Already have an account?
Get back to the

Bumper Crop on OLTL

Ever wonder what that five-second interlude is at the midpoint between the first and second half hours of ONE LIFE TO LIVE? Well, there’s a name for it. It’s called the bumper.For the past few months, OLTL has turned those five seconds into a mini-profile of the show’s major characters. Sure, you’ll miss them if you blink, so our advice is to stay focused for a bit of entertainment.


“Doing the bumpers — not all of them, but most often — is extremely iconic, like Natalie and the pool table, because that represents where she met John. It represents the kind of girl she is,” explains OLTL executive producer Frank Valentini. In another bumper, Cristian is seen painting. “Sort of the abstract way that he does it,” adds Valentini.



“We have a couple of other bumpers that are coming up. We did one for Markko, which is him watching a movie with popcorn,” says Valentini.



As ABC is on a budget, like the rest of the world, bumpers “have to be done rather quickly and as inexpensively as possible. We’re going to do one for everybody,” promises Valentini. “We just have to fit making them within the schedule. Jason [Tam, Markko] happened to be late that day, and we had a little extra time, so we just knocked it out.
“We actually had a movie camera for something else that we were trying to do,” Valentini continues, “so it worked out. It’s just about being resourceful. The one with Melissa [Archer, Natalie] took a long time, because it was the first time we were doing it. We were trying out a lot of different stuff, but once we got into the groove, we knocked them off pretty fast.”



Other bumpers that have aired are Bo in his dress uniform, Ford without a shirt (What else, right?), James fixing a car and John aiming his gun. John’s bumper was recently expanded to a promo in a variety of lengths, up to 30 seconds. The extended promos featuring John were a collaboration with Adam J. Rockmore, senior vice president of marketing, ABC Daytime and SOAPnet, and animator Michael Roberts — who is also Bree Williamson‘s (Jessica) husband.



So instead of taking a snack break at halftime, keep your eyes glued to the set for these five-second mini-bios. You won’t be disappointed.

Filed Under:
Comments