movies – Page 69 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

From The “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Archives 13: Anita Loos Rediscovered: Film Treatments and Fiction by Anita Loos, Creator of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos, Cari Beauchamp, Mary Anita Loos

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 13: Anita Loos Rediscovered: Film Treatments and Fiction by Anita Loos, Creator of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos, Cari Beauchamp, Mary Anita Loos

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† Available at Los Angeles Public Library

Anita Loos (1888-1981) was one of Hollywood’s most respected and prolific screenwriters, as well as an acclaimed novelist and playwright. This unique collection of previously unpublished film treatments, short stories, and one-act plays spans fifty years of her creative writing and showcases the breadth and depth of her talent. Beginning in 1912 with the stories she submitted from her San Diego home (some made into films by D. W. Griffith), through her collaboration with Colette on the play Gigi, Anita Loos wrote almost every day for the screen, stage, books, or magazines. Film scripts include San Francisco, The Women, and Red-Headed Woman. The list of stars for whom she created unforgettable roles includes Mary Pickford, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Audrey Hepburn, and Carol Channing.

This collection has been selected by Anita’s niece and close friend, the best-selling author Mary Anita Loos, together with the acclaimed film historian Cari Beauchamp. Their essays are laced throughout the volume, introducing each section and giving previously untold insights and behind-the-scenes stories about Anita―her life, her friendships, and her times.

Buy “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Today!

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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Children’s Animation Panel at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (3 photos)

Children’s Animation Panel at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop

MFA mentor Maria Escobedo (Dora the Explorer, Give a Mouse a Cookie) organized a children’s Animation panel for January’s workshop so MFA candidates were treated to a visit by Laura Kleinbaum (Butterbean’s Café, Esme and Roy) and Jenny Keene (Phineas and Ferb, Big City Greens).

Questions about the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting?

Leave a comment here or email me, Executive Director, Dr. Rosanne Welch and I’ll be happy to answer your questions.

Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V10 Issue 3: Network television writers and the ‘race problems’ of 1968 by Caryn Murphy

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

Network television writers and the ‘race problems’ of 1968 by Caryn Murphy

This article examines the development of television scripts in the crime drama genre within the context of US commercial broadcasting in the network era. In 1968, public discourse around race relations, civil rights and violence reached a height following the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr and Robert F. Kennedy, and the release of a government study on urban uprisings by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. Ironside (1967–75, NBC) and N.Y.P.D. (1967–69, ABC) are two crime dramas that drew on recent events related to black militants and white supremacy in order to appeal to viewers with socially relevant entertainment during this time. The archival records of screenwriters Sy Salkowitz and Lonne Elder make it possible to trace the development of one episode from each series over the course of multiple drafts. This analysis of the script development process explores the relationship between public discourse, industrial context, commercial agendas and creative priorities. Ironside and N.Y.P.D. are both crime dramas, but an examination of both series yields points of divergence which help to illustrate the norms of the network system in terms of act structure, genre tropes, and the oversight of standards and practices.

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!

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!

Alum Rashaan Dozier-Escalante Speaks On Her Screenwriting Career Journey at Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (2 photos)

Alum Rashaan Dozier-Escalante (Class of 2019) stopped in at January’s workshop to tell our current Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting candidates the story of her career journey to become a staff writer on CBS’s Seal Team.

Questions about the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting?

Leave a comment here or email me, Executive Director, Dr. Rosanne Welch and I’ll be happy to answer your questions.

Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

40 Madelyn Pugh and I Love Lucy from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (54 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:

Madelyn worked not only on the first few seasons of I Love Lucy but then all of Lucy’s future TV shows. She helped create all of them and was a head writer on all of those shows. She also did every physical stunt that they wrote for Lucy to do first to make sure that it was safe and that would work in the timeframe they needed. So anything you saw Lucy do, Madeline had done before with the writers watching her and taking footage and trying to figure out if it was gonna be funny, right? So she’s a pretty interesting lady. I had a friend who went to a conference — so weird — it was a conference of optometrists and they ended up at a table chatting with this lovely older woman who was there with her husband, who was an optometrist, and when they asked what she had done in her career, she said oh she did a little writing. They looked her up later. She was Madelyn Pugh. Just dabbled in some writing back in the day oh my gosh.

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.

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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

#MeetTheGraduatesMonday: Rene Rawls – Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Every Monday we will be profiling a member of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting 2020 graduating class. This exciting, fresh crop of writers are the future of the industry and are going on to do BIG things, so get to know them now! First up is Yousif Nash! #MeetTheGraduatesMonday

This week in our #MeetTheGradsMonday, we are featuring Rene Rawls!

With hands-on experience challenging the minds of tots, tweens, and teens, Rene Rawls is a former teacher turned writer who now has a classroom full of students all around the world. She’s participated in several programs with her kids-centered content, including Tribeca All Access and the PGA Diversity Workshop. Rene loves the fun and magical moments of learning, so she strives to capture that in the content she creates. Her animated script, Sule and the Case of the Tiny Sparks, stars an African proverb detective and was the recipient of the 1st Annual Mandela Day/Tribeca All Access Award. Sule was produced as an animated short, and it has over 200,000 Youtube views to date. Rene participated in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop with her middle grade novel, Leba: Modern Day Savior, and her feature script about youth football in South Florida, The Big League (which is about kids but not for them), is currently being developed with RDR Release Films. In May 2020, Rene will graduate with her MFA in TV and Screenwriting from Stephens College.

Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.

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From The “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Archives 12: Lois Weber in Early Hollywood by Shelley Stamp

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† Available at Los Angeles Public Library

“Among early Hollywood’s most brilliant filmmakers, Lois Weber was considered one of the era’s ‘three great minds’ alongside D. W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. Despite her accomplishments, Weber has been marginalized in relation to her contemporaries, who have long been recognized as fathers of American cinema. Drawing on a range of materials untapped by previous historians, Shelley Stamp offers the first comprehensive study of Weber’s remarkable career as director, screenwriter, and actress. Lois Weber in Early Hollywood provides compelling evidence of the extraordinary role that women played in shaping American movie culture. Weber made films on capital punishment, contraception, poverty, and addiction, establishing early cinema’s power to engage topical issues for popular audiences. Her work also grappled with the profound changes in women’s lives that unsettled Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century, and her later films include sharp critiques of heterosexual marriage and consumer capitalism. Mentor to many women in the industry, Weber demanded a place at the table in early professional guilds, decrying the limited roles available for women on screen and in the 1920s protesting the growing climate of hostility toward female directors. Through her examination of Weber’s career, Stamp demonstrates how female filmmakers who had played a part in early Hollywood’s bid for respectability were in the end written out of that industry’s history. Lois Weber in Early Hollywood is an essential addition to histories of silent cinema, early filmmaking in Los Angeles, and women’s contributions to American culture.”

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

Serendipitous Learning at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop

Some of the best things about hosting the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting at the historic Jim Henson Studios (after the quality of our guest speakers, of course) is the accidental opportunity to meet writers working on the lot. After our graduate assistant met a writer in the studio kitchen, the current first -year class was invited to the set of a sizzle reel – a 3-minute trailer for a television show the writer-producers will use to shop around town for the funding the make the full show.

Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.

Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

#MeetTheGraduatesMonday: Yousif Nash – Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Yousif Nash is a true nerd who prides himself for having an encyclopedic knowledge on games, comics, anime, film, and television. An American born Iraqi, his parents regaled him with stories of their homeland, how it felt like a mystical land with history, culture, and wonder. It influenced him to become a storyteller, but he delayed that pursuit as he answered the call of duty and became an officer of the United States Air Force. When he left, he pursued writing seriously. He was accepted to the Writers Guild Foundation Veterans Workshop, worked on short and feature length films in his hometown, and is finishing his Masters of Fine Arts in TV Writing and Screenwriting from Stephens College. He just finished an internship at Hivemind (The Witcher, The Expanse) and is currently in another internship at Berlanti Productions (Arrow, The Flash, Riverdale) and Avi Arad’s Production Company (Spider-Man, Venom). He likes to write about nerds that suffer the normalcies of life, sci-fi, fantasy, and about Arab characters being normal people in America.

Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.

Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

39 Fay Kanin from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (40 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:

Fay Kanin is very cool. She was married to Garson Kanin’s brother and so they worked together and not only in movies but now we’re blending into the television era and she wrote this brilliant TV movie. She got an Emmy Award with Carol Burnett and it was about a mother who found out her son had been killed in Vietnam by friendly fire but the government had said it was enemy fire and she — when she — in looking into how he died — discovered that and then she wanted to make it known so people understood that was one of the risks that your children were taking when they joined the military. It’s a very powerful TV movie. There she is with her husband Michael. These are some of the other things that they did that everybody knows.

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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