tv – Page 58 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

22 The 2000’s and The Monkees from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later [Video] (36 seconds)

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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?

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Transcript

In our current era The Monkees have suddenly come around in all our popular culture. So many TV shows have referenced them because the people making television now are the people who were little when they were watching the show. Whether it be the sixties and seventies. So they’ve been riffed on — they had music played on Breaking Bad. They’ve been riffed on in Mad Men. There was a marvelous moment in Grace and Frankie where they were discussing dumb things they did when they were younger and Frankie says that she had sex with one of The Monkees. She just can’t remember which one. Turns out to be Micky. So that just came out of nowhere, right?So I think that’s pretty 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?

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Between the Sheets: Writing About Sex on Television Photos via Instagram

Between the Sheets: Writing About Sex on Television

The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting program teamed up with the Writers Guild Foundation to pull the covers back on a topic that still makes viewers blush: sex. On this special evening, our panel of TV writers and producers share how they approach writing about sex, from intimate scenes to revealing dialogue, and the nuances they consider when crafting stories about sex and sexuality.

Panelists:

Michelle Ashford – Masters of Sex, The Pacific
Cindy Chupack – I’m Dying Up Here, Divorce, Sex and the City
Sahar Jahani – 13 Reasons Why, Ramy
Dayna Lynne North – Insecure, Single Ladies, Lincoln Heights
Gladys Rodriguez – Vida, Dynasty, Sons of Anarchy
Moderated by Dr. Rosanne Welch.

Writers Guild Foundation – @wgfoundation

Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.

Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Between the Sheets: Writing About Sex on Television Panel via Instagram

Between the Sheets: Writing About Sex on Television

Panelists:

Michelle Ashford – Masters of Sex, The Pacific
Cindy Chupack – I’m Dying Up Here, Divorce, Sex and the City
Sahar Jahani – 13 Reasons Why, Ramy
Dayna Lynne North – Insecure, Single Ladies, Lincoln Heights
Gladys Rodriguez – Vida, Dynasty, Sons of Anarchy
Moderated by Dr. Rosanne Welch.

Writers Guild Foundation – @wgfoundation

Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.

Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

34 Princess Leia – Part 2 from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute 9 seconds)

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The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

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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:

My favorite picture of her is always this moment, where she breaks him down with no weapon just her mind and her courage. She’s like screw you dude. I could smell you when I walked in the room. Too bad right? That diplomat. That person who could do it with their voice and their inner strength. That’s the character that I like to remember better but you’re mostly gonna see these pictures and you know I didn’t put up the picture of her in the bikini and Jabba the Hutt because that’s just overdone — overdone and sad to say — much as I like George Lucas — pretty cool in many things he’s done, she does throw out reference in the book when she showed up as a 19-year-old all alone in England to film this movie with a bunch of dudes who are older than her. She’s not wearing a bra under that thing and when she asked George Lucas why he said there are no bras in the 25th century and it wasn’t till later in life she was like these guys just wanted to see me bouncing around without a bra. All the men on the crew just wanted to watch me without a bra. What do you mean there are no bras in the 25th century?! Who are you? You’re not the guy who invented that! So you know that’s kind of sad and kind of bums me out, but this is the Princess Leia that I like to remember. I think she’s powerful.

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V10 Issue 3: Die Filmprimadonna (The Film Primadonna, 1913): A case study of the fiction of a screenplay and the process of filmmaking in German early cinema by Jan Henschen

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

Die Filmprimadonna (The Film Primadonna, 1913): A case study of the fiction of a screenplay and the process of filmmaking in German early cinema by Jan Henschen

A case study on Urban Gad’s German shooting script for Die Filmprimadonna (The Film Primadonna, 1913) reviews the screenplay in the production process shortly after the emergence of multiple-reel feature films. In the dramatic story of the rise and fall of a film prima donna, a fictitious screenplay plays an idiosyncratic function in filmmaking that sketches, for the cinematic audience of that time, a specific idea of how and why an appropriate script has to be made. The article offers an analysis of Gad’s preserved script and demonstrates that this screen-idea contrasts with the value and agency of screenplays in the historic mode of production in 1913. Inasmuch as the plot of the movie simply highlights the function of acting, Die Filmprimadonna as a script itself functions as a complex and highly composed agent in the process of filmmaking – as both a narrative and, equally, a production schedule for the film.

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!

Nicholas Nicky Laskin, Current MFA candidate in the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Program, is a frequent contributor to The Playlist

Nicholas Nicky Laskin, Current MFA candidate in the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Program is a frequent contributor to The Playlist (a leading film and television website, offering smart yet accessible news, analysis, critical takes and more for the film community at large, founded in 2007 by Rodrigo Perez).

Read Nick’s Top 10 Films of 2019 as you contemplate what to catch up on over the holidays.

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At The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop via Instagram

At The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop

Students of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting (Stephens.edu/mfa) work in small groups creating genre mashup scenes under the direction of visiting professor, Jule Selbo, PhD, author of Film Genre for the Screenwriter.

Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.

Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

At The Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting and TV Winter Workshop via Instagram

At The Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting and TV Winter Workshop

Guest Speaker, Pavel Jech, myself, and the entire MFA class of 2020 in the Chaplin Screening Room at the Jim Henson Studios — where we host the workshops twice each year.

Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.

Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

33 Princess Leia from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (56 seconds)

Watch this entire presentation

The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

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

Transcript:

Now of course, post Star Trek, the next big star science fiction thing that’s going to happen is Star Wars. We all know that and so it’s interesting because now sometimes people go oh Princess Leia sort of sat there and waited to be rescued. Ehhh… it was a big deal back in the day that she fought her way out right? She grabbed the blaster and they jumped in the garbage chute and all those things. She was considered a much more active princess. She’s not as active as we want people to be today but she’s like a bridge between where they didn’t do anything and where they do everything but I think it’s an important thing to pay attention to. She writes a lot about that in her last book before Carrie Fisher died, The Princess Diarist. She writes about the experience of filming that. What I don’t like is that we sort of when you look up pictures of Princess Leia and you think power it’s because she’s always got that blaster in her hand. So we’re still equating power with the male concept of a weapon as opposed to the interior power that you bring.

* 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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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V10 Issue 1: More therapy with Dr Melfi (the character who guides viewer engagement with Tony Soprano): Relationship arcs in serial antihero narratives by Fernando Canet

More therapy with Dr Melfi (the character who guides viewer engagement with Tony Soprano): Relationship arcs in serial antihero narratives by Fernando Canet

Antihero narratives constitute a common thread in the current boom of TV fiction. The Sopranos (HBO, 1999–2007) could be considered an early example of this tendency. The antihero is a complex character who demands equally complex responses from viewers. The title of this article is an allusion to Rob White’s article, ‘No more therapy’, in which White explores Dr Jennifer Melfi’s role as a narrative mechanism used to undermine viewer sympathy for Tony Soprano at the end of the series. Here I seek to explore this role further since Dr Melfi’s responses to Tony’s actions serve as a narrative strategy used by The Sopranos writers to guide viewer responses in their relationship with Tony Soprano, a pioneer example of the antihero figure. In doing so, it is my purpose to demonstrate the relevance in antihero TV series of the evolution not only of the antihero themselves but also of their relationship with other major characters over the course of the series. I call this evolution, through which the creators develop the transformational arcs of the two characters concerned: the ‘relationship arc’.

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!