The Transition from Studio to Screen in La Reina Del Sur

When La Reina Del Sur began to go into production, it was no lie to say that the Telemundo company was taking a big risk. While contemporary feminist themes displayed in the show were already beginning to prove their popularity, the action-based plot and numerous locations demanded of the story made it an enormous investment. Over 300 locations for shooting outside of the studio would create major costs with variants for weather, travel, crowd control, and many more factors. For example, the director of the show wanted to take Teresa to the Kremlin and the Red Square in Russia and ended up having to completely rebuild a fake version of a section of the Red Square in Romania and use computer-generated imaging to superimpose the rest. Over 187 actors had to be negotiated with over their salaries and presence on screen. Scenes such as Teresa’s daring escape from the airport as two narcotraficante thugs chase her could have taken up to several weeks from coordinating stunts to finding a location to clear for a few seconds of her jumping in the car, not to mention building the set when possible. This scene is also nowhere near how extreme the action can get in La Reina Del Sur; from car chases to helicopters chasing after Teresa as she passes through Gibraltar strait, scores of different teams from technicians to visual effects artists are needed to make this telenovela what it is. One has to think about how great the tension may have been between head writers Juan Marcos Blanco and Valentina Parraga and executive producer Patricio Willis in negotiating how these all of Teresa's fantastic situations could be actualized. 
Telemundo, however, is a company dedicated to its goal of providing the utmost entertainment to its viewers. To quote the acting president, Don Browne,  at the time the show debuted in 2011 in his article from Hispanic Executive: “[Our Telenovelas] have a point of view, they are compelling, they are contemporary--and we respect the intelligence of the audience”. This respect paid off in a big way by not only making this show one of the top viewed series in all of the company’s history but by creating fan engagement so vivid that the show got a bigger and better season 2.

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Comments

  1. scozineOctober 7, 2019 at 7:08 PM

    I appreciate all the production strategies and efforts that went into this series. I think the production value increased from season 1 to season 2 perhaps because of the abundance of success it received from season 1. Without a doubt, La Reina del Sur encapsulates and emulates the integrity of the show through how all the scenes are portrayed and that is due largely in part because of the different set productions and the creativity that occurred behind the scenes.

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