned about being able to resume the delivery of the 260 episodes annual series.
To cope with the slowdown of the shooting, the employees involved on the daily agenda also programmed by TF1 and France 3... will be, for the most part, forced to spend the week of six days. This will obviously have a cost, because of the overtime to be expected. "The budgets have all been revised upward. Even if no one shows formally the tariffs, the price of manufacture of these programs will increase by 10% to 15%, " says Sophie Gigon, head of the department of Fiction the day-time within the France Télévisions group. The cost of the episode of a half hour should go from 145 000 to 160 000 euros.
staging tailored
The circumstances will also, inevitably, an impact on the staging. "It's going to have to wait a little before revisiting of the characters kissing on the mouth," says Sophie Gigon. The spectators will become accustomed to the multiplication of fields and contrechamps in the dialogue scenes : each actor is forced to decide alone, facing the camera, his replica. "Fortunately, with special effects, but also by playing on the depth of field, you can give the illusion that our actors intersect, really," says Toma de Matteis.
also Read "More beautiful the life" : behind-the-scenes of a machine to produce.
a few days of the clap announcing the start of the shooting of the 4 051e episode of Plus belle la vie, the filmmakers imagine the way in which they will be able to suggest hugs between the protagonists of the oldest series on daily French, launched in 2004 and is entering its 17th season. Details about hands that touch, hugs between actors hidden (but seen from the back), various possibilities are under study. The directors are snapping up also hair to imagine the movements of the camera which may maintain a minimum distance between the cinematographer, the soundman, and the actors... " The situation requires us to all rethink. Up to the last detail ", emits Toma de Matteis.
In the short term, the producer of such A great sun are going to be faced with another problem : the fact that you have to complete the episodes, which does lack a few plans. How to fill out scenes that have been put in a box two months ago ? "Our hair and our makeup artists are here to give our actors the look that they had before the confinement," replies Toma de Matteis, who wants to be confident. "We are used to this kind of "challenge ", issue. Redoute-t-it, however, a possible weight gain in the actors, knowing that the French took, on average, 2.5 kilograms since the mid-march ? "Fortunately, our headliners are all well maintained during this period and some of the actors come back even in better shape than they were prior to the termination of shootings ", removes the producer.
scenarios reworked
Remains the thorny question of the scenarios. Knowing that the most of these fictions in day-to-day echo to the news of the country, should we expect that the Covid-19 spreads to our screens ? "The coronavirus had already burst into the Most beautiful life in march, before the epidemic arrived in France. This was also a great coincidence because, at the time of writing, in June 2019, the pandemic does not exist ", gliding Sophie Gigon. "Starting from the premise that the French surely want to have a change of ideas, what we all come to live, we have oriented the new episodes to recover from the crisis. The questions that tarauderont our characters will be the same as those who are spectators. The first of them being : how are we going to reinvent ourselves after such an ordeal ? "adds Olivier Szulzynger, creator and show-runner of A great sun.
New episodes of the series Plus belle la life has been devoted, during march, to a mysterious virus, evoking irresistibly the Covid-19. © France 3
also Read Olivier Szulzynger, the former keeper of the museum became a writer of "More beautiful the life "and then of" A great sun ".
The series of France 2 will be the first to resume the antenna, starting from the 1st of June. And this, for a simple reason. "Where our competitors have aired all the episodes they had in stock, we have decided to pause our series in mid-April. We have thus an advance of fifty episodes, which leaves us a few weeks to prepare for the next, " explains the writer. The episodes referring to events of the bac or those who saw the characters attend a great summer concert, have, nevertheless, been thrown in the garbage. "The cancellation of the baccalaureate such as festivals, this year, make these stories unrealistic. However, we are doing a series rooted in the real, not a uchronie, " explains Olivier Szulzynger. The suite, written for the party during the confinement, will be on tour from next week. "Everything has been adjusted to stick to what we have experienced in the last two months ", adds the author.
The filming of the last two rounds daily of the public service does not resume, for their part, in September. Situated in New Caledonia, the soap POLICE, including the shooting of season 2 has been interrupted in march, after a few days of shooting, will thus have to wait until the weather conditions become favourable again in the southern hemisphere. And fans of KP-0 will have to be patient before finding their heroes. But for another reason. The new season of this co-production franco-Russian, tour to Tahiti, revolved around a drama health doing a little too much echo to the situation that the world is going through, in the eyes of the direction of France Télévisions. "Even if it were, in the case of a toxin that would poison the people and not of a virus, we felt that the recent events should prompt us to propose a different plot to the viewers ", stated Sophie Gigon. The screenwriter, Eric Delafosse, has therefore had to revise its copy and the filming of the series police polynesian is postponed to better days.
