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.
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This new “A Woman Wrote That” post is an echo of the Writers Guild campaign of a few years ago (“A Writer Wrote That”) where they noted famous movie quotes and credited the screenwriter rather than the director. The difference here being that we will be posting lines from films written by female screenwriters. Feel free to share! — Rosanne
This new “A Woman Wrote That” post is an echo of the Writers Guild campaign of a few years ago (“A Writer Wrote That”) where they noted famous movie quotes and credited the screenwriter rather than the director. The difference here being that we will be posting lines from films written by female screenwriters. Feel free to share! — Rosanne
“Where’s HER Movie” posts will highlight interesting and accomplished women from a variety of professional backgrounds who deserve to have movies written about them as much as all the male scientists, authors, performers, and geniuses have had written about them across the over 100 years of film. This is our attempt to help write these women back into mainstream history. — Rosanne
As one of the most prominent racing pilots of her generation Jackie Cochran pioneered women’s aviation. The head of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during WWII she oversaw over 1000 civilian female pilots who ferried planes from factories to port cities and later became the first woman to break the sound barrier on 18 May 1953. She originally learned to fly in order to expand her sales area.
In the 1960s, Cochran was a sponsor of the Mercury 13 program, an early effort to test the ability of women to be astronauts. Thirteen women pilots passed the same preliminary tests as the male astronauts of the Mercury program before the program was cancelled.[40][41][42][N 2] It was never a NASA initiative, though it was spearheaded by two members of the NASA Life Sciences Committee, one of whom, William Randolph Lovelace II, was a close friend of Cochran and her husband. Though Cochran initially supported the program, she was later responsible for delaying further phases of testing, and letters from her to members of the Navy and NASA expressing concern over whether the program was to be run properly and in accordance with NASA goals may have significantly contributed to the eventual cancellation of the program. It is generally accepted that Cochran turned against the program out of concern that she would no longer be the most prominent female aviator.[43]
On 17 and 18 July 1962, Representative Victor Anfuso (D-NY) convened public hearings before a special Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics[44] to determine whether or not the exclusion of women from the astronaut program was discriminatory, during which John Glenn and Scott Carpenter testified against admitting women to the astronaut program. Cochran herself argued against bringing women into the space program, saying that time was of the essence, and moving forward as planned was the only way to beat the Soviets in the Space Race. (None of the women who had passed the tests were military jet test pilots, nor did they have engineering degrees, which were the two basic experiential qualifications for potential astronauts. Women were not allowed to be military jet test pilots at that time. On average, however, they all had more flight experience than the male astronauts.) “NASA required all astronauts to be graduates of military jet test piloting programs and have engineering degrees. In 1962, no women could meet these requirements.” This ended the Mercury 13 program.[45] However, John Glenn and Scott Carpenter, who were part of the Mercury 7, also did not have engineering degrees when they were selected. Both of them were granted a degree after their flights for NASA. [46] [47]
Significantly, the hearings investigated the possibility of gender discrimination a two full years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made that illegal, making these hearings a marker of how ideas about women’s rights permeated political discourse even before they were enshrined in law.[45]
Join our program director, Dr. Rosanne Welch, for a virtual open house to learn more about our Master of Fine Arts in TV and Screenwriting. As we prepare to welcome the 2021 cohort in fall 2021, we invite you to learn about the program, hear how the admissions process works, and an open Q&A to get all your questions answered.
Write Reach Represent
Online Open House with Program Executive Director Dr. Rosanne Welch and Director of Admissions Alexandra Miller
New York, USA Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 7:00 pm EST Columbia, USA Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 6:00 pm CST Denver, USA Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 5:00 pm MST Los Angeles, USA Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 4:00 pm PST
This new “A Woman Wrote That” post is an echo of the Writers Guild campaign of a few years ago (“A Writer Wrote That”) where they noted famous movie quotes and credited the screenwriter rather than the director. The difference here being that we will be posting lines from films written by female screenwriters. Feel free to share! — Rosanne
This new “A Woman Wrote That” post is an echo of the Writers Guild campaign of a few years ago (“A Writer Wrote That”) where they noted famous movie quotes and credited the screenwriter rather than the director. The difference here being that we will be posting lines from films written by female screenwriters. Feel free to share! — Rosanne
“Where’s HER Movie” posts will highlight interesting and accomplished women from a variety of professional backgrounds who deserve to have movies written about them as much as all the male scientists, authors, performers, and geniuses have had written about them across the over 100 years of film. This is our attempt to help write these women back into mainstream history. — Rosanne
“It was well recognized that Martha Raye endured less comfort and more danger than any other Vietnam entertainer. Don’t let the sun go down without reading this about Martha Raye.
The most unforgivable oversight of TV is that her shows were not taped. I was unaware of her credentials or where she is buried. Somehow I just can’t see Brittany Spears, Paris Hilton, or Jessica Simpson doing what this woman (and the other USO women, including Ann Margaret & Joey Heatherton) did for our troops in past wars. Most of the old time entertainers were made of a lot sterner stuff than today’s crop of activists bland whiners.
The following is from an Army Aviator who takes a trip down memory lane:
“It was just before Thanksgiving ’67 and we were ferrying dead and wounded from a large GRF west of Pleiku. We had run out of body bags by noon, so the Hook (CH-47 CHINOOK) was pretty rough in the back. All of a sudden, we heard a ‘take-charge’ woman’s voice in the rear. There was the singer and actress, Martha Raye, with a SF (Special Forces) beret and jungle fatigues, with subdued markings, helping the wounded into the Chinook, and carrying the dead aboard. ‘Maggie’ had been visiting her SF ‘heroes’ out ‘west’. We took off, short of fuel, and headed to the USAF hospital pad at Pleiku. As we all started unloading our sad pax’s, a ‘Smart Mouth’ USAF Captain said to Martha…. “Ms Ray, with all these dead and wounded to process, there would not be time for your show!” To all of our surprise, she pulled on her right collar and said ……”Captain, see this eagle? I am a full ‘Bird’ in the US Army Reserve, and on this is a ‘Caduceus’ which means I am a Nurse, with a surgical specialty….now, take me to your wounded!” He said, “Yes ma’am…. follow me.” Several times at the Army Field Hospital in Pleiku, she would ‘cover’ a surgical shift, giving a nurse a well-deserved break. Martha is the only woman buried in the SF (Special Forces) cemetery at Ft Bragg. Hand Salute! A great lady.. I did not know this about Martha Ray…. thought you might like it.”
At Netflix, character is often more important than plot, said the company’s creative talent director Christopher Mack at CineGouna Bridge, the industry section of Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival, on Monday during his “Pitch Realization Masterclass by Netflix.” But it’s not about making him or her likeable, as their transformation is key to the storytelling experience.
“This change is driving people to watch our content. Your job is to make it interesting and engaging. Think about Walter White,” said Mack, explaining how to successfully pitch new concepts to Netflix. “Viewers develop a relationship with the characters, their engagement depends on whether they relate to them or not. Otherwise they won’t care.”
Described as the story of “an adorable tow truck driver who really digs Kelli, a fellow North Carolinian, when he meets her as he changes her dead car battery. But Joe’s interest takes a sharp right turn when he learns that Kelli is a Muslim” the film raised questions of identity, representation and religious freedom.
For the panel, Executive Director Rosanne Welch and mentor/instructor Dawn Comer Jefferson provided a breakdown of the script followed by moderating questions from the audience. Guests included Nicole Ballivian (writer-director), Deonna Kelli Sayed, from whose blog post the script was adapted, and actors Jill Galbraith and Travis Lincoln Cox. — Rosanne
![Reel Sisters Virtual Film Festival and Lecture Series 2020 – Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dawn Comer Jefferson Analyze The Script, Joe & The Shawl [Video] (1 hour 42 minutes)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/reel-sisters-2020.png)