Announcments – Page 32 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Video: “How the Growing Popularity of the English Who-niverse (including Torchwood) Effected American Television: A Catalog of Changes in Cross-Continent Collaboration, Diversity in Casting and Methods of Distribution”

“How the Growing Popularity of the English Who-niverse (including Torchwood) Effected American Television: A Catalog of Changes in Cross-Continent Collaboration, Diversity in Casting and Methods of Distribution”

At the 2013 Screenwriting Research Network Annual International Conference at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Dr. Rosanne Welch presented this paper examining the cross-continent collaboration of Russell T. Davies and the largely American staff of the 4th season of Torchwood, known as Torchwood: Miracle Days well as the ways the international popularity of Doctor Who and Torchwood address questions of diversity in media and cross-cultural audience reception, production and distribution. The paper makes the point that words make a difference/words cross cultures. It tracks the changes created in American television in terms of production partnerships (as when Torchwood’s 4th season was co-produced by the BBC in America with Starz), programming (as when the annual Christmas Day showing of Who was rescheduled in America to avoid internet spoilers), and cross-continental casting production partnerships (as when Torchwood’s 4th season was co-produced by the BBC in America with Starz) and programming (as when the annual Christmas Day showing of Who was rescheduled in America to avoid internet spoilers) and cross-continental casting” caused by the arrival of the new Who (circa 2005) and its unprecedented success in the United States.

More info on Doctor Who and Race book – Now available in the UK

Life, Doctor Who, and ComBom recently posted a story on Doctor Who and Race, a new book essays in which Rosanne’s writing appears. Here is their take on the book an the controversy that has sprung up around it.

“Intellect Books have just released Doctor Who and Race, an anthology of essays about, well, the depiction of race in Doctor Who. Blurb: “Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction television series in the world and is regularly watched by millions of people across the globe. While its scores of fans adore the show with cult-like devotion, the fan-contributors to this book argue that there is an uncharted dimension to Doctor Who. Bringing together diverse perspectives on race and its representation in Doctor Who, this anthology offers new understandings of the cultural significance of race in the programme – how the show’s representations of racial diversity, colonialism, nationalism and racism affect our daily lives and change the way we relate to each other. An accessible introduction to critical race theory, postcolonial studies and other race-related academic fields, the 23 contributors deftly combine examples of the popular cultural icon and personal reflections to provide an analysis that is at once approachable but also filled with the intellectual rigor of academic critique.” Copies are available for £19.95.

Editor Lindy Orthia has created a blog to talk about the book: it currently features short biographies of the contributors, useful links, and a few articles, including a comment on the pre-publication controversies (the Radio Times piece on the book offering the most neutral explanation on what issues concerned the authors and what the BBC had to say in response. Racialicious strongly defended the book and the Daily Mail strongly defended the BBC, rather uncharacteristically of the tabloid, so that about runs the gamut of reactions.)”

Read the entire article

“The Promise” – a new children’s book from Rosanne Welch and Dawn Comer Jefferson

Buy now from Amazon.com*

Based on a true story, The Promise follows Mary, the 9 year old daughter of slave family in Louisiana in the 1850s. Because Mary and her father can read and write, Mary’s family is promised freedom if they travel with their master on the treacherous Oregon Trail. When they reach Oregon, the master frees the parents but keeps Mary and her brother as slaves. Mary’s parents take the master to court to sue for custody of their children, and with Mary’s brave testimony, they set in motion a law which helps determine if Oregon will come into the Union as a free state or a slave state. The Promise is a historical chapter book for children ages 7-9.

About the authors

Dawn Comer Jefferson

Dawn Comer Jefferson is a television writer whose credits include Judging Amy, South of Nowhere, The Bold & the Beautiful and the Los Angeles Holiday Celebration. Dawn was nominated for an Emmy Award for Our Friend, Martin, an animated family film about the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. With Rosanne Welch, Dawn co-edited the nonfiction book, Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work, and Family (Seal Press).

Rosanne Welch, PhD

Rosanne Welch, PhD has written for television (Touched by an Angel, Picket Fences) and print (Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space). In the documentary world she has written and produced Bill Clinton and the Boys Nation Class of 1963 for ABC NEWS/Nightline and consulted on PBS’s A Prince Among Slaves, the story of a prince from West Africa who was enslaved in the 1780s, freed by order of President John Quincy Adams in the 1820s and returned to his homeland.

* You don’t need a Kindle device to read Kindle books. With Amazon’s Kindle Cloud Reader — a web browser-based Kindle Reader — you don’t even need to download any extra software. That said, the Kindle reader apps for Windows, Macintosh, iPhone, iPad and Android devices improves the reading experience.

Article: Hey, Hey, They Wrote The Monkees – Written By Magazine

My latest article for Written By Magazine is an interview with several of the writers who began their career on the writing staff of The Monkees. You can read the entire article by clicking the page below or downloading the entire issue as a PDF.

Hey, Hey, They Wrote The Monkees
How a few writers changed the hair-length (and face) of television

Early 1960s television characters came in a one-size-fits-all, squeaky-clean-cut style, from Dr. Kildare in his white lab coat, to Hoss Cartwright in his white Stetson, to Sr. Bertrille in her white habit. That lasted until 7:30 p.m. Monday, September 12, 1966 when four long-haired teenagers began dancing a Monkeewalk while singing, “Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees.”

Though it looked simple enough, the comedy was about more than four struggling musicians living in a beach house they couldn’t afford, without adult supervision, and hoping for success while engaging in Marx(Bros)ian humor. According to star Micky Dolenz, the only actor with previous television series experience: “It brought long hair into the living room and changed the way teenagers were portrayed on television.”

Dolenz’s opinion is backed up by psychologist and author Timothy Leary in The Politics of Ecstasy: “While it lasted, it was a classic Sufi[ism] put-on. An early-Christian electronic satire. A mystic magic show. A jolly Buddha laugh at hypocrisy. And woven into the fast-moving psychedelic stream of action were the prophetic, holy, challenging words. Micky was rapping quickly, dropping literary names, making scholarly references.”

Read the entire article

Download entire Written By issue as PDF

Book Reading: Mastering Monologues and Acting Sides: How to Audition Successfully for Both Traditional and New Media

I’m excited to say I’ll be attending a book signing on Thursday, October 13 at 7pm at Book Soup on Sunset Blvd for this book by Janet Wilcox that includes a chunk of scenes from an unproduced pilot of mine. There will also be a reading held in New York City.

She met Doug and I while teaching at UCLA Extension and asked if I had any unproduced work she could consider – and ended up really liking the one I sent. So though I never saw the piece performed on film, I’ll know tons of aspiring actors are using my words to polish their craft. Kind of fun.

Working voice actors, some our friends, will be reading scenes included in the book for a live demonstration of voice acting.

According to Amazon.com “Mastering Monologues and Acting Sides: How to Audition Successfully for Both Traditional and New Media” by Janet Wilcox teaches actors how to audition for anything from webisodes to Shakespeare. Scripts, acting technique tips, and exercises keep a performer toned and ready, while industry experts give advice on how to audition professionally.

Book Soup

October 13th – 7PM-9PM

1818 Sunset Blvd.W. Hollywood, CA 90069

Actors Connection

Sat. Oct. 22nd – 2:30-4:30

630 Ninth Avenue, Suite 1410(between 44th & 45th)New York, NY 10036

My Written By interview with Russell T. Davies is here!

When Written By editor Richard Stayton asked me if I would enjoy interviewing Russell T. Davies for an article in the magazine, well, I won’t say it was like all my dreams come true – but certainly one of my dreams coming true! Writing FOR one of his shows would be amazing but writing ABOUT Russell and his writing style was pretty fun. I took that opportunity to ask him several questions that will help me write my chapter on Torchwood for the upcoming book Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television. I also used the opportunity to ask about certain plot twists from my favorite Who episodes and basked in the fun of debating them with the man who invented them. I must be turning into a true academic ’cause talking process was nearly as good as processing itself!

Read the full interview with Russell T. Davies – “The Doctor is in America”

Recent Publication: Book review of Born Southern: Childbirth, Motherhood, and Social Networks in the Old South Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2010.

Book Review: V. Lynn Kennedy. Born Southern: Childbirth, Motherhood, and Social Networks in the Old South
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2010.

My book review was recently included in the Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Volume 40, Issue 3

Rosanne presents paper at SW/TX Popular Culture and American Culture Associations conference

This week Rosanne is presenting a paper — “The Changing Face of the Doctor’s Voice: A Tale of Two Writers” — on the writing of the BBC program DOCTOR WHO at the joint SW/TX Popular Culture and American Culture Associations conference in San Antonio.

Rosanne Welch spent 2010 finishing her dissertation “Married, With Screenplay: A Study of 3 Married Screenwriting Teams and the Films They Wrote” in order to receive her Ph.D from Claremont GraduateUniversity in summer 2011. She also wrote “Class of ’80: How (and why) the Writers of 1980 are Creating the Culture of 2010” for November issue of Written By Magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild of America West.