“I do think if you were flipping through the channels you wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, this is a soap opera, I’m not going to stop,’ ” says Wheeler. “You wouldn’t know what it was.”
You don't know what it is either, Bitch!
OMG!!!!!!!!! Somebody get that f***ing hack off of my show, NOW!
Who wants to join me in assassination attempts? Maybe burning down Peapack?? Or taking an axe to her "spiffy" new set?
UGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posts: 1199 | Location: New York | Registered: April 29, 2003
I give Wheeler props for trying to save that show, but i have tuned into GL a few times to see the new "revamped" version, and i have to say, it looks horrible.
I even think the shaky camera work and outdoor remotes take away from the actors performances.
Sad to say, but i think GL is on a respirator and CBS will be pulling the plug very soon.
I think Kim Zimmer was right on the money when she said people don't want to tune into GL and see the actors sweating and looking disheveled because of the outdoor filming. There has always been a certain aspect of escapism about soaps that people enjoy, and they don't get that if they are watching Reva Shayne sweat off a face full of make-up on Guiding Light. You don't want anything happening that pulls the viewer out.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: zackfins,
Originally posted by zackfins: I think Kim Zimmer was right on the money when she said people don't want to tune into GL and see the actors sweating and looking disheveled because of the outdoor filming. There has always been a certain aspect of escapism about soaps that people enjoy, and they don't get that if they are watching Reva Shayne sweat off a face full of make-up on Guiding Light. You don't want anything happening that pulls the viewer out.
Amen! Ellen Wheeler has only proved how to pull viewers out for over 4 years now. But the sad truth is, nobody else has the motivation to save GL. Yes, it is creatively a bit better now - but it has leaps and bounds to go to be better than the best.
She's a hack, Ellen Wheeler is a hack! I used to give her credit, but the more I listen to her and hear things about her, the more I wish she'd go FAR FAR away from producing and act again.
Posts: 1199 | Location: New York | Registered: April 29, 2003
How Ellen Wheeler hopes to save soaps: Hopefully, by quitting.
"A movie is not good because it arrives at conclusions you share, or bad because it does not. A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it: about the way it considers its subject matter, and about how its real subject may be quite different from the one it seems to provide." - Roger Ebert, from the introduction to "Awake in the Dark" (2006)
That article would have been funny if Ellen Wheeler weren't in charge of a show. It's wonderful that she wants to save GL and this genre, but she's going about it all the wrong way. Her line about people flipping by it and not knowing what it is is just ridiculous. How can you hope to get people to watch a soap opera if you're ashamed that it is one? Kids in college who get into watching soaps KNOW what they're watching. "They wouldn't know what it was." Unbelievable.
This article is unfortunate because I think it paints all soaps in a bad light. Ellen Wheeler comes across as a zealot who doesn't know what she's doing, and the writing not only highlights so many negative things about GL, but also makes it sound typical of all soaps.
Zackfins is right. Sure, people might like to see an actress sweaty, disheveled and without makeup in a extreme circumstance, but only as a break from looking dolled up most of the time. Writing is obviously important, but so is the way the show looks.
I have been a Guiding Light fan since before most of you were born. I am also a close friend of a higher up(someone in the know...)at Procter and Gamble. Who owns The Show. Many years ago this friend came to me, because he knew I was a faithful fan of the show, and told me they were planning on canceling it. They were going to try one last ditch effort to save the show, he said. They were going to bring in an up and coming Producer, Ellen Wheeler. They gave her one year to do something better with the show or it would be getting the Axe! That was close to four maybe five years ago.
I know many of you do not like the look of the show or how it is filmed. But the way you are talking about Miss Wheeler just shows your ignorance about the subject. My friend at P & G also told me that even though GL won best show at the Emmy's two years ago, because of low viewing #'s, They cut the Shows Budget in half. Wheeler did what she had to to keep the show running, You ungrateful, idiotic maggots!!
The people at Procter and Gamble are amazed that she was able to find a way to keep the show going! The love her and think she must walk on water!! And so do I! I, for one, want to say Thank You, to Miss Wheeler for her hard work, her ingenuity, and her giving me these past few years of my favorite show, which would have been gone years ago if it weren't for her!!
Posts: 1 | Location: Los Angeles | Registered: October 09, 2008
I'd respect Ellen Wheeler a lot more if she admitted that all these changes have been mandated by PGP and their budget cuts. Instead she's been selling it all as her personal campaign to bring a bold new creative edge to a "dead" art form.
The majority of GL's audience loved the traditional filming, sets and soapy storytelling. They did not want change and EW knows that. If she told us the truth and gave us the real reasons for changes that have NOT enhanced this show or this genre as a whole, I would be a heck of a lot more impressed with her and her work.
Since disagreeing is an important assertion, I can't passively sit by an say nothing in response to your post drpaulbragg; even though it was your first post on this board and you called us "ungrateful, idiotic maggots."
Sure the majority of us have said things about Ellen Wheeler and her "vission" for GL. The truth is GL has been on a respirator for years now; and when you hold the title of EP on the longest running scripted show on televison, you're going to take some heat when the show you aquired was nearly an entire ratings point above where it is now, 4 years after you've aquired it - since the precious demo's & ratings are so important to tptb. I can't for the life of me think that Les Moonves is happy that GL continues to see record low telecasts week after week in 2008.
Yes, she has done what she could since it's ratings are so low and budgets were slashed. But isn't that doing things backwards? Shouldn't she have gotten the ratings up and canned her hack of a head writer as the ratings continued to fall instead of STILL keeping him on board?
Honestly, you could tape the show in a field or in a 4x4 box with a cell phone and viewers may still watch if their characters they know and loved were nurtured and the writing was good. But P&G seems hell bent on changing the face of a genre that has a formula that works.
When you keep something going that is so unhealthy for all involved, it stinks worse than rotting flesh. How could viewers possibly be grateful when they tune into a corpse on a daily basis? The GL that was my best friend has completely gone. I'm sorry, I just don't see turning more viewers away as hard work, ingenuity, or saving the world of daytime. I see it as always trying to play catch up and never fully embracing creative power. Sure P&G is to blame as well; but hiding behind the veil of "love can save the world" is proposturous.
If "the things we send into the lives of others comes back into our own," then P&G, Ellen Wheeler, and David Kriezman had better watch out, because what they have sent into the lives of GL fans across the world is unforgivable!
Posts: 1199 | Location: New York | Registered: April 29, 2003
I just think Ms. Wheeler has been doing many things all the wrong way, especially lately. The best way to boost your show's ratings is not to be quoted in a well-respected magazine basically insulting the genre in which you work. It's not to drive away the audience you already have by intentionally making the show in which they're investing into something they wouldn't recognize.
I understand that Wheeler's dealing with budget cuts and other issues from the people above her, but so are most of the other soaps' EPs. I was just saying in another thread, where actually I once again used GL as an example of experimenting in the wrong way, that experimenting with your storytelling mode is great, and if it's in an effort to reduce costs, it's even better. Try things out and see how they work. But at the end of the day, the recent changes at GL have made it look like crap and are apparently motivated by a desire to look more like a bad reality show. I'm blaming her for that, and I think it's completely fair.
