Speaking – Page 20 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

43 Protecting Your Story from 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:

As I’m thinking about this idea, I didn’t pitch it for a while because I knew the answer would be to marry them and I didn’t want to do that and then one day Mrs. Doubtfire was on TV and I was watching. It reminded me of the article and I thought “Oh I will immediately pitch the story where the wife is already remarried” because the answer from angels can’t be get a second divorce in order to go right. So that was my reasoning around why they didn’t get back together and when I pitched it, it worked because I got the story I wanted and not the story that would have been molded from somebody else’s opinion. It’s hard when you’re in a writer’s room and you’re not the head of it because you are doing their show. It’s what they want done right but you have to keep some of yourself inside there too because that’s the theme. That’s the attitude. That’s the voice that you’re bringing to the story. So I couldn’t pitch it until I knew that I could protect the full story the way I wanted it to come out.

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42 Pitching Against Cliche from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video]

Transcript:

This particular episode was called “A House Divided.” It didn’t have Robin Williams in it. That’s from which movie? Mrs. Doubtfire, right, because I read an article about Mrs. Doubtfire. I wanted to do an episode about teaching parents not to teach their — make their child a weapon in their divorce right and because that’s the story of divorce. It’s like you love me more than you love him. My problem was i knew that my boss’s answer would be the parents — like The Parent Trap — should get married again at the end. That’s the answer that our show should give but i had read an interview with Robin Williams that had taken place several years earlier. When he agreed to do Mrs. Doubtfire, he put in his contract that the film could not end with he and Sally Field getting married again because he would not lie to his own children because he was divorced twice by then and he knew he was never getting back together with his first wife. So he would not do a movie that lied to his own children and that really struck me. So the way they fixed it was they made Sally Field already connected to Pierce Brosnan right?

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41 It Never Hurts to Ask from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video]

Transcript:

…and to their credit, everybody in the room is kind of like “Oh duh yeah, why didn’t we think of that. Okay,” but a production problem. Della Reese was actually a minister in a church in Los Angeles and we filmed this in Utah. So she was given every Friday to fly back to LA to run her church for the weekend and then she’d come back Monday morning. So she didn’t work a day and a half of every week and so she couldn’t be in as many scenes as Roma Downey could. So immediately the supervising producer who’s in charge of scheduling shot that down and said “No we can’t do it,” and I thought damn, make me mad. I’m going to have to call my friend and say You’re going to hate this episode. Don’t watch it.” right and then I said “What if we asked Della if this particular week she would work a couple of extra days for the chance to play this character instead of that character” and they’re like “It can’t hurt to ask,” and you know to not play a maid she gave us another couple of extra days. So it was a move in the right direction right that had to be brought up. You have to think about it. Then you have to talk people into it. Persuasive speech is a good class to take if you want to be a writer in a writer’s room.

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40 Breaking Stereotypes from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video]

Transcript:

So, this other episode — it’s called Smokescreen — had to do with an African-American executive at a tobacco company who of course has to deal with the fact that he’s selling a product and kills people. There was going to be a lawsuit and originally — we have two angels — one was Roma Downey — who comes from Ireland — an Irish woman and one was Della Reese, a famous jazz singer who’s a woman of color. We always made the angels real people in people’s lives and that’s how they got to talk to you and try to — they never told you they were angels till the very end when everything would you know they could get you to change your mind — so the very first thing because people fall back on stereotypes all the time. It is far too easy to go to the stereotype and you have to learn to go beyond it. So they’re going to make Roma Downey the lawyer — the guest lawyer — and Della Reese the guest maid in this family and one of my best friends — this is a terrible phrase from Seinfeld happens to be African-American right. She’s not my only African-American friend but my best friend and I knew she would cringe if Della Reese played a maid. So I raised my little hand and I said wouldn’t it be cool if Della was the lawyer and Roma was the maid.

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10 Things Hollywood Writers Must Know with Dr. Rosanne Welch – Best in Fest Podcast Ep #23 – La Femme Film Festival

The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting is one of many sponsors of the LaFemme Film Festival which supports and nurtures the artistic entertainment productions of women. Their President and Director, Leslie LaPage, hosts the Best in Fest podcast and recently invited me on to talk about the 10 Things Hollywood Writers Must Know.

Dr. Rosanne Welch is a writer and university professor of Humanities in the (IGE) Department at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; and screenwriting for two MFA in Screenwriting programs (Cal State, Fullerton and Stephens College). Her current books include Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture (McFarland Publishing, 2017) and Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection (ABC-CLIO, 2017), which she co-edited with her CalPoly Pomona colleague and officemate, Dr. Peg Lamphier.

In her previous life, Welch was a television writer/producer with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences and Touched by an Angel and ABC NEWS/Nightline. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.

In this episode, Leslie and Rosanne discuss 10 things Hollywood writers must know. For example, how to write what you emotionally know, how to work in a writer’s room, the do’s and don’ts of pitching, when to use a pitch deck and when it’s a horrible idea and much more.

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01 Introduction from “Female Creatives & A Star Is Born” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] [CC]

Transcript:

Here we are. We’re talking about the importance of female creatives in A Star Is Born. For me, that’s really what it’s all about. I like to my begin my lectures about the fact that I would like to acknowledge that this event is happening on the traditional lands of the Tongva people. That’s what Los Angeles is and we should recognize that there were people here before us and we need to respect their history and they’re the people who still exist on this land. So I like to start with that. I learned that when I went to a conference in New Zealand and they start all their lectures that way and I thought that was quite beautiful. As you just said so I don’t need this. These are the shows that I’ve worked on. These are the books that I have written. The lecture we’re speaking on today is going to come up next year in the book. I also am on the editorial board for Written By magazine, which I happen to have a copy of right next to me. It’s free online. So the magazine of the Writers Guild. I recommend people read it and it always has interviews with movie writers or television writers and that’s really good. I also do book reviews for the Journal of Screenwriting. It’s a great place for new academics to get published. If there are books you feel like reviewing or you’d like a free copy of you can write a review for me. So Vicki will get you in touch with me if that’s interesting to you.

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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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39 Even More On Working Well With Others from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video]

Transcript:

Where am I going to find a piece of wood on Christmas Eve that only an angel can deliver that I can’t throw in the trash?

Audience: Christmas tree?

Rosanne: Close. That was the first thought. Christmas tree. Christmas tree is not spiritual. It’s not connected to the Christmas story.

Audience: Cross.

Rosanne: Cross is close but that’s Easter — that’s Easter but you’re close. What involves wood and Jesus and Mary and Joseph?

Audience: The Manger?

Rosanne: Thank you! So I got the idea while I was sitting around the table with everybody but I knew this guy didn’t like to be one-upped and I didn’t want him on my bad side because he helped sign my contract later right, but I got to get this idea out there but I can’t pretend to be smarter than him because that will not make him happy. So I sit there at a table of like 10 people and I got the idea and I thought well luckily I’m a pretty loud person. I’m considered Italian where I come from but clearly not here because my grandparents are from Sicily. So all of a sudden I just went — Uh!

Not the whole table but the guy sitting next to me went what and that’s all I needed was someone to ask me what I was thinking right? I was like oh I just I’ve been thinking about this problem and I had this idea but I don’t know if you’ll like it… Oh, what’s your idea? Well, what if the wood came from the manger and like four people around the table went oh yes and the guy who wrote the story was about to say no. I could see his face but when his colleagues all went yes. he was like oh yeah that’s a great idea. We should — okay that’s what we’ll do. So I wasn’t one-upping him. I was just accidentally having a moment and it allowed me to get my idea out. Now that sounds ridiculous but I got what I wanted out of it right? So you have to learn to read the room. How is it operating? Who are your — who are your allies in the room?

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Stephens College and Writers Guild Foundation Present The Panel Discussion — “It’s All Relative: Writing Matriarchs” [Video]

During every Residency Workshop the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Executive Director, Dr. Rosanne Welch, joins with the Writers Guild Foundation to moderate a panel on a topic of interest to female writers. This year we planned one on Writing Diverse Families – but in the last day before our panel 2 panelists had to drop out due to… family duties. So we pivoted, realizing the panelists who were able to appear all had shows that involved 3 generational families lead by matriarchs.

Hence the title: It’s All Relative: Writing Matriarchs.

This gave us a chance to explore how these female TV writers have expanded depictions of the relationships between grandmothers, mothers and daughter over the years and how they’ve developed storylines that reflect the complexity and universality of these inescapable bonds. Panelists include Sheryl J. Anderson – Creator and Executive Producer, Sweet Magnolias; Lang Fisher – Co-creator and Executive Producer, Never Have I Ever; and Valerie Woods – Co-executive Producer, Queen Sugar. Everyone shared memories of their own family matriarchs and the inspiration they continue to provide each woman’s writing.

Due to Covid we recorded this panel live at the Jim Henson Studios where we host our Workshop in front of the live audience of MFA candidates.

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38 More On Working Well With Others from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video]

Transcript:

There was this violin and I kept sitting in the room thinking it took 26 years to make this violin and it’s really important. You give it to the kid soon. Throw it away and make a new one. Something’s wrong with the wood right? I said this is my problem is you know he said I’ll fix the problem. The angel will have given this guy the wood and therefore he can’t throw it away right? He’s like well 26 years and making his violin, the angel handed him a crap piece of wood okay? I need to start again. This is — I need a reason why you can’t throw this piece of wood away and it’s a Christmas episode. There’s only one piece of wood an angel can give me that I won’t throw away on Christmas eve. What is that?

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04 Sex and Marriage 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:

Rosanne: So they knew sex. They talked about sex and they wanted to be careful about it.

Tammy: Right.

Rosanne: Exactly. So funny.

Tammy: Yeah. Well, and Margaret was especially aware of issues about being a woman in a make society and issues of marriage and how it was very hard to actually have an equal balance between two intellectual individuals because it was not something that she had generally seen or that generally happened.

Rosanne: It didn’t. It wasn’t socially acceptable. Women were supposed to accept that, even if you were semi-smart, you had been allowed some learning, which she got lucky because her father believed in that. Then you gave that up when you went home and then you just took care of the kids if you got married.

Tammy: Right and her father started training her when she was a kid. This is not a little thing. He was a strict disciplinarian and wanted her to be translating The Aeneid by the time she was 10 without any hesitation and without any errors and she had nightmares as a child because he was holding her up to such a high standard, but I think she lived by that high standard for the rest of her life.

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