Definition and History of Telenovella.

Definition- Telenovella is a limited-run serial drama that is popular in Latin American, Portuguese, Filipino, Spanish and north American. The word Telenovella combines the words television and novella (a Spanish word for novel). Telenovelas have a distinct genre difference from a soap opera. Telenovellas have a an ending therefore comes to an end generally after one year of the show. The History- The first recorded telenovela was Mexico's The Price of the Sky, in 1959. In the following years, the other Latin American nations started producing their own. Their popularity was soon evident: at the end of the 1960s, the Peruvian series Simplemente Maria moved the public so much that when the fictional Maria got married in a Lima church, 10,000 people showed up to wish her well. Mexico and Brazil have the strongest telenovela traditions, in terms of having a defined style and volume of output. As television grew in audience and sophistication during the 1970s, telenovelas established themselves as the dominant mass art form. The schedules from Argentina to Venezuela are dominated by the genre, usually screening different telenovelas back-to-back throughout the evening.

Famous examples of Telenovella

Fashion House is an American telenovela that aired at 9:00PM Central Monday through Saturday on MyNetworkTV stations. The series premiered on September 5, 2006 and concluded on December 5, 2006. Fashion house and Ugly betty are some of the most successful telenovelas made in America. Fashion house was originated in California and receives one of the highest viewing ratings of telenovelas.

Most telenovelas are made and are most famous in other countries across the world such as Spain, Brazil and Mexico. Some of these are aired in Europe with English speaking subtitles. However have been made all across the world.

Ugly Betty was an American dramedy television series developed by Silvio Horta, which premiered on ABC on September 28, 2006, and ended on April 14, 2010. The series revolves around the character Betty Suarez and is one of the most famous telenovela soaps in America and has also been one of the most popular and successful telenovela.

Cinematography.
In Telenovelas, they tend to use lots of close ups and extreme close ups for dramatic effect and exaggeration of emotion, they also like to use lots of high angle and low angle shots, along with backwards and forwards tracking, you will also find a lot of panning to left and right. In the typical Telenovela soap they use high key lighting the majority of the time and very rarely use low key lighting. For example in ugly betty the opening scene is a close up of betty looking nervous, by having a close up and not a mid shot or long shot it has exaggerated the emotion and made the scene much more dramatic just by one camera shot.

Editing of telenovelas
Telenovelas are slightly unreal and enhanced worlds. Colours, scenarios and costumes are all enhanced.

In telenovela's many straight cuts are used to show lots of locations and characters. The straight cuts show all of the action so that the very dramatic scene can be seen intensely by the viewers.
Many over the shoulder shots, shot reverse shots and are used to enhance the un realistic world of a telenovela. The fast shot reverse shots show the intense conversation between two or more characters in a telenovela. The straight cuts also show fast change of emotion.