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Five years ago, he left the producer chair among Friends. Péter Kolosy, deputy executive director of RTL Hungary, also admitted that the problems started then and then the audience decreased. Because you left?
I was just tired. I did it for 17 years, it was enough, I wanted to deal with something else. After him came the land of the Altar boys and the Valiant.
Why do you think the number of viewers decreased and why was the series so successful a long time later?
Production peaked in the early 2000s, with about 40 percent viewers in the 18-49 age group around the fourth season, bringing it to more than two million viewers. This could be because the series basically wanted to affect emotions, the focus was on human relationships,
At the same time, we often deal with social problems, intertwining the issue of gypsies, the issue of homosexuals, the issue of dog filth, always that which concerned society.
One of the characters had prostate cancer, as it is a fairly common disease in society, so when the viewer saw that the character was also struggling with him, he did not feel so alone, believing that this is also a problem for your favorite character.
And don’t you need that today?
Television and media consumption habits have completely changed. Today there are series filmed on the site, so there is a series recorded in an unbuilt studio, this formula is already a bit dusty, time has passed. At the same time, 22 years ago, when we started, viewers were in great need of a Hungarian-themed series made in Hungary, but since there are so many today, this is not a curiosity.
Can you tell it was a neighbor from the 2000s among friends?
In social terms, it was the same as the Neighbors, but the Neighbors disappeared precisely because of the Friends, because by then time had passed. The Szabó family also ended shortly after our departure after 40 years, so in fact
we wanted the Szabó family of the time to be on television.
By the way, I also read a review that we actually did nothing but the German RTL series Gute Zeiten – Schlechte Zeiten (Good Times, Bad Times), which is a similar shooting production with similar studio conditions, but we didn’t touch them. with history. .
Germans don’t take their friends off the show?
No, because on the one hand there is more money, and on the other hand, they have also made very serious changes: they have updated the series. Although the domestic channel saw that there were problems with Friends, it could have given more time to improve, but I also understand their position, because such a series is very expensive from the beginning, many actors, a statistic, a large studio built, and why do not do anything else with that money that is more successful. I don’t think there’s a problem with the basic concept yet, but it would have required a bit of crinkle stitching, an even more complete change, to keep it working. But it may be the size that you would no longer have between Friends.
What to expect instead? What will the future of Friends be?
I don’t think there are more such long series, the soap operas of some seasons come, now they are definitely funny stories.
How long do you plan to start?
I myself like to be involved in projects where I can plan for the long term. Of course, we didn’t know it would take that long, but if we take into account that certain American series like General Hospital or All My Children were 40-50, then it is not that long. In any case, nowadays a series can be planned for a maximum of 3-4 seasons, these endless stories no longer believe that they work.
It brought national popularity among Friends to actors who did not come from the theatrical world. How were the participants selected, what was the concept?
At first we did not have an easy task, because no one knew what was among the Friends yet, but within a few years it became such a strong brand that everyone in Hungary found out about it.
In the early years, stage actors looked down on our characters, but meanwhile, they envied them for their popularity.
Then when they also hit the show and their popularity soared, they took a different approach to the subject. Meanwhile, this has also changed, we have years of production of quality series behind us, today it is not appropriate for an actor to appear in a series, the vast majority of theatrical actors are included in them.
With this distinction that I am now a stage actor and I am in television production, otherwise I have not found myself anywhere else in the world.
In Western Europe or America, there is not much difference between acting and acting, here and there you have to play well, you have to solve a certain task. It will depend on the actor what the role will be. By the way, at the beginning we also had us invite non-acting celebrities, like Kokó, who played himself, or Erika Zoltán, who was a certain character, and Dani Gyurta, the Olympic champion swimmer, to perform with us. It took us to see the series, as the followers of Koko or Zoltán Erika say, who may not have seen it.
The series worked with hundreds of participants. If someone didn’t make it, did they get another chance or were they immediately told to say hello?
There was a response time everywhere. At the same time
We had a hard time dealing with turning previously unknown people into stars among Friends,
Because of the popularity of the series, he had already acted as a celebrity on the street or outside of life, but inside the studio we needed colleagues to solve the task, put what was prescribed on the table. But it was also the case that we wanted to win someone, but we could not pay more in vain, because it is almost impossible to sign an actor 3 or 4 years in advance in today’s world. Gas prices, precisely because there are more and more series and huge demand for actors, have risen a lot, so if you can earn a larger amount in more flexible circumstances in a few months, then why would anyone commit to 3-4 years? But that’s what a character has to think about. Many people think that getting into a series is the hardest part, even if it isn’t. I say that staying home is much more difficult.
Contemporary Hungarian writers also participated in the writing of several episodes, such as István Kemény, the greatest contemporary poet in Hungary.
We had a very good playwright who selected the authors. In a series like this, get it, someone writes a story first and then the screenwriter writes the script. I have always been present in the story meetings because I consider it essential for the success of the series that a character goes from where to where. After I left the series, the new ones brought in new characters that the viewers didn’t like. This may also have caused the relapse.
How did they know who viewers liked and disliked?
On the one hand there was a correspondence class, on the other hand we organized roadshows, I loved them very much because the torrent of love that one came to almost overwhelm the table in their joy was only experienced there. Respectively, we conduct focus group studies every two years and incorporate the results into our work.
Did you even get involved in the story, if at all?
If he didn’t understand where the story was going or what the character’s motivation was, we modified it, or if the scene had been too expensive, violent, perhaps brutal, we replaced it because we didn’t want to bring one to the screen.
Your dog was also in the series.
Berci was a dog for years, until his death. We wanted a dog in the series because at that time the subject of dogs was in Budapest. But Berci didn’t die on screen, he suddenly stopped “acting.” A beautiful obituary was born of him in one of the magazines.
Cover image: Tamás Kalamár (2017) – Index / János Bődey
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