"We have to be better and more efficient. That's the way it is, we work as smart as we can." That's the short answer, provided by former "Young and the Restless" supervising producer and director Noel Maxam in a 2008 interview posted on the Directors Guild of America website.

Weekly shows, as you point out, devote more time to fewer episodes, which means multiple takes, and lots of time spent on setting, lighting and all the rest of the setup.

Soaps don't have that luxury. The biggest way they save money is by minimizing setup time. As you know, each episode features numerous different storylines taking place in various places. However, they generally shoot one whole storyline at a time, so they only have to get each room ready once.

And when they do set it up, even that's done differently than a weekly show. Rather than taking the time to carefully light each actor's face for every shot, soaps light the whole room instead, so that the light is right no matter where the actor is standing. This is one of the reasons soaps don't look as sharp or natural as weekly shows.

These shortcuts allow for much more time to shoot per day, which is easier on the crew but tough on the actors. It means they have many more lines to memorize and tears to produce each day than weekly-show stars.

And at the end of it all, they get less time off. You point out that weekly-show stars work long days, too, but their shows are shot over the course of a few months, leaving the rest of the year to moonlight on films, or even other shows. Soap stars rarely get such opportunities.

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