Writing – Page 62 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

From The Journal Of Screenwriting V10 Issue 1: Creative resistance tactics in the work of English Canadian screenwriters by Kerry McArthur

Highlighting the articles in the past editions of the Journal of Screenwriting, of which I am the Book Reviews Editor. Hopefully these abstracts will entice you to did a little deeper into the history and future of screenwriting. — Rosanne

Creative resistance tactics in the work of English Canadian screenwriters by Kerry McArthur

This article analyses how eight successful English Canadian screenwriters negotiate various norms of screenwriting practice, in particular the criteria for three-act structure, character development and closure as advocated by Hollywood. The writers discuss their interpretations of what they consider essential narrative elements in screenplay projects, while dismissing other edicts of the screenwriting industry. Analysis of interview transcripts reveals that most of these writers take their inspiration from their own experience of screenwriting and their interpretations of other screenplays and historic texts on narrative rather than from contemporary screenwriting textbooks. The focus for almost all of these screenwriters is on writing screen stories in original ways, rather than adopting standardized narrative directives, even when elements of these directives have their uses.

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.

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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!

32 Adam’s Rib and Ruth Gordon from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute 7 seconds)

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

Watch this entire presentation

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Transcript:

In Adam’s Rib they’re two lawyers who work on the opposite side of a case. In real life, she and her husband were equally famous writers. They shared a profession together at which they both excelled right? So that was exactly her experience and the kind of dialogue and language — the kind of attitude that comes from Katharine Hepburn and all her in all the films written by Ruth, that’s Ruth Gordon talking right? She’s the feminist we should think about. She was an early Broadway actress. Best friends of Thornton Wilder who wrote Our Town. He wrote the matchmaker for her which became — Hello Dolly — and when she was young her husband died. Her first husband died of disease when he was like 28 which was very sad and she ended up in a relationship with a famous producer — Broadway producer. They had a baby out of wedlock. She was supposed to have the baby adopted away because you weren’t supposed to tell people you had gotten pregnant and had sex outside of marriage but she kept it instead and everybody said “Well your acting career will be over!” and she said “Only if you say it’s over.” and she kept working. So she was breaking the societal rules that were trying to trap her all right? So she is who Katharine Hepburn is in those movies and we should pay more attention.

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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17 Commercial Value and The Monkees from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later [Video] (1 minute)

Enjoy This Clip? Watch this entire presentation and Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

From Denver Pop Culture Con 2019.

Wherever you go, you find Monkees fans and the Denver Popular Culture Con was no different. Amid rooms full of caped crusaders and cosplay creations, I was initially not sure how many folks would attend a talk on a TV show from the 1960s – but happily I was met by a nice, engaged audience for my talk on Why the Monkees Matter – and afterward they bought books! What more could an author ask for?

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Transcript

This is Micky with who? I mean Davy with who? (Audience: Sissy Spacek?) Close. Sally Field. Sally Field of Gidget fame at that time Gidget had been on the season before. She’s going to move into the Flying Nun right after that. This is Micky with his wife , Samantha Just. This is Davy with his first wife and then this is Nesmith with his first wife Phyllis and their son. So they’re all over these magazines so they’re beginning to sell things outside of the television show. So the program is very important commercially. It’s making money for a lot of people. They do commercials on the show right? Sponsorships. Look at me. I’m eating Rice Krispies. Sure. Maybe. I don’t know. but they’re that you could get an album off the back of your cereal box and it would actually play on a record player which is pretty cool and if you go to like antique stores and whatnot now people sell this stuff for way too much money, when that that was free but again a great way to show the value — the commercial value — program.

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?

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From The “When Women Wrote Hollywood Archives 05: Clip from Don Juan (1926) Written by Bess Meredyth

Months of research went into the creation of the essays in “When Women Wrote Hollywood.” Here are some of the resources used to enlighten today’s film lovers to the female pioneers who helped create it.

From The “When Women Wrote Hollywood Archives 05: Clip from Don Juan (1926) Written by Bess Meredyth

Don Juan is a 1926 American romantic Adventure film directed by Alan Crosland. It is the first feature-length film to utilize the Vitaphone sound-on-disc sound system with a synchronized musical score and sound effects, though it has no spoken dialogue.^[4] The film is inspired by Lord Byron‘s 1821 epic poem of the same name. The screenplay was written by Bess Meredyth with intertitles by Maude Fulton and Walter Anthony.^[5]

Don Juan stars John Barrymore as the hand-kissing womanizer.^[5] The film has the most kisses in film history, with Barrymore kissing (all together) Mary Astor and Estelle Taylor 127 times.^{[6] — Wikipedia}

Buy “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Today!

†

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

29 Jane Espenson from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute 15 seconds)

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

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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:

This lady I love. Jane Espenson. She got her start in Star Trek. Many women writers in television were first given a script on some version of Star Trek whether it was Deep Space 9 or The Next Generation. She’s been around a long time. She also worked on Buffy which is one of my favorite shows which is really particularly well-written. She created Warehouse 13 which I thought was an adorable show and a great interesting premise about all the objects in the world that were alien objects and when they passed through history they were hidden in a big warehouse. If they got stolen, people could take the powers of early people because they were inside the object. So, you know, Marilyn Monroe’s hairbrush made you sexy because it turned you into a platinum blonde and we couldn’t put that out in the world because there’d be way too much of that going on. Really cute interesting stuff. Of course, she also wrote the Battlestar Galactica. She wrote one of the best episodes of Once Upon A Time. It was called Red-Handed and it has to do with the real story of Red Riding Hood and werewolves and how those two stories converge and it’s just so brilliantly and it uses our biases about gender and power against us to not predict where it’s going. So it’s a really lovely interesting piece of writing. I think is in the third season.

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V10 Issue 1: An insider perspective on the script in practice by Vincenzo Giarrusso

An insider perspective on the script in practice by Vincenzo Giarrusso

The machinations of industry, the exigencies of film funding and the producer’s prominent role in setting fiscal and marketing objectives for film production seem incongruous with scriptwriting as a generative creative practice in the filmmaking process. This article presents a case study that investigates the agency of creative practice from the insider perspective of a scriptwriter. In mobilizing the concept of the boundary object, the case links the problematic and transitional status of the script – as it passes out of the hands of the writer – to other roles under the control of filmmaking practitioners. In combining a practice-based reflexive narrative with theoretical observations, the article explores the processes and imperatives that mediate the script and scriptwriting as an embodied experience for the scriptwriter.

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

Join me at the Screenwriting Research Network’s Annual Conference in Oxford, UK

* 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!

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.

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His latest post…

UNDERSTANDING 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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* 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!

31 Ruth Gordon from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] ( 1 minutes 15 seconds)

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

Watch this entire presentation

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

Transcript:

Ruth Gordon. Now we’re up to Ruth. Ruth only wrote four movies together with her husband Garson Kanin. Two of them you’ve heard of Adam’s Rib and Pat and Mike these are Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy vehicles. This couple was best friends with Gordon and Kanin and they wrote the movies outside of the studio system. If you worked as a writer in a studio you got assigned something to work on. These two just wrote movies they wanted to in their own house and then sold them to the studio to actors they knew so nobody rewrote them and they were on the set through most of the production because they hired George Cukor who was a famous director, and another friend of theirs, to direct them. What I think is important for us to think about Ruth is that — and I love Katharine Hepburn and I don’t want to like mess with her reputation too much — but she has a reputation for being a feminist. That’s wrong. Katharine Hepburn stayed the mistress of Spencer Tracy their entire relationship. He never left his wife and she never left him for not leaving his wife. Rumor has it — stuff has come out lately — that he actually beat on her and she put up with that. That’s not a feminist woman. Her characters in the films were feminists because guess why? Ruth was. Ruth was writing herself and her own attitude.

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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16 Cultural Impact and The Monkees from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later [Video] (29 seconds)

Enjoy This Clip? Watch this entire presentation and Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

From Denver Pop Culture Con 2019.

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

Transcript

Obviously popular culture, which were here to celebrate. It mattered on The Monkees. They were moments in popular culture. A moment that has lasted for the last 50 years but a lot of what they did affected the other popular culture we know. Some people do or don’t know that when they added the Chekhov character to Star Trek in their second season Gene Roddenberry said “He needs to have a haircut that matches that kid on the Monkees” because he is here to appeal to the young girls right? So if you think about it, that’s that’s considered a hippie long hair haircut.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Jan Marino Scholarship: A Scholarship To The Stephens College MFA In Television And Screenwriting For Women Over 45

We at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Program are excited to announce that we have lowered the required age for applicants of the Jan Marino Scholarship to 45 from 55 years old, opening the honor up for even more of our applicants.

The deadline for applying to the MFA program ,in order to qualify for the scholarship, is March 31st, 2020.

The awardee, will be announced May 1st, at SeriesFest held in Denver in April. There I will have my own honor, that of granting the scholarship to the student who will be a featured guest at the event. — Rosanne

Jan Marino Scholarship
A Scholarship To The Stephens College M.F.A. In Television And Screenwriting For Women Over 45

SeriesFest is honored to partner with the Stephens College MFA. in TV and Screenwriting for the third year on the Jan Marino Scholarship, designed to support women over 45 who are students in the Stephens College MFA in Television and Screenwriting program.

Named to honor author Jan Marino, the mother of M.F.A. student Betsy Marino Leighton, the scholarship nurtures the power of strong, independent female storytelling in television and film.

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