On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch
Writing, Film, Television and More!
Last night the Class of 2021 shared a treat – a visit by alum Sahar Jahani (Class of 2018)
Since graduation she has written episodes for Ramy on Hulu and landed on the staff of season 4 of 13 Reasons Why, while also adapting a YA novel into a film.
She credited the spec script she wrote under the mentorship of Jon Vandergriff for helping open doors.
Thanks, Sahar, for sharing your journey with us!
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How much would you love to learn about the writing of an iconic episode of “Sex and the City”?
The Class of 2021 was treated to just that when guest Cindy Chupack, who has won two Emmys and three Golden Globes as a TV writer/producer, was interviewed in front of our students for the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting program’s “How I Wrote That” podcast, hosted by Khanisha Foster. (Episode coming soon!)
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![12 Male Pseudonyms from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction - Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (42 seconds)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/scifi-rmw-cpp-12.jpeg)
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:
Now most of you I imagine in your in your younger years read Harry Potter which is written by JK Rowling because the publishers didn’t want or didn’t assume that boys would read a book written by Joanna. We’re not gonna read books written by women. My favorite book as a kid, which is still quite popular, The Outsiders is written by SE Hinton. Susan Elizabeth Hinton and nobody believed that boys would read a book about gangs written by a girl. Even though she lived with those kids and that was her childhood. She understood those kids obviously so well but yeah so we still do that to women, right? The best-selling book really of the last generation had to be written by someone with initials.
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Can you name the first woman to win two Oscars for her writing?
The students of the newest cohort of our Stephens College MFA know the answer – Frances Marion – because the highlight of Day 2 of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting workshop August Workshop was a visit by Cari Beauchamp, who wrote Marion’s biography: “Without Lying Down” and graciously contributed the Forward to “When Women Wrote Hollywood”.
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† Available from the LA Public Library
When you watch the credits of your favorite television shows go by, do you know the difference between a Staff Writer, a Story Editor, or a Supervising Producer?
If not, we wish you could’ve been with us on our first full day of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting workshop with the Class of 2021. Valerie Woods, mentor and Co-Executive Producer of Queen Sugar, gave a talk explaining exactly that.
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Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.
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Transcript:
Some people recognize or have heard if you know anything about aviation history, Harriet Quimby was the first pilot — female pilot — licensed in the United States. To pay for her flying lessons she wrote screenplays for the Biograph Company. So there was a new world. A new place to make money and women were jumping in that world if it was possible. So I always thought was pretty cool. Jeanie MacPherson is probably one of my favorite early film screenwriters and she is the perfect example of how women get left behind. Everybody who does film history has heard about Cecil B. DeMille over and over and over again. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. If you look at his films, all the films he made, that made a profit, were written by Jeanie MacPherson. When they stopped working together, he never made a profitable film again. So are they Cecil B. DeMille films or are they Jeanie MacPherson films or are they Macpherson/DeMille films?
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.
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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Watch this entire presentation
![11 Alice Sheldon from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (51 seconds)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/scifi-rmw-cpp-11.jpeg)
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:
Jumping into the 1960s thank you very much which is sad to go that far but what’s going on is we have to think about how women are being presented in the purchasing public, right? So when we come over here this woman is named Alice Sheldon. First of all, she doesn’t look like a science fiction writer because we think that they’re all dudes. She has the little pearl thing going on which is kind of cute. She couldn’t get her novels published under her own name. So she went by the name of James Tiptree jr. and James wrote a whole lot of books that were big bestsellers and then eventually, almost 20 years later, Alice was like “No, the next book is going out of my name right, but it had to say formerly known as James Tiptree Jr. to make sure that her fans would travel over. I Know is that silly? It’s silly but it is a habit we are still in.
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Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.
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Transcript:
She starts all of this and her theme was “Be natural.” That’s what she was teaching actors because they came to film with that theatricality that you can’t do on film. Be natural. Be a little more normal. That’s what we want to see. so, it’s really Alice that we credit now with getting fictional filmmaking started. She came to America and started the Solax Company and they were doing films here and started to distribute them. They were starting to make some good money. The problem is her husband became the President of the company and her husband had a gambling problem and the profits of the company started to go away and then they got a reputation for not finishing things on time because they ran out of money and that pretty much destroyed her career, but she is — in film histories now — being credited more and more. There’s a new documentary coming out about her shortly.
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.
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
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Watch this entire presentation
![10 Virginia Woolf and Orlando from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction - Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (48 seconds)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/scifi-rmw-cpp-10.jpeg)
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:
This lady is Virginia Woolf. Most people think of Virginia Woolf as writing those sort of lovey-dovey, Jane Austen-y kind of things or some you know a little mystery kind of stuff but she in fact wrote a novel we consider a piece of science fiction. It’s Orlando, which is not the biography of Orlando Bloom but in fact the story of a man born during the first Queen Elizabeth’s reign who regenerates into a woman and lives for 300 years which sounds a lot to be like Doctor Who which is my other big favorite thing in the world. So there’s Virginia Woolf right but she’s already known and so she can dabble in this other genre and it’s okay because people have paid more money for her other stuff. That’s all drawing-room stuff. So we’re moving through the world but not as many women as I’d like to see.
* 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!
Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.
Watch this entire presentation
Transcript:
This lady is someone who’s just now getting more known in film histories. Alice Guy Blaché. She was the Secretary to the Lumiere brothers in France. So we’re moving away from America and moving back to France right? They were filming dudes walking out of a factory. They were filming guys standing on a train platform smoking. Whatever they felt like. Reality basically. They weren’t fictionalizing. They weren’t looking at film as a place to tell stories and she was their secretary and she said you know I’d like to do something else with the cameras and they said “Oh, on your lunch break you can do whatever you want. Just make sure you’re back at your desk on time to type the things we need typed” right? So she started making silent films obviously in 1896. Her first film, which you can find on YouTube, is called “The Cabbage Fairy.” It’s literally just her picking babies out of a field behind cabbages right in the fictionalization of how do we find children — how are children brought into the world. Very short but that’s what we were doing in that era.
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.
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
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS