LA/Los Angeles – Page 31 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

09 Mary Shelley, Her Life, And Fiction from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (47 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:

…and the sad thing is — so she invented a whole genre. A whole genre. She invents it. We’re not going to see another female writer of science fiction for a while. Right? We’re not going to see that. Now a lot of what she came through — this is her mother — Mary Wollenstonecraft — and her mother was a famous feminist in England at this time. Right? So a lot of her ideas are coming from her mother’s writing. She didn’t know her mother because her mother died when she was very, very young. So she never had an actual relationship, but she wanted so desperately to live up to this famous women and how often did that happen back in the day. Usually, it’s men who have to live up to their rich and famous fathers. Here’s a woman who had to live up to something that her mother had accomplished. Right? So she’s got a lot of those themes again running through that. Right? And likewise, this is a picture of her mother. Which is just kind of fun from back in the day.

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11 Women Writers You Don’t Know from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (35 seconds)

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

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Transcript:

These are some ladies you probably don’t know. Does anybody recognize any of them? She’s the most likely one for anyone to know because she’s also an actress. If you saw Harold and Maude, Rosemary’s Baby? That’s Ruth Gordon. Ruth Gordon was a four-time oscar-nominated screenwriter as well as winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Rosemary’s Baby. So we’re gonna talk about these ladies and who they are.

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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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

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8 Assumptions That A Man Did The Work from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (31 seconds)

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

Transcript:

So like side tangent story I remember reading that when Barbara Streisand was directing her first movie she asked Steven Spielberg a couple of questions and immediately what the Press reported was Spielberg Co-assists Streisand directing. Of all the dudes who direct Spielberg called up George Lucas and said, “I’m doing this Indiana Jones thing what do you think?” Nobody said George Lucas co-directs Indiana Jones right? No the boys can ask questions. The girls. No no, that means they need help right? So we have a lot of that sort of old-fashioned controversy which hangs around for a while.

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10 Shonda Rhimes & Tina Fey from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (44 seconds)

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

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Transcript:

…and we recognize Shonda Rhimes. We can’t not recognize Shonda Rhimes. She owns television thank to this show getting her started but, of course, Scandal, How To Get Way With Murder, all of these things have made Shonda Rhimes Shondaland, She’s got her whole production company as her “land” and the way she runs things. We recognize her? (Audience: Tina Fey) Tina Fey. Exactly. We sometimes forget she’s a writer. There’s a reason that this show existed. 30 Rock is basically a fictionalized version of working on Saturday Night Live. For which she got several Emmys and then, of course, she did Mean Girls, the movie and the Broadway show which was nominated for several Tonys last year or 2 years ago. So, you know, Tina’s doing pretty well.

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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
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Save The Date! — Write Like a Mother: A Conversation on TV Writing and Motherhood, Friday, August 9, 2019 at 7:30 PM

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Write Like a Mother: A Conversation on TV Writing and Motherhood

When: Friday, August 9, 2019 at 7:30 PM – 9 PM
Where: Writers Guild Foundation, 7000 W 3rd St, Los Angeles, California 90048
Tickets $25/$20 at wgfoundation.org

Write Like a Mother: A Conversation on TV Writing and Motherhood

We are teaming up once again with Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting for a mother of a panel.

On this special evening, we gather a panel of TV writers and producers for a discussion about their experiences writing and developing nuanced portrayals of motherhood while also balancing duties as working moms themselves.

Panelists

Julia Brownell – This Is Us, About a Boy, Parenthood
Jamie Denbo – American Princess, Ronna & Beverly
Valentina Garza – Jane the Virgin, Bordertown, The Simpsons
Stay tuned for more panelist announcements!

Moderated by Dr. Rosanne Welch

Learn more about the Stephens College Master of Fine Arts in TV and Screenwriting

07 More On Frankenstein from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute 16 seconds)

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

Transcript:

It then became such a huge hit that was kind of like “Oh” and then she’s rich so it’s not gonna hurt her day her reputation too much. Then she was kind of like “You know I want some credit for that. Everyone’s talking about this really wonderful book. I should let people know I did it. So the next version that came out in 1823 they put her name on it and of course from then on we’ve done that. Of course, just like with all things women achieve, I hate to tell you this but there’s always the discussion of “really did she write that I did Percy Shelley do most of the work and he drew his girlfriend’s name on it just as a present to her” and that’s been debated for years how much of it did he actually write. Luckily, in the British Library, they have her original papers. They have her original handwriting and his copy editing. So the different handwriting and you can see that in the next version which of those notes he took she took and which of those notes she ignored cuz honey it’s my book, not yours, right? So we have proof that is largely by and large hers. In any book that’s written, a writer sends it out to many friends, takes many notes, makes changes as they choose. We just always like to pick on when the girls make changes it must be something that the boys contributed much to, right? So I think that’s fascinating.

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Great Summer Read – The Library Book by Susan Orlean

I’m not often a joiner but when I saw the Los Angeles Times had started a book club I checked out their first book choice and it was one I intended to read anyway – so I joined.

The book is Susan Orlean’s “The Library Book” which is a micro history using the 1986 library fire at the Central Library downtown as the starting off point for a wonderful walk through the creation of a Central Library, the hiring (and firing – and tumult caused by such firing) of the various head librarians who have been in charge, and an interesting look at the architecture involved in both the original building and the addition added post the fire. It was such a fun read I swallowed it over a few days after downloading it from the very library it discussed (because all the hard copies were already being borrowed).

Without reading this I wouldn’t have learned that the Atlanta library remained segregated until 1959. Or that in the days when silence was important in libraries, head librarians summoned members of the staff to her desk (and she was often a she in those early days as being a librarian was an acceptable job for a woman) with one of those metal clickers they use to train dogs – each librarian had a morse-code like collection of clicks they would hear to tell them to come talk to their boss. Or that in 1981 investigators found a woman selling used books out of her room at the Beverly Hills Hotel that she had taken from the LA Public Library — and she was making over $40,000 a year on that enterprise. Who would even think up an idea like that? Better yet, some studios would send assistants to the library to steal books needed for research so they wouldn’t have to bother remembering to renew them over the course of making the movie.

I could go on. Suffice it to say that if you LOVE books and LOVE or LOVED libraries at any time in your life, this is a fabulously interesting book to peruse this summer.

Her conclusion? It is necessary to collect these books because “it declares that all these stories matter, and so does every effort to create something that connects us to one another, and to our past and to what is still to come.”

†

* 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 Important Women Screenwriters Today from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (58 seconds)

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

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Transcript:

Next, I don’t know most important , I don’t how I ordered these except they came to this order but Callie Khouri — anyone that can name the movie that she’s famous for? (Audience: Thelma & Louise) Thelma & Louise! Thank you. Thank Goodness. Thelma & Louise! An amazing film, right, that is still being talked about and debated in women’s studies, in Cinema Studies. Do we like the ending Don’t we like the ending? Is it how it could have ended? I think that’s pretty brilliant. Susannah Grant is probably not a name you recognize off the top of your head but you’ve seen these movies. Erin Brockovich is a huge film, right? Charlette’s Web – she has a lot of early kids work which is adorable. And Pocahontas, which is a very very famous Disney film so Suzanne has been one of our newer people and then as you recognized, Diablo Cody, right? Diablo Cody showed up doing Juno and then she did the United States of Tara with Spielberg on television. She’s moving and grooving through town so we’ll see what her next project is but she won an Oscar for Juno. That was her first outing as a screenwriter.

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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06 A Nameless Author from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (52 seconds)

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

Transcript:

(Audience Question) I’m really curious of how she felt then if she had a miscarriage at the time and she read books. Welch: That’s a fascinating point of view. Sadly or not sadly– interestingly — rich women did engage in the art of reading. So it’s interesting how we like to tell poor women how to behave. Rich women can do whatever they please right? So he’s acceptable in her world because you were supposed to read things and be a good reader so you could teach your children — your sons — to be good leaders in the world. So it was acceptable — that’s an excellent question though that’s like whoa. That’s a critical thinking kind of question going on right there because you’re right and but they felt that it was not proper to put out the novel with her name on it. So they didn’t right? In 1818, it doesn’t say Mary Shelley’s just here’s a book. Read it if you want to. Whatever. You can’t even tell from the cover — you’re right — what it’s about right?

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Italian Stories Day Los Angeles 2019

I was pleased to be asked to attend the first Italian Stories Day hosted by the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers and the Istituto Luce Cinecittà and Italian Audiovisual Producers Association at Mr. C in Beverly Hills. The three groups share the mission of helping more Italian authors see their work produced for the international film and television markets.

I had the pleasure of hearing about new books that we Americans will be able to read once their English translations are complete (within the next year) from authors like Tiziana Triana, author of Luna Nera – Le Città Perdute (Vol I) (Black Moon – The Lost Cities, Vol 1) which deals with witch hunters of 17th century Italy and how that affected women who yearned to gather knowledge; Stefania Auci, a Sicilian teacher and author of the historical novel Florence, published in 2015 by Baldini e Castoldi; and Edoardo Albinati, author of La Scuola Cattolica (The Catholic School).

I also had the chance to reconnect with Leonilde Callocchia, the Attaché at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura who hosted our Mentoris Book Launch last year, and a few producers I was able to invite to come to our Stephens College MFA workshops this August while we all munched on some marvelous brunch.