On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch
Writing, Film, Television and More!
Presenting “When Women Wrote Horror” at the Cal Poly Pomona University Library as a Halloween event
Video of this talk is coming soon!
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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:
I think particularly this quote is an important one to think about — “what science fiction can do for us…”, right, “What we don’t see , we assume we can’t be.” So it’s very important to her to put African Americans into the future to see that they exist in the future. That meant something to her. Just like the other female writers were putting women in powerful positions in the future because they wanted girls to see role models like that. So that’s the quote I think that should stick with us because it’s an important thought and a lot of the media that we consume — what are we giving our money – what are we supporting what do we want to see more of right?
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*** Note: Introduction is in Portuguese, but the presentation is entirely in English
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My keynote speech at the 10th Screenwriters´(hi)Stories Seminar for the interdisciplinary Graduation Program in “Education, Art, and History of Culture”, in Mackenzie Presbyterian University, at São Paulo, SP, Brazil, focused on the topic “Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered.” I was especially pleased with the passion these young scholars have toward screenwriting and it’s importance in transmitting culture across the man-made borders of our world.
To understand the world we have to understand its stories and to understand the world’s stories we must understand the world’s storytellers. A century ago and longer those people would have been the novelists of any particular country but since the invention of film, the storytellers who reach the most people with their ideas and their lessons have been the screenwriters. My teaching philosophy is that: Words matter, Writers matter and Women writers matter s– o women writers are my focus because they have been the far less researched and yet they are over half the population. We cannot tell the stories of the people until we know what stories the mothers have passed down to their children. Those are the stories that last. Now is the time to research screenwriters of all cultures and the stories they tell because people are finally recognizing the work of writers and appreciating how their favorite stories took shape on the page long before they were cast, or filmed, or edited. But also because streaming services make the stories of many cultures now available to a much wider world than ever before.
Many thanks to Glaucia Davino for the invitation.
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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
Crafting an ‘authentic’ monster: Dialogue, genre and ethical questions in Mindhunter (2017)
Erica Moulton
Extended scenes of idiosyncratic dialogue between a serial killer and profiler are emblematic of the first season of Joe Penhall and David Fincher’s Netflix series Mindhunter. In examining this aspect of the series, my article engages with several burgeoning areas of study in screenwriting and adaptation, notably the intersection of ethics, genre and dialogue. Mindhunter falls squarely into the serial killer subset of the crime procedural genre, following two FBI agents as they interview incarcerated killers under the purview of the newly formed Behavioral Science Unit. In exploring the origin and deployment of highly psychologized speech, I argue that conventions within the serial killer subgenre and the invocation of non-fictional source material led the show’s writers to rely on codes of ‘authenticity’ in crafting the dialogue. Building on studies of screenwriting and genre by Jule Selbo, I also argue that the interview scenes depicted on Mindhunter between the FBI agents and the serial killers can be broken down into various dialogue typologies. The dialogue in these scenes presents the killer as a fount of wisdom, the investigator as an eager receptacle and the psychological boundaries between the two characters as disturbingly permeable. I conclude by probing the ethical underpinnings of this typology considering how screenwriters navigate the tensions between on-screen representation and the framing of ‘authentic’ content.
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!
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Applications for the 2020 Class of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting are now OPEN!
Deadline March 2020
Today’s Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting #mentormonday goes out to none other than Valerie Woods! (IMDB)
Valerie C. Woods is a writer/producer in television and film, and also is a publisher, editor and author. Woods currently is co-executive producer/writer on the critically acclaimed television drama series Queen Sugar, created by Ava DuVernay and airing on Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). She also has been adjunct faculty for Stephens’ Master of Fine Arts in TV and Screenwriting program since 2015.
Recently, Woods served as creative director for Syd Field – The Art of Visual Storytelling. She is one of four Syd Field Screenwriting Method Instructors trained by Mr. Field. She also wrote the screen adaptation of the novel Tempest Rising by Diane McKinney-Whetstone, with the production company of actor/director Phylicia Rashad.
In 2013, Woods founded the independent press BooksEndependent, which has published five titles, including Woods’ novel Katrin’s Chronicles: The Canon of Jacqueléne Dyanne. She also is the author of Something for Everyone (50 Original Monologues), which is published by Samuel French, Inc. In 2016, Woods produced a series of staged readings of scripts adapted from literary work via Staged/Lit.
During Woods’ 20+ years as a member of Writers Guild of America West, she has written on one-hour drama series for CBS, Lifetime, and Showtime. Credits include consulting producer/writer for the drama series Soul Food on Showtime Network and co-executive producer/writer on the drama series Any Day Now on Lifetime Network. Her episode “Family is Family” was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award. Her television career began after winning a fellowship with Walt Disney Studios.
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Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.
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Transcript:
This lady I wish people knew more. They know her in literature and poetry classes but they don’t know her as a screenwriter. Guesses? Dorothy Parker. Dorothy Parker right who happily said , “You can lead a whore of culture but you can’t make her think.” Yeah Exactly. Dorothy was nominated for two Oscars. She was from New York. She was of that world the Algonquin Round Table. She came out here because there was lots of money to be made. She was married to an actor who was about 12 years her junior and everyone thought that was a crazy marriage. There were a few women doing that back in the day. He wanted to write in Hollywood because there was more money out here. So they came out here. They wrote several movies. These movies she did — they ended up divorcing — so she got the Oscars when she wasn’t working with him. She had the nominations. What she did with him is “A Star Is Born”, the original “A Star Is Born” which I must tell you, in my class one day I was having people name their favorite movies and of course some would name “A Star is Born” and I said “Which version?” and she said “There’s more than one?” Yeah that was really sad.
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.
Buy a signed copy of when Women Wrote Hollywood
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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
This is a quote by Peter obviously. Who knows who’s sitting behind him? Janis Joplin. These guys were friends. So there’s also this ridiculous myth that nobody in music like The Monkees back then. That’s all not true. They lived in Laurel Canyon which is an area right above Hollywood. They had houses next to Mama Cass Elliot, Eric Clapton lived in the neighborhood and Frank Zappa buy a house there eventually. John Lennon would visit Mickey Dolenz’ home all the time because Mickey had married a woman from England and Lennon and Ringo, of The Beatles obviously, made the joke that that was the house they could go to where somebody knew how to serve tea at four o’clock. So you know they were just English guys hanging out in America. So but Peter, very much against the character he was asked to play which of course was the dummy, he was a very intellectual very smart gentleman and saw right from start that their message would actually have more power than The Beatles.
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.
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Getting ready for my panel at DTLA Film Festival on Sunday
Chatting with Maria Staroselets of the DTLA Film Festival before our panel discussion, Privileged Characters: How to recognize and avoid implicit bias in your screenwriting.
Video of this panel coming soon
