You never know how much of an effect – if any – you’re having on students who are sometimes quiet in class, or looking at their computer screens when you think they ought to be looking at you… but this article was a wonderful reminder that they are listening, sometimes even amidst their multi-tasking lives. And what this MFA student took away didn’t come from any long lectures, really, but rather from the opening of all my classes where I bring in articles from recent newspaper stories about the film and television business and discuss what they mean to them and their futures. In this case, it had to do with which gendered writers are usually chosen for which genre films…a topic of deep interest to me – and through this article she published, I learned it was a topic of deep interest to Chelsea as well.
“Titan Voice: My screenwriting realization steals the scene” by Chelsea Barns
[…]
I can only lend my stream of consciousness to the screenwriting instructors I have had the pleasure to learn from in the MFA program. Specifically, when it comes to this filmmaker Michael Bay-type realization, I had to give the credit to lecturer Rosanne Welch. This woman has taught me more about what it is to be a female writer in Hollywood than I ever thought I needed to know. I would never have made this connection with the tone and the story of this film had it not been for her classes.
She has taught me that as a woman I need to speak up. I have to raise my voice, and in the way that I know how; writing. Going into this program I did not imagine I would grow as much as I have. Thank you to all my classmates and our faculty that push me every day to be better. I will miss learning from all of you when this wild ride of a program is over.
[…]
Read the entire column: Titan Voice: My screenwriting realization steals the scene“