women – Page 6 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

28 The Homage from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

It was great to be able to attend this year’s SD WhoCon in San Diego and present this lecture on “The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years” in which I discuss how successful I think showrunner Christopher Chibnall was in making that transition.

It gave me a chance to talk about the creative work of a showrunner/screenwriter while also reconnecting to some friends we had met at this same convention some 3 years ago – and to talk about one of my favorite subjects – Doctor Who!

Transcript:

Now this homage business reminds me when I teach film history, we do this in movies all the time. Forget just remaking a movie. All you do is you take a storyline and you flip the genders and you have a new movie, right? So if you know “It Happened One Night”, it’s one of the first movie ever to win all five of the major Oscars. A very big deal. Robert Riskin wrote it. It’s the story of a –– Clark Gable is a reporter who’s following an heiress who’s run away on the eve of her wedding and of course, they fall in love on their little journey and by the time they get home they’re going to get married. If you move to the 70s and “The Electric Horseman”, Robert Redford is a rodeo star who’s become a celebrity. Jane Fonda is the reporter. He’s run away with a major expensive horse because they’re gonna like put the horse down and do something and then she follows him to get a story but they fall in love. So it’s exactly the same story. Just flip the genders right? So movies are always –– I mean writers always do this. We’re homaging something we loved by givingit a little flip. So I think that “Father’s Day” and “Demons the Punjab” fall into that.

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Losing the Real Girl in Adapting Gidget with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Losing the Real Girl in Adapting Gidget

On Saturday, August 6th I had the pleasure of giving an Introductory lecture on Adaptation before a screening of the movie Gidget. Written by Gabriele Upton the film was based on the novel by screenwriter Frederick Kohner which was itself based on the diaries of his daughter, Kathy Kohner, about the summer she learned to surf.

Losing the Real Girl in Adapting Gidget with Dr. Rosanne Welch

I focused on the fact that the book is a love story between a young woman and a sport – surfing – whereas the movie became a more generic love story about a girl and a college boy. While it has been enjoyed over the years its saccharine take has kept readers from discovering the real excitement and joy of independence Kathy (nicknamed Gidget) found that summer in Malibu. She made a series of important decisions about her life and proved herself among a group of seasoned male athletes simply by working hard at being good enough to surf alongside them. I ended by illustrating how the TV series (written by Ruth Brooks Flippen and starring Sally Field in her first big role) managed to capture the truth of the novel better than the 3 films made from it – which oddly starred 3 different women in the lead role but the same male lead – as if the films belong to Moondoggie but the TV show belonged once again to Kathy.

Losing the Real Girl in Adapting Gidget with Dr. Rosanne Welch

I had the great treat of bringing my 2 MFA cohorts to the Autry Museum for the event so they could check out the museum before the show. Then we all had the great treat of being joined by the real Kathy Kohner Zuckerman herself along with a group of young female surfers who wanted to watch the movie and meet an idol. Thanks to Ben Fitzsimmons for inviting us all to create this event together. And remember whenever you see a film based on a book that reading the book will make for an even richer experience of the story.

Losing the Real Girl in Adapting Gidget with Dr. Rosanne Welch

27 TV Helps People See The Future from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

Transcript:

In the same way, we could do a whole episode on you know Star Trek and Lieutenant Uhura that’s why Mae Jemison is the first African-American astronaut because she saw Lieutenant Uhura when she was a kid. She’s like oh look a black woman could be involved in space and Tada she’s the first astronaut. So just amazing the power of Television even more than films because TV comes into your house. Really I think an important thing.

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26 The Companions and History from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

Transcript:

So to think about what’s a piece that even in the UK they need to remember their own history and always not the good parts right and the choices that were made. So what a perfect way to use Yaz and what a cool thing you want to see your grandmother’s wedding and then Oh gee it’s a wedding. It’s a wedding for Rose and these are places you shouldn’t haven’t been. So I think that’s a lovely bit and of course, I’m tracing that all the way back to the Original “Star Trek” which is the ultimate sci-fi on tv right, and this beautiful episode – which if you don’t know what you need to know – but won several science fiction awards back in the day by Harlan Ellison “The City on the Edge of Forever” right. Which is where Kirk falls in love with a woman and when they before – Joan Collins, exactly, before “Dynasty” – and then learns – spoiler alert – that she is she’s pushing for peace before World War II and if she succeeds Hitler will have time to rise and he will, in fact, take over the world. So she has to die and you’re like No No No No No, he’s never fallen in love – yeah it’s great. Very funny. Very funny and just the other day right William Shatner is now going to go up to space at the age of 90. Like wow. Amazing how TV affects things. Really it’s William Shatner. He’s just an actor from Canada but he’s Captain Kirk right?

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25 Referencing the History of the Show from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

Transcript:

Now what you have to do when you’re taking over a franchise like this that’s been around forever and you’re the showrunner, you have to remember its history and I think you have to homage that to the new audiences. So that they feel like this is new but it’s also old, right? I’m still in a world I understand and I appreciate and for me, that’s demons of the Punjab because “Father’s Day” was such a beautiful episode for Rose. I know. Any time a character, of course, wants to go back and see a moment in history that they shouldn’t be tampering with and that’s the temptation of being in a TARDIS. You can do that. Should you do that? So I think it’s so cool that he could have done that with any of the characters right? Graham could have gone back to see something maybe that happened to him when he was younger. Obviously, Ryan could have gone back 10 years. He’s kind of young but I don’t know something might have happened when he was 12 that made him upset but he decided to have Yaz go back and to go back to a part of history that – again in the United States – the Partition – when did I ever learn about that in some high school history class. Barely right unless you did maybe Western Civ and even then they didn’t really get deep into it.

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24 The Voice of the Writer from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

Transcript:

Now, this was great out of Witchfinders. Obviously, he had to keep reminding the audience that this is different and I have to deal with this difference and we have to look in history about this difference right? So literally that’s him, I think, that’s Chris Chibnall talking to the audience okay. If i was still a bloke I could get on with the job and not to waste time defending myself all right but I understand that – and think about it they were defending themselves in the public a little bit in the whoa what a choice you made what a crazy choice why’d you do that. So, in a way, sometimes when I’m watching movies I’ll hear a line and I’ll say oh that’s the writer telling us how they feel right now right and putting it into the mouth of the character and this is one of those lines for me. I really think that was the impression that it gave me.

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Screenwriter Ruth Goodman: Her Instincts Made ‘The Heiress’ an Enduring Classic – Dr. Rosanne Welch, Script Magazine, July 2022

Ruth Goodman’s family had been involved in theatre even before her birth in 1908. Her father produced shows involving W. C. Fields and Jerome Kern. Those connections, and her education in New York and Paris, brought her jobs as a costume designer and story editor before marrying Augustus (Gus) Goetz on October 11, 1932, after having met onboard ship. Her mother disliked him, but Ruth described Augustus as enchantingly witty. Though a stockbroker when they met, he gave up finances and they began writing plays together, collaborating nearly exclusively throughout their career. Their most famous play, The Heiress, brought them to Hollywood.

Read Screenwriter Ruth Goodman: Her Instincts Made ‘The Heiress’ an Enduring Classic

Read about more women from early Hollywood

23 The Voice of the Character from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

Transcript:

So it was a real like getting to know the voice of a character and a character that has had similar but slightly different voices across all 50 years. They all have had their own way of doing things and their own sort of idioms. I think that’s really delicate but that line really stuck out to me and you just can’t imagine thinking your way through it so long and then I think this is really important because it keeps us with the theme – the overarching theme – of the series which is really about pacifism and about really attempting to bring peace to the universe, not war. Even though of course David comes back from the time war and all that stuff but I think keeping that in mind and allowing a female character to bring forward that idea. In a funny way I’m a huge fan of Robert Redford and all that sort of thing and “The Way We Were” is one of my favorite romances and the idea that there was the Barbra Streisand character – ban the bomb, pushing for pacifism. It’s a woman is always trying to say let’s not go to war first let’s get to the solution because I don’t want to see all the people I know get hurt. So I think that’s very true not just that she’s a female character but it’s Doctor Who. That’s the job right? So we try to do it without a gun. Sometimes they show up but they really don’t belong there. They really don’t belong there.

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22 On Costumes and Sonic Screwdrivers from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

Transcript:

So costume is a huge and this is what a showrunner does. You sit with every single department and you decide and you get the final say. So of course you get the final hit if people don’t like what you decided but that’s your job to make decisions right and to be able to go this is why I did that and maybe I’ll change my mind if it isn’t as appealing as it could be. So costume is important but for me the most important thing that a writer brings, of course, is dialogue and he had to really think about how can this person talk like The Doctor but reference and accept the fact that you don’t look like all the previous Doctors and other people aren’t going to treat you immediately the same way they would treat a male walking into many of these situations and so that was to me a very delicate dance and I like this particular – you know very beginning right she’s like I lost my sonic screwdriver. I could build one. I’m good at building things probably and we’re all giggling right because The Doctor has to be funny but then there was this but but he she has to be competent. So you don’t want the woman to not be competent but any Doctor would have said that.

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What Is a Western? Gidget (1959) – Part Of The Series What Is A Western? Film Series – Autry Museum of the American West [Event]

I’m pleased to have been invited to give the introductory remarks before a showing of the 1959 Gidget film at the Autry Museum of the American West (in Griffith Park).

Join us on Saturday, August 6, 2022, at 1:30 PM. I’ll be giving a shortened version of the presentation I made when we attended the Screenwriting Research Network conference held in New Zealand a few years ago.

In a nutshell, I trace Gidget, the Little Girl with Big Ideas from its origins as a novel, its transformation into a film franchise, and then into a TV series. Along the way, we’ll discover how this one story created a new myth about how teenagers reinvented the West. — Rosanne

What Is a Western? Gidget (1959) – Part Of The Series What Is A Western? Film Series – Autry Museum of the American West

Saturday, August 6, 2022, 1:30 p.m.
The Autry: Wells Fargo Theater

Appropriate For: Families
Admission: Free for Autry Members | Museum Admission Included With Ticket
RSVP/Reservations: Reservations Recommended | Space Is Limited

RESERVE NOW

Considered to be the first of the “beach party” movies, this coming-of-age tale is based on the true story of Kathy Kohner and her experiences as a young woman in the then-niche and masculine sport of surfing. Widely credited with the mainstreaming of surfing culture in the United States, it also inspired many films and television series featuring the character of Gidget.

Introduced by Rosanne Welch, executive director, Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Directed by Paul Wendkos | Starring Sandra Dee, James Darren, and Cliff Robertson

Screenplay by Gabrielle Upton | Based on a novel by Frederick Kohner

The What is a Western? Film Series explores the wide range of movies that can be considered Westerns, and the ways in which they shape our understanding of the American West. Each screening includes a guest lecturer who will introduce the film and explain its significance in the genre.