Podcast – Page 86 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Adapting Harry Potter from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (0:35)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

Of course, I mentioned that we would talk about Harry Potter briefly. We could be here for a whole hours, 2, 3, 6 talking about all the Harry Potter adaptations. What I think is important to notice is, as you know, the book in England was called “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.” When it came to be published in America, they were afraid American children would look at the word philosopher and walk away, because that’s old and boring. That’s for old people. Of course, in America, what did we call it? The Sorcerer’s Stone, because a sorcerer is kind of cool — Mickey with hat — so we like sorcerers. We’re good. I mean that’s and adaptation made our publication people just to sell more books.

About this talk

Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona. In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University. She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.

Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space are two books she has written. Los Angeles Times and the Journal of Screenwriting hold some of her published articles.

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

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Introduction from Why The Monkees Matter Book Signing, Book Soup. Hollywood [Video] (1:03)

This book signing at Book Soup was wonderful – good people, good conversation (before and after the signing). Just another example of the kind of quality positive people who have been drawn to The Monkees across generations – I even met a former head of publicity for ScreenGems who had some fun stories to tell. — Rosanne

Transcript:

Thank you. Thank you. Thank everybody for coming out tonight. It’s really coo to talk about The Monkees whenever you get a chance so I appreciate the chance. What I was just going to do was I was going to read a little bit from the Preface and the Introduction — kind of a setup for the purpose of the book and what it’s all about and then just talk about The Monkees for a little bit and see if anybody’s interested in telling stories and what they first remember about the show. So, if that’s good with everybody….I’ll start. The Preface of the book is called “I’m (Still) A Believer” and one of the things I did in writing it was I made all the chapters were the titles of songs — famous Monkee songs and it was really interesting to sit there and try to think of, what was the right song to put on this particular (chapter) and I ended up finding song titles I didn’t even remember because they put out so much music and everyone has their favorites and you just didn’t realize that there were these other titles. So, part of the them, they might have been perfect for that chapter, but they didn’t hit your brain immediately as obvious Monkee songs so then I would pick something else. The first one is obviously “I’m (Still) A Believer” because that’s what brought me to writing about them.

Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today!

Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

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More on Adapting The Hobbit from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (0:44)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

Lots of true Tolkien fans – deeply angry that such a thing should happen and there should be focus on a character when other stuff was being thrown out. This is a choice for screenwriters and directors as they try to decide to bring something to film. The Hobbit had been made in animation several years earlier — 1977 — and it’s only 77 minutes long. So, would you rather have that version or the new version with an extra elf that doesn’t really exist. Now make up your mind. What I love about this is that made by Rankin-Bass the same company that gave us Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Who himself was an adaptation of a song. A song turned into a beloved Christmas story. So, you can adapt from anything.

About this talk

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Wrapping Up The Monkees from 1960’s TV Censorship and The Monkees [Video] (1:26)

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“1960s TV Censorship and The Monkees” gives a brief overview of where censorship standards were in the era – and how The Monkees pushed the envelope with its mentions of the Vietnam War – and Sunset Strip riots – and even with the outrageous storytelling behind “Frodis Caper”, the episode that celebrated the saving of an alien plant that very closely resembled a marijuana plant…

Writer Treva Silverman said the staff got away with such jokes because the network executives were just old enough not to understand any of the references.
Presented at Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting classes on Friday, August 5, 2016

Transcript:

They had a couple of other big names come in. And then this was Treva’s explanation to me about why they got away with it. Network guys thought they were hip and cool, but they had no idea what was going on. And these guys knew it. She defined herself as a hippy as did Peter Meyerson like I said and she said she started smoking pot during the course of working on the show and when she went home to New York to visit her relatives they were like, ahhh…scandalized. She said, “Well, that’s just what everyone is doing.” So, I wanted to mention that we’re not done with censorship on television briefly. If you know Amy Schumer recently had this sketch canceled from her show. It was censored. She wasn’t to air it and it was anti-gun thing based on all the mass shootings. We still obviously knew about the “wardrobe malfunction” and what can and can’t be shown of a woman on television and of course, George Carlin went to court over The 7 Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Television. Dexter, of course, think how violent that is. We worry so much about what sex we show on TV but look how much violence we show and I think Gilda Radner, who I love dearly, is pretty brilliant because she talked about the violence on television back in the day. So we’re still not done with that. If you’re interested in censorship on TV, these are some books that are fun to look at that talk about this period of time. And so, if you want to look into that, that’s what they are. And that’s the flat out presentation.

Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today!

Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

Other books/DVDs mentioned in this clip

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Adapting Tolkien from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (1:02)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

Of course, we all know, gee whiz, the biggest adaptation of the last ten years has been the whole set of Tolkien books. I’m just going to look at The Hobbit for a minute because when it became a movie they invented an entire character who doesn’t appear in the book at all. Just made her up, because there weren’t enough chicks involved in this story, right? They thought “Oh no, we need to do something about that.” So Tauriel doesn’t exist in the books, but they wanted to have a little bit of a love story. They wanted to have a female character largely because one of the more popular female characters in The Lord of The Rings adaptation is Eowyn, right? Everybody — well that’s Tauriel. Excuse me. She’s so important she got on one of the posters. It’s Eowyn, right? And she stood out in the whole Lord of the Rings saga because of what line? (Laughs) “I am no man!” Wham. What a great moment, right? That’a a moment everybody…so, they knew in making The Hobbit a film, they had to have some sort of female character who could bring that to the new production.

About this talk

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Sunset Strip Riots and The Monkees from 1960’s TV Censorship and The Monkees [Video] (1:09)

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Transcript:

And this is the Sunset Strip Riots which had to do with Pandora’s Box which was a club down in Hollywood and the curfew was that kids under 21 had to go home by 10 o’clock and so there were marches and protests and stuff and these guys were part of that. But they had been told when they went to press events they weren’t allowed to talk about any of this stuff. And they didn’t, at the press events, but they did in the show all the time. Which I think is hilarious. Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart wrote most of the songs for the first 2 years of the show and I love this, in the early 70’s they started this protest, Let Us Vote, the L.U.V. protest and it contributed obviously to lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. I think that’s really cool. And Peter Tork said, probably, one of the most intelligent things “the show probably garnered a larger audience for their point of view than The Beatles did” because TV comes into your house for free. You had to buy The Beatles albums. You had to pay to go to a concert. TV came into your house whether your parents allowed it or not and the parents just thought these were just a bunch of goofy guys and, by the way, who’s he sitting with at the Monterey Pop Festival? Janis Joplin. She was going to guest on the show in the 3rd season but it was cancelled.

Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today!

Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Some Final Words on Argo from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (0:53)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

So they invented this huge chase on the tarmac where the cars come chasing after the plane, but we all know the cars will never catch the plane. It’s stupid, but in their defense, it provided the audience with that last minute feeling of tension that was true to the feelings that the hostages had even on the plane — until they took off and were in the air, they still felt it was possible that they might be captured — re-captured. So, I think that’s an interesting choice. They, of course, knew it was the big, climactic moment in the movie. They needed a big visual. What’s better than a car chase on a tarmac. So, people have to read the book to understand what was — and wasn’t — part of this operation. There’s so much inside the book as well. He talks about previous affairs that he was involved in. It’s fascinating what this man could do and to not go and get that extra information is a loss because this movie opens up a story that it can’t possibly give us the rest of.

About this talk

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Power-Up with Powergirl welcomes Dr. Rosanne Welch – Friday, February 17, 2017 @ 10am PST

Update 20170126: Due to a cold, I have had to reschedule this interview. Note new date below.

I’ll be recording a podcast this Friday with Jean Power this Friday, February 17, 2017 at 10am PST/1pm EST.

You can listen live and even phone in your own questions. Join Us! — Rosanne

Listen Live via BlogTalkRadio

Call in your questions at (347) 857-2052

Show Description

Today Jean Powergirl takes the host reigns and welcomes her guest Rosanne Welch, PhD to the show! They’ll be discussing Roseanne’s book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture.”

A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy. Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.

This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers. Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces.

Rosanne Welch, PhD has written for television (Touched by an Angel, Picket Fences) and print (Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space). In the documentary world she has written and produced Bill Clinton and the Boys Nation Class of 1963 for ABC NEWS/Nightline and consulted on PBS’s A Prince Among Slaves, the story of a prince from West Africa who was enslaved in the 1780s, freed by order of President John Quincy Adams in the 1820s and returned to his homeland.

Real Life and The Monkees from 1960’s TV Censorship and The Monkees [Video] (0:47)

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Transcript:

The other thing they did that was fascinating was that at the end of several episodes they would take the last minute and interview the actual actors, “hey, what’s going on in your life? How are things?” And the actors talked about being part of demonstrations, going to anti-war events. They talked about what it was like to be a hippy, do be disrespected. How men with long hair were treated badly and not respected in public and how they felt about that. Going to restaurants which wouldn’t let them in. I mean look at Peter Tork’s hair. Nowadays that doesn’t look that long at all, but in the time this was really, really…So this ending episode interview was a fascinating thing they got away with doing. They talked about a lot of stuff — the Sunset Curfew Riots — I’m going to show you a clip from that. And they would just sit on the back lot like that — the back set — and have these little interviews. And they got away with it.

Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today!

Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Adapting Argo for the Sake of Action from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (1:14)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

Another change, having to do with the script, if you’ve seen the movie, of course, it’s about saving these American embassy officials who are hiding out in the Canadian Embassy during the Iranian hostage crisis. He creates this lovely — and it’s all true. He made them up to be a film crew from Canada. They were going to walk right to the airport, get on a plane and go home. In the real world, the tension that happened at the very end of the story happened inside the airport and it was because all of these embassy officials were made up to be stereotypical Hollywood people. So, the man who was one of the leading officials — who is a very straight-laced guy — who would always show up in a suit and a tie and all that, he was doing the Hollywood director bling thing with the chest hair and the gold necklace and he’s sitting at this airport. A women from another embassy, who recognized him, because she’d worked with him previously begins to approach him at the airport to say “hi” and of course she’s got this look on her face like “Why is he dressed up like this strange man? What is this Halloween or what?” And he’s sitting across [whispering] because they were afraid people would see who he was. So the women didn’t approach him. They all got on the plane and they all were safe. That moment of tension is what the screenwriter and what Affleck wanted to capture, but that is not very engaging — walking across an airport looking at a guy in an outfit. That’s not going to work.

About this talk

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016