Women – Page 87 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Last Thoughts on Adapting Gidget from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (0:43)

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:

…and it was worse when it went to television, which is another level of adaptation. I’m going to take a movie and I’m going to put it on TV where you can do even less, because we’re not in the movies. In this case, just look at how once we bring in Sally Field into the picture it gets even younger and there’s not a surfboard in sight. This entire book is about a girl who masters a sport. On TV it’s about a girl who talks on the phone and hangs out with cute boys. That’s an entire destruction of the point of that story and it was written by the father of the girl who had achieved that. So he was looking to make his daughter a respectable, interesting person. So, I think that’s an interesting example of something being ruined. Only in the book do you get the true story of what it was like. So, again, I’ll just go back, you have to read the book.

Read a story about the “real” Gidget in Hollywood Digs

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

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.”

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

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

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More on Adapting Gidget from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (1:03)

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:

…and that’s the story that people remember if they saw the movies. When this book came out, it was compared to “The Catcher in the Rye.” It was considered that kind of novel for girls. It was a “coming of the age.” She decides whether or not to have sex with a couple of the guys. it’s entirely up to her. There’s really nothing wrong with it. It’s a fascinating story that has been totally destroyed by the way it was turned into a film and it became a bubble gum film about a cute girl on the beach with cute boys. Totally, totally, cut the knees off of that book. Right? And she wen’t Hawaiian. She went to Rome. I mean it just became this cutesy-pie girl trying to find a boyfriend. Not the point of the novel at all. So the movies completely destroyed it to the point that we don’t teach Gidget in school. But you all probably had to read “The Catcher in the Rye.” Everybody. Right? we read the boy’s coming of age story. We don’t read the girl’s coming of age story. And I think that’s a huge mistake. I didn’t read Gidget until I was in my 40’s. And I went “Oh, it’s a cool book. I don’t know why anyone didn’t give this to me.”

Read a story about the “real” Gidget in Hollywood Digs

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

Adapting Gidget from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (1:07)

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:

Gidget, in the 50’s, is a different story and I think this one is really sad. When you think of Gidget, if you thin of anything, you think of fluffy girl hanging out at the beach – cutesy, cutesy, cutesy. The crazy thing is, when this was first written — there’s an actual woman who is actually the maitre’d at Duke’s in Malibu right now in her 70’s and she is Gidget. Gidget is merely a nickname. it means girl-midget. So short girl. Petite girl and in her real life she grew up — her Dad, Fredrick Kohner, writer of early 50’s television shows — lived in Hollywood — and she would go to the beach every day and in a world where we overprotect our children today, I can’t even fathom that at 16 she would get in the family convertible, drive to the beach, stay all day without a cell phone or check-in time or any information, hang out with a bunch of 20-something surf dudes and learn how to surf in the ocean with no parent watching her. That was her actual life and the book is about how she strive to become as good a surfer as these men did, so that they would accept her not as a cute chick but as a surfer.

Read a story about the “real” Gidget in Hollywood Digs

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

A Lesson in the Power of One Line – Leigh Brackett [Essay]

Watching a rerun of The Rockford Files the other day I noted 2 interesting things – things that came up in conversations with writers, producers and development execs who gave guest lectures at our Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting over our last workshop session. Particularly, what came up was the idea of what execs and showrunners look for when they read a spec script. Several producers and show runners said they look for solid scenes and one or two spectacular lines of dialogue – lines that stood out as well-written and never strayed away from character.

So watching a first season Rockford episode called “The Four Pound Brick” I noted a line of dialogue that stuck with me over a few days. An older woman was walking away from the cemetery plot for her 26 year old son. She was commenting on the (then new) policy of not allowing headstones in favor of flat stones that allowed lawnmowers to ride over and therefore keep the whole area neater. She said, “I think cemeteries ought to be a bit messy. Like lives.” A very nice line that struck me as something that would make me want to read more of that writer.

Then I used IMDB to get the writer’s name: Leigh Brackett. You might (or so I say you should) recognize her name from a number of successful hard-boiled, manly-man detective and western films such as The Big Sleep, El Dorado, and Rio Bravo. She also wrote a slew of science-fiction/fantasy books and often collaborated with Ray Bradbury.

I don’t like the fact that this is a compliment, but it was then and still is: Director Howard Hawks thought Leigh Brackett was a good writer because – according to him – she wrote “like a man”.

For my fellow Star Wars fans, you will recognize Brackett for her co-screenwriting credit (shared with Lawrence Kasdan) for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Long-time fan of her writing, George Lucas, wanted her and only her to write the sequel to his blockbuster film once he’d figured out he liked directing and world-building more than the nuts and bolts of executing those big dreams on the big screen. He wanted Han Solo to be a combination of Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne – a manly man with a sensitive side – and hired the woman who could do that. But she died of cancer after writing the first version of the script so Lucas did some work on her draft before asking Lawrence Kasdan to finish the screenplay. Both men respected and admired Brackett so much – and kept so much of her characterizations and structure – that her name remains on the final script. Apparently, there was only one copy of her version at an archive but eventually it made its way onto the internet where you can read it:

The Empire Strikes Back – Brackett Draft (PDF)

I like Han Solo’s line about Hoth: “I doubt if God even remembers where he hung this star.” I wonder how many rewrite drafts it survived until either Lucas or Kasdan decided not to mention gods of any kind in their alternate universe…

But it was interesting to see that the advice of current showrunners helped me pick out a quality writer in the midst of her career. I haven’t researched how she came to write a Rockford episode but many screenwriters of the 40s and 50s turned to television for a while since it was such a lucrative market.

As a final note, the IMDB trivia page tells us that the character “Sheriff Leigh Brackett” in John Carpenter’s independent horror film Halloween (1978) was named after her. It’s a nice tribute, but a nicer one would be that more of us recognize her name more often.

Leigh Brackett on Wikipedia

Leigh Brackett on IMDB

Books by Leigh Brackett at Amazon.com

Women Who Run the Room: A Conversation with Showrunners at the WGAw and co-sponsored by the Stephens MFA in Screenwriting Program [Photo]

Women Who Run the Room: A Conversation with Showrunners at the WGAw and co-sponsored by the Stephens MFA in Screenwriting Program.

Photos of the panel and the full house/sold out audience from Women Who Run the Room: A Conversation with Showrunners. The Stephens MFA in Screenwriting co-sponsored this event with the Writers Guild Foundation. (from left to right: Dr. Rosanne Welch, moderator; Alexa Junge from Grace and Frankie; Dee Johnson from Nashville; Laurie McCarthy from Reign; Lizzy Weiss from Switched at Birth; SJ Hodges from Guidance)

Do you want to be a screenwriter? Check out these books!

More books on screenwriting from Amazon.com

Save the Date: Rosanne Hosts “Women Who Run The Room: A Conversation with Showrunners” – Sat. Aug. 6, 2015

Dr. Rosanne Welch will be hosting this WGA panel discussion sponsored by Stephens College MFA in Television and Screenwriting, where she teaches The History of Screenwriting and Writing the One-Hour Drama.

Women Who Run The Room: A Conversation with Showrunners

Sat, August 6, 2016
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM

On this special Saturday event, a panel of female showrunners discusses their experiences of running a room and the impact of increasing female voices in television.

Panelists:

Alexa Junge – GRACE AND FRANKIE, UNITED STATES OF TARA, FRIENDS
Check back for more panelist announcements.

Sponsored by Stephens College MFA in Television and Screenwriting.

Doors open at 1:30pm. Event starts at 2:00pm.

All events advertised on our “Events” page are open to anyone who wants to buy a ticket – not just WGA members!

Proceeds benefit the Foundation’s library and archive and other outreach programs.

Tickets:

General Admission Ticket $20.00
WGA Member / Student Ticket $15.00
with Membership card or Student Identification

Panel: Increasing the Power of Women’s Voices in Hollywood from the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting Program [Video]

Increasing the Power of Women’s Voices in Hollywood
Moderated by Dr. Rosanne Welch with Kate Powers, Minoti Vaishnav, Allison Schroeder, Elizabeth Martin, and Niceole Levy.

I’m happy to announce that a panel discussion I moderated (in my role as a professor of the History of Screenwriting for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting) has been posted to the students’ YouTube Channel: Reel Dream Squad.

For the discussion titled “Increasing the Power of Women’s Voices in Hollywood”, I was joined by five up and coming writers in Hollywood with projects ranging from the live-action Mulan to The Mysteries of Laura.

These women tell stories of how they trained to be writers, how they obtained managers and agents and the joy of their first script sales, while constantly considering one of my major themes: How important it is to have a female voice in the room.

Subscribe to Real Dream Squad on YouTube

A Female Voice in the Room | Dr. Rosanne Welch | TEDxCPP [Video] (12:56)

I’m happy to announce that the TEDx talk I gave at TEDxCPP was chosen for posting to the main TEDx page on YouTube!

I want to thank the entire TEDxCPP team for all their hard work in preparing the event on our campus.

I hope all the women — and men — who watch it remember how important it is to listen to “the female voice in the room.”

When people collaborate, there is a greater chance of success. Collaboration works best when there is diversity within the people. Making sure to speak up on behalf on your identities and make sure they are being represented is important.

Dr. Rosanne Welch teaches Humanities courses in the IGE Department at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; screenwriting in the California State University, Fullerton RTVF Department; and film history and screenwriting courses for the MFA in Screenwriting program of Stephens College.

Welch began her professional life as a television writer/producer on Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences and Touched by an Angel. In 1998 she researched, wrote and co-produced Bill Clinton and the Boys Nation Class of 1963 for ABC NEWS/Nightline. Welch has done presentations based on previously published works including a chapter in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television; an essay in Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology; and her forthcoming book Why The Monkees Matter (2016 McFarland Publishing).

In April she will publish the 4-volume Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection (ABC-CLIO) a project she co-edited with fellow Cal Poly Pomona Professor, Dr. Peg Lamphier.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

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News: Professors Give American Women Their Own Historic Focus | PolyCentric

It is always fun to work with student journalists – this is a story written by one from CalPoly Pomona about the 4 volume encyclopedia my colleague Peg Lamphier and I co-edited for ABC-CLIO over the last three years – it is now available for pre-order by high school and college libraries (and any individuals who like to college encyclopedias or books about cool women!)

Professors Give American Women Their Own Historic Focus | PolyCentric | Carly Owens

There’s a proverb that says “women hold up half the sky,” a centuries-old homage to the vital role women play.

Cal Poly Pomona Professors Rosanne Welch and Peg Lamphier have compiled those historic feats in a new encyclopedia titled “Women in American History.”

The four-volume set covers pre-colonial history to modern-day feminism.

“It’s women in American history and culture, so we thought about what kind of women don’t normally get into encyclopedias to ensure there was a great diversity expressed,” says Welch, who holds a doctorate in American social history of the 21st century.

Some women who are included in the compilation are ones people may not expect to see in an encyclopedia.

“Lady Gaga hasn’t made many encyclopedias, but her philanthropy and influence on media earned her a place in the book,” Welch says.

Read the entire article

Who Wrote The Monkees? – “I’ve Got a Little Song Here” written by Treva Silverman

Who Wrote The Monkees? – “I’ve Got a Little Song Here” written by Treva Silverman Part 4 of an on-going series

This weekend Antenna TV airs “I’ve Got a Little Song Here” written by Treva Silverman. One of several staff writers for The Monkees who went on to win Emmy Awards for her later work in television (Her Emmy came from The Mary Tyler Moore Show). Treva was the only woman writer on the The Monkees.

If you’re interested in learning more about Treva’s post Monkees work, the blog “…by Ken Levine” did a nice coverage of her work on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, complete with some script pages and a whole page of biography noting that Valerie Harper (Rhoda) called Treva the “Feminist conscience of the show”. In my book, I write that Treva brought that same feminist conscience to The Monkees where viewers can note that none of the young women the Monkees dated were ever ditzy – they were always women of substance – serious about their schoolwork or with careers already in place or otherwise involved in the world. Not bad for a show about four band members. I believe that attitude came to The Monkees from Treva – the only female writer on staff.

More information on The Monkees:

Previously in Who Wrote The Monkees?: