Tag: history

08 Stephen J. Cannell and Adam-12 from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

With the full recording of “How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television”

08 Stephen J. Cannell and Adam-12 from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

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When the folks hosting the conference announced their theme as “Screen Narratives: Chaos and Order” the word ‘chaos’ immediately brought to mind writers rooms. I offered a quick history of writers rooms (the presentations are only 20 minutes long) and then quoted several current showrunners on how they compose their rooms and how they run them.

Transcript

Stephen Cannell — who’s the first person I worked for as an assistant — they tell a great story when he was in the writer’s pool Universal. They came in for this show, Adam-12, they said we need an idea for the show. Who wants to write one and the first thing that came to him was — they’re policemen who rode around in a squad car all day — and his unique idea was, what if they got the squad car that was misbehaving — that had engine trouble and a flat tire and everything went wrong with the car. So the whole episode was about these men managing the tool of their job more than managing what the crime of the week was and that stood out in people’s minds. He was using the formula in a different way and that started to make people pay attention to him. So that he could leave and do other things.

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Related posts:

  1. 03 Managed Chaos from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]
  2. 07 The Writer’s Voice from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]
  3. 01 Introduction from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]
  4. 04 The Comedy Writer’s Room from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]
  5. 05 The Monkees Writer’s Room from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

A Woman Wrote That – 23 in a series – Brave (2012), Writer, Brenda Chapman

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 - 23 in a series - Brave (2012), Writer, Brenda Chapman

MERIDA

I am Merida, firstborn descendant of Clan Dunbroch. And I’ll be shooting for my own hand!

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Where’s Her Movie? Activist, Claudette Colvin – 16 in a series

“Where’s HER Movie” posts will highlight interesting and accomplished women from a variety of professional backgrounds who deserve to have movies written about them as much as all the male scientists, authors, performers, and geniuses have had written about them across the over 100 years of film.  This is our attempt to help write these women back into mainstream history.  — Rosanne

Where's Her Movie? Activist, Claudette Colvin - 16 in a series

Claudette Colvin (born Claudette Austin, September 5, 1939)[1][2] is a pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus. This occurred nine months before the more widely known incident in which Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), helped spark the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.[3]

Colvin was one of five plaintiffs in the first federal court case filed by civil rights attorney Fred Gray on February 1, 1956, as Browder v. Gayle, to challenge bus segregation in the city. In a United States district court, she testified before the three-judge panel that heard the case. On June 13, 1956, the judges determined that the state and local laws requiring bus segregation in Alabama were unconstitutional. The case went to the United States Supreme Court on appeal by the state, and it upheld the district court’s ruling on November 13, 1956. One month later, the Supreme Court affirmed the order to Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregation. The Montgomery bus boycott was then called off. — Wikipedia

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“A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi” – 31 in a series

From the Aurelian Walls Giuseppe’s men watched the local citizenry come out at night carrying torches and dancing in honor of the Saints and their special day. The women brought some wounded men out to see the festivities to raise their morale, but all were back inside resting when, at 2am, after a day of respect, the French began their final assault. A combination of infantry, cavalry and cannon fire descended on Giuseppe’s remaining troops.

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

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The Civil War On Film – 26 in a series – “…the movie is greatly esteemed by persons sympathetic with the Confederacy…”

The Civil War On Film - 26 in a series -

Ang Lee and writer James Schamus’s thesis for Ride with the Devil, suggests there was no right and wrong in the Civil War and that both sides were equally violent in their dealings with the other. While the movie is greatly esteemed by persons sympathetic with the Confederacy, viewers and movie critics were considerably less enthusiastic.

Movies profiled in this book:

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  2. The Civil War On Film – 25 in a series – “Not surprisingly, few Civil War movies explore the prisoner of war experience…”
  3. The Civil War On Film – 14 in a series – “Yet Mitchell created a heroine who never glorified the “Lost Cause” the way other characters in the movie did”
  4. The Civil War On Film – 5 in a series – “In our Civil War we didn’t fight outsiders…”
  5. The Civil War On Film – 20 in a series – …Americans’ ideas about who qualified as heroes of the Civil War.

07 The Writer’s Voice from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

With the full recording of “How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television”

Srn port07 The Writer's Voice from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

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

 

 

When the folks hosting the conference announced their theme as “Screen Narratives: Chaos and Order” the word ‘chaos’ immediately brought to mind writers rooms. I offered a quick history of writers rooms (the presentations are only 20 minutes long) and then quoted several current showrunners on how they compose their rooms and how they run them.

Transcript

And I think that’s where we started to learn that, particularly in television, you had to find people with a defined voice and that is something you could build a show around and so when I define voice everyone has a slightly different concept but to me, it’s a simple matter of your opinion and the style in which you deliver it and that tells us your different voice and I think some of the shows I’m going to mention — it’s very clear they have very unique voices and that’s where they come from. So we started to recognize that the idea of the creator and television was the writer and that person should run the entire show themselves and should begin to gather about them a group of people who could mimic their voice while still keeping their own. That was the difficult job of television which is also still a difficult thing to teach students to write a spec script that sounds like, but doesn’t obliterate, your own voice, and that’s what you’re trying to do in the room, which again, is more chaotic than I would say.

For more information on the Screenwriting Research Network, visit

Screenwriting Research Network Conference, Porto, Portugal, All Sessions

Ready to present my talk yesterday at the Screenwriting Research Conference here in Porto, Portugal via Instagram

Follow me on Instagram


* 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!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Related posts:

  1. 03 Managed Chaos from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]
  2. 01 Introduction from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]
  3. 04 The Comedy Writer’s Room from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]
  4. 05 The Monkees Writer’s Room from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]
  5. 06 The Universal Studios Writers Pool from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

A Woman Wrote That – 22 in a series – Bring It On! (2000), Writer, Jessica Bendinger

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 - 22 in a series - Bring It On! (2000), Writer, Jessica Bendinger

TORRANCE

You’re a great cheerleader, Aaron, and you’re cute as hell, but maybe you’re just not ‘boyfriend’ material.

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Where’s Her Movie? Sculptor, Selma Burke – 15 in a series

“Where’s HER Movie” posts will highlight interesting and accomplished women from a variety of professional backgrounds who deserve to have movies written about them as much as all the male scientists, authors, performers, and geniuses have had written about them across the over 100 years of film.  This is our attempt to help write these women back into mainstream history.  — Rosanne

Where's Her Movie? Sculptor, Selma Burke - 14 in a series

Selma Hortense Burke (December 31, 1900 – August 29, 1995) was an American sculptor and a member of the Harlem Renaissance movement.[1] Burke is best known for a bas relief portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt that inspired the profile found on the obverse of the dime.[2] She described herself as “a people’s sculptor” and created many pieces of public art, often portraits of prominent African-American figures like Duke Ellington, Mary McLeod Bethune and Booker T. Washington.[3][4] In 1979, she was awarded the Women’s Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award[5]

— Wikipedia

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“A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi” – 30 in a series

“Sometimes the saddest work is not the nursing, but the lying,” Anita offered. “Telling men who won’t see tomorrow’s sunrise that they are fine is the work of the many mothers who cannot be here with their sons.”

“Or of the many wives who cannot be here with their husbands,” Cristina said.

“Or of the poets,” Margaret added.

Anita nodded, “Sadly, there is poetry in telling lies.”

“Yes, but shall the angels ever forgive us these lies?” Cristina wondered.

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

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The Civil War On Film – 25 in a series – “Not surprisingly, few Civil War movies explore the prisoner of war experience…”

The Civil War On Film - 25 in a series -

Andersonville tells the story of Camp Sumter, better known as Andersonville Prison. Not surprisingly, few Civil War movies explore the prisoner of war experience, probably because the topic is so unremittingly unpleasant. Set in 1864, the film is grimly unpitying and while it contains historical inaccuracies, it gets closer to Civil War prison camp realities than any film before or after.

Movies profiled in this book:

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  1. The Civil War On Film – 21 in a series – Friendly Persuasion involves the much rarer Northern experience
  2. The Civil War On Film – 23 in a series – “Many historians and critics consider Glory the best American Civil War movie ever made.”
  3. The Civil War On Film – 13 in a series – Movies that make dubious historical claims can provide rich opportunities for learning…
  4. The Civil War On Film – 5 in a series – “In our Civil War we didn’t fight outsiders…”
  5. The Civil War On Film – 20 in a series – …Americans’ ideas about who qualified as heroes of the Civil War.