‘All My Children’ Is Bringing In The Best For Sweeps

All My Children is stirring things up again. Starting October 13th and continuing on for the next seven episodes, Pine Valley will look like Tornado Valley. Several tornadoes will strike in Pine Valley and the devastation and destruction will change the canvas forever.

ABC is pulling out all the stops with this storyline. They have hired Stargate Digital, the special effects group that works with such primetime shows like Heroes and 24. The tornadoes will look very real as the residents will be able to see the tornadoes in the distance and bearing down towards Pine Valley. With a real tornado, the funnel cloud can hit the ground, go up in the air again and hit the ground again. Executive Producer Julie Hanan Carruthers is promising the same thing. These tornado effects will be very lifelike and realistic. Effects will be superimposed against actual footage of real buildings. In 1994 when All My Children staged a single tornado, that was created with large fans and lots of rubble. Not this time as ABC went all out.

With ceilings caving in and roofs being blown off, how were the actors able to make this work? The actors actually played their scenes against a blue screen. Stargate Digital then inserted three dimensional backgrounds behind the actors. Carruthers is promising that we will see what is happening to the characters inside and then they will cut to the outside footage so that we can see what is happening outside. She is letting us know that it will not only be a huge undertaking, but one of the most exciting as well.

SPOILER ALERT.

If you don’t want to know what will happen during the tornado, stop reading here. We do know that there will be a very significant death which will bring back some important Pine Valley residents. One of the rumors circulating is that with Vincent Irizarry (Dr. David Haywood) returning on October 23rd, that his daughter Babe Carey will meet her demise. Greenlee (Rebecca Budig) and Ryan (Cameron Mathison) are trapped together for at least part of the tornado and are two characters who will survive. Carruthers leaves us with one more hint, that whoever passes away will continue to play a significant role after their passing and that it will stretch out for months and years to come.