LA/Los Angeles – Page 28 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

18 Jennie Louise Toussaint Welcome from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (52 seconds)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

Transcript:

Really more interesting, I want to know more about Jennie Louise Toussaint Welcome. That is actually her full name, which is beautiful. She as well, she wrote a movie that was meant to be the answer to “Birth of a Nation”, right? She wrote a movie in defense of how badly African-Americans were treated in “Birth of a Nation”, that doesn’t exist anymore. Bits and pieces online you can find of “The Charge of the Colored Divisions”. She was covering the African-American men in World War I, right? So she did some work like that, both reality and fiction. I have to believe we’ll find some more work on her, because her brother was Booker T. Washington’s personal photographer during the Harlem Renaissance and her parents were the butler and maid to President Ulysses S. Grant, so there’s got to be somebody mentioning them somewhere. It’s just that nobody’s put all that together, but I really think we’re going to to get more about her pretty soon.

Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses the women in her new book “When Women Wrote Hollywood” which covers female screenwriters from the Silents through the early 1940s when women wrote over 50% of films and Frances Marion was the highest paid screenwriter (male or female) and the first to win 2 Oscars. Yet, she fails to appear in film history books, which continue to regurgitate the myth that male directors did it all – even though it’s been proven that the only profitable movies Cecil B. de Mille ever directed were all written by Jeannie Macpherson film ever won for Best Picture was written by Robert E. Sherwood (who people have heard of, mostly due to his connection to Dorothy Parker) and Joan Harrison.

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Save The Date! — Panel Discussion: Location as Character: The Craft of Writing Place – WGA – October 1, 2019

Location as Character: The Craft of Writing Place
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
7:30 PM 9:00 PM
The Writers Guild Foundation, 7000 West 3rd StreetLos Angeles, CA, 90048United States

Whether big city or small-town USA, a show’s location can have a powerful impact. We are teaming up with Columbia College Chicago on this special evening to sit down with a panel of TV writers for a discussion about how writing location, whether real or fictional, sets the scene and can shape the motivations of the characters.

Panelists:

Ayanna Floyd – Writer, Executive Producer, The Chi
Anthony Sparks – Writer, Executive Producer, Queen Sugar
Stay tuned for more panelist announcements!

Moderated by Dr. Rosanne Welch.

Doors open at 7pm. Event starts at 7:30pm.

All events advertised on our Events page are open to anyone who wants to buy a ticket—not just WGA members!

In the case the event is sold out, we will have a first come, first serve stand-by line at the event. The stand-by line does not guarantee entry into the event and we will only accept credit card transactions for any released seats.

Proceeds benefit the Foundation’s library, archive and other outreach programs.

Got a question about events? E-mail us at events@wgfoundation.org.

15 More On Pat Murphy from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (25 seconds)

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The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

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:

So and this is a really brilliant interesting book because basically, she’s talking about Indiana Jones — that character — what if someone who did that archaeological work could commune with the spirit of the people who own the things that you’re digging up and what would happen if you could connect to them and learn about their world? I think that’s it’s a really fascinating book and written by Pat Murphy, which is pretty cool.

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Winner of the Nebula Award: “A lovely and literate exploration of the dark moment where myth and science meet” (Samuel R. Delany).

When night falls over the Yucatan, the archaeologists lay down their tools. But while her colleagues relax, Elizabeth Butler searches for shadows. A famous scientist with a reputation for eccentricity, she carries a strange secret. Where others see nothing but dirt and bones and fragments of pottery, Elizabeth sees shades of the men and women who walked this ground thousands of years before. She can speak to the past—and the past is beginning to speak back.

As Elizabeth communes with ghosts, the daughter she abandoned flies to Mexico hoping for a reunion. She finds a mother embroiled in the supernatural, on a quest for the true reason for the Mayans’ disappearance. To dig up the truth, the archaeologist who talks to the dead must learn a far more difficult skill: speaking to her daughter.

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Fall 2019 Written By Magazine Features Transgender Writers (And On The Cover!); Entry- Or Mid-Level Writers; LGBTQIA+ Writers; Female Writers; And Writers Of Color

Read Online for FREE Now!

Just on time for your Labor Day Reading! The Fall 2019 issue of Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild of America, West is now available online.

Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Executive Director Dr. Rosanne Welch, who serves on the Editorial Board of the magazine (along with program friend Glen Mazzara) is proud of this truly groundbreaking issue: it’s the first issue featuring transgender writers (and on the cover!); entry- or mid-level writers; LGBTQIA writers; female writers; and writers of color in every story.

CSUF lecturer, author shines light on lost legacies of Hollywood’s female screenwriters: Rosanne Welch tells her students: Make your voices heard

It’s always wonderful to be given another chance to talk about “When Women Wrote Hollywood” – the book of essays on female screenwriters who deserve to be much more famous and spoken of much more often in modern day film history courses.

Women writers are fascinated to know how many women blazed the trail for them and more than happy to help make their names more well known. So this interview with Susan Gil Vardon of the OC Register turned into an hour and a half chat between two new friends. — Rosanne

CSUF lecturer, author shines light on lost legacies of Hollywood’s female screenwriters
Rosanne Welch tells her students: Make your voices heard

By SUSAN GILL VARDON | sgvardon@scng.com | Orange County Register

Rosanne Welch has advice for female students who want to get their screenplays noticed: Speak up.

A lecturer in screenwriting at Cal State Fullerton, Welch says she has seen a pattern — even in her master’s classes. When she asks her students to pitch their scripts, the men start talking while the women sit quietly, as if they’re waiting their turn.

“They’re so polite,” Welch said about the women. “I say, Hollywood will never give you a turn. Open your mouth, overspeak the boy. You gotta be loud and proud of what you do.”

Welch did it. Leaving Cleveland, Ohio, with a degree in secondary education, she worked her way up in television from a job as a receptionist for a production company to writing for the shows “Beverly Hills 90210,” “Picket Fences,” ABC’s “Nightline” and “Touched by an Angel.”

In recent years she has focused on writing books, including several on women whose achievements and legacies have been sidelined or lost to history.

Her latest is “When Women Wrote Hollywood: Essays on Female Screenwriters in the Early Film Industry.” The book, which she edited, features 24 essays her students wrote in a master’s of fine arts class at Stephens College in Missouri on such pioneering women writers as Adela Rogers St. Johns, Anita Loos, Lillian Hellman and Dorothy Parker.

Read the entire article

Buy a signed copy of when Women Write Hollywood or Buy the Book on Amazon

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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

Listen to the latest “How I Wrote That” Podcast with Screenwriter/Producer Tara Hernandez of The Big Bang Theory [Audio]

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Tara Hernandez started working on The Big Bang Theory as an assistant to the executive producer in season 4, and became a staff writer in the middle of season 5. From there she rose in the ranks to be a co-executive producer, helping to craft the series finale before moving to work on the show’s spin-off Young Sheldon.

The key to pitching sitcoms – there’s the event and then there’s the story. The event is the thing that happens but the story is her emotional realization that comes from the event… So for my first story that sold on Big Bang Theory was about the time Bernadette was getting married and Amy was going overboard so the girls decide to go dress shopping without Amy. That was the event that happened and then, because she was so devastated, Sheldon had to step up as a boyfriend and comfort her and it lead to their first cuddle. – Tara Hernandez

17 Tressie Souders from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (49 seconds)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

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Transcript:

The hardest thing to do now — we’re having trouble reviving some of these female names but it is far more worse reviving African-American female names because these folks have had no paperwork left about them and even the men they worked with haven’t been cataloged in a way that we can look to them for information. Tressi Souders, we only have through newspaper accounts of films of hers that were opening in African-American neighborhoods. So we can see advertisements that she had product but the product doesn’t exist. You can’t find it even on — most of the women I’m gonna mention, the Caucasian women — the European women — and you could find some of their movies on YouTube because stuff has been kept in the Library of Congress. Sadly some has been saved because of men it’s connected to but at least it’s been saved. These women, none of their work exists anymore and that’s one of the most depressing things.

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

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Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Alum Sarah Phillips (2017) among the Top Films for the Louisiana Film Prize!

Congratulations to alum Sarah Phillips (Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Inaugural class of 2017) for her film “Supplements” (which she wrote, directed and produced) being chosen among the 2019 Top Films for the Louisiana Film Prize!

“Supplements” was created by Phileon Productions, a female-led production company located in Los Angeles.

In the film the year is 2289 and all that’s left on Planet Earth is the domed city of Old Centauri, roaming sun flares that scorch the land, and the nomadic tribes that mitigate the two. Kiirke comes from one such tribe, and she must travel to Old Centauri, along with her brother, to seek a small fortune to save her family.⁣ (Now if THAT doesn’t draw you in, we are at a total loss for what will!)⁣

Written & Directed by Sarah Phillips
Produced by Laetitia Leon & Sarah Phillips⁣
Cinematography by Sarah Phillips⁣
Starring Laetitia Alix Leon

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14 Pat Murphy from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (51 seconds)

Watch this entire presentation

The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

Transcript:

We get around to this point and Pat Murphy. She can have her name on the book because why? (Audience) Her name is unisex. (Welch) Pat is one of those great names. Is it a boy or girl? You don’t know looking at it. So then she has to decide, do you put your picture on the inside cover where it’s the author’s thing or you don’t and then you leave it up to people to assume that Pat must be a boy because you know. This is a pretty kind of interesting book. Must be written by a boy. I think that’s funny. It’s also one of my pet peeves when you’re watching movies or TV shows and there’s a really tough woman character. She’s always got a name that can be a boy’s. She’s always Samantha so she can be Sam right or she’s Patricia so she can see Pat. There’s always that name, seriously I want Tiffany to be really cool and I want her to do something amazing or Betsy. I don’t want it always to be a name that could be a boy’s name if you want, and that happens all the time.

* 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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Event: Story Structure in Cinematography with Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting alum, Sarah Phillips

Story Structure in Cinematography with Sarah Phillips
Sep 05, 2019 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
Canon Burbank

Get Free Tickets at Canon

Come join Cinematographer Sarah Phillips (and Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting alum (inaugural class of 2017)) as she talks about how to help (or hurt) your story structure with the way you (as a director, writer, actor, or producer) work with your cinematographer, and the way you craft light and character together.

Sarah Phillips is a cinematographer (and camera nerd) in Los Angeles who works in many areas of film. She primarily shoots independent films, including scripted features, documentaries, and short films, but also can be found the camera departments of national commercials and music videos, because her passion for writing story with light supersedes that of genre and form. sarahphillipscamera.com

Key Takeaways:

Learn about story Structure as a Cinematographer
Hear how to craft light and character together
Discuss working with directors, writers, actors and producers on building story structure

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