Dr. Rosanne Welch – Page 119 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

#MentorMonday 4 – Maria Escobedo – Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Applications for the 2020 Class of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting are now OPEN!

Deadline March 2020

Another #mentormonday, another Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting incredible mentor! This week we want to highlight Maria Escobedo (IMDB)!

Maria Escobedo is a film and television writer with credits including Grey’s Anatomy, Hulu’s East Los High and the indie film Rum and Coke, which she wrote and directed. She’s developed movies and pilots for Lifetime, Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon. She also has written for animated kids’ TV, including Dora the Explorer, Go Diego Go, Elena of Avalor, Special Agent Oso and Nina’s World, which earned her a Humanitas Award nomination. Escobedo is currently writing for Amazon’s If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Netflix’s What-To-Doodles and Nickelodeon’s Santiago of the Seas. She also has developed original pilots for Amazon Kids. Escobedo served as chair of the Latino Writers Committee at the Writers Guild of America West for five years, and teaches writing at University of Southern California and California State University, Los Angeles.

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26 Dorothy Parker and A Star Is Born from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (55 seconds)

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

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Transcript:

Dorothy and her husband Alan Campbell wrote A Star Is Born which if you know obviously the story is about a marriage where the woman is far more famous than the man. His career is going while hers is rising. That’s Dorothy Parker and her husband’s story. That’s exactly the emotion she was experiencing. She just put it on an actor and actress. It became such a classic it was remade in the 50s with Julia my brain just went dead. Thank you. Judy Garland. I was saying Julianne and that was wrong. Judy Garland. Thank you and it was written this was adapted by Moss Hart who’s a famous name from Broadway. He wrote it himself however he credited several scenes from the original movie he’d just cut and pasted them out of the first script and put them in his and admitted that when he was doing it. So whenever he got notes from the studio that they wanted to change something he would say “No no no. That’s how Parker had it the first time. It’s good enough. We’re not fixing it.” So essentially it’s Moss Hart and Dorothy Parker together right?

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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From The Journal Of Screenwriting 6: Kurosawa to Kasdan: Storytelling influences

Highlighting the articles in the latest edition 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

Kurosawa to Kasdan: Storytelling influences
Brett Davies

Lawrence Kasdan is one of the most commercially successful screenwriters of the past forty years. In addition to writing Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and four episodes of the Star Wars saga, Kasdan has gained critical acclaim as the writer-director of seminal 1980s ‘baby-boomer’ films, such as The Big Chill (1983) and The Accidental Tourist (1988). Known for ‘genre-hopping’, it is perhaps Kasdan’s very versatility that has led to a marked lack of academic discourse on his work, as his eclectic canon – including westerns, neo-noir, sci-fi horror, comedy and romantic thriller – makes it problematic for scholars to establish prevalent patterns in his output. This article argues that one influence has remained constant throughout Kasdan’s career: the work of Akira Kurosawa. Examining three screenwriting elements – dialogue, protagonists, themes – the article will demonstrate how Kurosawa’s storytelling style has repeatedly informed Kasdan’s work, from his earliest screenplays (Kasdan said that ‘there’s a lot of Kurosawa in Raiders’) to his most recent, as The Force Awakens (2015) and Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) showed stylistic connections with Kurosawa’s films, beyond those already established by George Lucas’s original Star Wars (1977).

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.

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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!

Mentoris Project Podcast: Dreams of Discovery: A Novel Based on the Life of John Cabot with Author, Jule Selbo [Audio]

The latest podcast is about the explorer, John Cabot and is now available on the Mentoris Web Site. Give it a listen and Subscribe for More! — Rosanne

Read Leonardo’s Secret: Dreams of Discovery: A Novel Based on the Life of John Cabot

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A determined man with a dream whose mentors and friendships supported him through his difficult life’s journey.

John Cabot was born Giovanni Caboto in Genoa, Italy. As a child, he dreamed of captaining a ship across a mysterious, uncharted ocean, from Europe to the riches of China. There was another boy in Genoa at the same time, with the same dream: Christopher Columbus.

The Turks, in the fifteenth century, had a stranglehold on the trade routes to the Far East. Europe’s race to find an alternative passage was heating up. But an explorer needed patrons, funds, ships—and a vision. Whereas Columbus had taken a south and west route from Spain, Cabot was convinced a more northern route from England would lead directly to China.

Cabot remained convinced, even on his deathbed, that he’d reached China—not realizing he’d claimed much of North America for his patron, the King of England, and made an amazing contribution to the fabric of America.

About the Author

Jule Selbo is an award-winning screenwriter, playwright, and novelist. She has written feature films, and has written and produced television series for major studios and networks. Credits include George Lucas’s Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, HBO’s Women Behind Bars—Prison Stories, and the feature Hard Promises, starring Sissy Spacek.

Her Disney credits include the animated features Hunchback of Notre Dame Part Deux, Cinderella II, and Ariel’s Beginning. Her plays Boxes and Isolate have won regional theater awards. Her novels include Piazza Carousel (2018) and Pilgrim Girl (2005, co-written with Laura Peters). In addition, she is a professor of film and television at California State University, Fullerton, and has written books on screenwriting and film history, including Screenplay: Building Story Through Character (2015), Film Genre for the Screenwriter (2015), and Women Screenwriters: An International Guide (2016, edited with Jill Nelmes).

Selbo has contributed to Journal of Screenwriting as well as anthologies on film writing. She holds a PhD in film from the University of Exeter in England and holds seminars on writing in the U.S. and internationally.

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After the DTLA Film Festival Panel via Instagram

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After the DTLA Film Festival Panel

Moderating panels at local film festivals is a good way to highlight the great work of mentors like Maria Escobedo and to meet new possible mentors for MFA program like Peruvian filmmaker Donna Bonilla Wheeler. Here we are chatting after a panel on how Writers Can avoid implicit bias in their work at the DTLA film Festival in Los Angeles.

11 Who Made The Monkees from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later [Video] (1 minute 4 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

The thing about TV is it comes into everybody’s house for free. Granted now we pay for cable but back then it was free. To see a movie with a new idea you had to pay money and not everybody could do that certainly not younger children. So these ideas are coming into homes where they can affect more people and I think Peter was very right about that. I love this. This is a shot of the entire cast and crew. So you can see the guys sitting in several places in front and then the gentleman to the left of the camera by two, holding the coffee cup, that’s James Frawley. He’s gonna win an Emmy for Best Directing in this first season. So this is an Emmy winning show not just Emmy nominated. It won as best comedy of the year and it won for Best Directing. James Frawley will grow up to direct The Muppet Movie and many many of the things. So he’s been involved in the business for a long time and this was his first directing job. So again quality people putting together a quality show. I think if the show had stayed on longer and we’d gotten more understanding of it, we’d be looking at — essentially this is The Big Bang Theory except they’re not for nerds they’re for rock and roll kids right but that’s what it’s all about.

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

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Ran into a student (Elaina Redmond) from our first “Podcasting For Writers” class at the DTLA Film Festival via Instagram

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Ran into a student (Elaina Redmond) from our first “Podcasting For Writers” class at the DTLA Film Festival

DTLA Film Festival panel discussion, Privileged Characters: How to recognize and avoid implicit bias in your screenwriting. via Instagram

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DTLA Film Festival panel discussion, Privileged Characters: How to recognize and avoid implicit bias in your screenwriting.

Video of this panel coming soon

Quotes from When Women Wrote Hollywood – 50 and End in a series – “…her female-centric work failed to find acclaim with critics.”

Do you know about these women screenwriters? Many don’t. Learn more about them today!

Buy “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Today!

Zoë Akins is described as “a perplexing figure in the history of American theatre” by historian Yvonne Shafer (58). Akins was a poet, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. Despite many successful publications, productions, films, and a Pulitzer Prize, she is not considered an obvious success. In creative fields dominated by the male perspective, her female-centric work failed to find acclaim with critics.

Zoë Akins: A Quiet Rebellion
by Sarah Whorton

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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

Teachers! Get A FREE Mentoris Adventure Lesson Plan on Filippo Mazzei, America’s Forgotten Founding Father

We love teachers at The Mentoris Project! You inspire your students, us and the world–just like the unsung heroes in our Mentoris books.

We want to say thanks with this FREE Mentoris Adventure Lesson Plan.

Breathe like back into your classroom with this creative lesson plan. It isn’t for the classroom— it’s an adventure!

On America’s Forgotten Founding Father: A Novel Based on the Life of Filippo Mazzei by Rosanne Welch

His loyalty lasted a lifetime… Surgeon, merchant, vintner, and writer Filippo Mazzei influenced American business, politics, and philosophy. Befriending Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, Mazzei was a strong liaison for others in Europe. Mazzei was Jefferson’s inspiration for the most famous line in the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal.” Clearly, Mazzei had a gift of language and often used his words to share his ideas about religious freedom. Mazzei encouraged other Italians still living overseas to join him in a country rich with opportunity and promise. Often, when returning from Italy, he booked passages on ships for people who desired to travel to America and employed them on his estate—just to ensure a better, more fruitful life for everyone. During those travels, Mazzei found himself at the center of many fights for freedom. He was truly a friend to freedom around the world.