Melodrama Variations: TV Soap Opera (Discussion)

Readings

Screen shot of Marisa Tomei and Breck Jamison in As the World Turns (1984).

What are the main characteristics of soap opera's style of sound and image? And what significance do they have? In other words, what/how does style signify in terms of:
- Sets?
- Lighting?
- Multiple-camera production? In terms of how it looks on the screen, how does multiple-camera production differ from single-camera production?
- Dialogue?
- Music?
How are these characteristics present in the scene from As the World Turns in which the two roommates quarrel, or in other scenes from the ATWT episode we viewed? How would you compare/contrast the sound in ATWT with that of the radio soap, Backstage Wife?

Screen shot of Frank Runyeon and Meg Ryan in As the World Turns (1984).

Screen shot of Frank Runyeon and Lindsay Frost in As the World Turns (1985).

How does Jean-Louis Comolli's notion of a "body too much" in historical film apply to the soap opera?
What is the "commutation test"?
- How might the commutation test be used with Humphrey Bogart's Charlie Allnut character in African Queen?
What makes Meg Ryan an atypical soap star?
How does the position of soap actors resemble that of early-film actors?

Jeremy G. Butler, "Notes on the Soap Opera Apparatus: Televisual Style and AS THE WORLD TURNS," Cinema Journal, 25.3 (1986): 53-70.
Jeremy G. Butler, "'I'm Not a Doctor, But I Play One on TV': Characters, Actors, and Acting in Television Soap Opera," Cinema Journal 30.4 (1991): 75-91.