Days of Our Lives (DOOL) spoilers tease that the show’s set to resume production starting September 1, but DOOL Head Writer Ron Carlivati is already back to work! On Mary Beth Evans’ (Kayla Brady) PLANK blog, she recently had a fun chat with Stephen Nichols (Steve Johnson) via Zoom. After Nichols and Evans watched some old “Stayla” clips together, they welcomed Carlivati as a special guest.
Carlivati talked about enjoying his time off, which just came to an end. September will be here before you know it, so Carlivati has to get the scripts ready for the new safety protocols. He opened up about the process he’s tackling with Ryan Quan, who’s a member of DOOL’s writing staff.
“I don’t know if I’m supposed to say, but I’m like back to work as of yesterday,” Carlivati said in the video posted on July 7. “Because we had written…I don’t know how many scripts it is, but say 40….we have a lot written.” Carlivati explained that he’s now going through episode by episode with Quan to do things like cut the number of people in a scene or skip hugs.
However, Carlivati suggested there’ll be other strategies for adjustments on the production end of things. “I’m sure that production will have a lot of ways to be like, ‘Oh, you two look like you’re about to hug’ and we just cut away,’ or you say, ‘Hey, Kayla. Give me a kiss.’ And then we cut away.”
Evans chimed in that you can do a lot with soapy looks, which Carlivati agreed with. Of course, things are different when it comes to party scenes that would normally require large groups. Carlivati talked about the challenge of figuring out the new normal and seeing what works under the new safety protocols.
“If it’s a big set like the Horton town square and we separate people by six feet, is that OK? We’re just kind of learning what the regulations are.” Carlivati talked about how production could come in handy once again by making people seem closer than they actually are. He’s sure they’ll have some tricks to tackle situations like that.
Carlivati went on to talk about COVID-19 and whether it’ll be included on Days of Our Lives. DOOL’s head writer admitted that’s kind of tricky, but he doesn’t think so.
Carlivati implied that it might be necessary to mention the pandemic on a show like General Hospital, but it’s not as crucial on Days. He also noted that people are probably sick of hearing about it anyway.
As far as script changes go, Carlivati admitted they aren’t doing massive overhauls. It’s just about shifting small things here and there – although there are exceptions.
“Basically, we’re not doing anything that crazy,” Carlivati said. “The changes aren’t huge unless they tell me like, ‘Oh, you can’t have this party scene.’ Then, we really have to think, ‘What are we going to do?”
Carlivati brought up the traditional Horton tree-trimming since the Christmas episodes have already been written. “But can you do a thing where you show one person hanging the ornament and then the next and the next and do it with dissolves? And maybe they don’t have to all be on the set together at the same time,” Carlivati suggested as an alternative.
It’s great that Days is addressing all these issues now so they’ll be good to go once the cast and crew are back to work! We’ll give you updates as other Days news pops up. Days of Our Lives spoilers say some intriguing storylines are coming up this fall, so stay tuned. CDL’s the place to be for terrific Days of Our Lives spoilers, updates and news.
