On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch
Writing, Film, Television and More!
A field trip to the writers room of The Simpsons served as yesterday’s highlight for the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Class of 2021.
Thanks to producer/writer Rob Lazebnik for showing our students around and explaining what makes a good Simpsons script – a story that involves the whole family, which is hard to come by after being on the air so many wonderful years…
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Do you know about these women screenwriters? Many don’t. Learn more about them today!
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June Mathis, one of the most prolific screenwriters of the Silent Era, not only wrote cinema, she lived it. Mathis traumatically passed away at the young age of 40 in the same place she began her career as an entertainer, the stage. The New York Times reported her dramatic demise in a front-page headline: “June Mathis Heart Victim” after Mathis died suddenly of a heart attack while attending a play at a New York theatre. Mathis lived out what cinephile critics would later coin “cinema 360”.
Fearless and Fierce: June Mathis
by Lauren E. Smith
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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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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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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
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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.
Watch this entire presentation
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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Do you know about these women screenwriters? Many don’t. Learn more about them today!
Get “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Today!
Glyn’s experiences as an English barrister and landowner’s (Mrs. Clayton Louis Glyn) wife, I believe, form the basis of much of her work. The nuances of high society and high language associated with a life of pleasure and wealth are a recurrent theme through her available works.
The Glorious Ms. Glyn
by Amy Banks
Buy a signed copy of when Women Write Hollywood or Buy the Book on Amazon
†
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
Wow – these pictures show my first lecture with our first Stephens MFA cohort – who all became contributors to our first book!
Wonderful memories and a wonderful foundation on which to build the program as tonight we welcome the 5th cohort – the MFA candidates of the Class of 2021! — Rosanne
Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.
Watch this entire presentation
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