Dr. Rosanne Welch – Page 117 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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Transcript:

Another woman — we’re moving kind of through — now we’re moving to the 40s and 50s — Lillian Hellman. More people know of her because she was a playwright. They know about her winning some Tony’s and then her stuff was transferred to film. The Children’s Hour was almost a Pulitzer Prize winner but it’s the story of two lesbian women who run a girl’s school and one is accused of lesbianism and the Pulitzer Prize committee actually came out and said “we’re not giving an award to a movie that discusses that” — Oh to a play, excuse me. So it was won that year by Zoe Akins for a play that has been falling out of — nobody cares about anymore — et people are still performing The Little Foxes and you can still of course watch the Bette Davis version, which is quite brilliant. So Lillian Hellman is a pretty amazing woman. She’s also famous to us because during the Blacklist there was a threat of blacklisting her and when she was asked to give names to the committee in Washington that’s what she said — which could have destroyed her career.

Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses the women in her new book “When Women Wrote Hollywood” which covers female screenwriters from the Silents through the early 1940s when women wrote over 50% of films and Frances Marion was the highest paid screenwriter (male or female) and the first to win 2 Oscars. Yet, she fails to appear in film history books, which continue to regurgitate the myth that male directors did it all – even though it’s been proven that the only profitable movies Cecil B. de Mille ever directed were all written by Jeannie Macpherson film ever won for Best Picture was written by Robert E. Sherwood (who people have heard of, mostly due to his connection to Dorothy Parker) and Joan Harrison.

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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

15 Two Steps Forward, One Step Back from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later [Video] (49 seconds)

Enjoy This Clip? Watch this entire presentation and Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

From Denver Pop Culture Con 2019.

Wherever you go, you find Monkees fans and the Denver Popular Culture Con was no different. Amid rooms full of caped crusaders and cosplay creations, I was initially not sure how many folks would attend a talk on a TV show from the 1960s – but happily I was met by a nice, engaged audience for my talk on Why the Monkees Matter – and afterward they bought books! What more could an author ask for?

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Transcript

In this episode, it works because they’re showing us a girl rock band, which was a little odd at the time. There were individual female singer-songwriters but we didn’t have of course a giant female rock band. The only bummer about this episode — kind of a throwback — is when the two groups figure the way to win this contest, of course, is to combine since they’re four girls and four boys. All of a sudden the four girls who played their own instruments in their own band are are go-go dancers than the boy’s band. So, you know, two steps forward, one step back. It happens, you know, it happens but I’m impressed with the women that I found on the show. I really didn’t expect that in a way that I could do a whole nother talk on The Big Bang Theory and what happened to the women on that show who all started out as neuro-scientists and then became just nuts about Sheldon, which is fine, but yeah, that’s a whole nother story.

Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Acheivement in Comedy.

Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined, and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.

This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers.

Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Riderand Five Easy Pieces.

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

Want to use “Why The Monkees Matter” in your classroom?

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27 Nnedi Okorafor from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (23 seconds)

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The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

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This one allowed me to riff on some of my favorite female science fiction writers across time, whether they be novelists or television writers. It also opened up a good conversation on what art we support and include in our lives – and what that art says to us and about us. — Rosanne

Transcript:

One of the most recent newer writers in the world is Nnedi Okorafor and she just won the World Fantasy Award in 201 — the World Fantasy Award for Best new novel Binti which is a fascinating novel but she’s got a couple out as well that I think are worth paying attention to. Again when he’s thinking about reading again she’s thinking about putting people of African descent in the future. That’s something she thinks of course is important so I think it was pretty cool. She’s Nigerian.

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V10 Issue 1: Intellectual spaces in screenwriting studies: The practitioner-academic and fidelity discourse by Terry Bailey

Highlighting the articles in the past editions of the Journal of Screenwriting, of which I am the Book Reviews Editor. Hopefully these abstracts will entice you to did a little deeper into the history and future of screenwriting. — Rosanne

Intellectual spaces in screenwriting studies: The practitioner-academic and fidelity discourse
Author: Terry Bailey

As Craig Batty argues, traditional screenwriting research predominantly concerns itself not with the practice of writing, but its end product. This can lead to the actual process of writing being overlooked. The advent of the practitioner-academic within screenwriting studies has led to the foregrounding of the interests of practice over those of more traditional academic research. According to Batty, the intent of the practitioner-academic’s research is to generate knowledge that can influence the work of screenwriters directly. This article argues that additionally, practitioner-academics can make a valuable contribution towards more ‘traditional’ research, simply by occupying the same unique intellectual space from which they might influence practice. The article uses debates surrounding fidelity within adaptation studies to examine the ways in which the practitioner-academic’s unique approach can enhance ‘traditional’ research, and draws on examples from practice to do so, namely the book to film adaptation Starship Troopers (1997).

The Journal of Screenwriting is an international double-blind peer-reviewed journal that is published three times a year. The journal highlights current academic and professional thinking about the screenplay and intends to promote, stimulate and bring together current research and contemporary debates around the screenplay whilst encouraging groundbreaking research in an international arena. The journal is discursive, critical, rigorous and engages with issues in a dynamic and developing field, linking academic theory to screenwriting practice.

Get your copy and subscription to the Journal of Screenwriting Today!

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!

Listen To The Podcast: Location as Character: The Craft of Writing Place Panel Panel at The Writers Guild Foundation [Audio]

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I really enjoyed being invited to moderate this Writers Guild Foundation panel co-hosted by Columbia Collge of Chicago’s Semester in LA program.

In honor of the co-host we chose to have a conversation about “Location as Character” – and for a kid from Cleveland, believe me, I know how much the place you come from infuses who you are – and how important it is for writers to properly portray the effect of location on the many characters who populate their programs.

I was joined by a great collection of panelists from shows ranging from Queen Sugar to On Becoming a God in Central Florida to The Chi and Young Sheldon. Listen in when you have some time!

Listen to this podcast

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From @writersguildf – Writers Guild Foundation

We team up with @ColumbiaChi to talk about how locations inform and impact characters on TV with @qu33nofdrama, @SparksAnthony, Matt Lutsky, @RosanneWelch and Connor Kilpatrick.

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!

29 A Female Perspective from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (34 seconds)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

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Transcript:

So we have three women always involved in the original A’Star Is Born”. See anything missing in the current version? Isn’t that interesting and one of the critiques of this current version is that they spend too much time on Bradley Cooper’s character. It becomes the story of the star who is dying not the story of the star who is being born. That’s probably one of the reasons –while it’s making tons of money because Lady Gagas wonderful and they’re good in the film — — critically it didn’t quite work. That, to me is the juice that was missing right? We needed the female perspective.

Buy a signed copy of when Women Wrote Hollywood

Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

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14 Brains, Brawn, And The Monkees from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later [Video] (55 seconds)

Enjoy This Clip? Watch this entire presentation and Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

From Denver Pop Culture Con 2019.

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Transcript

In this episode , poor Micky wants to go out with this girl and she falls for a big, beefy guy for a while, so he’s trying to get stronger. He’s trying do everything to make her like him. He doesn’t want her because she’s blond and pretty. He wants her because she’s beautiful and brilliant. That’s what makes her an attractive girl to him. That’s the really nice message for young girls right? And in the end the girl dumps him because she meets the boy on the beach who reads Proust and she thinks, “I want a man with a mind.” So only if Micky had done some reading but I think that’s like a creative message and then this episode “Some Like It Lukewarm” is very famous obviously it’s a riff on “Some Like It Hot” but they do a rock band contest and it turns out you have to be a co-ed band. So, of course, Davey has to dress a drag. We find out that the girl band — actually the girl is also dressed as a boy in order to compete. This is actually Dean Martin’s daughter, Deanna Martin, guest starred on the show and became good friends with Davy Jones for many years.

Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Acheivement in Comedy.

Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined, and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.

This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers.

Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Riderand Five Easy Pieces.

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

Want to use “Why The Monkees Matter” in your classroom?

Order Examination Copies, Library and Campus Bookstore orders directly from McFarland

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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From The “When Women Wrote Hollywood Archives: Cecil B. DeMille’s Hollywood by Robert S. Birchard

Months of research went into the creation of the essays in “When Women Wrote Hollywood.” Here are some of the resources used to enlighten today’s film lovers to the female pioneers who helped create it.

Cecil B. DeMille was the most successful filmmaker in early Hollywood history. Cecil B. DeMille’s Hollywood is a detailed and definitive chronicle of the screen work that changed the course of film history and a fascinating look at how movies were actually made in Hollywood’s Golden Age. Drawing extensively on DeMille’s personal archives and other primary sources, Robert S. Birchard offers a revealing portrait of DeMille the filmmaker that goes behind studio gates and beyond DeMille’s legendary persona. In his forty-five-year career DeMille’s box-office record was unsurpassed, and his swaggering style established the public image for movie directors. DeMille had a profound impact on the way movies tell stories and brought greater attention to the elements of decor, lighting, and cinematography. Best remembered today for screen spectacles such as The Ten Commandments and Samson and Delilah , DeMille also created Westerns, realistic “chamber dramas,” and a series of daring and highly influential social comedies. He set the standard for Hollywood filmmakers and demanded absolute devotion to his creative vision from his writers, artists, actors, and technicians.

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Buy “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Today!

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Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

26 Margaret Atwood from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (48 seconds)

Watch this entire presentation

The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!

Transcript:

Margaret Atwood more people know today than might have a little while ago. She had a book that was read a lot in high school sometimes. Sometimes not. Of course now as an Emmy-winning show on Hulu — The Handmaid’s Tale, which again looking at now issues of misogyny and how society treats women into the future and what could change in the world right? A few laws here. A few laws there change and suddenly people lose rights they used to have. We kind of have to remember in the United States we live by the laws of the Constitution but they can be revoted, right? So women only have the right to vote because we have an amendment. We took prohibition and we undid it and we repealed it. We can repeal any of those amendments. So it is important to think about right who’s in charge because things could change and that’s what she’s discussing there. She wrote that book 35 years ago — 35-40 years ago.

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!

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#MentorMonday 6 – Jennifer Maisel – Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Jennifer Maisel (IMDB) is our featured mentor at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting for #mentormonday this week!

Jennifer Maisel most recently developed an original pilot called “The 626” with Super Deluxe and adapted two Jane Green novels—Tempting Fate and To Have and to Hold, which aired in June. She currently is working on a two-hour about campus rape and institutional betrayal with Just Singer Entertainment. Her screenplay “Lost Boy” was filmed starring Virginia Madsen. She wrote The Assault and The March Sisters for Mar Vista Entertainment and Double Wedding for Jaffe Braunstein. She has written movies for NBC, ABC, MTV and Lifetime, was a staff writer on the television series Related, wrote a pilot for ABC Family and an animated feature for Disney. Maisel has developed original pilots with Bunim-Murray, Ineffable, Stun Media and MomentumTV and co-created the critically acclaimed web series Faux Baby with Laura Brennan and Rachel Leventhal. The screenplay adaptation of her play The Last Seder won Showtime’s Tony Cox Screenwriting Award, meriting her a month’s stay in a haunted farmhouse at the Nantucket Screenwriter’s Colony. A graduate of Cornell University and NYU’s Dramatic Writing program, Maisel is also an award-winning playwright whose Eight Nights will premiere at Antaeus Theatre in October 2019; the play is currently part of a nationwide event called 8 Nights of Eight Nights, raising funds and awareness for HIAS.

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Author: Dr. Rosanne Welch

30 Lillian Hellman from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (55 seconds)

15 Two Steps Forward, One Step Back from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later [Video] (49 seconds)

27 Nnedi Okorafor from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (23 seconds)

From The Journal Of Screenwriting V10 Issue 1: Intellectual spaces in screenwriting studies: The practitioner-academic and fidelity discourse by Terry Bailey

Listen To The Podcast: Location as Character: The Craft of Writing Place Panel Panel at The Writers Guild Foundation [Audio]

29 A Female Perspective from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (34 seconds)

14 Brains, Brawn, And The Monkees from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later [Video] (55 seconds)

From The “When Women Wrote Hollywood Archives: Cecil B. DeMille’s Hollywood by Robert S. Birchard

26 Margaret Atwood from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (48 seconds)

#MentorMonday 6 – Jennifer Maisel – Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting