Hi, I have just started watching SCK and I am already obsessed with it! I hope you don't mind me asking you a few questions. The episodes are 2 hours 20 mins approx compared to US and UK shows, how do they manage to do that every week, it must be insane hours for them. Is this normal running time for Turkish dramas? Any idea when the season will close, I saw it mentioned that Saturdays episode will be the last for a month, how many episodes are there in a season?
Sorry another query. The American shows normally run for approx 8 months (with small breaks in between) then are on hiatus for 4 months, is it the same with Turkish TV industry What was the relevance of Efe collapsing the roof on his friends house, was it to bring out the Eda story of her parents into the public, is this something that will be playing out later, when Grandma arrives. The arrival of the new woman is so cliche, Blindspot bombed when they did that, I guess it's the format!
Hello there. I also enjoy Blindspot! But I still haven’t watched the final season, I need to get on that, maybe over the holidays.
Happy to answer your questions as best I can. This is my first Turkish dizi, so I’ve been learning along the way, all to say I’m by no means an expert.
The episodes are 2 hours 20 mins approx compared to US and UK shows, how do they manage to do that every week,
They shoot at a breakneck pace. The cast and crew post a ton on social and if you follow any of that on instagram and twitter you’ll see that they’re constantly shooting until 2 or 3 in the morning. Kerem and Hande recently answered an ask in an IGLive about how long it takes to film one episode. They said 4-6 days. Kerem was a bit tetchy about it towards TPTB, so they obviously feel the strain on how much they’re working and producing. In the US, a standard network hour-long drama takes 8+1 days to shoot (meaning 8 full days and 1 of second unit shooting usually done while they’re shooting another episode) and that’s for about 44 minutes of content.
So how do they do it? Just from watching the show I’ve observed a few things. First, while the episodes are almost 3 times as long, the scenes are also much longer than you’d find in a US produced show. So for instance a scene in a US show might take 2 minutes of screentime, in SCK that same scene might be 6-8 minutes. But it doesn’t take 3-4x longer to shoot to get those 6-8 minutes because it’s all one set up and all one scene.
Additionally, from what I can tell, everything is shot on location, no sound stages, and they have a finite number of locations per episode. So they’ll go in and shoot all the scenes at ArtLife for that ep in one set up, all at Serkan’s house in one set up, all at Eda’s house in one set up, all at Aydan’s house in one set up, and then all at the speciality location(s) for that episode in one set up. So they’re not doing huge set ups to get one shot or one scene like you see on uber high-production value US shows. Also everything is mostly dialogue based, very little action, no effects, so it’s pretty straight forward. No time consuming stunts.
Also I don’t think the actors get near as many takes as they do on US-based shows. I think they get the scene and move on, no re-dos to improve one emotional reaction and the like. Thankfully the actors are great. Usually the production value is pretty decent despite this, there have been a few locations where I’ve noticed bad lighting or cramped camera angles, where they are obviously just making due, and that would not fly on a US network show.
it must be insane hours for them. Is this normal running time for Turkish dramas?
Yes, that seems to be the standard timing format for shows in Turkey. What’s crazy to me is that they are shooting episodes only like a week out from the air date. That is next level pressure.
Any idea when the season will close, I saw it mentioned that Saturdays episode will be the last for a month, how many episodes are there in a season?
I’d seen speculation about that, but then I heard they were only breaking for a week. I haven’t seen anything official. The latest news I’ve seen is that they are trying to shoot episode 24 before the break. In Turkey, the big holiday is New Years, so I think episode 24 may air on December 26, then no episode on Jan 2nd, then back on Jan 9th. As a note, I’d also heard there would be no ep on Dec 26th and then ep 24 airing on Jan 2nd, so we’ll see how it turns out. In this scenario the cast/crew will only get like 4 days off.That sucks for them, I was hoping they were actually going to get at least two weeks off before coming back. However, we’ll see, it all seems oddly speculative.
Sorry another query. The American shows normally run for approx 8 months (with small breaks in between) then are on hiatus for 4 months, is it the same with Turkish TV industry
It seems to vary. I talked a little bit about it in this post.
What was the relevance of Efe collapsing the roof on his friends house, was it to bring out the Eda story of her parents into the public, is this something that will be playing out later, when Grandma arrives.
Efe did not mean to cause that level of destruction. He was so panicked after it happened, because that wasn’t his intention. As for his motives, remember earlier that episode he had told Serkan he wanted to review Serkan’s drawings of the house and Serkan was like, “HARD PASS.” Efe was pissed, so I think he was trying to teach Serkan a lesson, that he’s not infallible and that if he had consulted with his partner and let his partner see the drawings it probably wouldn’t have happened (you know second set of eyes.) I think Efe hoped it would make Serkan lose confidence and as a by product Efe would gain trust and be let deeper into ArtLife and the holding to further Grandma’s plan. However, it blew up in Efe’s face because he ironically didn’t know what he was doing, made a change too extreme and the roof fully collapsed, instead of just causing a smaller issue. Eda’s unwavering belief in her man led her to uncovering that it wasn’t Serkan’s fault and Efe wound up losing his reputation all over Europe. Oops.
The arrival of the new woman is so cliche, Blindspot bombed when they did that, I guess it's the format!
Some might describe most things about this show as cliche, it’s unapologetically about the tropes. I love that about it, it’s like a giant AU fanfic come to life. This woman is another device to push Serkan and Eda towards each other and to give us some fiery Eda jealousy. Serkan only has eyes for Eda, there is no “triangle” or third-party love interest. Just a lady with some psychological issues zeroing in on our hero, she will be dealt with soon enough.
I’m glad you’re enjoying the show!