Chatting after the panel via Instagram

Chatting after  the panel: “Between the Sheets: Writing About Sex on Television” at the Writers Guild of America.

Chatting after the panel via Instagram

After our WGA panel on Writing sex scenes for television, Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks to panelist (and Stephens College MFA alum) Sahar Jahani (Ramy, 13 Reasons Why) speak with Intimacy coordinator Mia Schachter.

Writers Guild Foundation@wgfoundation

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#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Panorama before the panel: “Between the Sheets: Writing About Sex on Television” at the Writers Guild of America

Panorama before the panel: “Between the Sheets: Writing About Sex on Television” at the Writers Guild of America.

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Writers Guild Foundation@wgfoundation

Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.

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Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks with writer-producer Dayna Lynne North via Instagram

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks with writer-producer Dayna Lynne North (ANY DAY NOW, VERONICA MARS, LINCOLN HEIGHTS,
INSECURE) before their panel “Between the Sheets” at the Writers Guild.

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks with writer-producer Dayna Lynne North via Instagram

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks with writer-producer Dayna Lynne North via Instagram

Writers Guild Foundation@wgfoundation

Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.

Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram


Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Nicholas Nicky Laskin, Current MFA candidate in the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Program, is a frequent contributor to The Playlist

Playlist

Nicholas Nicky Laskin, Current MFA candidate in the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Program is a frequent contributor to The Playlist (a leading film and television website, offering smart yet accessible news, analysis, critical takes and more for the film community at large, founded in 2007 by Rodrigo Perez).

Read Nick’s Top 10 Films of 2019 as you contemplate what to catch up on over the holidays.

Nicholas Nicky Laskin, Current MFA candidate in the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting, is a frequent contributor to The Playlist


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#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

At The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop via Instagram

At The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop

At The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop via Instagram

Students of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting (Stephens.edu/mfa) work in small groups creating genre mashup scenes under the direction of visiting professor, Jule Selbo, PhD, author of Film Genre for the Screenwriter.

Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.

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Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

At The Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting and TV Winter Workshop via Instagram

At The Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting and TV Winter Workshop

At The Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting and TV Winter Workshop via Instagram

Guest Speaker, Pavel Jech, myself, and the entire MFA class of 2020 in the Chaplin Screening Room at the Jim Henson Studios — where we host the workshops twice each year.

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Save The Date! – Rosanne at SCMS (Society for Cinema and Media Studies) Conference, April 1-5, 2020, Denver Colorado

Save The Date! - SCMS (Society for Cinema and Media Studies), April 1-5, 2020, Denver Colorado

I’m excited to fly to Denver again this year (twice actually – once for the SCMS conference in April and once for SeriesFest in June – more about that in another post!). 

For SCMS (Society for Cinema and Media Studies) I was invited to be part of a panel with 3 other fascinating female academics discussing How Unreliable Narrators harm giving women enough credit in historical research

A great deal of women’s work has gone uncredited. Its documentation or evidence may not exist in predictable places. Conceiving of how this work was conducted, or had impact, or might be theorized often pose more questions than answers. Our panel is interesteded in meeting these challenges through new and alternative forms of storytelling. How might we identify creative or productive approaches to historical writing that address absences, gaps, rumors, contradictions, or suspect information?

This may involve examining how biography has informed the construction of a star image. Vicki Callahan confronts the inability to reconstruct Normand’s filmmaking career and piece together missing parts of her star biography due to a lack of documentation (in addition to the scandals that arise at pivotal moments). In contrast, Eartha Kitt made a concerted effort to represent herself through “self-narrativization,” according to Philana Payton (who will present “Eartha Kitt vs. Eartha Mae”). Kitt wrote multiple autobiographies, scrupulously examining her private identity versus her public self on stage and screen.

The notion of narrator–whether unreliable narrator, storyteller, cryptic voice–proves useful here. For example, Normand serves as an unreliable narrator, leading Callahan to place historical weight on her scripts and performances (and performativity). Kitt, on the other hand, asserted her authority (and made a bid for black feminist resistance) by claiming her narrator role.

Taking a long-range historical view, my presentation will consider how certain male filmmakers have been unreliable narrators in reference to their collaborations with women in the industry. They often fail to credit their female collaborators or mentors, especially in public. A similar dynamic occurred with Joan Harrison; many of her film and TV contributions have been obscured because of the bright spotlight on Hitchcock. For Christina Lane, this (along with major gaps in documentation) fed into the challenges of historicizing her life and career. Sources came from unexpected places—Harrison’s housekeepers and caretakers—which created an opportunity for alternative feminist writing strategies.

Scms logo

About SCMS

The Society for Cinema and Media Studies is the leading scholarly organization in the United States dedicated to promoting a broad understanding of film, television, and related media through research and teaching grounded in the contemporary humanities tradition.

SCMS encourages excellence in scholarship and pedagogy and fosters critical inquiry into the global, national, and local circulation of cinema, television, and other related media. SCMS scholars situate these media in various contexts, including historical, theoretical, cultural, industrial, social, artistic, and psychological.

SCMS seeks to further media study within higher education and the wider cultural sphere, and to serve as a resource for scholars, teachers, administrators, and the public. SCMS works to maintain productive relationships with organizations in other nations, disciplines, and areas of media study; to foster dialogue between media industries and scholars; and to promote the preservation of our film, television, and media heritage. We encourage membership and participation of scholars and those in related positions not only in the US but around the world.

Krista Dyson, Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Alumni, wins Buffy for Best Documentary at the 2019 Tampa Bay Underground Film Festival

Congratulations Krista Dyson (Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Class of 2018), co-producer on “When All That’s Left Is Love” which won the Buffy for Best Documentary at the 2019 Tampa Bay Underground Film Festival.

This feature-length documentary goes behind closed doors with Alzheimer’s caregivers. Dyson worked on the film while she was completing the MFA program.

“I feel like I earned two MFAs, between the writing program and the work I did on this project… Our goal was to allow the audience to truly understand what a complex and difficult situation exists for caregivers.”

Stephens College MFA Alums are Active Achievers!

Krista Dyson, Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Alunmi, wins Buffy for Best Documentary at the 2019 Tampa Bay Underground Film FestivalKrista Dyson, Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Alunmi, wins Buffy for Best Documentary at the 2019 Tampa Bay Underground Film Festival


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#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

#MentorMonday 8 – Dawn Comer Jefferson – Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Dawn Comer Jefferson is our Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting #mentormonday spotlight this week!

Dawn comer jefferson

Dawn is an Emmy-nominated, award-winning writer. On television, Comer Jefferson wrote on the CBS family drama Judging Amy, served as writer/consulting producer on MTV’s teen drama, South of Nowhere, freelanced on the CBS hit NCIS, and developed a drama pilot at NBC Universal Studios. She was nominated for an Emmy for writing the Fox-animated family film, Our Friend, Martin, and for the last nine years has written Emmy-winning arts programming for PBS, performed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

As a non-fiction writer, Comer Jefferson has written about children, families and public policy issues for national print and online media including Garnet News, Working Mother, Fit Pregnancy Magazine and MomsRising, and her essays have been featured in the anthologies A Woman Alone (Seal Press) and Go Girl (Eighth Mountain Press). She adapted, produced and directed the eight-part NPR radio series adaptation of the biography Maggie’s American Dream, co-wrote the nonfiction book Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work, and Family, and the African American historical children’s fiction, The Promise.


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Tom Stempel, Friend of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting, and his blog, Understanding Screenwriting

Friend of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting, Tom Stempel, (historian and author of one of the textbooks used in our MFA – Framework: a History of Screenwriting) has a blog – Understanding Screenwriting — where he analyzes the work of recent screenplays, many of which you may have just seen.

His latest post…

Stempel tomUNDERSTANDING SCREENWRITING: Ladies of All Kinds
Tom Stempel reviews Downton Abbey, Hustlers, and the lineup of this Fall 2019 Television Season.

Welcome Back, Lady Mary, Lady Edith, and the Dowager Countess.

Downton Abbey (2019. Screenplay by Julian Fellowes, Characters by Julian Fellowes. 122 minutes)

A letter is signed in flowery handwriting. It goes to the post office. It goes on the Night Mail train to northern England (we know it is the Night Mail train because this montage bears more than a passing resemblance to the great 1936 documentary of the same name). The letter goes into the post office van, then the post office. A postal employee rides on a bicycle through the countryside . He goes up a familiar path to…Downton Abbey. He gives the letter to Andy, one of the footmen at the Abbey, who looks at the letter and says, “Blimey.” Andy takes the letter to Barrow, the head of household staff, who takes it to Robert, the Earl of Grantham. Robert opens the letter and tells his eldest daughter, Lady Mary, the contents. Lady Mary’s reply is, “What?”

Read Tom’s entire article


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