Podcast – Page 30 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

22 Bridgerton from Worry and Wonder | The Courier Thirteen Podcast [Video]

Watch the entire presentation – Worry and Wonder | The Courier Thirteen Podcast | Episode # 29 here

Transcript:

For instance, Bridgerton came out of the blue and took everybody by surprise and it was like “Oh my god, Bridgerton. Oh my god, did you see Bridgerton?” and everybody’s talking about it, etc etc. I mean it had a little bit of a built-in audience because it’s based on a book series. So that’s why all the streamers and the networks, they’re desperate to take IP — intellectual property — because you bring in an audience, and then their just going to amplify that audience by making the film version of it — the tv version of it — the limited series version of it — and then they’re going to build and build, right? So they’re really interested in that and Bridgerton was a good example of how that works and then they added the Shonda Rimes sort of gloss to it and suddenly — I had never heard of the book series — I had never read the book series. I didn’t know it existed but I certainly knew Bridgerton existed and then I had to watch it because 3 or 4 people — and I’m not necessarily a fan of those kinds of romance dramas, but everybody said you’ve got to watch this so I gave it a shot. I gave it a first episode. I always try to give things a first episode as we were saying before and if it connects, I’ll go to the next one. Right? Sometimes even if the first doesn’t work I’ll give it a second one cause what I do know is when you are making a pilot you’ve gotten so many notes from the network and the production company and you’ve had to dance for so many people to make sure they all keep saying yes to you, then it’s not necessarily exactly what you originally wanted to do but once they say yes and you get on the air the next episode is going to look more like what you’ve always wanted. So, if it works on the second one then I will stick with it. If I don’t get it on the second one then I stop watching.

It’s always fun to sit down with students and share stories about entering the television industry and how things work at all stages and I had that opportunity the other day.

Daniela Torres, a just-graduated (Congratulations!) student of the Columbia College Semester in LA program asked me to guest on a podcast she had recently begun hosting with another college student she met during her internship (good example of networking in action!).

We could have talked all morning (the benefit of a 3 hour class session) but we held it to about an hour and fifteen minutes or so. Hopefully, along the way I answered some questions you might have about how the business works. So often it amounts to working hard at being a better writer and gathering a group of other talented, hard-working people around you so you can all rise together.

Dr. Rosanne Welch is a television writer with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. She also teaches Television Writing and the Art of Film at San Jose State University.

Rosanne discusses what made shows like Beverly Hills 90210 compelling, what to do and not to do when attempting to pitch a show to broadcast or streaming, what most young writers neglect in their writing process, and much more!

The Courier Thirteen Podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Audible.

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48 Do Your Research and Speak Up There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video]

Thanks to the gracious invitation from my Screenwriting Research Network colleague Paolo Russo – and a grant he was able to procure (and in the before-Covid time) I was able to spend a week at Oxford Brookes University working with the screenwriting masters students in Paolo’s course. At the culmination of the week, I gave this lecture on how writers rooms worked in the States.

Transcript:

You have to always do research. You don’t know everything and you don’t have to but you have to be willing to look. I’ve got a whole lecture I do on the tv show Gidget from the 60s that I discovered every episode written by a woman treated the Gidget character like a real human being and every episode written by a male writer treated her like sort of a doofy, stupid girl and I thought they didn’t even go into reading the book that that show was based on to understand her mentality. Her dad was a college professor and she was studying literature in college. She’s not a ditz right but they didn’t even research that. So you have to really look into everything. You have to like research right? That is something a writer must do.

You have to speak up. You all are shy. I’ll give you that right? You don’t know me so it’s a new thing but you can’t be shy in the room. If you don’t open your mouth, what are they paying you for? You’re only going to write two episodes of a tv show that runs 13 episodes. You get two a year. All those other episodes is you talking. What makes this one better for this writer so we all keep employed next year? So you have to speak up.

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09 Parker, Grandmothers, and Husbands from “Female Creatives & A Star Is Born” [Video]

Transcript:

Okay. Here’s where I find Dorothy Parker’s female focus coming to us. It begins with this grandmother. A female character has the money to give her granddaughter what she needs to follow her dream. That’s a big deal. Thinking that a woman in that period — who is now some 50 years older than the woman starring in the film — could have agency and could choose to give the money and trust her granddaughter when her own parents are not trusting her. I think that relationship is so key. That maternal relationship is a very big deal. Dorothy Parker’s mother died when she was quite young. I think she was 9 or 10. She didn’t like her stepmother but she liked her grandmother. So clearly that’s represented in this piece. Also even though Esther seems a little weak and fluffy at some points, she certainly stands up for herself when she needs to right? In this, we see Norman is a very desperate and envious guy. Some of what we read about Alan Campbell, he was desperate to succeed. He was desperate to be famous. After they divorced and he couldn’t get a job screenwriting, a producer literally said to him “Look, get back together with the old lady. She’s the one we want. Together we’ll hire you.” Imagine how humiliating that would be for someone and not man or woman but I want to be talented. I want to be recognized as someone of quality but I can’t be without attaching myself to this other person.

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Connections at conferences matter! Through the most recent SCMS, I met Vicki Callahan, whose film history focus right now is on Mabel Normand. When she learned I could put together a lecture on the importance of the female voice in the A Star is Born franchise she asked me to give that lecture to her master students.

It made for a great opportunity for me to hone the ideas I’m working on for a chapter on that franchise that I’m writing for a new book from Bloomsbury: The Bloomsbury Handbook Of International Screenplay Theory. It’s always nice when one piece of research can be purposed in other ways – and it’s always fun revisiting such a female-centric film franchise – one that drew the talents of such powerful performers as Janet Gaynor, Judy Garland, Barbara Streisand, and Lady Gaga.

Find out why in this lecture!

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14 Fuller, Women, and War from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

In researching and writing my book on Giuseppe and Anita Garibaldi and the unification of Italy (A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi) I re-discovered the first American female war correspondent – Margaret Fuller — who I had first met in a college course on the Transcendentalists. I was once again fascinated by a life lived purposefully.

Then I found Tammy Rose’s podcast on the Transcendentalists – Concord Days – and was delighted when she asked me to guest for a discussion of Fuller’s work in Italy as both a journalist – and a nurse. — Rosanne

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Concord Days sends love to Margaret Fuller on the anniversary of her death in 1850.

The conversation focuses on Margaret’s exciting days in ITALY!

Dr. Rosanne Welch takes us through her adventures and enthusiastically reminds us what she was like when she was living her best life!

Transcript:

Tammy: In America, we don’t really have titles. We don’t really understand that level of society but over there it’s a thing.

Rosanne: Even if there’s no money associated with it, there’s an honor to it. You are of the upper classes even if you don’t have the money to go with it and that’s a big deal.

Tammy: Exactly. Exactly. yeah so and and and also another important point you had you had mentioned this before, so Garibaldi’s wife had like gone into battle like really with a baby like on her. It’s like she’s literally — she’s not just a nurse she’s she’s also nursing like while she’s on the battlefront right?

Rosanne: That’s so beautifully said. That’s exactly right, right? They end up having four children and there’s a statue of her in Rome because Mussolini tried to use her reputation to support his work. Look how dedicated she was to her country. There’s a statue of her with the child at her breast while she’s riding and she was a great horsewoman and she trained the cavalry. The men trusted her because Garibaldi trusted her but of course after they had a couple of kids when they’re in Rieti and they’re doing all this stuff it was like now you can’t risk yourself dying. So please stay behind and behind meant you’re dealing with the bloody leftovers. You know we’re not even in M*A*S*H days where you’ve got legitimate drugs to help people. I mean they’re just — it’s carnage and that’s what her and Margaret were doing — working together in this hospital while they had their kids around and their men were off and maybe that report the next body that comes in could be your husband.

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21 You Can’t Keep Up With TV Shows from Worry and Wonder | The Courier Thirteen Podcast [Video]

Watch the entire presentation – Worry and Wonder | The Courier Thirteen Podcast | Episode # 29 here

Transcript:

Host: Was it called the little things?

Rosanne: Yeah it just came out on me on Netflix or HBO sorry.

Host: Yeah HBO Max.

Rosanne: Brand new so, again, you can’t keep up with 420 TV shows

Host: No, you can’t yeah.

Roanne: That’s that’s why buzz and word of mouth is now one of the most important things. It kind of always was but when there were only three or four channels or even 50 cable channels, you found things that people gelled around, and then it became a big event like Mad Men or something like that or Breaking Bad. Now it really becomes your little circle of friends. You recommend a show. I watch it. I tell somebody else I know outside of that circle. They might tell their group. That has become such an important sort of Venn diagram. Who’s seen this and who’s seen that and if you like this you’ll like that and we — that’s where we get our information from. So it’s a really important conversation for people to have for the benefit of the programs to get their audiences.

It’s always fun to sit down with students and share stories about entering the television industry and how things work at all stages and I had that opportunity the other day.

The Courier Thirteen Podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Audible.

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All About The Almighty Johnsons with the Fake Geek Girls Podcast – Episode 165 [Audio]

As we’ve all been advised, if you put something out on the internet folks will stumble over you and your work and offer you new opportunities.

That happened last month when Melissa Banks, who co-hosts the Fake Geek Girls podcast found an essay I had written and recorded to my blog in 2015 (How the Female Characters in The Almighty Johnsons were Misused – and how that likely lead to the early end of a great series…).

It’s about a New Zealand show called The Almighty Johnsons and my opinion had to do with how I felt the writers had done a disservice to the female characters on the show. So here in 2021 Melissa and her co-host were planning an episode around the show, found my essay and asked for permission to quote it, which I happily gave.

If you know the Almighty Johnsons this whole episode will be of interest; if not my quote comes into the conversation here at 1:18:25 when they Introduce to the section on gender in the show and then at 1:19:22 – when they begin using my quotes.

Listen to All About The Almighty Johnsons with the Fake Geek Girls Podcast – Episode 165

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08 A Star Is Born (1937) from “Female Creatives & A Star Is Born” [Video]

Transcript:

In a nutshell, what do we see in the first version of A Star Is Born?” We have this ambitious actress. We have a drunken actor, not a director. They do marry and he is jealous of her despite how bad that makes him feel. We have this classic scene where she wins an Academy Award and he shows up drunk and destroys and humiliates the evening right? We have this classic line “Can I have one more look at you”, right before I kill myself but you don’t know that’s what I’m about to do right? We have the husband committing suicide off-screen. We’re going to see him walk off into the ocean. We’re not going to see him dead on our screen and of course, we’re going to have this ending where she defends him to the society that destroyed him — to Hollywood — by saying “I am Mrs. Norman Maine” and there’s a lot — we’ll talk about this a little if we have some time — there’s some argument. My undergrad students nowadays will say they hate that line and they’re seeing it as her stepping back and losing her identity and I don’t think that’s how it was intended. I think if we think again about the time period, this was her asserting this man meant something and you people ruined him and I will not forget him right? So it’s an interesting line to see. Everything changes as we move through society and we bring our own baggage to what we watch. So we have to think about that. It was intended to be a monument to him and not a detriment to her at this point.

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Find out why in this lecture!

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47 Selling Your Nightmares from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video]

Transcript:

What I learned from being in a writer’s room is the things you need to do most are the things you learn in English and Humanities classes. First of all, you’re selling your nightmares. What are the worst things you can imagine happening? Make stories out of that. They’re the what-ifs of your life. That whole Down Syndrome baby thing. I was pregnant when I wrote that. You have no idea when you’re going to have a kid right unless you get all the tests and even if you get all the tests you’re not sure until the day the kid shows up and you imagine all the awful things that might happen right? So I was in the middle of that when I wrote that episode. So that was my true emotion that was happening. I wrote an episode once about what if your husband committed suicide. I’ve got all kinds of episodes. I just thought what are the worst things that could happen to me and bam they became episodes over and over again right? So you’ve got to mine your nightmares and manage them.

Watch this entire presentation

Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!

* 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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The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years (Complete) [Video]

It was great to be able to attend this year’s SD WhoCon in San Diego and present this lecture on “The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years” in which I discuss how successful I think showrunner Christopher Chibnall was in making that transition.

It gave me a chance to talk about the creative work of a showrunner/screenwriter while also reconnecting to some friends we had met at this same convention some 3 years ago – and to talk about one of my favorite subjects – Doctor Who!

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13 Fuller and Her Relationships from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

Watch this entire presentation

Concord Days sends love to Margaret Fuller on the anniversary of her death in 1850.

The conversation focuses on Margaret’s exciting days in ITALY!

Dr. Rosanne Welch takes us through her adventures and enthusiastically reminds us what she was like when she was living her best life!

Transcript:

Rosanne:…and it fascinates me because they’re also having relationships in their lives because Anita had been married to someone else and she ran away with Garibaldi. Her husband was an abuser and a terrible guy and then he eventually died. So they were able to get married but they had a couple kids outside of wedlock.

Tammy: That sounds familiar yeah

Rosanne: Exactly and yeah hello Margaret’s going to show up right with Ossoli who’s a beautiful gorgeous man who’s also fighting for Italy and they’re not married but they do get that little secret marriage in before the baby’s born because that’s very careful.

Tammy: As long as everything’s legal right like that’s that that’s actually what matters yeah.

Rosanne: Well because you know we forget nowadays because it’s not a big deal to us but it was all about inheritance, If you were not the legal child, you would not inherit any of the father’s money or land or title in this case. So you know she definitely wanted to make — I assume she wanted to make sure her child would be given all that he was owed.

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