20 Even More On Buffy from When Women Write Horror with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute 16 seconds)

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20 Even More On Buffy from When Women Write Horror with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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In honor of Halloween – and in service to my teaching philosophy —

“Words Matter. Writers Matter. Women Writers Matter.”

I presented this holiday lecture “When Women Write Horror” on Tuesday, October 29th, 2019. Researching the many, many women who have written horror stories – in novels, films and television – brought new names to my attention who I am excited to start reading. I hope you will be, too!

Transcript:

The other thing that’s important about Buffy is that we’re going to blend in some LGBTQ stories in the course of time. We’re going to blend in the fact that these men in her life help but never save the day. In any other story, it’s the men who come along and save the damsel in distress. In this case, it’s the chick who saves the dudes in distress or through sharing the work they make the solution happen. One of the special things about Buffy was it is about how a woman masters a problem in a feminine way right? Sadly we tend to think that when boys learn how to save the day they learn how to master a weapon and go one on one with the bad guy. That’s what they’ve seen in a million movies — many movies that i enjoy myself. The way women do it is they gather a group around them and they empower that group to be as good as they can be together and then as a group they go forward and they save the day and that’s a feminine way of doing things that’s a very that’s a very teacherly way of doing things. Together we will learn this and we will master this thing and move on in the world and succeed. So i think the show did so many things from a feminine perspective and i think it’s because of those two ladies. That makes a big difference.

From The Journal Of Screenwriting V1 Issue 2: Who Writes British Films: A Summary on the UKFC Report and a Call for Further Research by Susan Rogers

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


Who Writes British Films: A Summary on the UKFC Report and a Call for Further Research by Susan Rogers

In 2007 I was commissioned by the UK Film Council to investigate the background and employment experience of screenwriters credited on a random selection of recent UK films. The resulting report, Writing British Films Who Writes British Films and How They are Recruited, confirmed some widely-held views and uncovered much new information. The UK Film Council’s first studies had revealed that many of the beliefs about screenwriting, expressed in interviews within the British film industry, to be anecdotal or based on unsubstantiated fact and to an extent, myth, confirming the scarcity of research in this field. The following is a summary and a reflection on the findings revealed in the report.


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!



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

Screenwriter Jennifer Maisel from The March Sisters at Christmas, and Tempting Fate from the How I Wrote That Podcast [Audio]

Listen to the latest How I Wrote That Podcast with Tera Hernandez of The Big Bang Theory [Audio]

Screenwriter Jennifer Maisel from The March Sisters at Christmas, and Tempting Fate [Audio]

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Jennifer Maisel most recently developed an original pilot called “The 626” with Super Deluxe and adapted two Jane Green novels—Tempting Fate and To Have and to Hold, which aired in June. She currently is working on a two-hour about campus rape and institutional betrayal with Just Singer Entertainment. Her screenplay “Lost Boy” was filmed starring Virginia Madsen. She wrote The Assault and The March Sisters for Mar Vista Entertainment and Double Wedding for Jaffe Braunstein. She has written movies for NBC, ABC, MTV and Lifetime, was a staff writer on the television series Related, wrote a pilot for ABC Family and an animated feature for Disney. Maisel has developed original pilots with Bunim-Murray, Ineffable, Stun Media and MomentumTV and co-created the critically acclaimed web series Faux Baby with Laura Brennan and Rachel Leventhal. The screenplay adaptation of her play The Last Seder won Showtime’s Tony Cox Screenwriting Award, meriting her a month’s stay in a haunted farmhouse at the Nantucket Screenwriter’s Colony. A graduate of Cornell University and NYU’s Dramatic Writing program, Maisel is also an award-winning playwright whose Eight Nights will premiere at Antaeus Theatre in October 2019; the play is currently part of a nationwide event called 8 Nights of Eight Nights, raising funds and awareness for HIAS. She has taught playwriting at University of Southern California and guest-lectured around the country.

On adapting novels “I like the puzzle of taking something that’s epic, novels are epic, even not great novels are epic, and you have to figure out how to find the essential spine to it and give shape to it as a writer.” — Jennifer Maisel

Presented by Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting


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19 Nunnally Johnson and John Ford from Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered [Video] (51 seconds)

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19 Nunnally Johnson and John Ford from Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered [Video] (51 seconds)

 

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Transcript:

And journalists, who are writers, have made this mistake. They had dismissed writers in talking about Hollywood. I find it terrible. One time, John Ford pointed out that a particular shot that he was going to use in a script was written into the script. The screenwriter envisioned how the camera should move and John Ford said to Nunnally Johnson “I don’t know if the critics will recognize you or me for doing this work.” and Nunnally Johnson responded, “I don’t who’s going to get the credit, but Iknow I did it” and even John Ford said, ‘I know. I recognize it”, but that doesn’t mean that when John Ford was interviewed later in life he remembered to mention Nunnally Johnson. No, no, no. It was John Ford, right?

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

From The Journal Of Screenwriting V1 Issue 2: From three acts to three screens: the significance of the role of writing in a new media film project by Jeremy Bubb

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


From three acts to three screens: the significance of the role of writing in a new media film project by Jeremy Bubb
  
This article will discuss the writing and editing of a short film called Writ in Water, a project specifically designed for three-screen projection. I will explore the influences of the process of writing for multi-image drama by considering Lev Manovich’s notion of narrative as database, Gene Youngblood’s view of syncretism and synaesthetics and Robert McKee’s approach to three-act structure in relation to story, inciting incident, character development and narrative timeline. I will also outline the influence of Aristotle on this new media drama triptych and, finally, discuss scriptwriting as a changing component in relation to digital technology. The continuing significance of the script as blueprint will be explored and how classic story structure and use of new technology work together to inform the final work. This article aims to reflect on the acts and the actions of narrative creation using the classic tropes of screenwriting and its influences, and also recognize the importance of process in contributing to new knowledge in the area of multi-image screen narrative. A full appreciation of an artwork includes an understanding of the extent to which it is a product and reflection of the technologies used in its making (Shaw and Weibel 2003: 198).


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!

18 Nunnally Johnson and The Grapes Of Wrath from Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered [Video] (1 minute 11 seconds)

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17 Nunnally Johnson and The Grapes Of Wrath from Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered

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Transcript:

In this case — this gentleman Nunnally Johnson –I think got it even worse. He adapted this famous United States book, The Grapes of Wrath, into a film. You notice on the bottom it was directed by John Ford. We don’t see where — Nunnally Johnson’s name is right above it. Can you see the itty-bitty teeny-tiny print? John Steinbeck, the author of the book, actually said he thought the script was better than his book. He thought that the writing of the script improved this novel that is quite famous and taught in many American classrooms. When the woman who starred in the film — who married Nunnally Johnson — died just a few years ago, the obituary — her very own obituary — read that she was famous for John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath and she left acting when she married the film’s screenwriter. It’s his wife’s obituary and it doesn’t list his name because he’s just a screenwriter. He can’t possibly count as much as John Ford does. She wasn’t married to John Ford.

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

From The “When Women Wrote Hollywood Archives 33: Blood and Sand. Wr: June Mathis, Dir: Fred Fred Niblo, Paramount Pictures, 1922, USA 80 mins.

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 33: Blood and Sand. Wr: June Mathis, Dir: Fred Fred Niblo, Paramount Pictures, 1922, USA 80 mins.

From The

Juan Gallardo (Valentino), a village boy born into poverty, grows up to become one of the greatest matadors in Spain. He marries a friend from his childhood, the beautiful and virtuous Carmen (Lee), but after he achieves fame and fortune he finds himself drawn to Doña Sol (Naldi), a wealthy, seductive widow.

They embark on a torrid affair with sadomasochistic overtones, but Juan, feeling guilty over his betrayal of Carmen, tries to free himself of Doña Sol. Furious at being rejected, she exposes their affair to Carmen and Juan’s mother, seemingly destroying his marriage. Growing more and more miserable and dissipated, Juan becomes reckless in the arena. He is eventually killed in a bullfight but does manage to reconcile with Carmen moments before he dies.

There is also a subplot involving a local outlaw whose career is paralleled to Juan’s throughout the film by the village philosopher: Juan’s fatal injury in the bullring comes moments after the outlaw is shot by the police. — Wikipedia


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When Women Wrote Hollywood: Essays on Female Screenwriters in the Early Film Industry

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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!
† Available from the LA Public Library

19 More On Buffy from When Women Write Horror with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (39 seconds)

Watch this entire presentation

19 More On Buffy from When Women Write Horror with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (39 seconds)

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In honor of Halloween – and in service to my teaching philosophy —

“Words Matter. Writers Matter. Women Writers Matter.”

I presented this holiday lecture “When Women Write Horror” on Tuesday, October 29th, 2019. Researching the many, many women who have written horror stories – in novels, films and television – brought new names to my attention who I am excited to start reading. I hope you will be, too!

Transcript:

Importantly, Jane Espenson eventually went on and created Warehouse 13 which is an adorable little show also in the sort of sci-fi world. Really good show. So I think it’s really important to think about everything that Buffy did to throw all the tropes of horror to flip them. So now we have the blonde is saving the world. This rarely happens. The blonde is usually the one who gets dead first right? So not only is she a girl who saves the world she has to be a blonde girl and she has to be a cheerleader because we have to take every single anti-female trope and say “no”, there’s power in who she is.

From The Journal Of Screenwriting V1 Issue 2: Zen and the art of film narrative: towards a transcendental realism in film by Erik Knudsen

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


Zen and the art of film narrative: towards a transcendental realism in film by Erik Knudsen
 
Nations and peoples are largely the stories they feed themselves. If they tell themselves stories that are lies, they will suffer the consequences of those lies. If they tell themselves stories that face their own truths, they will free their histories for future flowerings. (Okri 1995: 21) What defines the classic narrative is also at the root of its limitations; an epistemology that ties it to a material and psychological paradigm governed by largely explicable laws of cause and effect. Such notions as character motivation, narrative aims, obstacles, climax and so on have evolved to become as overwhelmingly dominant in cinema as the dogma of reason which subsequently the industrial age solidified. It is from this that the moving-image medium emerged: empirical evidence of motivations, mechanistic notions of causes and effects and scientifically based including the pseudosciences of psychology and sociology that provide justifications for events and actions all serve to reinforce the dominance of the classic narrative’s role in the storytelling of the developed world.In this article, I shall call for a different perspective on cinematic narrative form; not with a view to discussing what film generally is, but to make some general suggestions of what it could be, particularly from the perspective of a film-maker trying to transcend the limitations of the classic narrative. The motive is to try and understand how, in practice, one may evolve narrative forms in such a way as to deal with experiences not sufficiently touched by the classic form, as it is currently generally practised in cinema. I shall, in particular, look at the relationship between emotions and feelings and their relationship to narrative structure and bring into this examination some notions and ideas from Zen Buddhism to re-evaluate that relationship. The issues I hope to raise are about paradigms and I shall therefore deliberately base my discussion on general assertions and eclectic contextualization.


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!

17 Albert Hackett & Frances Goodrich from Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered [Video] (1 minute)

Watch this entire presentation

17 Albert Hackett & Frances Goodrich from Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered

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

 

Transcript:

In this case, Frank Capra took a lot of credit for this film, It’s A Wonderful Life. It plays in the United States often, It’s a Christmas film. You can see Frank Capra’s name in big red letters on the bottom over there. It was actually written by this couple — a married couple who wrote for over 50 years together — Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich. I think they’re quite wonderful because they also wrote the Broadway play and the film production of The Diary of Anne Frank. They won a Pulitzer Prize for that work. Frank Capra has never won a Pulitzer Prize. I believe these are Hackett/Goodrich Films. They are not Frank Capra films. So the unbalance of the credits — the lack of credit — for such incredible work — such incredible craftsmanship, I think is quite sad. They also wrote The Thin Man movies which were adaptations of a book by Dashiell Hammett. There was a book written by this couple by their nephew called The Real Nick and Nora. So they had quite the career.

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