Production and La Reina del Sur

As is common with the majority of the class I assume, the production portion of telenovelas has been my favorite aspect to study. While telenovelas are extremely captivating to watch and get lost in, understanding and visualizing what goes on “behind the scenes” has created a whole other level of interest for me. 

Throughout the production unit, a number of things have stood out to me. The first being that telenovelas can be shot in various locations and in various sets, however, the sets are usually much smaller than they appear on television. This idea stunned me because I have only been on the receiving end of television and never assumed that cameras, angles, and lighting were all used together in order to create the allusion of a small space being much bigger. This hit home for me during the in-class example in Sen Anlat Karadeniz when Tahir and Nafes are laying together in what appears to be an average sized garden, but instead is a plot of land smaller than an average closet. 

I began to study this closely as I watched my telenovela (La Reina del Sur) in order to spot where this “space distortion” might be the case. I discovered a scene that might be a good example. In the beginning of the season, the protagonist (Teresa Mendoza) carries on a life of innocence and comfortability, completely unaware that her lover has been shot and that she is about to be roped into the cartel business. She is observed in the first scene in a large bubble bath centered in a spacious bathroom, simply relaxing. After re-watching this episode, however, I noticed that the majority of the shots were close-up’s of Teresa, never fully picturing the bathroom itself. Because of this, I believe that it is possible that this scene was shot in a way that portrayed Teresa’s bathroom as much bigger than the set really was: a production trick I would not have noticed apart from this class.  

Another thing that stood out to me in this unit was the production locations. I have learned throughout this course that telenovelas can be filmed anywhere, from inside of a studio to completely shot outdoors. I learned that the more destination shoots a telenovela has, the higher production costs rise. In comparing this information with La Reina del Sur’s production, I was shocked to find that Telemundo shot this telenovela not only in Mexico and the United States, but also in Europe (Romania and Spain), North Africa (Morocco), and the South American country of Colombia. With six destinations all great distances apart, I was not surprised to find that the production cost for this telenovela was extremely high. In fact, I learned that La Reina del Sur is Telemundo’s second most expensive telenovela ever produced, with a budget of $10 million.

Lastly, through the unit on production I have learned that the more famous actors/actresses a producer hires, the higher the production costs go. This seemed pretty straight forward to me, but I never took the time to consider how hiring a well-known actor can be both extremely beneficial for your telenovela as well as extremely costly. La Reina del Sur has numerous big name celebrities such as, Kate del Castillo (famous Latain American actress) as well as Rafael Amaya (known for his role in El Señor de los Cielos).