Category: Writing

04 Down With The Auteur Theory from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (54 seconds)

04 Down With The Auteur Theory from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (54 seconds)

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.

Transcript:

Writers. Really. Matter. I think it’s really true The Auteur Theory — and I don’t want to pick on the French — hopefully, there’s no one french in here — I’m picking on you — not my probably looking at your French friend, right — many people are now tearing down the Auteur Theory because it’s ridiculous. The director is not the only person responsible for why a film works. It has always begun with a writer. Yes, it moves to a director but that’s a collaboration and we made a mistake. Some people have written about the fact that in the early days of film critique critics couldn’t go through two or three names of writers so they went to the director’s name because it was the only one person named and slowly that became the idea of who the auteur was right? It’s not true. Vince Gilligan, very famous in America for Breaking Dad. Really considered one of our best showrunners — one of our best television writers — pretty much says it and I agree with him.

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“A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi” – 17 in a series

“To them,” Giuseppe began. “To me. To all of us, this is the fire in which we shall be forged before we can light a flame of freedom in our homeland.” “You are capable of understanding a greater goal,” Anita said. “Most men are not,” Texeira stated, subconsciously including himself in that list. “All we can do is try,” Giuseppe reiterated.

Get your copy of A Man Of Action Saving Liberty Today!

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The Civil War On Film – 12 in a series – Reformer Jane Addams condemned the film as ahistorical and prejudiced…

The Civil War On Film - 12 in a series - Reformer Jane Addams condemned the film as ahistorical and prejudiced...

Though the NAACP had little success banning the film, in part because film boards were all white and in part because the film was a monster success, they did prompt a national discussion about the film’s racism. Reformer Jane Addams condemned the film as ahistorical and prejudiced, while President Woodrow Wilson, himself an ex-historian (if such a creature can be said to exist), believed the film “terribly true.”

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  2. The Civil War On Film – 6 in a series – “…the so-called Irrepressible Conflict.”
  3. The Civil War On Film – 4 in a series – “…the entire slave economy stood as a shining moment of magnolias and gentility.”
  4. The Civil War On Film – 11 in a series – “This national enthusiasm for the Lost Cause…”
  5. The Civil War On Film – 3 in a series – “…films doomed to be mediocre at best and ideologically horrifying at worst.”

A Woman Wrote That – 8 in a series – Something’s Gotta Give by Nancy Meyers (2003)

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

A Woman Wrote That - 8 in a series - Something's Gotta Give by Nancy Meyers (2003)

ERICA

The truth doesn’t have ‘versions’.

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03 Why Writers Matter from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (41 seconds)

03 Why Writers Matter from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (41 seconds)

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.

Transcript:

Likewise, writers are important. Writer comes before director when people are writer-directors because writers are more important. You cannot direct nothing. You cannot direct some people walking around a room right? Somebody has to say why they’re there and what they’re doing. So writers are very important and women writers — well this is one of my reasons why writers are important too — when you talk to friends about a movie you love, you do not generally say “remember the camera angle in scene five.” You say “remember the dialogue.” You quote dialogue to your friends. That’s the writer. That’s why the writer is more important. That’s why more people should want to be writers.

Watch this entire presentation

Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!

 


* 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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Related posts:

  1. 02 Writers Matter from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (1 minute 3 seconds)
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“A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi” – 16 in a series

Anita spent those same four days in the enemy camp sharing short rations with those of her troops that were captured with her, nursing those who needed such treatment and planning her escape. Each day she asked for proof that Giuseppe had died and each day she was told a different version of how he fell in battle.

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The Civil War On Film – 11 in a series – “This national enthusiasm for the Lost Cause…”

This national enthusiasm for the Lost Cause

Lost Cause ideology, in its many iterations, maintained its grip on American movies for nearly eighty years, from Birth of a Nation (1915) to Gettysburg (1993). This national enthusiasm for the Lost Cause suggests white Americans, regardless of their regional roots, enjoy and believe the narrative.

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  3. The Civil War On Film – 4 in a series – “…the entire slave economy stood as a shining moment of magnolias and gentility.”
  4. The Civil War On Film – 10 in a series – …Thomas Ince’s films cemented the Plantation Myth.
  5. The Civil War On Film – 6 in a series – “…the so-called Irrepressible Conflict.”

A Woman Wrote That – 7 in a series – Love & Basketball by Gina Prince-Bythewood

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

A Woman Wrote That - 7 in a series - Love & Basketball by Gina Prince-Bythewood

MONICA

When you’re a kid, you see the life you want, and it never crosses your mind that it’s not gonna turn out that way.

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Announcing the Journal of Screenwriting Special Issue: Women in Screenwriting with Editors, Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Rose Ferrell

I’m happy to announce the publication of a special issue of the Journal of Screenwriting focused on “Women in Screenwriting” that I co-edited with my SRN colleague Rose Ferrell, lecturer at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, at Edith Cowan University. 

While focusing on females was our first mandate, our second mandate was to be as international as possible.  This issue, then, includes articles about women in screenwriting covering five continents including countries such as Japan, China, Syria, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Zimbabwe and Canada. — Rosanne

Announcing the Journal of Screenwriting Special Issue: Women in Screenwriting with Editors, Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Rose Ferrell

 

Contents
Volume (11): Issue (3)
Cover date: 2020

  • Editorial introduction by Rose Ferrell, Rosanne Welch
  • Tang Cheng: The first female animation screenwriter and director in the People’s Republic of China by Shaopeng Chen
  • Scouting for scripts: Mizuki Yōko and social issue film in post-war Japan by Lauri Kitsnik
  • Who is the author of Neria (1992) – and is it a Zimbabwean masterpiece or a neo-colonial enterprise? by Agnieszka Piotrowska
  • The Hakawati’s Daughter: How the Syrian revolution inspired a rewrite by Rana Kazkaz
  • The silent women: The representation of Israeli female soldiers in Israeli women’s films by Mira Moshe, Matan Aharoni
  • How the scripts of Latin American screenwriters Lucrecia Martel (Argentina), Anna Muylaert (Brazil) and Claudia Llosa (Peru) have made a mark on the world stage by Margaret McVeigh, Clarissa Mazon Miranda
  • ‘Polite, no chill’ for the win: How Emily Andras engaged fans and overcame problematic tropes in Wynonna Earp by Tanya N. Cook
  • Battle of the sketches: Short form and feminism in the comedy mode by Stayci Taylor
  • Anita Loos Rediscovered: Film Treatments and Fiction, Cari Beauchamp and Mary Anita Loos (eds) (2003) by Cierra Winkler
  • Modern Film Dramaturgy: An Introduction, Kristen Stutterheim (2019) by Andrew Wickwire
  • Nobody’s Girl Friday: The Women Who Ran Hollywood, J. E. Smyth (2018) by Toni Anita Hull
  • How to Write for Moving Pictures: A Manual of Instruction and Information, Marguerite Bertsch (1917) by Diane Barley

Read article abstracts

Journal of screenwriting 94737 800x600

The Journal of Screenwriting is an international double-blind peer-reviewed journal that is published three times a year. The journal highlights current academic and professional thinking about the screenplay and intends to promote, stimulate and bring together current research and contemporary debates around the screenplay whilst encouraging groundbreaking research in an international arena. The journal is discursive, critical, rigorous and engages with issues in a dynamic and developing field, linking academic theory to screenwriting practice. 

Get your copy and subscription to the Journal of Screenwriting Today!


* 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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Learn more about the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting in this Q&A with Executive Director, Dr. Rosanne Welch

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Alex Miller, the Senior Director of Admissions at Stephens College the other day to talk about our MFA in TV and Screenwriting.

Alex had collected some of the basic questions asked by applicants so we answered them over this short 10 minute video. 

If you’d like to know what sort of activities fill the days during our 10 day residency intensive or wonder about the composition of our cohorts, or what type of classes we offer that are unique to our program — here’s the place to find out. — Rosanne

Learn more about the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting in this Q&A with Executive Director, Dr, Rosanne Welch

Learn more about the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting in this Q&A with Executive Director, Dr, Rosanne Welch

Learn more about the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

and

Apply Today!

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