Dr. Rosanne Welch – Page 10 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

34 Conclusion from In Conversation with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]

Transcript:

Host: Well that’s about what we’ve got time for but is there anything you would like to add just at the end? I would just like to also like to shout out the “Journal of Screenwriting” again and want everyone to go and check out the special issues on women in screenwriting, which is really important and excellent work and the start of a lot more research coming out and focusing on women screenwriters and so thank you for putting that together. I’m really glad it came out and came out with Intellect. So yeah thanks for that.

Rosanne: Yes well it’s – in two years, in 2023, the SRN conference I’m gonna hold it on the Stephens College campus and it’s going to be the theme will be women in screenwriting. So we’ll get a whole lot more stuff and probably a publication will come out of that. So that would be exciting.

Host: I will I’ll definitely be coming to check that out in person when we can also go back to conferences again but yeah just everyone should check out the Screenwriting Network . Is it screenwriters Network?

Rosanne: The Screenwriting Research Network and it’s free to join if you’re an academic or a practitioner and it’s online. You can see our website and we have of course a Facebook page and all that stuff.

Host: Really oh and I should also say about the “Journal of Screenwriting.” There is free content online so you can download free articles from that journal publication. So I recommend people do that but yeah just thank you so much. It’s been a real honor. You really know your stuff and you wear many different hats you know. A practicing writer, a teacher, and an excellent scholar. So thanks for coming and joining us today. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Rosanne: Well thanks you know. It’s another beautiful thing about conferences. We met because of SCMS without that we would not have met. So I appreciate this time and it’s been – it’s always fun to talk about this stuff because I’m a fan above everything else.

Host: We’re like cool nerds it’s interesting. Cool nerds. That’s what it is.

Well thanks, everyone for tuning in. We’ll be back again next Wednesday I don’t know who my guest would be yet so what’s this space and thank you again Rosanne Welch. It’s been amazing having you on. Have a great rest of your day and thank you again.

Rosanne: Thank you. Bye-bye.

One of the benefits of attending conferences is that you can meet the editors from the companies that have published some of your books face to face. That happened at the recent SCMS conference where I met Intellect editor James Campbell and he invited me to be a guest on his InstagramLive show.

We chatted about my work with the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting, and then my work with co-editor Rose Ferrell on the Journal of Screenwriting’s special issue on Women in Screenwriting (Volume 11, Number 3) that came out recently and which featured articles about an international set of female screenwriters from Syria, Argentina, China and Canada (to name a few).

We even had time to nerd out on our own favorite classic films across the eras which brought up fun memories of Angels with Dirty Faces, Back to the Future, Bonnie and Clyde, and of course, all things Star Wars from the original 3 to The Mandalorian. It’s always so fun to talk to fellow cinephiles.

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With Intellect Books Editor James Campbell (@IntellectBooks)

Speaking with Dr. Rosanne Welch, Author, teacher, and television screenwriter. Today we cover everything from women in screenwriting to our favorite Jimmy Cagney movies and Friends.

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05 Even More On Suso Cecchi d’Amico From Jeanne to Suso to Julie to Spike: How Jeanne Macpherson’s Manual on Screenwriting Influenced Italian Realism which Influenced Black Independent Film in the U.S. [Video]

Transcript:

We know from that we also know her from “Bellissima” which was one of the earliest movies to look at the movie business – certainly in Italy – and see how it eats people up. Chews them up. Spits them out which is so sad. So it was a meta film before anyone even had a word for that and of course, we’ve seen many films about the film business since then. So she had the cynical view of it which I think is interesting and then also “The Miracle of Milan” which was a little interesting. It was neorealistic and a little surreal going on there. Very interesting. She was a very interesting filmmaker. So her work – oh and I should thank Paulo who’s here today. You’ll run into him because he comes to my MFA and on Zoom right now and does a lecture on neo-realism which is so useful to my students and has taught me so much over the years that I didn’t know just from being a kid who liked to watch Italian films with my grandmother who was from Italy.

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At the recent Screenwriting Research Network conference in Vienna, I gave this talk titled “From Jeanne to Suso to Julie to Spike: How Jeanne Macpherson’s Manual on Screenwriting Influenced Italian Realism which Influenced Black Independent Film in the U.S.”

In the talk, I trace the ways a manual about screenwriting by silent film writer Jeanne Macpherson influenced Suso Cecchi d’Amici who began to utilize Macpherson’s ideas and became the queen of Italian neorealism screenwriting in Europe. Then those Italian neo-realist screenwriters in turn inspired the Los Angeles School of Black Independent Film Makers (the L.A. School). In turn, such as Charles Burnett, Billy Woodberry, Haile Gerima, and Julie Dash and their ideas fueled Spike Lee. Finally, when he became the first Black man to head the jury at the Cannes Film Festival (where Suso had once served) his choice of films influenced yet another generation of screenwriters.

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17 Opportunities and Challenges from What Is a Western? Interview Series: When Women Wrote Westerns from the Autry Museum of the American West [Video]

Transcript:

Host: You’ve mentioned being a professor of aspiring screenwriters. You know as they look to their future careers. What opportunities do you see or challenges that they, and maybe particularly your women students, will face but probably also your men students? What looks like it may be changing? What challenges are they facing what you know how are our Technologies changing that may affect this? What do you see looking forward?

Rosanne: So many things. I think what’s a good thing to look forward to is the studios are now recognizing thanks to “Wonder Woman” and “Black Panther” there are audiences for stories that are not from the main quote-unquote norm. So now they’re hungry for those because they want that money and it’s always about money. We always know that. It is a business about money. The art is secondary which is a bummer but people are beginning to look for them but they’re still hesitant. They’re still a little worried. So you’ve got to really be confident and you’ve got to be really well-researched on whatever the story is that you want to tell, also demographically. You really have to think about who is this audience. You want some proof about where they are and all that stuff and a lot of writers are learning to you have to do you know it’s show business. You have to do half business, half show and you know we like to avoid the business but if you want to get someone to do a new kind of story you have to do that.

The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting is building a relationship with the Autry Museum of the American West since both organizations are devoted to bringing out more diverse and untold stories. Last year we were able to take our cohort of graduating MFA candidates to the museum’s theatre for a showing of Michael Wilson’s Salt of the Earth and we had plans to present a film of our choice this year – but of course the pandemic changed all that. Instead, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis asked me if I would sit for an interview about female screenwriters in the western genre and so “When Women Wrote Westerns” came to be a part of their “What Is a Western? Interview Series”.

I had a great time discussing so many wonderful women writers – from Jeanne MacPherson to D.C. Fontana to Edna Ferber to Emily Andras. If you love westerns I suggest you watch Josh’s other interviews covering everything from the work of Native Americans in Western movies to films in the western-horror hybrid. —

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As part of a series exploring the significance of the Western genre and the ways in which the movies shape our understanding of the American West, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis interviews Professor Rosanne Welch about the women screenwriters of Hollywood and their contributions to the Western genre.

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33 Read and Study Script from In Conversation with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]

Transcript:

But that’s also something I tell people to do. Read scripts. Of course, watch TV shows and break them down right? Watch the show and go scene by scene right? What’s the A story the B Story, the C story? If it’s “Gray’s Anatomy” it’s D E F G you could do the whole alphabet right? Watch how many scenes in an act. Every Act breaks on the A story. Get that structure in your head so if you’re going to write that episode or show like it you’re gonna understand that. So you can either get that from reading the scripts and there’s so much free online now. Whenever the Emmys or stuff come out they do free PDFs because they want you to read the scripts. You can learn so much from looking at how other people have done it.

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With Intellect Books Editor James Campbell (@IntellectBooks)

Speaking with Dr. Rosanne Welch, Author, teacher, and television screenwriter. Today we cover everything from women in screenwriting to our favorite Jimmy Cagney movies and Friends.

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04 More On Suso Cecchi d’Amico From Jeanne to Suso to Julie to Spike: How Jeanne Macpherson’s Manual on Screenwriting Influenced Italian Realism which Influenced Black Independent Film in the U.S. [Video]

Transcript:

Suso Cecchi d’Amico is known as coming up with the “Ladder” or “The Little Staircase.” This idea of outlining a film so that it would have steps and you would see the story progress. Seems obvious to us today but coming from a time when people just grab cameras and ran around and did whatever they could take film of, the idea of planning became very important and so again she’s taking Jeanne’s idea. She’s moving it forward. As we know of her, she’s key behind several very important Italian neorealism films starting with “The Bicycle Thief” and we’re going to see how these images match up with some movies in another period which I’ll get to in a second.

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From ‘Greatest Girl Reporter’ to ‘Mother Confessor of Hollywood’ Adela Rogers St. Johns Wrote Herself into the History of the 20th Century – Dr. Rosanne Welch, Script Magazine, October 2022

Each month I celebrate the female screenwriters who came before us in an article in Script Magazine. This month’s spotlight comes from one of the first Hollywood memoirs I ever read from my small library in Bedford, Ohio – that of Adela Rogers St. Johns. They called her the Mother Confessor of Hollywood since so many stars of the 30s, 40s, and 50s came to her to help them out of a scandal (or two). A journalist who covered the film industry, she was first known as ‘The World’s Greatest Girl Reporter’ and then became ‘Mother Confessor of Hollywood’. Along the way, she garnered 38 writing or story by credits with the 1991 Final Verdict teleplay based on her memoir of sitting in courtrooms watching her famous father, trial lawyer Earl Rogers.

After meeting Jane Murfin in last month’s column and hearing about her contribution to What Price Hollywood? (1932), it is time to meet that film’s co-writer: Adela Rogers St. Johns. Along with Murfin, she earned the Best Writing, Original Story nomination at that year’s Academy Award ceremony. Yet her true fame came in two titles that spanned her career as a journalist who covered the film industry. She began as ‘The World’s Greatest Girl Reporter’ and became ‘Mother Confessor of Hollywood’. Along the way, she garnered 38 writing or story by credits with the 1991 Final Verdict teleplay based on her memoir.

Read From ‘Greatest Girl Reporter’ to ‘Mother Confessor of Hollywood’ Adela Rogers St. Johns Wrote Herself into the History of the 20th Century

Read about more women from early Hollywood

16 The Forgotten Screenwriter from What Is a Western? Interview Series: When Women Wrote Westerns from the Autry Museum of the American West [Video]

Transcript:

Rosanne: So it’s, to me, something I’m still battling. Even teaching students, they’ll come to my classes and I ask them to name their top five movies and then who directed them and then who wrote them and they can always name the five directors and unless it’s a writer/director, they don’t remember who wrote the movie and I have to tease them because they’re coming to become writers and they haven’t focused on the work of other writers. We should know the body of work of screenwriters as well as we know the body of work of writers like Hemingway or Faulkner. We should be able to say – and we do that with like Nora Ephron right? We’re pretty good with that but very few. Nancy Myers, we can kind of kind of know that. Again if you study silent films you know what an Anita Loos film. You know a Francis Marion film. The more you see their work the more you recognize it. So for me, we have to start focusing. The other thing that makes me crazy – that I must change someday – is both IMDb and Wikipedia, when you get the little Google Quick version when you do a search. They give you the movie name and the director. The writer is not in the Google search. You have to go to the page to get it. I’m like oh come on. Add one more line.

Host: I’m glad we’re giving you this platform to put this slogan and maybe you can make a poster or something but no it’s an important part of the history and such a crucial part of every film.

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32 Binging TV with Torchwood from In Conversation with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]

Transcript:

I think the first binging I ever did. I didn’t think I’d be a fan of that because I’m fine with weekly making an appointment to see a show, but, again, I mentioned I’ma huge Doctor Who fan. I’ve written some chapters in Doctor Who books, too. In fact, There’s a new one coming out. I got to write about Jodie Whittaker’s first two years as the female Doctor and I loved that, but when Doctor Who had a spin-off called “Torchwood” and its third season was only five episodes and it was one whole arc story and I started to watch that one night at 8, 9 o’clock and thought I’d just watch a couple. I know it’s five episodes. I’m not going to binge the thing and after the second one, I was up until three in the morning. I had to see how it ended. Russell Davies. One of my favorite writers in the UK.

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With Intellect Books Editor James Campbell (@IntellectBooks)

Speaking with Dr. Rosanne Welch, Author, teacher, and television screenwriter. Today we cover everything from women in screenwriting to our favorite Jimmy Cagney movies and Friends.

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03 Jeanne Macpherson & Suso Cecchi d’Amico From Jeanne to Suso to Julie to Spike: How Jeanne Macpherson’s Manual on Screenwriting Influenced Italian Realism which Influenced Black Independent Film in the U.S. [Video]

Transcript:

So she wrote just a little bit in this piece that was published all about her theories of screenwriting. Many other women of the day had written in this and what’s interesting is Emilio Cecci came to the states to study how Hollywood did film so he could bring that to Cine Citta and make some money in Italy and he had a daughter named Suso Cecchi d’Amico and she became the core screenwriter in the world of Italian Neo-Realism. She remembered in many interviews that she had read this booklet, as she described it, and that what she kept in mind were these things that Jeanne had said about screenwriting – the three elements: The crucial moment. The beginning of new and the end of the first one. Seems pretty basic but these people were thinking how do we make movies work and so this was new ideas to them. So it’s a woman taking information from another woman mentoring her into how she will run her career in an entirely different country. Which also I think is lovely to fit into in Claus’s theme and she remembered that for many years she was interviewed and there were oral histories done of her and she always kept going back to this one thing she’d read from Jeanne Macpherson which I think is beautiful.

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