by Marc Guidoni , published on 26.08.2009

French television production of fiction programs has been in trouble since the beginning of 2000. Audience numbers seem to be dropping dramatically… And yet the resources are there: 600M€/year for Hertzian channels. But the comparison with original North-American series is tricky. The industrial fabrication process used in North America (United-States and Canada) is quite fundamentally different from ours. And without idealizing it, it’s interesting to understand how it works.

The writing is not done all at once at the beginning of the show, it’s done along the way. To put it another way, when a series of 24 episodes begins airing, only the first 4 or 5 have been written. They set out without a security net… the other episodes will get written as they go, which allows the writing and the dramatic twists to follow the audience’s feedback as well as the news: there is no difficulty inserting an event such as an “election result” or a “sports victory” into an episode, since it’s only written a few weeks before it airs. In France, apart from some very rare exceptions (like the popular series “plus belle la vie”/“a beautiful life” which we’ll discuss again later), everything is written and shot several months before airing.

The American fabrication system is therefore fundamentally “transmedia ready” since it’s built around a repetitive cycle involving the audience: writing/ production/ improvements based on feedback/ writing/ production/ broadcasting etc…

Building the foundations: the development phase (the sector’s R&D)

-       Creation of the series’ specifications and guidelines, character development

-       Writing of the best possible script for the series’ pilot and shooting of the pilot

-       Development of the precise work methodology and work-flow for the future of the production

Writing

-       Building a group of script writers working together with great creative freedom under the direction of a “show-runner”, this is a script writer savvy to the production requirements who keeps things within the required specifications

Production

-       The director doesn’t participate in the script writing. He arrives 2 weeks before the shoot and cannot touch the scripts that have been preapproved. He’s not there as an author but as a technician.

-       The shoot has been previously gauged according to the specifications (length, number of sets…). Only the first episodes are shot. The preparation begins to shoot the following episodes as the first ones go to air.

-       The editing of the episodes must begin around the middle of the shooting.

Broadcasting

-       Has to happen shortly after the end of the shoot and the post-production

We can note that in France, “Plus Belle la Vie” has adopted this short cycle integrated production process. Should we see a link between this and the fact that it’s by far the most successful series in France today with an extremely diverse audience?

To continue this reflection, a fascinating debate from July 3rd 2009 on France Culture with Jean Bigot and Orso Miret: click here