News/opinion – Page 3 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Video games following path of films in their marketing and “Death Stranding” Game Trailer

What’s interesting about this video game trailer (is first of all that they have trailers for video games!) but that at the 5:36 mark they begin giving the credits for all the relatively big name actors in this – including Guillermo del Toro and (for me) Lindsay Wagner (the original Bionic Woman) which shows how this new-ish art form is following the path of films – which originally did not name their actors until they realized actors bring in audience.

Also, that the branding of the creator “Kojima Productions”. The parallels between these arts-turned-businesses are so interesting. — Rosanne

** Notes originally from discussion with Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting students

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Remember to Credit The Screenwriter!

While we at Screenwriting Research Network strive to force a focus on screenwriters, we need allies in the non-academic world to properly credit them.

In that vein, I recently wrote to the Guardian’s film critic about a moment in his review of ‘Gangs of New York’ where he credited the director for a visual moment that occurred, clearly and firstly, in the original script — something that happens far too frequently. Often, such letters yield nothing outside of getting the issue off my chest, but today I received this response:

“Dear Dr Welch: many thanks for your email, which has been passed on to me. Your comment is entirely fair: I should have credited this moment to the screenwriters: Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian and Kenneth Lonergan. With all good wishes,”

I received this response after sending this email to The Guardian’s film desk:

“As a professor of Screenwriting History for an MFA program in the U.S. I greatly enjoy sharing your reviews of American films with my students, so I hope you don’t mind my noting a small mistake I found while researching your review of Gangs of New York – but again, being a professor of Screenwriting History (not film history because film history is the history of directors) I found you fell victim to one of the age-old issues of the old auteur theory. You credited a visual moment to the director when, in fact, it had existed in the original script, therefore the credit ought to have gone to the writer(s) and their imaginations and use of quality research.”

“The streets erupt in a saturnalia of lawlessness, to which the director adds an inspired touch: an escaped elephant from Barnum’s circus trumpeting down the rubble-strewn streets.”

Yet that elephant was in the script (which I researched at the WGA Library in Los Angeles) all along, as you can see:

“116 EXT. CANAL STREET DAWN

The first thing we see is an ELEPHANT, who trumpets fearfully at the sudden sound of the shattered door. The gang stops, wary of this huge refugee from Barnum’s Museum, but the animal is more frightened of them. It hurries on down the street…”

I only make this point because those kinds of errors lead to the continued idea that directors are the only authors of a film – an idea most film programs are debunking by the day. I hope critics (since they are also writers) will remember screenwriters more prominently in their work in the future. I have taken to reminding people that, when you speak of your favorite films you rarely recount memorable camera angles, but in fact you recount your favorite dialogue and that is the realm of the writer. Often, as in this instance, many of the visuals credited to directors were first imagined by writers as well.

Dr. Rosanne Welch

Elena Ferrante: A Power of Our Own via The New York Times

Excellent opinion piece by Elena Ferrante (a pseudonym for an Italian novelist, author of the four Neapolitan novels beginning with ‘My Brilliant Friend’ that have been turned into an HBO series).

It covers the power of storytelling and the way the world needs to adapt to the way women wield power.

Elena Ferrante: A Power of Our Own
Power is a story told by women. For centuries, men have colonized storytelling. That era is over.

Power, although hard to handle, is greatly desired. There is no person or group or sect or party or mob that doesn’t want power, convinced that it would know how to use it as no one ever has before.

I’m no different. And yet I’ve always been afraid of having authority assigned to me. Whether it was at school or at work, men were in the majority in any governing body and the women adopted male ways. I never felt at ease, so I stayed on the sidelines. I was sure that I didn’t have the strength to sustain conflicts with men, and that I would betray myself by adapting my views to theirs. For millenniums, every expression of power has been conditioned by male attitudes toward the world. To women, then, it seems that power can be used only in the ways that men have traditionally used it.

Read the entire article – Elena Ferrante: A Power of Our Own

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Jerrie Cobb, America’s first female astronaut candidate, dies at 88 via NBC News

I first learned about Jerrie Cobb when I wrote my Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space in 1998 (a great year all around!).

She was among the Mercury 13 (whom no one has done a film on yet) who Jackie Cochran paid to take all the astronaut training given to the male candidates. Jerrie outscored them all – men and women – but then NASA added the requirement that astronauts also have experience as military test pilots – which, naturally, no women had ever done since they weren’t then allowed in those positions in any branch of the military.

What’s so cool about Jerrie is she taught me to keep on going no matter what – because when NASA said no, she spent the rest of her pilot career delivering humanitarian packages to the Amazon. She deserved to go into space. The best she got was when Eileen Collins became the first female pilot of the space shuttle and she invited Jerrie and the other surviving members of the Mercury 13 to the 1995 shuttle launch (Collins later also became the first female space commander.)

Amazing women all around – their names ought to be as well known as the boys who made it into orbit.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — America’s first female astronaut candidate, pilot Jerrie Cobb, who pushed for equality in space but never reached its heights, has died.

Cobb died in Florida at age 88 on March 18 following a brief illness. News of her death came Thursday from journalist Miles O’Brien, serving as a family spokesman.

In 1961, Cobb became the first woman to pass astronaut testing. Altogether, 13 women passed the arduous physical testing and became known as the Mercury 13. But NASA already had its Mercury 7 astronauts, all jet test pilots and all military men.

None of the Mercury 13 ever reached space, despite Cobb’s testimony in 1962 before a Congressional panel.

“We seek, only, a place in our nation’s space future without discrimination,” she told a special House subcommittee on the selection of astronauts.

Read Jerrie Cobb, America’s first female astronaut candidate, dies at 88 via NBC News

Lear more about women in aviation and space with this encyclopedia

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Rosanne Hosts The New Mentoris Project Podcast – Episode 1 – No Person Above The Law – Judge John Sirica

Hosting the Mentoris Project Podcast has been both fun, engaging and educational – I love meeting and interviewing writers from all over the country and learning about their subjects.

In my latest conversation with Cynthia Cooper, author of No Person Above the Law: A Novel Based on the Life of Judge John J. Sirica, I learned more about Watergate and Judge John Sirica, the justice who caused Nixon’s resignation than I thought possible.

Did you know how many times those infamous tapes were requested by the court? Or how many tapes there were in total? Imagine being the man tasked with listening to them all and having to decide which information might be top secret and which information could be released to the public.

Listen to this interview and hear all about it!

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Rosanne and “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Highlighted on Cal State Fullerton Web Site

How exciting – the folks who man the main website at Cal State Fullerton choseto highlight an article recently written about the book I edited – When Women Wrote Hollywood – on the very, very front of the university website – so when you log on, I’m the one of the first things you see. Pretty cool. — Rosanne

Buy a signed copy of when Women Write Hollywood

or Buy the Book on Amazon

Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition

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Celebrate International Day of Women and Girls in Science – 11 February 2019

Celebrate International Day of Women and Girls in Science (un.org) by learning more about these amazing Women Scientists and Inventors and Many More in my books. Check your local library or bookstore today!

Maria Mitchell [pronounced “mə-RYE-ə”] (August 1, 1818 – June 28, 1889) was an American astronomer, who in 1847 by using a telescope, discovered a comet, which as a result became known as “Miss Mitchell’s Comet.”^[1] She won a gold medal prize for her discovery, which was presented to her by King Frederick VI of Denmark. On the medal was inscribed “Non Frustra Signorum Obitus Speculamur et Ortus” in Latin (taken from Georgics by Virgil (Book I, line 257)^[2] (English: “Not in vain do we watch the setting and rising [of the stars]”).^[3] Mitchell was the first American woman to work as a professional astronomer.^[4]^{[5] –}– Wikipedia

* That’s Maria you see center stage on the cover of Technical Innovation in American History above!

Bette Nesmith Graham (March 23, 1924 – May 12, 1980) was an American typist, commercial artist, and the inventor of Liquid Paper. She was the mother of musician and producer Michael Nesmith of The Monkees.^[1]– Wikipedia

* I researched Bette for Technical Innovation in American History as well as Why The Monkees Matter, talking about her famous musician sone, Michael

Mae Carol Jemison (born October 17, 1956) is an American engineer, physician and NASA astronaut. She became the first African American woman to travel in space when she went into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour on September 12, 1992. After medical school and a brief general practice, Jemison served in the Peace Corps from 1985 until 1987, when she was selected by NASA to join the astronaut corps. She resigned from NASA in 1993 to found a company researching the application of technology to daily life. She has appeared on television several times, including as an actress in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. She is a dancer and holds nine honorary doctorates in science, engineering, letters, and the humanities. She is the current principal of the 100 Year Starship organization. – Wikipeda

* Mae appears in both Women in American History and Technical Innovation in American History

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New Review of “America’s Forgotten Founding Father: A Novel Based on the Life of Filippo Mazzei” from the Historical Novel Society

It’s so nice to see my book on Filippo Mazzei continuing to receive good reviews from the press. This one comes from website of the Historical Novel Society and seems to like being introduced to such an interesting man as Filippo.

The novel is more of a factual presentation than fictional storytelling; the chronology is interspersed with anecdotal conversations with Franklin, Jefferson, and others involved in the emerging American state. Readers learn about Mazzei’s involvement with the Virginia militia and his work advocating for independence from the British Crown in the Second Continental Congress, conducting business for the colonies in France, and writing essays supporting the American Revolution in the European press after he returns to his homeland.

Buy the book

They cap it off by telling their readers that…

“But the book has a larger focus than Mazzei’s place in the American Revolution. It covers his early years, travels in Turkey, and relationships with family as well as discussions of religion, the prerogatives of landed gentry versus the rights of ordinary people, even the proper pronunciation of Italian words.”

So glad they noticed that!

Read the entire review on the Historical Novel Society site

Rosanne appears on Cal Poly Pomona College of Education and Integrative Studies (CEIS) Podcast to discuss Interdisciplinary General Education (IGE) [Video] (30 Minutes)

The Dean of the College of Education and Integrative Studies (CEIS) at Cal Poly Pomona (Jeff Passe) asked me to invite 3 IGE (Interdisciplinary General Education) students ( Marie Armayin, Ileana Montes and Trejon Hollins) to a podcast about the courses I teach in the IGE and the particular pedagogy we practice (Don’t you just LOVE alliteration?).

Subscribe to the Podcast via iTunes | Soundcloud | Stitcher | TuneIn

That video is now available on YouTube and the Cal Poly Pomona CEIS Podcast Page. It’s a great way to capture the experience of some of my more expressive and interesting students in the middle of their educational journeys – and to demonstrate the idea of being able to articulate your values and ideas in public, a ‘soft skill’ we all can use for the rest of our lives. I often argue that these soft skills make the difference between acing a job interview (and later the career) and not because everyone who comes to an interview has a matching resume of accomplishment so it’s how they handle those soft skills that wins the race.

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Our books, Women in American History, named to ALA’s 2018 list of Best Historical Materials

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My co-editor Peg Lamphier and I are honored to have awoken this morning to this lovely email telling us that our book, Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection, has been named to the American Library Association’s 2018 list of Best Historical Materials.

“The list recognizes effectiveness in coverage of historical resources in all fields of history and promotes enhanced availability of historical works and information, and is published in Reference and User Services Quarterly (RUSQ). These sources are selected by the Historical Materials committee that seeks to improve the usefulness of bibliographies, historical materials, and indexes in the field of history and shared among bibliographers, indexers, publishers, and professional associations.”

Since both of us have our PhDs in American History – and we both have taught Women’s HIstory at one time or another (on top of our other courses) — this is a most wonderful acknowledgment of all the time we took to make sure as many women from as many multicultural backgrounds — and as many new documents (not merely retreads from past books) could be included. Of course, we also have to thank the many professional editors at ABC-Clio who helped proof and copyedit and cull permissions for all that material. It truly was a team effort.

Dear Dr. Welch:

I am writing as a representative of the Historical Materials Committee of the Reference and User Services Association, a division of the American Library Association. It is my pleasure to inform you that your book, Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection, has been named to the 2018 list of Best Historical Materials.

The list recognizes effectiveness in coverage of historical resources in all fields of history and promotes enhanced availability of historical works and information, and is published in Reference and User Services Quarterly (RUSQ). These sources are selected by the Historical Materials committee that seeks to improve the usefulness of bibliographies, historical materials, and indexes in the field of history and shared among bibliographers, indexers, publishers, and professional associations.

Congratulations on your remarkable contributions to scholarly literature.

Sincerely,

Steven A. Knowlton