Italian Neorealism, a genre that has so often served as an epithet to describe save mewas born out of sheer necessity. With the sets of the Cinecitta of Rome destroyed by the Nazis, the directors filmed in the streets with often non-professional actors. That spark of genius died when the Christian power, which called itself white and familiar and very close to the bourgeoisie, imposed itself. In other words, neorealism died when its creators abandoned the habits of public transport and started travelling by car. The programme of La Fábrica de la Tele has gone down in history because fifteen years ago it reinvented the Telecinco afternoons and pushed the limits of the mission (and the budget) it had. He took the cameras into the corridors and even into the bathrooms of the chain. A year after his much-discussed exile from Mediaset, those responsible, reincarnated as Fabricantes Studio, have found a new formula that will remain on the screens for the time being. After a few weeks of testing, Even if we were will return to Tien in September, the DTT network that almost immediately opted for the projectand platforms such as YouTube and Twitch via the Quickie channel (186,000 subscribers in less than two months of existence), the new production company confirmed to this newspaper.
The paradox of Even if we were the thing is goes beyond a much smaller place. María Patiño continues to appear on the screen, Belen EstebanVíctor Sandoval, Kiko Matamoros, Lidia Lozano, Kiko Hernández, Chelo García Cortés… in addition to the signing of Marta Riesco and Javier de Hoyos. Apparently, they continue to talk about the usual topics. But this time they're broadcasting from an apartment in Las Tablas, on the outskirts of Madridwith a handful of automated cameras. So they use their mobile phones to connect from the outside and make that neighborhood (and so many others) their own setting, making their neighbors secondary characters in a story that changes in form but not in content: the social chronicle seen from a sour perspective, grotesque for some, but always with fangs and an identity of its own. Now, as soon as they pass by the neighborhood pharmacy or the terrace of the corner bar, they visit a luxury store in the center of Madrid or chase their former classmate (and ex-boyfriend) Terelu Campos by car. “This time we want to be on the street all the time. The set is a bubble where you analyze what’s happening outside, but it’s on the street where life is; where you find things. And that’s why Marta Riesco, who was used to other types of live connections, was a revelation. “We are interested in going out and finding testimonies that we did not expect to find on paper at the beginning of the afternoon,” explains the director, David Valldeperas, at the end of one of his broadcasts.
“The first thing we had to deal with was frustration and learning to move on a different scale,” explains Óscar Cornejo, one of the producers.
The program is expected to end on July 24, Óscar Cornejo and Adrián Madrid, creators of Fabricantes Studio and this format, told this newspaper. It is a time of year when traditional audience data suffers significantly. When the summer returns (in principle, the return is scheduled for September 2), Even if we were You are getting closer to your desired economic profitability. It will no longer be a space financed by the couple of producers, but will feed on the distribution of advertising revenue generated by the broadcast on Ten, of which they were not part until now. On this channel, an average of 200,000 viewers come together daily, with particularly good figures among the young audience.
Ten has gone from making 1.1% of share up to 1.4% since the broadcast of the Fabricantes Studio program, a very significant increase for a DTT channel. This economic injection from advertising will be added to what they have obtained from day one on YouTube, where they collect around 200,000 views for each program, placing themselves among the live shows and the most consumed videos on the platform in Spain every day. The format will fight in the fall to no longer be the sequel to save me and become a program with its own entity that offers sufficient benefits to guarantee its continuity. This is what Cornejo and Madrid say, who claim to be working on various proposals for traditional platforms and chains, some of which are related to the Even if we were.
“I feel like Steve Jobs, who starts building his computers in a garage,” confesses Valldeperas. And doesn’t it feel strange to go back to the garage after inventing the iPhone? “Precisely for this reason, the first thing we had to manage was frustration and learn to move on a different scale,” answers Óscar Cornejo. Valldeperas agrees: “It’s true that our process is the opposite, but we have a great time. These collaborators are the soul of the program. Their stories, their discussions, their illusions and disappointments… They function the same on a set, in an apartment or in a park,” he defends.
María Patiño also says that she is enjoying this new start and feels more confident than a year ago, when she was a presenter at Telecinco de Socialiteone of the few Cornejo and Adrián programs that remained on the air on Mediaset before the communications group decided unilaterally end their relationship completely with the producers and veto many of the faces of their content from their content. save me. “Of Even if we were we have more ingenuity. Now it is the viewers who enter the living room of our house, because this set is exactly that: a living room,” says the journalist, who is becoming increasingly popular in the digital universe after appearing on Twitch and YouTube with this project and collaborating with Ibai Llanos. on The Evening of the Year IV. “I am surprised by the respect with which the people who commentate live on the program treat us, even if they are critical of us. That interaction is a boost of energy that we did not have before,” celebrates Patiño. “Now there are people who watch the program through these platforms on the subway or on the bus,” says Valldeperas.
Learn to make television again
Another paradox of this audiovisual experiment, which during his time at Telecinco went from a hundred employees to just thirty, is the small control room where Valldeperas and a group of seven people work together. In that hyper-technical zone all those things are created that then happen outside. Two of the monitors show live content from its two natural competitors, the evening newspapers of Antena 3 and Telecinco. On the skirt of MiddayAR A sign is displayed that reads: “He poisons his wife and changes sex.”
It was largely considered for over ten years save me like the king of trash tv, but in the live shows Even if we were The audience especially enjoys something that they cannot find in current magazines: the humorous shots that emerge from the surreal timeline of the program and the improvisation of the employees when they look at the camera or go out on the street. In search of its own format, away from its past at Mediaset, Even if we were has added a large dose of surrealism to its neorealistic character. For example, the viral and much-commented intervention of Víctor Sandoval – disguised as an insect as a tribute to Franz Kafka, author of Metamorphosis– at the press conference that Nacho Cano offered in early July after his arrest. “We have always received a lot of criticism. And I don’t know exactly what we are doing now, but we feel almost unanimous affection, on the networks and in the streets. People usually side with the weakest. He has seen that the powerful wanted to crush the small and that the small has decided to continue with what he has,” Patiño analyzes.
YouTube and Twitch offer a TV director’s dream (or nightmare): immediate viewership results. “More than looking at numbers, I prefer to be guided by the comments they write us. And for the people who direct me, if you pay attention, we’re doing well. If they get distracted, eat something or look at their cell phone, we change the subject, because the same thing is probably happening at home,” Valldeperas confesses.
“We had a lot of figures that this wouldn't work and that it would end now, in the summer. It would also have been a very satisfying experience, because we learned how to make television again. Fortunately, we will return in September under slightly better conditions and if we achieve self-financing, the horizon of the program will change completely. It won't be a blockbuster, but we have understood that the budget is not the most important thing when it comes to telling compelling stories,” Cornejo admits.
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