On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch
Writing, Film, Television and More!
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.
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.
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Enjoy This Clip? Watch this entire presentation and Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture
From Denver Pop Culture Con 2019.
Wherever you go, you find Monkees fans and the Denver Popular Culture Con was no different. Amid rooms full of caped crusaders and cosplay creations, I was initially not sure how many folks would attend a talk on a TV show from the 1960s – but happily I was met by a nice, engaged audience for my talk on Why the Monkees Matter – and afterward they bought books! What more could an author ask for?
Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!
Transcript
Obviously, as I said, the TV Writers, the music writers mattered. I mean, Carole King — how many Grammy’s in her day — and she wrote Some Time In The Morning, which I think is one of the most beautiful love songs ever. Boyce and Hart, as I mentioned were the major songwriters for them in the first couple of years and then it expanded. Neil Sedaka wrote for them. Neil Diamond — how about that young picture of Neil Diamond. Paul Williams, who also — somehow the Muppets and The Monkees — I need a book that connects them because there is a lot that connects them. David Gates from Bread wrote a couple of songs and actually, Micky has an album of — he does a new album called Remember and in that he records Diary which is a famous David Gates song which David wrote and tried to sell to him in the late ’70s and he said no, I don’t think I’m a singer anymore. So he did that later in his career. But that’s how important — and Carole Bayer Sager of course. So they knew that writers were an important thing.
Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture
A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Acheivement in Comedy.
Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined, and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.
This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers.
Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Riderand Five Easy Pieces.
McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition
Want to use “Why The Monkees Matter” in your classroom?
Order Examination Copies, Library and Campus Bookstore orders directly from McFarland
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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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.
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Watch this entire presentation
Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!
This one allowed me to riff on some of my favorite female science fiction writers across time, whether they be novelists or television writers. It also opened up a good conversation on what art we support and include in our lives – and what that art says to us and about us. — Rosanne
Transcript:
Of course, then we move over to Sarah Connor and the Terminator. Again. it’s this thing that gives everybody power. Not what I’m providing inside and Sarah Connor is pretty boss and pretty tough but it’s that gun we always go back to. So I don’t think about it’s– (Audience) I always remember her and even when I’m exercising when she’s doing the pull-ups. (Rosanne) Yes. (Audience) I — when I exercise, I think about her. (Rosanne) See that’s good. That’s– that’s the inner strength. That’s very cool yeah. That is the cool bit of it. Yeah. So we’re getting around to it. Of course through those movies we then come up with the X-Files and now we have Dana Scully who is all-powerful because it’s her brain. Not big on using the gun, right, that’s his job. She’s using her brain and she’s the more intellectual — the stronger one — in many ways. He’s the one running by his heart and his emotions and she’s the one running through her mind. So we’re switching the male and female sort of identifiers in this piece, which is pretty strong.
* 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
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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
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.
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Enjoy This Clip? Watch this entire presentation and Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture
From Denver Pop Culture Con 2019.
Wherever you go, you find Monkees fans and the Denver Popular Culture Con was no different. Amid rooms full of caped crusaders and cosplay creations, I was initially not sure how many folks would attend a talk on a TV show from the 1960s – but happily I was met by a nice, engaged audience for my talk on Why the Monkees Matter – and afterward they bought books! What more could an author ask for?
Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!
Transcript
Speaking of The Beatles, as I said they actually did know each other. They hung out with each other. They respected each other. When Davy Jones died there was a clip of Paul McCartney and he was doing a little ‘Here They Come” bit and going you know I remember them I liked them. It was so cool. So they were respected by lots of people. Peter himself attended the Monterey Pop Festival with Micky Dolenz who’s not in this picture. Again behind him is Janis Joplin as we said but also at the Pop Festival is when they met this young, really great guitar player who they invited to come along as the opening act to their concerts the next season and his name was Jimi Hendrix and they thought he was so flamboyant and so much of a character that it would match the characters they were playing. Except after about 6 or 7 concerts he quit because all the kids were doing was yelling please bring Davey onstage and they didn’t recognize the quality of Jimi Hendrix. So he left. He was never angry at them and they were friends and obviously, sadly he died just a couple of years later. There’s some great footage — photographs of them sitting in hotel rooms together riffing and playing and again all respecting each other’s work. So I think that’s really cool.
Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture
A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Acheivement in Comedy.
Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined, and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.
This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers.
Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Riderand Five Easy Pieces.
McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition
Want to use “Why The Monkees Matter” in your classroom?
Order Examination Copies, Library and Campus Bookstore orders directly from McFarland
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Watch this entire presentation
Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!
This one allowed me to riff on some of my favorite female science fiction writers across time, whether they be novelists or television writers. It also opened up a good conversation on what art we support and include in our lives – and what that art says to us and about us. — Rosanne
Transcript:
And of course, it brought us many other powerful engaging women right? We got Rei. We’re dealing with Padme from the earlier session. We had Jyn Erso. I really like Rogue One more than I even like the new Star Wars, but that’s just me. Then we have Rose Tiko which was a big move right and then there are people kind of Oh, what’s she doing in there. She doesn’t have any place in the movie. She does. She’s showing us that people of Asian descent show up in the future. That’s a huge message right and again she does it mostly peacefully you know there’s a gun in there someone but we get rid of that pretty quick and then it’s about your skill with it with lightsaber stuff. Moving forward we all know or we think we know Alien right and Sigourney Weaver. Sadly the rumor in Hollywood is that the reason that character is so strong and interesting is the it was written to be a man and when they couldn’t get a male to star in the movie they just threw it to Sigourney Weaver and they never rewrote it girl-ify it up. So she’s powerful because she’s doing all the things we expect men to do in movies without having to be a guy.
* 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
Author, Tom Stempel Speaks at Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop
Tom Stempel, (historian and author of one of the textbooks used in our MFA – Framework: a History of Screenwriting) has a blog – Understanding Screenwriting — where he analyzes the work of recent screenplays, many of which you may have just seen.
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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
This article examines the screenwriting practice in Czech silent cinema in the late 1910s and 1920s. It focuses on Jan Stanislav Kolár’s narrative poetics as a case study of specific storytelling choices within the transitional era from one- or two-reelers to the feature-length format in the context of local technological restrictions in exhibition – inevitable breaks of changing film reels in single-projector cinemas. Poetological analysis of Kolár’s Řina (1926) with his other surviving scenarios and pictures shows that meant not only the necessity of adapting to these limitations, but also became a productive way of achieving particular effects on the audience. Semi-independent narrative acts, thrilling moments occurring at the end of the reel, or significant shifts in space and time between two reels were integral parts of his own original stories as well as adaptations of various novels. Nevertheless, the article outlines more general perspective in relation to film reels as structural narrative units and screenwriting practice among Czech filmmakers as well.
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!
