tv – Page 41 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Coming Soon: A chapter in a new book, Doctor Who: New Dawn: Essays on the Jodie Whitaker Era

There are many exciting steps along the way to having a chapter you’ve written about a beloved television show accepted into a book collection.

First you see the Call for Submissions, have an idea and send in an abstract.
Then they tell you they like your idea and want to include it in their collection.
Then you write the chapter and they send back minimal notes.
Then (that’s today) they send you the artwork for the cover and you smile all over again knowing other fans of the show will be reading your ideas as they consider the importance of the show to our culture.

All those steps (except the cover page) happened recently on a couple of upcoming collections I’m contributing to but the other day this cover came along for Doctor Who: New Dawn: Essays on the Jodie Whitaker Era and I couldn’t be more excited that a show I originally watched on PBS back in Ohio and followed all these years then made their lead character a female and then I had the chance to write about how a writer could go about making such a culturally important change.

My essay is entitled ‘She is wise and unafraid’: writing the first female Doctor and a diverse universe for her to protect

The book itself will be out later this year!

From The Journal Of Screenwriting V4 Issue 1: The unseen collaborator: Breaking down art to create modern narratives by Marie Regan

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

The unseen collaborator: Breaking down art to create modern narratives by Marie Regan

This article proposes a new way of looking at the screenwriting process and at the pedagogical instruction of screenwriting. It proposes an alternative to the industrial model of screenwriting – one that allows for the possibility of creating film scripts that might lie on the borders of narrative. Starting with a research process, this method uses the deconstruction of an art source to develop the writer’s point of view in hopes of creating modern works of unusual complexity and resonance. Citing examples from Bach, Munch and Melville, and films by Francois Girard, Peter Watkins and Claire Denis, the article suggests a method for screenwriters using the limit of an original artwork’s form to generate a unique narrative structure, and building on that structure by bringing the writer’s own contemporary perspective to the content concerns. It contends that this process works to renew the writer’s connection to form and, by working with an artwork the writer admires, pushes the writer into deeper engagement with her own point of view.

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!

01 Introduction 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”

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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

Always good to see everybody here. We’re all like on different time schedules so I’m still — I think it’s three in the morning in Los Angeles but that’s okay. Yes, we’re going to talk about this concept of chaos in writers’ rooms, which are really run in chaos, at least the ones in the United States. Just a quick background on who I am. I was in the business for several years. I wrote Picket Fences, Beverly Hills 90210 — which is a show that won’t die because they just did a live show or is just a little crazy and Touched By An Angel for a long time. So this is where I came from in television. This is what I’ve done in academia and writing. My favorite new book is a collection of essays written by many of my students about female screenwriters from the early days and giving us their backgrounds so I’m all about finding more women that we can write about and talk about in our classes. I think that’s important. I’m also the book review editor of the Journal of Screenwriting so if you have any books you’d like to review please let me know. I’d love to get you a free copy and get your review in the journal and also I’m on the editorial board for the Written By Magazine, which is the magazine of the Writers Guild of America. You can access that for free digitally online if you go to writtenby.com or go to wga.org and they’ll have a link to it, but every month we do interviews with either a film person or a television person or whole writer’s room from a show and I think it’s a great way to bring guest stars into a classroom from all over the world. Again, they’re obviously Americans although I interviewed Russell Davies several years ago so we do have some other folks come on into the magazine but it’s pretty cool.

For more information on the Screenwriting Research Network, visit

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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!

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11 Style + Opinion=Writer’s Voice from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (22 seconds)

Thanks to the gracious invitation from my Screenwriting Research Network colleague Paolo Russo – and a grant he was able to procure (and in the before-Covid time) I was able to spend a week at Oxford Brookes University working with the screenwriting masters students in Paolo’s course. At the culmination of the week, I gave this lecture on how writers rooms worked in the States.

Transcript:

Everything that’s written that’s remembered is because you learned something while you were watching it. It might be that friends matter which is really the theme of all of the Harry Potter movies let’s admit it. That’s all you learned from those movies. They were quite fun but that’s a pretty good theme. In life, friends matter. Themes are universal. So this is my opinion but I think, generally speaking, people find this the opinion.

Watch this entire presentation

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

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Dr. Rosanne Welch Joins Panel on Monkees Books with Plastic EP Live [Video] (54 minutes)

Many thanks to Fred Velez for telling me about Daniel Sam and his fun internet Monkees talk show — followed by thanks to Dan for inviting me onto this discussion of all the great Monkees books out there. I enter the chat at the 15 minute mark in the video. — Rosanne

On Tuesday February 16th, 2021, the Plastic EP TV Facebook Live Monkees Discussion Panel held a literary discussion on Monkees Books.

Participants included:

Fred Velez
Charles Rosenay
Ed Reilly
Michael A Ventrella
Mark Arnold
Natalie A Palumbo
Special Guest, Dr. Rosanne Welch, Author of Why The Monkees Matter

Get your copy today!

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V4 Issue 1: expensive words, cheap images: ‘Scripting’ the adapted screenplay by Alex Munt

expensive words, cheap images: ‘Scripting’ the adapted screenplay by Alex Munt

This article explores ‘scripting’ the adapted screenplay for budget film models, including microbudget features, DIY film-making and creative practice-led research. It highlights the lack of attention given to the adapted screenplay in the field of adaptation studies, and works with notions of intermediality, and transmediality, to privilege the screenplay as the primary site for creative interaction in the adaptation process. In the context of small-scale, budget film-making practices the focus is towards modes of scripting that rely on working with images, both as part of the screenplay form/format and more directly, in ‘writing’ with moving images, with the screenplay situated within production. This article argues that in consideration of the adapted screenplay, for budget film-making, the relationship between words and images is realigned. The impact of digital media culture together with the advance of digital film-making will accelerate this. Two case studies are presented. The first is Mala No he (1985), the debut feature film of Gus Van Sant, based on the novella by Walt Curtis. The second is LBF (2011), the author’s own debut feature film, based on the novel Living Between Fucks (2006) by Cry Bloxsome. This article aims to engage screenwriting researchers, independent/budget film-makers and creative arts practitioners.

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!

Dr. Rosanne Welch Joins Panel on Monkees Books with Plastic EP Live – Tuesday February 16th, 2021, 8pm EST/5pm PST

Tuesday February 16th, 2021, the Plastic EP TV Facebook Live Monkees Discussion Panel will present a literary discussion on Monkees Books.

Tuesday February 16th, 2021, 8pm EST/5pm PST

Watch Live

Join Plastic EP and his distinguished, literary panel for a spirited discussion on Monkees Literature.

Participants:

Fred Velez
Charles Rosenay
Ed Reilly
Michael A Ventrella
Mark Arnold
Natalie A Palumbo
Special Guest, Dr. Rosanne Welch, Author of Why The Monkees Matter

Event: ScriptChat with Dr. Rosanne Welch – Complete Transcript

I had a lot of fun on my first Twitter Chat last Sunday. Jeanne Veillette Bowerman of #Scriptchat had invited to talk about how to behave in a writers room alongside what are the benefits of an MFA in TV and Screenwriting (such as the one we offer from Stephens College).

Happily, I had just interviewed Gloria Calderon Kellet who had an MFA and who had said so astutely that no one requires that in Hollywood but taking 2 years to invest in herself and her craft meant she had material that was truly of high enough quality to offer up when future producers offered to read her work. So that was nice!

As to Twitter, I knew being short and concise is the bread and butter of Twitter but… wow… I’m clearly a much longer storyteller and kept running over the limit and having to use ellipses to extend a sentence or a thought. But folks seemed to enjoy it and even said I had ‘dropped pearls’ so that was nice to hear as well.

Check out #Scriptchat every Sunday night at 5pmPST/8pmET for more fun guests.

ScriptChat with Dr. Rosanne Welch from Sunday, February 14, 2021

Read the entire transcript

10 The Writer’s Voice from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (1 minute 3 seconds)

Transcript:

Stephen Cannell — who I’m going to talk about briefly in a second — he was in a writer’s pool and he was asked to write an episode of this one day and the reason he stood out and became then his own showrunner was because he had the craziest little idea. Rather than worry about what’s the crime this week and what’s the problem the cops are involved with, he just thought what would happen if the police were assigned to work in a police car which kept breaking down all day. Just a funny little idea which then was the theme of the whole episode. How do you do your job when you’re not providing the proper equipment and that made other people in Universal buzz about this new cool writer and they pretty much thought he had a particular voice and to me that’s the most important thing and you hear this word a thousand times. What does it mean? How do you do it? What does it prove? I’m gonna make you do a little exercise practicing that because writer’s voice is style plus opinion. You have a style of writing and you have something to say, right? That’s the theme. If you don’t have a theme you have no reason to write anything.

Watch this entire presentation

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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

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Drs. Rosanne Welch and Sarah Clark discuss The Monkees “Monkees A La Carte” episode on the Zilch Podcast’s Monkees 101 Series [Audio]

It’s time for another Monkees 101, co-hosted by myself and Dr. Sarah Clark on the Zilch podcast. This time we discuss and debate “Monkees A La Carte” where the show spoofs all the classic gangster characters. I always enjoy chatting with Dr. Clark since she’s the Monkees music uber fan to match my TV show uber fan-ness – all with a dash of the kind of research we both do in our day gigs as professors!

Zilch & The PTFB Team, Sarah Clark, and Tim Powers are co-hosting a Stranger Things Have Happened Zoom Listening Party on FEBRUARY 13 AT 4:00 Eastern, featuring appearances by Glenn Gretlund, Mark Kleiner, James Lee Stanley, and others!

After Tim and Sarah plug the listening party (and get a little silly), Sarah and Rosanne discuss “Monkees a la Carte, which aired November 21, 1966. “A gangster has taken over the boys’ favorite Italian restaurant, so they disguise themselves as The Purple Flower Gang.”

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