Dr. Rosanne Welch – Page 56 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

“A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi” – 37 in a series

Over the next weeks many things became clearer to Giuseppe. Tensions were rising in the United States. Things like the 1850, Fugitive Slave Act passed Congress and provided for the return of slaves brought to free states, angering Northerner abolitionists while not completely placating the southern slaveholders. Giuseppe knew he would have to decide if he should use his talents to help preserve the union of these two factions, or find a way home, yet his exile seemed destined to keep him from home.

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V5 Issue 1: Where are you from? Place as a form of scripting in independent cinema by J. J. Murphy

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

Where are you from? Place as a form of scripting in independent cinema by J. J. Murphy

Large-budget Hollywood studio productions generally prefer a high level of fabrication in creating a film’s setting, either through the building of sets or through special effects, because it gives the production team greater control. Yet that’s often been less true of indie films historically. For a variety of reasons, the setting or location of independent films often becomes a central part of the scripting of a film. It is obviously cheaper to use what already exists in reality rather than to attempt to create a location through set design or art direction. Beyond issues of budget, however, my interest here is in exploring how ‘place’ can actually function as a key element in the scripting process, especially one that is rooted in visual storytelling, by taking into account the myriad ways that a film’s setting can contribute to and enhance the narrative beyond the use of generic, decorative or touristic locations. Using examples drawn from independent cinema, the article argues that place can have an intrinsic, integrative, stylistic, structural, conceptual and thematic function.

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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The Civil War On Film – 32 in a series – “…because it was insufficiently sympathetic to the Confederate point of view.”

Predictably, some Civil War movie fans didn’t like Andersonville because it was insufficiently sympathetic to the Confederate point of view. Neo-Confederate viewers, who surely expected a different film from Georgian Ted Turner, pointed out Confederate soldiers in Union prison camps suffered as greatly as Union soldiers in Andersonville. On the whole though, Andersonville fairs well with Civil War movie fans who enjoy (or at least tolerate) a Northern point of view.

Movies profiled in this book:

TikTok Response to comment from @itsmeimgarbage : Polly Platt [Video]

@drrosannewelch

Response to @itsmeimgarbage : Polly Platt ##screenwriting ##movies ##history ##women ##lastpictureshow ##film

♬ original sound – Dr. Rosanne Welch

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A Woman Wrote That – 28 in a series – The Birdcage (1996), Witten by Elaine May

This new “A Woman Wrote That” post is an echo of the Writers Guild campaign of a few years ago (“A Writer Wrote That”) where they noted famous movie quotes and credited the screenwriter rather than the director. The difference here being that we will be posting lines from films written by female screenwriters. Feel free to share! — Rosanne

ALBERT

There’s no need to get hysterical. All I have to remember is I can always get more toast.

- The Birdcage on IMDB
- The Birdcage on Wikipedia
- Elaine May on Wikipedia and IMDB
- Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

12 Kenny Johnson from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

With the full recording of “How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television”

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When the folks hosting the conference announced their theme as “Screen Narratives: Chaos and Order” the word ‘chaos’ immediately brought to mind writers rooms. I offered a quick history of writers rooms (the presentations are only 20 minutes long) and then quoted several current showrunners on how they compose their rooms and how they run them.

Transcript

Kenny Johnson brought science fiction more seriousness, right? So he started The Bionic Woman. He moved on to The Incredible Hulk, then V, and then Alien Nation. A beautiful show about an alien nation and assimilation into new cultures all done through science fiction. So he brought social justice to science fiction and that was a very distinct way that his voice worked. I got to be his assistant for a while.

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Where’s Her Movie? Scientist, Valerie Thomas – 21 In A Series

“Where’s HER Movie” posts will highlight interesting and accomplished women from a variety of professional backgrounds who deserve to have movies written about them as much as all the male scientists, authors, performers, and geniuses have had written about them across the over 100 years of film. This is our attempt to help write these women back into mainstream history. — Rosanne

Valerie L. Thomas (born February 8, 1943) is an American scientist and inventor. She invented the illusion transmitter, for which she received a patent in 1980. She was responsible for developing the digital media formats image processing systems used in the early years of the Landsat program. — Wikipedia

Drs. Rosanne Welch and Sarah Clark discuss The Monkees “Monkee Chow Mein” episode on the Zilch Podcast’s Monkees 101 Series [Audio]

My co-host, Dr. Sarah Clark and I usually host a segment on Zilch: A Monkees Podcast where we break down episodes of The Monkees in terms of history and popular culture of the time in which is was written, filmed and aired.

For this episode, however, we tackled the problem with an episode we consider to be a sad outlier to the usual mix of positive energy and creativity. The title alone will tell you the problem with the episode – Monkee Chow Mein. Sadly, against the show’s youthful promise to celebrate how “we’re too busy singing to put anybody down” the title tells you laughs were wrung from doing exactly that so in this discussion Dr. Clark and I try to understand how that happened.

Monkees News and “We need to talk about monkee chow mein”. Farewell tour, it looks like this is it.

Dolenz Sings Nesmith, a collection of songs featuring Micky paying tribute to the songbook of Michael Nesmith.

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The Civil War On Film – 31 in a series – …the heroism slathered on the men who survived Gettysburg…”

Much of the heroism slathered on the men who survived Gettysburg on both sides, but mostly regarding the Confederates, came from the literary work of their wives and widows published for years after the war. For example, in 1913 La Salle Corbell Pickett published The Heart of a Soldier As revealed in the Intimate Letters of Genl. George E. Pickett C.S.A. Due to his wife’s efforts, his reckless and ill-conceived charge became synonymous with heroism – and with her husband and her husband alone – despite the fact that two Confederate divisions charged up Cemetery Ridge that day.

Movies profiled in this book:

From The Journal Of Screenwriting V5 Issue 1: Where do cinematic ideas come from? by Adrian Martin

Where do cinematic ideas come from? by Adrian Martin

This essay explores the concept of a cinematic idea. How does it originate, and how can it shape, on every level, the construction of a film? Making special reference to filmmakers’ documents (as an instance of genetic criticism), the essay offers a case study of Leos Carax’s Holy Motors.

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* 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!