Video – Page 66 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

More On The Monkees: American Bandstand 1966 -Top 10- Last Train to Clarksville, The Monkees

This is an excellent example of one television show promoting another… and note that Dick Clark has no attitude in his voice when he lists The Monkees among that pretty hallowed hall of 60s hit makers. — Rosanne

Michael Lynch shared a link to the group: Zilch! A Monkees Podcast!May 25 at 8:06 AM

Monkee business on ‘American Bandstand.’ Dubbed audio, but still, a nice peek of people digging the Monkees when they were still a relatively new “thing.”

Airdate: October 8, 1966

Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart wrote “Last Train..” as a subtle protest of Vietnam as the man catching the train is going off to an army base in the fictitious town of Clarksville and he doesn’t know if he’s ”ever coming home”. This, the very first song by The Monkees (Mickey Dolenz with Boyce & Hart’s band The Candy Store Prophets), is at #6 today and will peak at #1 next month. “The Monkees” TV series premiered last month on Sept. 12 on NBC.

Depending on when this episode was actually taped, it’s just possible that this is the first time some of these kids had ever heard a Monkees song. Dancers today include Toni Kashinoff (1:15), Theodosia Dayton (wearing glasses at 1:20), Laura Bravo (1:30), Lauren Montgomery (2:00) Marcia Silverman (3:03), and Martha Sedaris (3:14).

Buy 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 Acheivement 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 Riderand Five Easy Pieces.

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

Want to use “Why The Monkees Matter” in your classroom?

Order Examination Copies, Library and Campus Bookstore orders directly from McFarland

“When Women Wrote Hollywood” Panel at Denver Pop Culture Con [Video] (40 minutes 48 seconds)

On Saturday June 1, 2019 from 12:30 pm to 1:20 pm I had the great joy of hosting a panel at the Denver Popular Culture Con celebrating the work of 4 of the alumni of our Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting – Sydney Haven, Amy Banks, Mikayla Daniels, Kelley Zinge – who themselves were celebrating the female screenwriters they each researched and wrote about in our book “When Women Wrote Hollywood”.

Learn more about the Stephens College Master of Fine Arts in TV and Screenwriting

The audience enjoyed the comfortable style of our panel along with the stories they had to tell of women who ran their own studios, wrote/produced/directed and often starred in their own films which all came under the banner of the Con’s “Reel Heroes” track. Women such as Bess Meredyth, Fredericka Sagor Mass, Jane Murfin, and Lillian Hellman are heroes to the many female artists doing that same work today against the ridiculous comments about whether or not studios can risk loaning so much production monies to ‘untried’ talents. We need to tell these stories over and over so that those comments can be relegated to the historical trash heap on which they belong.

So enjoy listening to these newly-minted scholars and remember their names – along with the names of the women they honored with their writing. And many thanks to Sydney Haven for suggesting we submit a panel proposal! It was a great weekend!

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05 Who Tells Your Story? from “When Women Wrote Hollywood”, Dr. Rosanne Welch, Cal State Fullerton [Video] (1 minute)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

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Transcript:

It’s important to recognize what Lin-Manuel Miranda did so well in his show — who tells your story, tells people whether or not you will be remembered and we’re gonna find that sadly in a lot of film history, the women are who got left behind by the men writing the history right? I don’t want to rag on men. I like men. I’m married to one. I have a son. They’re very cool people but sometimes they forget to mention the ladies right? So we’re gonna think about that. Some examples, quickly, on how easily writers and this isn’t a female writer it’s a male writer. This is the obituary for Doris Bowden. She was an actress who was in The Grapes of Wrath. It says in her obituary “she married the film’s screenwriter”. We name the movie John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath. The man who she married isn’t mentioned in her own obituary because he’s just the writer. How ridiculous is that? I don’t care about John Ford. He never knew her after she’s finished the film, but he gets a name out – a name call on that right?

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

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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

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03 Mary (Godwin) Wollstonecraft Shelley from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute)

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The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

This one allowed me to riff on some of my favorite female science fiction writers across time, whether they be novelists or television writers. It also opened up a good conversation on what art we support and include in our lives – and what that art says to us and about us. — Rosanne

Transcript:

First off I’m gonna start with the officially the grandmother of science fiction. Somebody knows who she is. Shelley. Thank You. Mary Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley. The lady had a lot of names right? Yes, Mary Shelley is most famous. She literally invented the genre and its funny because when we think of science fiction we often do think of the names of famous male writers. They kind of took it over when, you know, men you got to do more of the cool stuff, but Mary invented it and she invented it with what character? Frankenstein! Exactly. She’s the lady — then I mean she was having a party. We’re not sure how drunk everybody was and exactly what substances they might have been imbibing at that time but her and Lord Byron, her boy or her boyfriend slash soon-to-be husband Percy Bysse Shelley. They all were hanging out with this really cool sort of villa in Italy and they were having a contest — which is also very fun. Instead of watching other people’s art, they were making their own and the contest was can you write a ghost story over the weekend and we’ll see who writes the best one.

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04 Women Writers Matter from “When Women Wrote Hollywood”, Dr. Rosanne Welch, Cal State Fullerton [Video] (1 minute)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

This is my philosophy. Writers matter, Women matter and women writers matter. That should be kind of obvious and these are all women you may or may not recognize but by the time I’m done today you will recognize them and hopefully be interested in going to see some of their work — much of which is available online or in Netflix somewhere. I think it’s really important to think about the messages of women writers put out in the world. I love this Twitter that came across just after Rey became the famous new Jedi. But it’s quite true, right? It makes a difference. There was a great story once where the last Shuttle pilot had been a female and the next one was going to be a female and it’s always the last pilot who speaks on Comm to the person taking off and it was two women talking to each other for the first time in NASA history and a woman who worked at NASA had asked her son who was about seven , ” Do you want to be an astronaut you grow up?” and he said, Oh no Mom. That’s a girl’s job.” Because that’s what he saw right? So it’s important what we see. Representation matters. So I think that’s really cool.

Buy a signed copy of when Women Wrote Hollywood

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* 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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There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American Television: From Freelancing to Writers Rooms – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (52 Minutes)

There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American Television: From Freelancing to Writers Rooms – Dr. Rosanne Welch

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Thanks to meeting my friend and colleague Dr. Paolo Russo at our annual Screenwriting Research Network conferences, I was invited to spend a week at his university – Oxford Brookes – lecturing on the History of American Writers Rooms and giving notes on screenplay treatments written by his MFA candidates.

It was a wonderful experience to share ideas cross-culturally since I’ve studied and watched programming from the UK for years and their students have watched lots of American television programs.

We had the chance to compare development strategies from both countries and I met the other folks in Paolo’s film department who came from as far away as Canada and as near as Italy. And having been a lifelong viewer of Morse and Lewis, I enjoyed finally having time to walk through Oxford and see everything from the pubs where the Harry Potter actors hung out during filming and the quaint churchyard where C.S. Lewis is buried. I can’t wait to go back again for the 2020 SRN conference!

Remembering Screenwriter Jeanie MacPherson on her birthday – When Women Wrote Hollywood

“The resounding mythology around the start of Macpherson’s film career is that she, with immeasurable pluck, simply walked into D.W. Griffith’s office and waited for him for days on end. Finally, the assistant asked about her. “I told him my stage experience. He ignored it, scorned it. ‘We want to know what you can do before a camera,’ he said.”

Jeanie Macpherson: A Life Unknown by Amelia Phillips

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** Many of these books may be available from your local library.

Quote: “I was a fan from the beginning at the age of six when the show debuted on NBC” from “Why The Monkees Matter” Book Signing – 9 in a series

“I was a fan from the beginning at the age of six when the show debuted on NBC and caused what I often teased was the first great choice of a childhood lived without benefit of DVR. Should I watch The Monkees or Gilligan’s Island? Both aired at the same non Bat-Time on the same non Bat-Channel. I used that question as the thesis to an essa when, many years later I applied to film school and I’m amazed at how it still resonates with others of my generation.

from How It All Began from Why The Monkees Matter Book Signing, Book Soup, Hollywood

Watch this clip

Watch this entire presentation – “Why The Monkees Matter” Book Signing

Buy 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 Acheivement 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 Riderand Five Easy Pieces.

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

Want to use “Why The Monkees Matter” in your classroom?

Order Examination Copies, Library and Campus Bookstore orders directly from McFarland

* 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

02 Science Fiction As A Place For Discussion from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute)

Watch this entire presentation

The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

Transcript:

I think what’s interesting about science fiction is it’s a place where writers go and where audiences go to discuss the issues of our current world in sort of a safer place because we’re having trouble discussing them maybe in the present. So if we think about the future and how we hope it’s gonna look and how we hope we’re gonna behave to each other that’s a place we can have those debates and then sort of bring them back into our regular life and that’s true of most writing. We sort of work out the world in writing so that’s why reading is so good for our brains because it relaxes us teaches us empathy. It makes us think about more complex thoughts then you know a quick Reddit post. Which is a nice piece of news very quickly but it’s not all the information that you need to have right? So that’s the goal for today. It’s just a look at some interesting writers. Summer is coming up. Perhaps you all might want to have a summer book to read right or perhaps a movie that you’re like “Wow I should know that movie. That’s really iconic and people reference it. it’s a popular culture sort of moment. I should know about that.” So hopefully, in the summer you have some time to pay attention. So I’ll give you some stuff to pay attention to.

* 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!

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03 Women Writers Get Lost In History from “When Women Wrote Hollywood”, Dr. Rosanne Welch, Cal State Fullerton

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

We’re gonna talk a little bit about why women get lost behind in history and see if we can think about fixing that in our own work — our own writing — our own conversations. I’m also the book editor for The Journal of Screenwriting. So I do book reviews — I hire book review people for that. So that’s always something I’m interested in getting folks who want to do and I’m on the editorial staff of Written By magazine which is the magazine the Writers Guild so we decide who gets interviewed and every month it’s either a famous TV writer or a film writer and I think it’s a wonderful way to stay involved because if you have those people come into your class and the guest speaker so that’s all the stuff I do.

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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