46 Screenplays As Literature from Why Researching Screenwriters Has Always Mattered [Video] (1 minute)

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46 Screenplays As Literature from Why Researching Screenwriters Has Always Mattered [Video] (1 minute)

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Transcript:

So to me the question of why has researching screen readers — screenwriters always mattered is because of all these reasons I’ve noted. Also one of the biggest things that makes me so excited is people are beginning to read screenplays as literature. I think maybe 20 years ago I saw a book publish the top five screenplays of the year and I was amazed that I could read the scripts in their format on a page right and so the more we see that happen — somebody like William Goldman who’s very famous in the states, he published several of his screenplays. I remember when Rocky came out they published a screenplay because it’s Rocky, so everyone loves Rocky, but the idea that now we really know this isn’t a blueprint. We’re going to look at this script. We’re going to read the action lines and we’re going to hear the voice of the writer in a way that we can’t on screen because those things aren’t what the audience is given right.

Watch this entire presentation

A Note About This Presentation

A clip from my keynote speech at the 10th Screenwriters´(hi)Stories Seminar for the interdisciplinary Graduation Program in “Education, Art, and History of Culture”, in Mackenzie Presbyterian University, at São Paulo, SP, Brazil, focused on the topic “Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered.” I was especially pleased with the passion these young scholars have toward screenwriting and it’s importance in transmitting culture across the man-made borders of our world.

To understand the world we have to understand its stories and to understand the world’s stories we must understand the world’s storytellers. A century ago and longer those people would have been the novelists of any particular country but since the invention of film, the storytellers who reach the most people with their ideas and their lessons have been the screenwriters. My teaching philosophy is that: Words matter, Writers matter, and Women writers matte, r so women writers are my focus because they have been the far less researched and yet they are over half the population. We cannot tell the stories of the people until we know what stories the mothers have passed down to their children. Those are the stories that last. Now is the time to research screenwriters of all cultures and the stories they tell because people are finally recognizing the work of writers and appreciating how their favorite stories took shape on the page long before they were cast, or filmed, or edited. But also because streaming services make the stories of many cultures now available to a much wider world than ever before.

Many thanks to Glaucia Davino for the invitation.


 

* 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

A Woman Wrote That – 12 in a series – Private Benjamin (1980) by Nancy Meyers

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 - 12 in a series - Private Benjamin (1980) by Nancy Meyers

JUDY

Look at this place. The army couldn’t afford drapes?

Dr. Rosanne Welch Speaks On “An Introduction to the Women of Early TV: There are More Women than Lucy to Love“ for the American Women Writers National Museum [Virtual via Zoom]

I’m thrilled to have been asked to make a presentation for the American Women Writers National Museum (AWWNM) on the topic of “An Introduction to the Women of Early TV: There are More Women than Lucy to Love“.  I’ll be discussing the groundbreaking work of women from Gertrude Berg (one of the first women to create, write, produce and star in a long-running hit — The Goldbergs) to D.C. Fontana (Star Trek).    — RMW Rosanne Signature for Web


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RSVP Today! 
Email AWWNM1@gmail.com

Wed Feb 10, 2021 noon-12:45 EDT

“An Introduction to the Women of Early TV: There are More Women than Lucy to Love“

Sponsored by: American Women Writers National Museum

Time & Place: noon-12:45 p.m. EDT / 9 AM PDT via Zoom

All AWWNM programs are now via Zoom until further notice. Invitations are sent via email to AWWNM’s mailing list. RSVPS are REQUIRED in order to receive a link to a specific program. If you would like an invitation, email request to AWWNM1@gmail.com.

Dr. Rosanne Welch, Executive Director of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting, Author, Historian and Book Reviews editor of the Journal of Screenwriting will profile pioneer women who created, produced and worked on many of America’s most wildly popular early TV Programs. 

“My goal is to rescue these talented women from historical oblivion”, she said.

Some of the women writers she will discuss are:

  • Lucille Ball (1911-1989) of “I Love Lucy” fame, who also ran Desilu production company and greenlighted the blockbuster Star Trek productions.
  • Treva Silverman (1936- ) winner of two Emmy awards for the brilliant comedy The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
  • D.C. Fontana (Dorothy Catherine) Fontana (1939-2019) a story editor of Star Trek
  • Leigh Brackett (1915-1878) known as “Queen of the Space Opera” who wrote on or worked on timeless films: The Big Sleep (1946), Rio Bravo (1959), The Long Goodbye (1973) and The Empire Strike Back (1980).
  • Peg Lynch (1915-2015) She wrote about 11,000 scripts for radio and TV

Watch Dr. Rosanne Welch on What Is a Western? Interview Series: When Women Wrote Westerns from the Autry Museum of the American West [Video] (27 minutes)

The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting is building a relationship with the Autry Museum of the American West since both organizations are devoted to bringing out more diverse and untold stories.  Last year we were able to take our cohort of graduating MFA candidates to the museum’s theatre for a showing of Michael Wilson’s Salt of the Earth and we had plans to present a film of our choice this year – but of course the pandemic changed all that.  Instead, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis asked me if I would sit for an interview about female screenwriters in the western genre and so “When Women Wrote Westerns” came to be a part of their “What Is a Western? Interview Series”

I had a great time discussing so many wonderful women writers – from Jeanne MacPherson to D.C. Fontana to Edna Ferber to Emily Andras.  If you love westerns I suggest you watch Josh’s other interviews covering everything from the work of Native Americans in Western movies to films in the western-horror hybrid. — RMW Rosanne Signature for Web


Watch Dr. Rosanne Welch on What Is a Western? Interview Series: When Women Wrote Westerns from the Autry Museum of the American West [Video] (27 minutes)

As part of a series exploring the significance of the Western genre and the ways in which the movies shape our understanding of the American West, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis interviews Professor Rosanne Welch about the women screenwriters of Hollywood and their contributions to the Western genre.

Find more information at the Autry Museum of the American West

New Book by IGE Lecturers Critique the Civil War in Films via PolyCentric [News]

New Book by IGE Lecturers Critique the Civil War in Films via PolyCentric [News]

Recently my co-author Peg Lamphier and I sat for an interview about our Civil War on Film book to discuss the American film industry’s depiction of the American Civil War and the mythologies and ideologies surrounding the experience of that war. 

We completely destroy any idea that there is something noble and admirable about the Confederacy. There is not. They fought to preserve human bondage. That should be morally revolting to all twenty-first century Americans and the fact that it is not is a testament to how far we still have to go to heal the wounds of our nation’s history of slavery.

Suddenly, the book seems even more timely than when we began writing it 2 years ago. — Rosanne


New Book by IGE Lecturers Critique the Civil War in Films 

For their third book project, lecturers Peg Lamphier and Roseanne Welch, in the Department of Interdisciplinary General Education, decided to write a book examining the American film industry’s depiction of the American Civil War. In their book, “The Civil War on Film,” the authors contend that American films are filled with mythologies and ideologies surrounding the experience of the war and further research is required to uncover the full, real history.

New Book by IGE Lecturers Critique the Civil War in Films via PolyCentric [News]

Peg Lamphier and Roseanne Welch, lecturers in the Department of Interdisciplinary General Education, team up on their third book, which examines the American film industry’s depiction of the American Civil War.

According to the authors, the Civil War, which occurred from 1861-1865, is contested ground both among historians and the general public. They argue that most are clear about the anti-slavery aims of the war, as well as the fundamentally treasonous nature of succession, but neo-Confederates cast the war in terms favorable to their white supremacist agenda.

In a joint statement, Lamphier and Welch wrote, “Our book is entirely unsympathetic to the Neo-Con/Lost Cause agenda and so we’re engaged in a vigorous refutation of a number of pro-Confederate myths that serve to hamper racial equality in modern America. We hope readers will better understand the nature of the war and the troubled way it’s been filmed as they work through our book. We also hope it shows readers that films always engage in a bit of fictionalization in order to heighten the drama.”

Read this entire article

Other Welch/Lamphier Books

“A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi” – 20 in a series

There were four thousand Italian families in Montevideo at the time. When the city was put under siege Giuseppe put together a force of Italians to help defend the city. The fame the newspapers generated brought hundreds of those Italians to join Giuseppe’s forces with a two-fold promise: they would fight for freedom for Uruguay and use this fight as a training ground so they could all return to Italy and unite their own beloved country.

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

The Civil War On Film – 15 in a series – “…a Civilization gone with the wind.”

The Civil War On Film - 15  in a series -

Then the scrolling text promises the audience a story about “a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind.”

Movies profiled in this book:

45 Universal Themes in Samantha! from Brazil from Why Researching Screenwriters Has Always Mattered [Video] (37 seconds)

Watch this entire presentation

45 Universal Themes in Samantha! from Brazil  from Why Researching Screenwriters Has Always Mattered [Video] (37 seconds)

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

 

Transcript:

So when I watched Samantha!, I thought, “Okay so how does this work? Oh, you know what? Pretty universal. She wants to be important. She wants to matter in the world. That’s what everybody wants, right, and she wants to be loved. That’s — that’s ridiculously universal but every story that teaches that theme just gives you the details the writer had to offer and to me, that’s one of the most beautiful things because that’s how we learn we’re all the same. All this nonsense — about borders and walls and things I don’t want to talk about — it’s nonsense because we’re all the same right? That’s what we need to learn.

Watch this entire presentation

A Note About This Presentation

A clip from my keynote speech at the 10th Screenwriters´(hi)Stories Seminar for the interdisciplinary Graduation Program in “Education, Art, and History of Culture”, in Mackenzie Presbyterian University, at São Paulo, SP, Brazil, focused on the topic “Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered.” I was especially pleased with the passion these young scholars have toward screenwriting and it’s importance in transmitting culture across the man-made borders of our world.

To understand the world we have to understand its stories and to understand the world’s stories we must understand the world’s storytellers. A century ago and longer those people would have been the novelists of any particular country but since the invention of film, the storytellers who reach the most people with their ideas and their lessons have been the screenwriters. My teaching philosophy is that: Words matter, Writers matter, and Women writers matte, r so women writers are my focus because they have been the far less researched and yet they are over half the population. We cannot tell the stories of the people until we know what stories the mothers have passed down to their children. Those are the stories that last. Now is the time to research screenwriters of all cultures and the stories they tell because people are finally recognizing the work of writers and appreciating how their favorite stories took shape on the page long before they were cast, or filmed, or edited. But also because streaming services make the stories of many cultures now available to a much wider world than ever before.

Many thanks to Glaucia Davino for the invitation.


 

* 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

A Woman Wrote That – 11 in a series – Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

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 - 11 in a series - Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

ANNIE

You make a million decisions that mean nothing, and then one day you order take-out and it changes your life.

“A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi” – 19 in a series

Once again, those in need of military leadership came to Giuseppe to ask for aid, but this time many of those who were volunteering to help Uruguay were from its Italian immigrant population and most shared Giuseppe’s future goal, making the appeal ever more difficult to ignore.

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