10 More Textbooks and Writing For Video Games from Why I Created a History of Screenwriting Course [Video] (46 seconds)

A clip from my presentation at the 11th Annual Screenwriting Research Network conference. Held on the campus of the beautiful Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan.

Watch the entire presentation 

10 More Textbooks and Writing For Video Games from Why I Created a History of Screenwriting Course [Video] (46 seconds)q

In the presentation, I covered the reasons writers have been marginalized – and the reasons they oughtn’t to be so disrespected. Then I talked about how my course works, what books I assign, what guest speakers I invite, what research the students do – and ended on a high note by introducing ‘When Women Wrote Hollywood’ – the book of essays from our inaugural class which has now been published by McFarland.

Transcript:

Cari Beauchamp wrote “Without Lying Down” which was one of the first books to have covered entirely the career of Frances Marion and all these women I’m speaking of. This textbook does not appear in any film history course that I have found in Los Angeles or around the United States and yet it covers all these important women. Cari comes in as well. She lives in Los Angeles. So I am lucky. I’ve also expanded recently to invite the writers of video games because that is a whole new area for our students to move into. A very important area. These gentlemen were early writers of half-hour children’s shows and they moved into video games and now they run the development for Blizzard which is a very major video game company. They do Overwatch.

Books mentioned in this clip

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† Available from the LA Public Library

Quotes from When Women Wrote Hollywood – 21 in a series – The Intimately Unknowable Dorothy Parker

Do you know about these women screenwriters? Many don’t. Learn more about them today! 

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“Dorothy Rothschild, however, was not long concerned with embodying society’s ideal for young ladies. Her transformation into Dorothy Parker likely began with her admittance to Miss Dana’s highly exclusive school for girls – both “a finishing school and a college-preparatory one, quite progressive for its time”

The Intimately Unknowable Dorothy Parker
A Study of her Life and Art
by Elizabeth Dwyer


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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!
† Available from the LA Public Library

09 First Year Textbooks from Why I Created a History of Screenwriting Course [Video] (49 seconds)

A clip from my presentation at the 11th Annual Screenwriting Research Network conference. Held on the campus of the beautiful Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan.

Watch the entire presentation 

09 First Year Textbooks from Why I Created a History of Screenwriting Course [Video] (49 seconds)

In the presentation, I covered the reasons writers have been marginalized – and the reasons they oughtn’t to be so disrespected. Then I talked about how my course works, what books I assign, what guest speakers I invite, what research the students do – and ended on a high note by introducing ‘When Women Wrote Hollywood’ – the book of essays from our inaugural class which has now been published by McFarland.

Transcript:

I also love what you guys said about early film — the music — that we have to study the visual. So we do go back to the silence and talk about them from the very start. We chronologically do this course so you understand the visual is as important as the verbal. In the first year, I used several textbooks. This one I learned about through the Journal of Screenwriting, yea, so it is a very handy thing to have as the teacher. I also use Writers in Hollywood and this lovely book of Anita Loos’ early screenplays as they were first written. They’re written mostly in prose. You can read the stories and why should she stood out back in the day. So that’s a set of them. Then I also use Framework which we mentioned the other day and one of the keynotes and I’m also lucky that I am in Los Angeles so we can have guest speakers come in and this of course is Thomas Stemple we mentioned the other day.

Books mentioned in this clip

Watch the entire presentation

Subscribe to Rosanne Welch, Ph.D on YouTube

 

Buy a signed copy of when Women Wrote Hollywood

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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!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Quotes from When Women Wrote Hollywood – 20 in a series – The Truth About Lillian Hellman?

Do you know about these women screenwriters? Many don’t. Learn more about them today!

Quotes from When Women Wrote Hollywood - 20 in a series - The Truth About Lillian Hellman?

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“Sadly, the modern era has brought forth no better understanding of the writer or her subjects from certain circles. John Zmirak of Crisis Magazine states, ‘Hellman’s depiction of self-serving viciousness and callous lying might seem like the keen insight of a literary moralist — until we sat down next to Lillian on the divan and got to know her a little better…'”

In Defense of Lillian Hellman
by Kelley Zinge


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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
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Quotes from When Women Wrote Hollywood – 19 in a series – Most Beloved Couple

Do you know about these women screenwriters? Many don’t. Learn more about them today! 

Quotes from When Women Wrote Hollywood - 19 in a series - Most Beloved Couple

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“Writer and director Garson Kanin referred to the Hacketts as “…an enchanting couple; they were the writers the producers and directors used to kill to get”. David Brown said they were “The ultimate class writing team of the Golden Age of Hollywood… Virtually all their films were successful… They were the epitome of elegance in writing””

Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett: The Most Beloved Couple in Hollywood
By Julie Berkobien


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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!
† Available from the LA Public Library

08 Why Female Focused from Why I Created a History of Screenwriting Course [Video] (1 minute, 9 seconds)

A clip from my presentation at the 11th Annual Screenwriting Research Network conference. Held on the campus of the beautiful Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan.

Watch the entire presentation 

08 Why Female Focused from Why I Created a History of Screenwriting Course

In the presentation, I covered the reasons writers have been marginalized – and the reasons they oughtn’t to be so disrespected. Then I talked about how my course works, what books I assign, what guest speakers I invite, what research the students do – and ended on a high note by introducing ‘When Women Wrote Hollywood’ – the book of essays from our inaugural class which has now been published by McFarland.

Transcript:

So how I teach it. That’s why I teach I want respect to come back to writers. That seems simple right? How I do it. I start in the very beginning when women were the major writers of Hollywood films. There were 50 percent of the films are in by women if not more and they made more money. This is Gene Gauntier from Ireland, this is Anita Loos and Jeannie Macpherson working with Cecil B. DeMille. She wrote every one of his financially successful films and when they stopped working together, his movies stopped making money. That’s the end of Cecil B. DeMille. How I teach it. I start by asking students very quick questions. What are your first five favourite films? Who directed those films? They always know. Who wrote those films? and the look of humiliation on their faces when they sit in a screenwriting class and cannot name the people who wrote their favorite films is ridiculous to me.

Watch the entire presentation

Subscribe to Rosanne Welch, Ph.D on YouTube

 

Buy a signed copy of when Women Wrote Hollywood

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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!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Chelsea Andes Presents on Pioneering Screenwriter Joan Harrison

Chelsea Andes Presents on Pioneering Screenwriter Joan Harrison

Chelsea Andes Presents on Pioneering Screenwriter Joan Harrison

How Women Wrote Hollywood Book Reading and Signing, Skylark Bookshop @skylarkbookshop , Columbia, Missouri during the Citizen Jane Film Festival 


When Women Wrote Hollywood Book Reading and Signing, Skylark Bookshop, Columbia, Missouri

On Saturday, November 3rd, 2018 several of the contributors to When Women Wrote Hollywood gathered at the Skylark Bookshop in Columbia, Missouri for a signing and launch party that functioned like a mini-reunion of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Class of 2017.

Many thanks to all who came to hear them each speak with passion about the research subjects who became whole chapters in this book of essays on female screenwriters from the Silent Era into the 1940s.

Check it out!

Video: When Women Wrote Hollywood Book Reading and Signing, Skylark Bookshop, Columbia, Missouri

 

Buy a signed copy of when Women Wrote Hollywood

Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition

* 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

Quotes from When Women Wrote Hollywood – 18 in a series – Cinderella Stories

Do you know about these women screenwriters? Many don’t. Learn more about them today! 

Quotes from When Women Wrote Hollywood - 18 in a series - Cinderella Stories

Get “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Today!

“The majority of Park’s films feature a female lead who begins the story as poor, beaten, and/or single and receives a fairy tale ending. It happens to Eve, the poor flower girl in Lights and Shadows (1914); Nan, the tempted chorus girl in When The Gods Played A Badger Game (1915) and Rose, raised by a cruel hag in Where The Forest Ends (1915).”

Ida May Park: Prolific Pioneer
Jackie Perez


Buy a signed copy of when Women Write Hollywood

or Buy the Book on Amazon

Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition

* 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

Journal of Screenwriting Volume 9 Issue 3 Now Available!

Journal of Screenwriting Volume 9 Issue 3 Now Available!

The latest issue of The Journal of Screenwriting (where I serve as the Book Reviews Editor) is now available.

The special theme of Volume 9 Issue 3 is Animation so it contains articles with titles such as

  • “How to write a screenplay with a chainsaw”
  • “Performing without the use of a net: Making an animated feature without a storyboard”

— as well as the more academically titled — 

  • “Analysing the advantages of Aristotle’s two-act structure in comparison with Syd Field’s three-act structure in short comedic animation scriptwriting”. 

Naturally, the book reviews have been written by many wonderful colleagues whose work I am happy to share. 

If you work for a university, ask their library to order a subscription today!

Here are the books reviewed in the Journal of Screenwriting Volume 9 Issue 3

The Aspiring Screenwriter’s Dirty Lowdown Guide to Fame and Fortune: Tough Lessons You Need to Know to Take Your Script From Premise to Premiere, Andy Rose (2018) New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 304 pp., ISBN 978-1-25015-949-6, p/bk, $16.99; ISBN 978-1-25015-950-2, ebook, $9.99

Creating Compelling Characters for Film, TV, Theatre and Radio, Rib Davis (2016) London: Bloomsbury Academic, 168 pp., ISBN 978-1-47426-020-6, p/bk, $23.36; ISBN 978-1-47426-022-0, ePDF, $16.19; ISBN 978-1-47426-021-3, ePub, $16.1

The Writers: A History of American Screenwriters and Their Guild, Miranda J. Banks (2015) New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press, 328 pp., ISBN 978-081357-139-3, h/bk, $32.79; ISBN 978-0-81357-138-6, p/bk, $23.93; ISBN 978-0-81357-140-9, digital, $19.99

Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960, David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson ([1985] 1988) London: Routledge, 652 pp., ISBN 978-0-41500-383-4, p/bk, £32.99

* 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

Speaking with students on last day of @mfascreenwriter @stephenscollege January workshop session

Speaking with students on last day of @mfascreenwriter @stephenscollege January workshop session

Speaking with students on last day of @mfascreenwriter @stephenscollege January workshop session

Speaking with students on last day of @mfascreenwriter @stephenscollege January workshop session. 

Many, many thanks to the soon-to-be-graduating Class of 2019 from the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting who presented me with a marvelous photo of them all posed in front of the mural that adorns the conference room where we hold so many of our classes. It was a great final week of workshop for this low residency program, topped off with excellent Q&A sessions with producer Karen Loop (“On the Basis of Sex”), executive producer Aaron Thomas (SWAT), producer (and current mentor) Valerie Woods (Queen Sugar), writer (and alum) Sahar Jahani (Ramy) — and lectures on Italian neorealism from visiting professor Dr. Paolo Russo (Oxford-Brookes).

I look forward to working with all our future alums as they move forward in their own exciting careers!

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