Posted yesterday at 8:00 a.m.
Sylvie Lussier and Pierre Poirier created the popular soap operas 4 and a half… and The Black Dog Inn, on the air for 7 and 15 years. Both veterinarians, they first became known with the shows Dumb, not dumb and Zoolympics. To highlight their 1000and screenplay, written and shot for television, the co-writers made an appearance in the most recent episode of their series 5and rank.
Q. You both come from veterinary medicine, when did the passion for television writing arise?
Sylvie Lussier: We have always loved writing together. When I chose my graduate program, I hesitated between journalism and veterinary medicine.
Pierre Poirier: When I was working at the Zoo in Granby, I launched the Zoonarl to publish news on the guardians, information on animals… However, TV writing is with Stupid Not Stupid.
SL: Stupid Not Stupid is a concept bought from the BBC, but with budgets 10 times thinner. The cheapest thing in TV is brain juice. We compensated for the lack of means with our ideas of authors.
Q. After this period of popular science, did fiction writing arise from a desire to analyze the human beast?
SL: Life is a huge laboratory to analyze humans. I am fascinated by our decision-making process. We have esteem, sympathy for people, then we see them make absurd choices! Writing characters is our way of trying to understand the human beast, which is less restful than animals…
PP: For example, how to explain that a successful actress becomes a candidate for the Conservative Party of Quebec? [Rires] Of course there is a pleasure in exploring outrageous, aberrant characters, like Francine [Muriel Dutil] or Jean-Michel [Frédéric Millaire-Zouvi] in 5and rank.
SL: Writing a soap opera is impressionism. A shape that allows you to add layers of color to the characters, from one episode to another. With time, you know them better than the first impression. The characters become like friends.
Q. Over the past 30 years, the pace has changed in writing. We broadcast web series of 10, 15 minutes. We have less time to add layers of paint on a character…
PP: I like that, being enveloped by a story over a long period of time. Not just getting rocked from one side to the other. And if you look at the ratings, I don’t think I’m the only one. On the other hand, it is a lot of work for the authors.
SL: We have adopted the one-hour format in fiction, since the third season of 4 and a half… [que Radio-Canada avait d’abord refusé]. It’s difficult in 20, 30 minutes to get out of the TV sketch, to bring the characters and the plots further.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Sylvie Lussier and Pierre Poirier in their house in Petite-Rivière-St-François
Q. In your opinion, the family is an inexhaustible subject…
SL: That’s the only thing in my opinion. The family can be functional or not, loving or torn. Made of blood, friendship or professional ties. If you look closely, almost all the shows are about extended family.
PP: There is also a loyalty, an investment of the public towards the soap opera. It’s an affectionate relationship with the shows, because we go into the living rooms every Tuesday evening. The characters therefore have an incredible impact on the audience.
SL: And television is part of the family. You can watch TV in a “gang”, with your children on the couch. There are parents who write to us that the only time their teenagers are glued to them is during 5and rank. I cry reading this.
Q. You have been with us on the small screen for 32 years. You say you want to slow down in the next year or two. Are you retiring in Charlevoix?
SL: I don’t like the word “retirement”. I’m going to write something else, novels, stories, youth theatre. We found it hard, the development of 5and rank. There are many voices, readers above our heads watching us write. There are more and more people on TV who know better than the creators what to do with their projects. We are asked what it will look like… What film, what series that exists elsewhere? Whereas ideally an author is trying to do something original.
PP: The industry is also very cautious. We are afraid of being afraid. There is no room for error. But I understand that it is very expensive to launch a TV series. And it’s absurd that we make fiction in Quebec with half the money than in English Canada! However, Quebec television has more impact on its community than in English Canada.
Q. You also say that there is very good television in Quebec. Is it thanks to its creators?
PP: Yes, we make good TV in Quebec. But I also think that there is less creative freedom than 30 years ago. Partly because of the shift in the mode of production from public to private. The Black Dog Inn was the last program produced internally by Radio-Canada. Current production is focused on the customer, the broadcaster. We have an obligation to please customers.
SL: But fiction is never going to die, no matter the form or the mode of production. More than 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 years ago, we were already telling stories on the walls of caves, with figurines, to explain our lives. The oldest job in the world is not a prostitute, it’s a screenwriter! »
Responses to our questions have been abbreviated for brevity.