Conference – Page 22 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Teaching Character and Structure from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]

Teaching Character and Structure from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch

A recording of my presentation at this year’s University Film and Video Association (UFVA) 2017 conference.

Transcript:

I think when you teach slient films and early films of course your teaching character because that is where all these archetypes came from. Yes, we can go back to France and we can go back to Aristophanes. They came from way back then, but on the film they came from this time period and we find all these characters in these early films.Sometimes in more simplistic ways which helps students understand how to back to the simple part of their story — who wants what and what’s getting in their way and you see that in this sort of film. You can teach structure in teaching silent films because we all know the purpose of having 3 acts is because you had reels and you had 1 reel and then 2 reels and then 3 reels and began to write in terms of that. It was also Paul Gulino’s sequence approach which is just about each reel. You have 8 reels, 8 sequences. They visualize, ‘Oh, this is why they do it this way because they had to to — oh, I get it!” It helps students understand the history of this profession. I love that Warren calls it a profession because that is what it is.

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Silent Films and Diversity from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]

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Silent Films and Diversity from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch

A recording of my presentation at this year’s University Film and Video Association (UFVA) 2017 conference.

Transcript:

Teaching Silent Films allows you to teach diversity again because there were filmmakers of all colors and ethnic backgrounds. Much of that work has been lost. Some of it is findable. Oscar Micheaux was one of the people I found for my students. He was a hugely successful African-American writer/director and he also wrote novels and he translated his novels into films. One of them is called Within Our Gates and it’s free on YouTube as well and he looked at middle class African-Americans talking in the 1910’s and presented them to the audience in ways that other movies were not and I thin kit’s important for them to know his work in line with Cecil B. DeMille and D. W. Griffith and all those other guys because they’re not the only men – they’re not the only people who are around but if you look at film history classes that’s all they’ve learned and that really bothers me.

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Silent Films Are Important from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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Silent Films Are Important from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch

A recording of my presentation at this year’s University Film and Video Association (UFVA) 2017 conference.

Transcript:

So, I think it’s really important to teach silent films because we’re teaching the screenwriters that the visual is important. Much as I love the words more, you do have to think about how they’re shown and, of course, these are visuals that show is the emotion of the moment and I think that they are really beautiful. So, it’s fun for the students — I totally agree with Warren — to have this heritage in their life, to understand that this all came before them. That’s very, very important.

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More On Women in Early Filmmaking from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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Women in Early Filmmaking from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch

A recording of my presentation at this year’s University Film and Video Association (UFVA) 2017 conference.

Transcript:

In Beauchamp’s book, you’ll see all these famous women. My great joy is that one of my students, who teaches directing, found Lois Weber in my class who wrote and directed her films back in the day and now incorporates her into the set of directors that he teaches as examples because she had that kind of career back in the day. Eve Unsell ran her own production company for Universal for 10 years. Made a ton of movies that are very very successful in the day. She also allows us to go into the place where we discuss the problems with films whether it is back them or today because she was involved in what, back then, were yellow race films which were anti-Asian-American films and so that’s something students should understand about. So, again that goes back to to the title of what we are talking about and I talk fast because I’m Sicilian. I also don’t want to eat up all the time.

Books Mentioned In This Presentation

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Women in Early Filmmaking from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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Women in Early Filmmaking from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch

A recording of my presentation at this year’s University Film and Video Association (UFVA) 2017 conference.

Transcript:

So I teach history and I start in the silent film world, so I disagree with Warren. I go chronologically. This is a period they have never heard of and all the movies are free on YouTube. Nothing like telling them they can watch whatever they have to watch for free. That works, right? And so here they meet Anita Loos, Gene Gauntier — the first women — the first person to do filming on location. She went to Jerusalem to film the story of Jesus Christ — the first time it was put on film and it’s a really beautiful film you can see, for free, on YouTube. Then Jeanie MacPherson who wrote all of Cecil B. DeMille’s early movies that were successes. When she stopped working for him all his stuff failed. Nobody knows her name and she’s quite brilliant. So I thinks it’s important for women students today to know that women once ran Hollywood so all this discussion about “I don’t know if women should direct a movie” is not worth having, because they did and they were. They were the highest paid people in this town, so I think that’s important an important think for them to remember.

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Let’s Kill Off The Auteur Theory from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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Let’s Kill Off The Auteur Theory from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch

A recording of my presentation at this year’s University Film and Video Association (UFVA) 2017 conference.

Transcript:

You got to the next question which is my first exercise in class — Name the writer. Lucky if they can. If it’s a writer/director, they can. Otherwise, they can’t and they suddenly are embarrassed because they adore the words of a person whose name they can’t tell you. If they have a favorite book they can tell you who wrote it, but they don’t know who wrote their favorite film. So it’s my goal to make them know that. I can’t stand the Auteur Theory because I think it’s bullshit. Directors aren’t the authors of their film. I don’t want to insult any directors in the class but you can’t direct something that doesn’t exist on the page first. It’s a collaborative thing and directors have lovely, but they’ve been given all the credit for far too long because, as we know, it goes back to all the book reviews in Cahiers and they came up with that theory. It’s nonsense.

Books Mentioned In This Presentation

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Learn the Writers Names from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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Remember the Ladies from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch

A recording of my presentation at this year’s University Film and Video Association (UFVA) 2017 conference.

Transcript:

This is about strategies in teaching film and television history and current events — which is what David will do when I am done — and so, gee, I’m all about the chicks so we have Dorothy Parker and we have Tina Fey. There is a direct line between those women and if you love Tina Fey then you had better study a little bit of Dorothy Parker or you don’t understand why Tina Fey works today. So, why study screenwriting history? That’s actually the first screen of a lecture that I give on this very topic to my students on opening day because when you mention movies nobody says, “You know I love that shot in… ” They say, “My name is Inigo Montoya.You killed my father. Prepare to Die.” They remember the words in the movies. They remember the screenwriting, but when we look at the history of tv and film, we’re not doing that. We’re teaching directors. Everyone can name their favorite films and they can normally name the director of those films.

Books Mentioned In This Presentation

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Required Reading My Background from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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Remember the Ladies from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch

A recording of my presentation at this year’s University Film and Video Association (UFVA) 2017 conference.

Transcript:

I am also on the editorial board for Written By Magazine and the book review editor of the Journal of Screenwriting so if anyone’s interested in writing book reviews for the Journal of Screenwriting which publishes out of the UK, please let me know because I am always looking for book reviewers and you get the book for free, but also I have — the schools that I teach at have subscription to the journal. I have students read journal articles because I want them — it is a Masters Program — I want them to have a comfort level with that, but I have my undergrads at least do one journal article reading as well to have an accessibility to that. And then I get the schools and/or the kids to read Written By Magazine every month. We do a different screenwriter or television writer on the front cover. It’s a wonderful inside look at how the process of writing is done. The subscription is not that expensive, rather than a textbook for undergrads, but we also publish most of that online for free at the Written By web site, so they can read these articles on their own as assignments and learn about these writers. So I think all that stuff is valid for the class.

Books Mentioned In This Presentation

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My Background from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (0:40)

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Remember the Ladies from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch

A recording of my presentation at this year’s University Film and Video Association (UFVA) 2017 conference.

Transcript:

This is my background in the business. These are all the different shows that I worked on. Always with a focus on the female characters. How can I make the female characters stronger? I’m a girl. Interesting enough I have a boy — a son — and when I had him I thought, “Oh no, I’m supposed to have a girl so I can teach her to be a feminist.” and then someone went “No let me teach him to love a feminist.” and I thought, ‘Oh yeah.” So, and this is the stuff that I have written. Mostly focused on women — women in Doctor Who and how race is portrayed. Women in Aviation. I’ve just got a second encyclopedia set of women in History. I am part of the Women Screenwriters Encyclopedia and my latest book is on The Monkees and feminism in The Monkees because it was actually there in the show if you look hard enough.

Books Mentioned In This Presentation

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Remember the Ladies from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (0:56)

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Remember the Ladies from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch

A recording of my presentation at this year’s University Film and Video Association (UFVA) 2017 conference.

Transcript:

This whole conference is about inclusion and convergence which made this topic seem useful to me and hopefully to you. I’ve always gone back from my childhood to learning about Abagail Adams — the woman who told John while you’re working on that Constitution, could you please “remember the ladies.” We tend to forget them in this town and int he history of this town. The other book that I’ve got there is “What Happens Next” which everyone uses in their classes and has a paragraph about the women that that entire book covers. He finds time to cover them in a paragraph and that makes my students crazy. They read 5 different books on the history of screenwriting and chronologically and they come to Frances last and they are like why, why have I not heard of her until now and that book was written in the middle so you know some men write books before that book came out. They didn’t know the women existed. Then they knew and they still didn’t’ write about them and it’s important that we are in these books. So. I thought that was my background.

Books Mentioned In This Presentation

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