Academic – Page 62 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

10 The Writer’s Voice from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (1 minute 3 seconds)

Thanks to the gracious invitation from my Screenwriting Research Network colleague Paolo Russo – and a grant he was able to procure (and in the before-Covid time) I was able to spend a week at Oxford Brookes University working with the screenwriting masters students in Paolo’s course. At the culmination of the week, I gave this lecture on how writers rooms worked in the States.

Transcript:

Stephen Cannell — who I’m going to talk about briefly in a second — he was in a writer’s pool and he was asked to write an episode of this one day and the reason he stood out and became then his own showrunner was because he had the craziest little idea. Rather than worry about what’s the crime this week and what’s the problem the cops are involved with, he just thought what would happen if the police were assigned to work in a police car which kept breaking down all day. Just a funny little idea which then was the theme of the whole episode. How do you do your job when you’re not providing the proper equipment and that made other people in Universal buzz about this new cool writer and they pretty much thought he had a particular voice and to me that’s the most important thing and you hear this word a thousand times. What does it mean? How do you do it? What does it prove? I’m gonna make you do a little exercise practicing that because writer’s voice is style plus opinion. You have a style of writing and you have something to say, right? That’s the theme. If you don’t have a theme you have no reason to write anything.

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

It’s time for another Monkees 101, co-hosted by myself and Dr. Sarah Clark on the Zilch podcast. This time we discuss and debate “Monkees A La Carte” where the show spoofs all the classic gangster characters. I always enjoy chatting with Dr. Clark since she’s the Monkees music uber fan to match my TV show uber fan-ness – all with a dash of the kind of research we both do in our day gigs as professors!

Zilch & The PTFB Team, Sarah Clark, and Tim Powers are co-hosting a Stranger Things Have Happened Zoom Listening Party on FEBRUARY 13 AT 4:00 Eastern, featuring appearances by Glenn Gretlund, Mark Kleiner, James Lee Stanley, and others!

After Tim and Sarah plug the listening party (and get a little silly), Sarah and Rosanne discuss “Monkees a la Carte, which aired November 21, 1966. “A gangster has taken over the boys’ favorite Italian restaurant, so they disguise themselves as The Purple Flower Gang.”

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Stephens College MFA Alumni Chase Thompson and Michael Burke Talk About Their MFA Experience on the Starcatcher Podcast [Audio Except]

In this clip from a recent Starcatcher podcast film professor (and MFA alum) and host – Chase Thompson – interviews Tech Theatre professor (and MFA alum) Michael Blake about their time as MFA candidates in our Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting program.

They both mention the great feedback they received from their writing mentors, which made me thankful for the dedication of the many marvelous mentors in our program. Then the part that made me smile the most… They each reflected on how important it was in the History of Screenwriting courses to learn about all the female screenwriters who founded Hollywood and how often those women were left out of mainstream histories of the era.

It’s a very powerful example of how history takes time — and deep research — or someone(s) will be left out.

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Join me for a conversation with Stephens College’s Director of Production, Michael Burke. A former graduate of the Stephens Theatre program, Michael talks about his path to production, his background, why Theatre majors are so good at saying thank you, and his predictions on where the road Theater is heading after the pandemic is over.

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V4 Issue 1: Communication and the various voices of the screenplay text by Ann Igelström

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

Communication and the various voices of the screenplay text by Ann Igelström

The aim of this article is to examine how the writer, through the means of the screenplay text, communicates the potential film to the reader. The article argues that the screenplay text’s reason for existing is to communicate the potential film, and that analysing a screenplay text through a communicational approach therefore is suitable. The author will ask what type of information is communicated, who it is that communicates and how the communication appears in the text. The article will propose a model that displays the different narrating voices that can be found in screenplay texts, and a set terminology for the narrating voices that clearly position them in relation to the text and the information they provide will be proposed. The examination of extracts from published screenplays further enables the author to identify how the use of the different narrating voices situates the reader at a certain distance from the story.

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!

The Civil War On Film – 18 in a series – Mitchell was writing from the only perspective she had been taught, the myth of the benevolent slave master

The criticism GWTW engendered then and now center on the omission of any real depiction of the horrors of slavery. Outside of Scarlett slapping Prissy on the day the maid admits knowing nothing about childbirth (despite bragging about her expertise for weeks), none of the major characters ever mistreats a slave. Critics might fault Mitchell for not doing enough historical research before undertaking the story, but Mitchell was writing from the only perspective she had been taught, the myth of the benevolent slave master, not from the perspective of an enslaved main character. Still, this first error of omission is the most blatant error.

Movies profiled in this book:

Directing on the page…On Screenwriting – 7 in a series

Some like to teach that writers shouldn’t “direct on the page.”

But in fact, most of the screenwriters who sell and win Oscars are people whose voice on the page is recognizable.

Those are the screenplays that sell because a person at a studio has to read the script and envision the movie. If they don’t see it, they don’t buy it.

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48 Directing On The Page from Why Researching Screenwriters Has Always Mattered [Video] (1 minute 3 seconds)

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Transcript:

…And that’s very important why, when we’re teaching screenwriting — It’s funny. People who come from a directing background like to teach that writers shouldn’t “direct on the page.” Don’t say things about where the camera should go. Don’t say how the actor is feeling. Don’t talk casually. But in fact, most of the screenwriters who sell and win Oscars are people whose voice is so recognizable. Aaron Sorkin sounds like Aaron Sorkin in everything he does. Every single piece of action is as if you are sitting there talking to him. Right? William Goldman did that. most of the big names — Nora Ephron — who was a major American female screenwriter. Their personality comes through in the lines and they do tell the director “I need this. I need this closeup. I want this moment. This is exactly what needs to happen here. Those are the screenplays that do sell because a person at a studio has to read the thing and envision the movie. If they don’t see it. They don’t buy it and they don’t make it. So that piece of advice has never worked for me.

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A Note About This Presentation

A clip from 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 matte, r so 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.

* 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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A Woman Wrote That – 14 in a series – The Birdcage (1996) Wr: 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

AGADOR

“My guatemalaness. My natural heat. You’re afraid I’m too primitive to perform with your little estrogen Rockettes.”

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

An amazing article – Uncovering the History of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire via Smithsonian Magazine

Doing some research for the Norma Rae chapter in my upcoming Women’s History of Film book (co-written with my colleague Peg Lamphier) I came upon this SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE article by David von Drehle the author of a comprehensive book about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

I like it because he talks about the real, painstaking research work he undertook to tell the whole full story some 8 decades after it happened. People don’t often realize the work writers do to find bits of history across several archives in order to tell one story.

So it’s a good article for that – and for reminding us that unions work to make workplaces more safe and income more equitable and I’m tired of reading things written by people who don’t seem to remember disasters like this one – is that because they largely involved the loss of female life? Rosanne Welch

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire 520

On March 25, 1911, 146 workers perished when a fire broke out in a garment factory in New York City. For 90 years it stood as New York’s deadliest workplace disaster. (The Granger Collection, NYC)

Uncovering the History of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

The author behind the authoritative retelling of the 1911 fire describes how he researched the tragedy that killed 146 people

On March 25, 1911, a pleasant springtime afternoon, a fire broke out in a garment factory near Washington Square in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Within minutes, the entire eighth floor of the ten-story tower was full of flames. Onlookers, drawn by the column of smoke and the clamor of converging fire wagons, watched helplessly and in horror as dozens of workers screamed from the ninth-floor windows. They were trapped by flames, a collapsed fire escape and a locked door. Firefighters frantically cranked a rescue ladder, which rose slowly skyward—then stopped at the sixth floor, fully extended. Pressed by the advancing blaze, workers began leaping and tumbling to their deaths on the sidewalk. Other workers perished in the flames, still others plunged into an open elevator shaft, while behind the factory two dozen fell from the flimsy fire escape. In all, 146 workers, most of them immigrant young women and girls, perished in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. For 90 years it stood as New York’s deadliest workplace disaster.

Read the entire article — Uncovering the History of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

Where’s Her Movie? Physician/Author, Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler – 7 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

Rebecca Lee Crumpler, born Rebecca Davis, (February 8, 1831 – March 9, 1895), was an American physician and author. After studying at the New England Female Medical College, in 1864 she became the first African-American woman to become a doctor of medicine in the United States.[a] Crumpler was one of the first female physician authors in the nineteenth century.[4] In 1883, she published A Book of Medical Discourses. The book has two parts that cover the prevention and cure of infertile bowel complaints, and the life and growth of human beings. Dedicated to nurses and mothers, it focuses on maternal and pediatric medical care and was among the first publications written by an African American about medicine.

Crumpler graduated from medical college at a time when very few African Americans were allowed to attend medical college or publish books. Crumpler first practiced medicine in Boston, primarily serving poor women and children. After the American Civil War ended in 1865, she moved to Richmond, Virginia, believing treating women and children was an ideal way to perform missionary work. Crumpler worked for the Freedmen’s Bureau to provide medical care for freed slaves.

She was subject to “intense racism” and sexism while practicing medicine. During this time, many men believed that a man’s brain was 10 percent bigger than a woman’s brain on average, and that a woman’s job was to act submissively and be beautiful. Because of this, many male physicians did not respect Rebecca Lee Crumpler, and would not approve her prescriptions for patients or listen to her medical opinions. Still, Rebecca Lee Crumpler persevered and worked passionately.

She later moved back to Boston to continue to treat women and children. The Rebecca Lee Pre-Health Society at Syracuse University and the Rebecca Lee Society, one of the first medical societies for African-American women, were named after her. Her Joy Street house is a stop on the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail. — Wikipedia