General Hospital's Insane Filming Conditions Are Tougher Than Any Acting Bootcamp Imaginable

It doesn't take long to figure out the crazy speed at which General Hospital and all the other daytime soaps have to work to fit their schedules. Even though they usually film in advance, there is still a lot of pressure to get things done fast enough to keep the production on track.

Not only do the cast and crew have to work at a fast pace to keep up with the schedule, but they also have to keep the budget as tight as possible.

Although General Hospital had its own moment of glory in the 80s, it's not as popular anymore, and to stay afloat on ABC, the production team has to be very smart with their spending.

The fewer hours the team has to spend on set and the fewer props they use, the better chance the soap has of surviving another year and staying on TV instead of being downgraded to an online-only format.

But that doesn't change the fact that the General Hospital cast prefers an old-school way of shooting. No prompters and no easy ways out: just the actor's memory and a few takes for the editors.

“The actors know their characters so well, they know when something doesn't sound right. There are always scripts on set. Everyone has a script in hand until action is called, and they rehearse up until they call action,” one of the extras shared in an interview with LiveAbout.

If you think that only big names like Maurice Benard, who plays Sonny Corinthos, have to work hard on set to get everything done in time, you would be wrong. The background actors, the extras, are held to exactly the same standards.

The good thing is that they are just as welcome as everyone else on the set. Despite many rumors surrounding the entertainment industry as a whole and TV shows in general, the General Hospital team seems to be just as nice to newcomers as they are to the show's veterans.

Source: LiveAbout