︎︎︎episode 64

The Holiday Trend-tacular Part 1: The Hallmark Holiday Movie Recipe 

Hallmark Style Xmas Movies and their Christmas cookie cutter recipe.

1. The first thing is first - Christmas must be in every scene and every frame and there must be snow. That is a non-negotiable.
2. The casting is tailored to its demographic to feel comforting and familiar. Did you ever notice that the leading actors are people that you remember from your childhood? Well, they are strategically cast to invoke some nostalgia which we know from our past podcasts - attach an emotional value to the program.
3. The plot (which is notoriously heteronormative, white and vaguely Christian) tends to be a repeat of a storyline that has worked well before - usually involving a return of one of the protagonists to a small town and embarks on a whirlwind romance against all odds, or a prince meets a normal girl and enters into some sort of Royal debacle. Hallmark execs examine these popular movies closely at each element and replicate them year after year - kinda like what we do as buyers and merchants. Oh, that strawberry dress with a holly pattern was a hit last  year? What can the replacement be this year - with the same twee and holiday twist? 
4. The programs are designed to reduce any type of stress - Conflict is limited or nonexistent at all and you know that at the end of the movie - the protagonists will end up together as a happily ever after. One of Neil’s friends writes Hallmark Christmas movies and notes that the story is expected to meander - until it resolves in a kiss.
5. The Script: There is a great article on bustle that I will link that uncovered some of the if not unspoken - quietly spoken rules of the rodeo. They interviewed Karen Schaler - author and screenwriter to some famous Hallmark and Netflix Christmas classics - such as A Christmas Price report some of the following rules: “‘No snow, no go. Clink clink, don’t drink. If I’m not crying, I’m not buying.’. The scripts are combed through by execs to make sure they are solidly positioned into their G ratings to make sure they align with the purist values including no heavy drinking or acting drunk, no drugs, no full-frontal nudity or explicit sex, no swearing, no fighting, and, as mentioned before, no actual conflict between characters. Additionally, you won’t see a lot of divorces - but they love to pull on the heartstrings with a widow story.  Schaller says. “It has to feel good, it has to be uplifting, it has to take you to a magical place, it has to make you feel safe.”
6. The Cadence and Structure: The cadence itself has an exact formula as well that writers revealed to bustle but is obvious if you watch and something that you will see other providers like Netflix also follow: “Around the 18-minute mark (or really, around the first commercial break), there is an almost-kiss. By the halfway point, there’s a Christmas-related debacle. By the end, the couple ends up under the mistletoe or near a Christmas tree, and they share one tender kiss before living happily ever after.” - on top of that and to be more precise each movie follows a rigid nine-act structure - starting with two characters who don’t originally like each other and then over the nine acts just meander through until they get that kiss in the snow.
7. The name must be some sorta pun or clever twist: An anonymous source in this bustle article “My first internship in LA was working for a production company that produced Hallmark movies. Many Hallmark films were birthed by producers sitting in a conference room, spitballing catchy movie titles, and then working backward to shape a plotline around the title. If they came up with a title they liked — say Christmas on the Rocks, for example — they’d send me to surf the web for a family who rock climbs every Christmas, or a rockstar who falls in love with a caroler. Anything. It was like writing a punchline before a joke — certainly not organic, but it got them where they needed to go.”

Christory