Video – Page 94 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

A History of Screenwriting – 5 in a series – The Sprinkler Sprinkled (1895) – 1st Comedy Movie – LOUIS LUMIERE – L’Arroseur Arrose

I teach several classes for the Stephens College Low-Residency MFA in Screenwriting, including History of Screenwriting. In fact, I created the curriculum for that course from scratch and customized it to this particular MFA in that it covers ‘Screenwriting’ (not directors) and even more specifically, the class has a female-centric focus. As part History of Screenwriting I, the first course in the four-class series, we focus on the early women screenwriters of the silent film era who male historians have, for the most part, quietly forgotten in their books. In this series, I share with you some of the screenwriters and films that should be part of any screenwriters education. I believe that in order to become a great screenwriter, you need to understand the deep history of screenwriting and the amazing people who created the career. — Dr. Rosanne Welch

The Sprinkler Sprinkled (1895) – 1st Comedy Movie – LOUIS LUMIERE – L’Arroseur Arrose

The world’s 1st comedy, The Sprinkler Sprinkled (also known as L’Arroseur Arrosé and The Waterer Watered) was shot in Lyon in the spring of 1895. The film portrays a simple practical joke in which a gardener is tormented by a boy who steps on the hose that the gardener is using to water his plants, cutting off the water flow. When the gardener tilts the nozzle up to inspect it, the boy releases the hose, causing the water to spray him. The gardener is stunned and his hat is knocked off, but he soon catches on. A chase ensues, both on and off-screen (the camera never moves from its original position) until the gardener catches the boy and administers a spanking. Louis Lumière used his own gardener, François Clerc, to portray the gardener.

The first public screening of films at which admission was charged was held on December 28, 1895, at Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris. This presentation by the Lumière brothers featured ten short movies, including L’arroseur arrosé, which played sixth. — Change Before Going Produtions

Learn more about the Lumiere Brothers with these books

* 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!

Zor and Zam and The Monkees from 1960’s TV Censorship and The Monkees [Video] (1:00)

Watch this entire presentation

“1960s TV Censorship and The Monkees” gives a brief overview of where censorship standards were in the era – and how The Monkees pushed the envelope with its mentions of the Vietnam War – and Sunset Strip riots – and even with the outrageous storytelling behind “Frodis Caper”, the episode that celebrated the saving of an alien plant that very closely resembled a marijuana plant…

Writer Treva Silverman said the staff got away with such jokes because the network executives were just old enough not to understand any of the references.
Presented at Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting classes on Friday, August 5, 2016

Transcript:

In the course of this episode they do this song, which is hugely anti-war, if you look at it. Zoor and Zam.

“The king of Zor, he called for war
And the king of Zam, he answered.

Two little kings playing a game.
They gave a war and nobody came.”

That’s a hugely anti-war song to be in the middle of the still, fussing around kind of program. They got away with it. They got away with it. I’m not — I just find that fascinating. At the very end of the episode, they get to the bad plant. They’re going to kill it unti the plant says, “No, no, it’s not my fault. The other guy used me. I want to help the world. If I reenergize my Frodis power, more people will be happier. It will be a lovely thing.” This is the bad Wizard Glick and once he gets near the plant this is how he starts to feel. It’s an entire episode dedicated the love of marijuana. In 1967 in American television. I just love that.

Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today!

Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

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

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona. In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University. She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.

Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”

Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space are two books she has written. Los Angeles Times and the Journal of Screenwriting hold some of her published articles.

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Adapting Sense and Sensibility from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (1:10)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

We all know that recently there’s been a whole run of Jane Austen. Suddenly the whole world loves Jane Austen again, which is fun. Recently — well not that recently — Sense and Sensibility ws turned into a movies. Hugely Successful. The best of this particular story ever. It was written by Emma Thompson, who some people forget is also a writer, not just an actress. She was hired because they wanted a writer who would retain the humor on Jane Austen. Many people don’t think she has humor. And in fact she does. So, Emma Thompson was a famous comedian at the time. It was long before she did any work in America with Kenneth Branaugh, so she was just know as a comedian in England. She took on the job — it took them about 5-6 years to get it made. What’s really interesting is that she kept a diary of the process of adapting it and the process of filming the adaptation, wherein continued changes were made on a daily basis on the set. So she documents changes — why they were made — who asked for them — whether she agreed of not — how that discussion took place. It’s a really excellent look at the full process of adapting something and it became quite a financial success. So, it was a pretty big adaption to note.

About this talk

Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

From The Research Vault: Making Sense of Cultural Studies: Central Problems and Critical Debates by Chris Barker

Yet another research resource for Why The Monkees Matter

Making Sense of Cultural Studies: Central Problems and Critical Debates by Chris Barker

Find this book on Amazon.com

‘The book is an important read for persons who practice or study within the field. Anyone with experience or interest in the topic will come away with a deepened understanding of debates within cultural studies and with an array of nfew questions and ideas to pursue. The book would make a fine text for graduate level classes dealing with culture and media; the question/debate-orientated structure especially could provide the launching pad for a whole range of discussions, profjects, and papter topics’ — The Southern Communication Journal

In this sequel to the best-selling text Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice, Chris Barker turns his attention to the significance and future of the field. He analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of cultural studies, providing students and practitioners with an authoritative diagnosis of the subject and a balanced prognosis, and investigates the boundaries of cultural studies elucidating the main underlying themes of study.

Written with panache, and an understanding of classroom needs, Making Sense of Cultural Studies is the perfect teaching complement to Chris Barker’s earlier textbook. It is a rich resource for seminar work and undergraduate and postgraduate thesis topics, yet it can also be read as a free-standing analysis of the condition of cultural studies today.

Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

Order Your Copy Now!

Previously in Out of Research Vault:

A History of Screenwriting – 4 in a series – Exiting the Factory (La Sortie des Usines a Lyon) 1895 – Louis Lumiere

Exiting the Factory (1895) – 1st Projected Film – LOUIS LUMIERE – La Sortie des Usines a Lyon

The 1st projected film, Workers Leaving The Lumière Factory in Lyon (also known as La Sortie des Usines Lumière à Lyon, Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory, and Exiting the Factory), was filmed by Louis Lumière using his Cinématographe, an all-in-one camera, which also serves as a film projector and developer. This film was shown in 1895 at the Grand Café on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris, along with nine other short movies.

The film consists of a single scene in which workers leave the Lumiere factory. The workers are mostly female who exit the large building 25 rue St. Victor, Montplaisir on the outskirts of Lyon, France, as if they had just finished a day’s work.

Three separate versions of this film exist. There are a number of differences between these, for example the clothing style changes demonstrating the different seasons in which they were filmed. They are often referred to as the “one horse,” “two horses,” and “no horse” versions, in reference to a horse-drawn carriage that appears in the first two versions (pulled by one horse in the original and two horses in the first remake). — Change Before Going Produtions

Learn more about the Lumiere Brothers with these books

* 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!

The Frodis Caper from 1960’s TV Censorship and The Monkees [Video] (0:56)

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

This particular episode is very famous. It’s call “Frodis Caper.” Frodis is a code word for marijuana. Right? And so this whole episode is built around this alien plant. What does it look like? What does it look like to you? Nobody caught that. The entire episode is built around one bad American who ties in with the alien, uses his power to zombie out everybody in town and we have to stop this guy. They do it — they use the aliens power through the TV which is the bad thing. TV will destroy your brian if you watch too much of it. So you notice this — that’s the CBS logo kind of messed around with. Their on NBC. So they’re riffing on the other network right now being the bad thing you shouldn’t focus on.

Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today!

Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

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

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Final Thoughts On Adapting The Prince of Tides from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (0:40)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

I think it’s a really good movie — I mean it got an Oscar nomination. I just don’t think in this case you want to know about the book. Now, I read the book afterwards and because I was so interested in the Tom Wingo character, I was bored with the Luke character. That didn’t work for me and I thought, Oh, I wish I had read it first so I could have made that comparison, but an interesting look at how big a change you can make and still, essentially, create a successful storyline having to do with major characters who were invented. So that was a huge controversy.

About this talk

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

A History of Screenwriting – 3 in a series – Making An American Citizen (1912) – Alice Guy Blaché

Making An American Citizen (1912) – Alice Guy Blaché

Making an American Citizen is a 1912 silent comedy short film by the pioneering French woman filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché, produced at Solax Studios.^[1] Originally advertised as “educational drama” or “educational subject,” it grapples with the theme of immigration, assimilation, and of becoming a “good American.”^[2]^[3] The film carries an explicit feminist message: the lopsided power dynamics in an immigrant couple becomes increasingly equalized, as the couple spends more time in America. The wife learns to stand up to her husband’s abuses, while the husband is repeatedly coerced by other American citizens into treating his wife as his equal, until he is able to internalize the ethos of the Progressive Era. The film works to allay anxieties over Eastern European immigrant men bringing “Old World” patriarchal values and practices to the “New World.”^[4]^{[5] — Wikipedia}

Alice Guy Blaché on Wikipedia

Learn more about Alice Guy Blaché

Books on Alice Guy Blaché

* 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!

More On The Vietnam War and The Monkees from 1960’s TV Censorship and The Monkees with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1:03)

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

It’s called “Monkee’s Watch Their Feet.” It’s written by Coslough Johnson, who’s the brother of Arte Johnson who is from Laugh-In and this is the story of aliens who come down to Earth and they kidnap Micky Dolenz and make a copy of him who’s a robot and their trying to understand the brain of Americans, which is pretty silly, but notice the sort of patriotic backdrop here. It guest starred Pat Paulsen, who is going to end up on Laugh-In and these are some lines that he has in this episode. Think about what he’s talking about right in the center of the Vietnam War. Particularly I like this line. This is the aliens talking about the Americans. We don’t ever have to say Vietnam. We know what they’re talking about. These are the guys. This is the age of the guy who is being drafted to go. This other is a nice chunk that they talk about. “They want to put the blame on teenagers. Take the war for example. Whose fault is it? Not ours. we’re not fighting. It must be those crazy kids. They’re the ones doing all the fighting.”

Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today!

Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

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

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

When Women Ran Hollywood: Citizen Jane Film School 2016 [Video] (1 hour)

I am so proud and excited to post this link to the presentations 5 of my Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting students made at this year’s Citizen Jane Film Festival. The event was titled: When Women Ran Hollywood: Meet 5 Female Screenwriters Who Helped Invent Hollywood. My students gave tight, ten minute presentations on female screenwriters who we should all know – women like Anita Loos and Adela Rogers St. Johns – whose biographies I had read as a child in Cleveland – and women like Frances Goodrich Hackett, who I hadn’t heard of until I began my own PhD dissertation – and finally Eve Unsell and Jeanie MacPherson.

Rather than be new names to most all of you we ought to recognize these women’s names – and accomplishments – much as we instantly recognize the names of the male directors of early Hollywood. Sadly, historians frequently left the women’s names out of the books so this course and this assignment are an exercise in bringing Anita, Adela, Frances, Eve and Jeanie back into the mainstream conversation about the art – and history – of screenwriting.

The students I have to thank for researching, writing and presenting on these women – and then trekking out to Columbia, Missouri (home of Stephens College) to share their findings with the larger community of scholars – are Toni Anita Hull, Amelia Phillips, Laura Kirk, Sarah Whorton and Julie Berkobien.
Watch and learn – and fall in love with all 10 of these women all over again – or for the first time.

CJ Film School 2016 When Women Ran Hollywood from CitizenJaneFilmFestival on Vimeo.

The Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting is proud to present five of our fabulous MFA students who will in turn introduce the audience to five female screenwriters whose work we know, but whose names have been left out of the textbooks. Help us write them back in and remind us all that Women Ran Hollywood once and are on their way to doing it again!

Rosanne Welch, Master of Fine Arts in TV and Screenwriting Professor
Toni Anita Hull, Master of Fine Arts in TV and Screenwriting Candidate
Amelia Phillips, Master of Fine Arts in TV and Screenwriting Candidate
Laura Kirk, Master of Fine Arts in TV and Screenwriting Candidate
Sarah Whorton, Master of Fine Arts in TV and Screenwriting Candidate
Julie Berkobien, Master of Fine Arts in TV and Screenwriting Candidate