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.
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.
“There has not been a television season since The Monkees that did not air a show that catered to teenagers including Dawson’s Creek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gossip Girl, Veronica Mars and the appropriately titled The Secret Life of the American Teenager among the more recent. The Monkees paved the way. “
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.
In this early period of films, right out of the sound — right out of the silent era. What makes us change novels? What’s one of the biggest reasons? Well, it’s the Hays Code. Now, the Hays Code was put together because there was a fear that in silent movies there was a lot of nudity and women were getting divorced helter-skelter and having sex with men whenever they want. It was very — and the idea was films were art and there are naked pictures at the museum. So, shouldn’t there be naked people in the movies? It should be ok. Right, But, many groups ot together and were very worried about it. They were going to ask the government — they were asking the government to come up with a list of things that shouldn’t happen in the movies and the movie companies are like “No, no, no, you’ll destroy us if we have to follow your rules. Will create our own office and will make up the rules that we can follow and the government let then do that and that became the Hays Code. These are the things you could not show in films and this is going to go all the way up until 1968.
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.”
“The second episode to attempt to lure the adult audience into trusting the Monkees and deciding they were good, clean kids, “Monkee Mother”, introduced Rose Marie as a new renter sharing the boys’ beach house when they failed to pay the rent. As scripted, her character is given a scene alone with each of the boys and sees them through a mother’s eyes, allowing the many mothers watching the show with their children to make the same connection.”
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.
What i wanted to mention about it is a couple of things. First of all, yeah it’s very incendiary right and the scary thing is, this is a quote from President Woodrow Wilson in his own History of the United States.
So first of all — mmm — all right that’s a little scary, but because of the material, thank goodness the NAACP protested when this film opened. It didn’t stop people from seeing it sadly and in fact Wilson showed it at the White House and the power of movies — he actually said “it is like capturing lightning in a bottle” and he was very impressed with the power that movies had from watching that particular film which kind of sad.
Now what strikes me as interesting as the power of how you change a story and you change culture. We all know , sadly, that what Ku Klux Klan does is they burn crosses in people’s yards when they don’t like them. They didn’t do that before this movie came out. The actual Ku Klux Klan did not do that. Right?
In the novel what uh what they have happen is that when the men get together to go do a terrible you know lynching, they write the names of their families on little wooden crosses they’ve made and they toss them into a big bonfire and that shows the unity of all these men together and this is apparently based on a Scottish ritual that scottish clans will do when they come together for events, not for killing people but for regular events. So we adapt a Scottish ritual into an idea in the book. DW Griffith gets a hold of it and he’s a Steven Spielberg of his day, right? We cannot have little tiny crosses being thrown into a big fire on screen , no, we’re going to make a big cross on the mountainside. Isn’t that wonderful? That’s so visual oh that’s a great special effect. The actual Ku Klux Klansmen go to the movie, see the giant cross and begin burning giant crosses in people’s neighborhoods.
They actually learn from the movie a ritual that wasn’t theirs to begin with. So I find that really fascinating, but I think it’s a sign of how powerful what we see in the movies can be.
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.”
While working on the proofs for the book I’m reminded of all the fun research I’ve had the chance to do – and wanted to share this with you.
While reading this sentence…
“Certainly the studio cultivated that character [of teen idol] for Davy even before The Monkees, grooming him with guest starring roles as a singer on family- friendly programs such as Ben Casey and The Farmer’s Daughter (where he sang a straight version of “Gonna Buy Me a Dog” before the comic duet with Micky that appeared on The Monkees.”
And here’s the full episode as it stands on YouTube:
Here’s Davy performing the song:
In a further ‘Six Degrees of Separation” with The Monkees, fans will remember that several auditions for the Monkees were held on The Farmer’s Daughter set on their day off.
Many thanks to Brad over at Monkees.net for all he has done to create a one-stop shop for info about The Monkees online. I’ve used it for years as a way to keep up with both individual and group/reunion concerts — but today I’m also thankful to him for adding a write up about my book to his site.
It truly is a great year to be a Monkees fan!
“It wouldn’t be until after The Monkees won their Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1967 that networks began planning and programming pilots for prime time that involved young performers singing, dancing and doing sketch comedy: Laugh-In(1967-1973), The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967-1970), and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour(1971-1974).”
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.
I think one of the most interesting adaptations is a book we really don’t teach in film classes anymore and we shouldn’t because the content is awful. We don’t need this story anymore, but it’s an interesting demonstration in the power of adaptation. Of course, I’m talking about “The Clansman” which was written just the Civil War and has to do with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and it makes the Ku Klux Klan the heros, which is frightening. I know eyebrow riffle there. How could that possibly be true. Well, obviously, a former Confederate, the children of Confederates would think of them as heros. So, this was a huge book and sadly one of the early, early directors who we all know, D. W. Griffith, was also in love with the Confederacy in the South. His grandfather has been in the Confederate Army, so he undertook to make the film, which was huge. It starts out being called, “The Clansman”, but we know it now more as “The Birth of a Nation.” Again, we used to teach it in film class because there’s a lot of new camera angeles and things that make it valuable, but we’ve come away from that because the content is just so controversial and so valueless that we don’t teach it in classes anymore.
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.”
It was fun to research and write and I want to send big thanks to my editors Paolo Russo and Lindsay Steenberg, both Senior Lecturers in Film Studies at Oxford Brookes University, for inviting me to contribute and for all the assistance as I researched and wrote the article.
When Paolo (who I met at a Screenwriting Research Network conference at the University of Wisconsin, Madison a few years ago) told me they were collecting pieces about how police procedurals transmit culture, I teasingly said, “Advances in modern forensic science have rendered the procedures on television police procedurals repetitive across the globe”. Well, maybe not in those exact words at that first utterance – but I basically said all cop shows seem so similar, nothing sets them apart anymore — and then, in the wonderful way brainstorming works, I thought that the only characters who keep close to the culture of the country in which the show is created are the parents because they aren’t confined to scientific procedures/they are ruled by emotions. So the article deals discusses parents on cop shows such as Cagney and Lacey (from the U.S.), Inspector Montalbano (from Italy), and Murdoch Mysteries (from Canada) among others.
Abstract
Advances in modern forensic science have rendered the procedures on police procedurals repetitive across the globe, yet television writers continue to transmit their cultures transnationally via the way these popular television detectives interact with their on screen parents. Case studies will include Inspector Morse (UK, 1987–2000), Il Commissario Montalbano/Inspector Montalbano (Italy, 1999–2015), and Murdoch Mysteries (Canada, 2008–present) with some attention paid to female police officers in US dramas Cagney & Lacey (1981–1988) and Southland (2009–2013). A close reading of the relationship between parents and adult children in these programmes shows parent characters serve many purposes. They expand our knowledge of the main character by helping us understand their moulding, their mentality and their motivations; they provide universal themes; they also offer a chance for stunt casting – a combination that helps transmit the culture of the country of origin to international viewers.
