Telenovela Production... It's an Art

Learning about the production of the telenovela was, well, very intense. To be honest it gave me anxiety just thinking about what went into every single day for as many months as the telenovela was being filmed. Not only does a 45-page script need to be written a day, but the actors can’t really prepare ahead of time. They literally have to learn new lines while they are filming previous ones they received. On top of THAT, the episodes aren’t even filmed in order because they have to make most of each set set-up and not waste time, energy, and resources moving things around.  Yet even with all of those hard steps the team has to go through to pull off an amazing telenovela episode, the one production aspect I couldn’t get past was the silence during filming, ESPECIALLY if the actors didn’t have lines… When Dr. A showed us an original scene from the telenovela, music and all it was enjoyable to watch. Yet when the same scene, which was sometimes a love scene, was given to us which was filmed from her phone, I could hardly contain my overwhelming feeling of awkwardness. It was completely silent, all eyes on the actors, and they were just doing their thing, in the complete silence. I don’t think I can stress enough…. IT WAS SILENT. So, if anything, props goes out to the actors for being able to so gracefully trudge through those types of scenes.

In my telenovela that I am watching, Corazon Salvaje, a portion of the telenovela is filmed outside in the open environment, while other parts are filmed in a studio. I can only imagine what effort it took to get all of that equipment down to the beach, and even to Juan del Diablo’s cliff-side house. The “sequence shot” is the operating camera that I was most interested in. I think it has to take major skill and confidence to know that the entire shot depends on the guy carrying the camera strapped to his body. I would trip and fall; I know it. Anyways what I thought was awesome are the horseback scenes in my telenovela, where you have the perspective that you are actually the person riding the horse. You are whizzing through trees and ducking under branches. It is definitely an exhilarating scene and incredible point of view for filming, instead of just a wide shot filming the actor on horseback.

To sum up my little production reflection on my telenovela, while doing research I came to find that the set that served as Juan del Diablo’s house on the cliff/beach is actually a restaurant now! How cool is that?!   

Here's the link for the picture of the restaurant: 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=480636522004379&set=a.168823909852310.41482.116759795058722&type=1&theater