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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:
…and we had a marvelous presentation about two weeks ago on Octavia Butler right? So moving now moving further and further into the 90s. Octavia Butler the first African-American female to be successful writing science fiction. We had a presentation here from the curator of her papers at the Huntington Library because she lived in Pasadena. So she’s a local to California and a lot of her stuff was infused with sort of the attitudes and the progressive ideas that we tend to be surrounded by here. She won a MacArthur Fellowship again the first science fiction writer — not a person of color and not even a woman — the very first science fiction writer ever to get a MacArthur grant which is a huge piece of support to creative people and artistic people so I think that’s really cool.
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I’m so honored to be a part of this international group of screenwriting academics – who plan by far the best conference I’ve ever attended each year. — Rosanne
First meeting of new Executive Council yesterday – spanning 18 time zones!!! Got the ball rolling for the new academic year and picked up suggestions from last month’s AGM. Minutes to follow soon on the SRN website.
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
Influences on story development in transnational pan-Arab dramas: A case study of the series 04 Fadi G. Haddad
Despite the growing research interest in the transnational nature of the Arab World’s television industry, screenwriting in the Arab World has received little academic attention. Moreover, while the media plays a major role in shaping the ‘narratives of identity’, the reality of television drama production is as much about cultural, economic and political influences as it is about aesthetics. Set within a unique interpretation of the theoretical context of the ‘Hierarchy of Influences Model’, this article aims to explore to what extent the routine practices in screenwriting govern the artistic decisions taken at the level of the screenplay development of transnational pan-Arab dramas (Arabic: al-drāma al ‘arabiya al-mushtaraka). Taking ‘04’ (Zero Four) as a case study, a pan-Arab drama produced by the Saudi-owned UAE-based MBC television that tells the story of four young expatriates from four different Arab nationalities living in modern-day Dubai, and through in-depth interviews with the show creators, the article attempts to present an example of novel screenwriting practices in the Arab World between single authors and writers’ room.
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.
The article even begins with naming the director in the first sentence. This is a ludicrous example of the unexplained contempt journalists (who are writers themselves) seem to have against screenwriters – or solid evidence that the now disproved-in-academia-but-still-mistakenly-believed-by-others auteur theory still holds sway. But directors do not write their films unless you call them ‘writer-directors’.
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 particular moment in the show that shocks me that got on to network television at that time. They’re playing dominoes as you can see and at one point when all the dominoes fall down Davy says to Peter “What do you call this game?” and Peter says “Southeast Asia.” which if you know about Domino Theory of Communism is it — I mean — and the censors didn’t cut that and a lot of times it’s because Trevor Silverman said that Network people didn’t understand the joke. They didn’t get it because they were an older generation of men — all men — and they didn’t see what was going on. So that to me is an amazing thing who got away with what they did. Television mattered to The Monkees — both the writers and, of course, the performers. They understood that it was this giant place — this giant podium from which to send out a message to everybody and they they knew that was important.
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.
During [the 1930’s], women gained a unique opportunity to participate both as stronger characters within these stories and, perhaps more importantly, behind the scenes. “Hollywood’s ‘red meat’ hard-boiled crime cycle during the war, seemingly targeted a masculine gendered audience. Yet, these films included surprisingly strong female femme fatale ‘love interest’ characters who redefined ‘femininity’.
Joan Harrison: Redefining Femininity in Film Noir and Hollywood by Chelsea Andes
* 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
Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!
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:
She did that, however, she wrote the first draft of the script. There’s proof and she passed away. So a script has to go through several incarnations before it’s eventually filmed. So they brought in Lawrence Kasdan who is a marvelous and wonderful writer and in the end he then writes the next movie and he writes the first draft of Return of the Jedi that you know and all that sort of thing. So he’s become the person we credit for a lot of Star Wars but she did all this groundwork and wrote this original script. So I think Leigh Brackett is a really cool name for paying attention to.
* 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!
Many, many thanks to Glaucia Davino for inviting me to Mackenzie Presbyterian Institute in Sao Paolo to speak to her conference, but especially for arranging for me to meet many of her dedicated doctoral students, including Livia, who gave me a wonderful walking tour of the campus before my talk yesterday. There is a deep and genuine interest in analyzing screenwriting among these students and of building the film and television industry here. In the years to come I believe the energy these students bring to their research will achieve that dream.
* 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!
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