writing – Page 16 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

22 Bridgerton from Worry and Wonder | The Courier Thirteen Podcast [Video]

Watch the entire presentation – Worry and Wonder | The Courier Thirteen Podcast | Episode # 29 here

Transcript:

For instance, Bridgerton came out of the blue and took everybody by surprise and it was like “Oh my god, Bridgerton. Oh my god, did you see Bridgerton?” and everybody’s talking about it, etc etc. I mean it had a little bit of a built-in audience because it’s based on a book series. So that’s why all the streamers and the networks, they’re desperate to take IP — intellectual property — because you bring in an audience, and then their just going to amplify that audience by making the film version of it — the tv version of it — the limited series version of it — and then they’re going to build and build, right? So they’re really interested in that and Bridgerton was a good example of how that works and then they added the Shonda Rimes sort of gloss to it and suddenly — I had never heard of the book series — I had never read the book series. I didn’t know it existed but I certainly knew Bridgerton existed and then I had to watch it because 3 or 4 people — and I’m not necessarily a fan of those kinds of romance dramas, but everybody said you’ve got to watch this so I gave it a shot. I gave it a first episode. I always try to give things a first episode as we were saying before and if it connects, I’ll go to the next one. Right? Sometimes even if the first doesn’t work I’ll give it a second one cause what I do know is when you are making a pilot you’ve gotten so many notes from the network and the production company and you’ve had to dance for so many people to make sure they all keep saying yes to you, then it’s not necessarily exactly what you originally wanted to do but once they say yes and you get on the air the next episode is going to look more like what you’ve always wanted. So, if it works on the second one then I will stick with it. If I don’t get it on the second one then I stop watching.

It’s always fun to sit down with students and share stories about entering the television industry and how things work at all stages and I had that opportunity the other day.

Daniela Torres, a just-graduated (Congratulations!) student of the Columbia College Semester in LA program asked me to guest on a podcast she had recently begun hosting with another college student she met during her internship (good example of networking in action!).

We could have talked all morning (the benefit of a 3 hour class session) but we held it to about an hour and fifteen minutes or so. Hopefully, along the way I answered some questions you might have about how the business works. So often it amounts to working hard at being a better writer and gathering a group of other talented, hard-working people around you so you can all rise together.

Dr. Rosanne Welch is a television writer with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. She also teaches Television Writing and the Art of Film at San Jose State University.

Rosanne discusses what made shows like Beverly Hills 90210 compelling, what to do and not to do when attempting to pitch a show to broadcast or streaming, what most young writers neglect in their writing process, and much more!

The Courier Thirteen Podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Audible.

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48 Do Your Research and Speak Up There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video]

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:

You have to always do research. You don’t know everything and you don’t have to but you have to be willing to look. I’ve got a whole lecture I do on the tv show Gidget from the 60s that I discovered every episode written by a woman treated the Gidget character like a real human being and every episode written by a male writer treated her like sort of a doofy, stupid girl and I thought they didn’t even go into reading the book that that show was based on to understand her mentality. Her dad was a college professor and she was studying literature in college. She’s not a ditz right but they didn’t even research that. So you have to really look into everything. You have to like research right? That is something a writer must do.

You have to speak up. You all are shy. I’ll give you that right? You don’t know me so it’s a new thing but you can’t be shy in the room. If you don’t open your mouth, what are they paying you for? You’re only going to write two episodes of a tv show that runs 13 episodes. You get two a year. All those other episodes is you talking. What makes this one better for this writer so we all keep employed next year? So you have to speak up.

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On Arthur Laurents and The Way We Were

Going to YouTube to find a fun clip to add to someone’s FB post generally leads down the rabbit hole (thank you Lewis Carroll for inventing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and therefore inventing the phrase “down the rabbit hole”).

Last week it led me to clips from The Way We Were, written by Arthur Laurents and starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford.

I had re-read Laurents’ autobiography — Original Story — over the summer since I love reading about how writers came up with their best work (and his book had a whole chapter on it complete with explanations for a bad cut by the director and studio execs that destroyed a key reason the couple splits up – spoiler alert).

Iconic is overused but it fits here. That love story with an unexpected but completely organic ending is a classic for a reason – all the parts added up to the perfect whole. I wanted to highlight this scene because of the power it gives the female character and the fear that power can have on the equally powerful male character. I can’t think of too many scenes that can do that – enhanced by the power both of these superstars brought to their performances.

Resources

14 Fuller, Women, and War from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

In researching and writing my book on Giuseppe and Anita Garibaldi and the unification of Italy (A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi) I re-discovered the first American female war correspondent – Margaret Fuller — who I had first met in a college course on the Transcendentalists. I was once again fascinated by a life lived purposefully.

Then I found Tammy Rose’s podcast on the Transcendentalists – Concord Days – and was delighted when she asked me to guest for a discussion of Fuller’s work in Italy as both a journalist – and a nurse. — Rosanne

Watch this entire presentation

Concord Days sends love to Margaret Fuller on the anniversary of her death in 1850.

The conversation focuses on Margaret’s exciting days in ITALY!

Dr. Rosanne Welch takes us through her adventures and enthusiastically reminds us what she was like when she was living her best life!

Transcript:

Tammy: In America, we don’t really have titles. We don’t really understand that level of society but over there it’s a thing.

Rosanne: Even if there’s no money associated with it, there’s an honor to it. You are of the upper classes even if you don’t have the money to go with it and that’s a big deal.

Tammy: Exactly. Exactly. yeah so and and and also another important point you had you had mentioned this before, so Garibaldi’s wife had like gone into battle like really with a baby like on her. It’s like she’s literally — she’s not just a nurse she’s she’s also nursing like while she’s on the battlefront right?

Rosanne: That’s so beautifully said. That’s exactly right, right? They end up having four children and there’s a statue of her in Rome because Mussolini tried to use her reputation to support his work. Look how dedicated she was to her country. There’s a statue of her with the child at her breast while she’s riding and she was a great horsewoman and she trained the cavalry. The men trusted her because Garibaldi trusted her but of course after they had a couple of kids when they’re in Rieti and they’re doing all this stuff it was like now you can’t risk yourself dying. So please stay behind and behind meant you’re dealing with the bloody leftovers. You know we’re not even in M*A*S*H days where you’ve got legitimate drugs to help people. I mean they’re just — it’s carnage and that’s what her and Margaret were doing — working together in this hospital while they had their kids around and their men were off and maybe that report the next body that comes in could be your husband.

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Professors Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Peg Lamphier spotlight Gloria Steinem in women-centered book series – PolyPost

What’s normal in my world is working on books with my friend and colleague, Dr. Peg Lamphier, about brilliant women in U.S. history. What’s not normal is having a brilliant young journalism student, Elizabeth Casillas, approach us to write an article about our work.

This article in the PolyPost is the outcome of both of those events.

It covers the latest book in the series Peg and I are editing: Women Making History where we were asked to create 8 women’s biographies to include in the series – with the best part being we then chose the 8 writers for the job. That meant giving a few of them their first book project ever. That is when this job become the most fun. This article covers the latest book on the life of Gloria Steinem, written by William Pruden (the only male author in the whole series – why? Because women’s history IS U.S. History so men can – and should – highlight it, too).

Peg Lamphier and Rosanne Welch, lecturers in the Interdisciplinary General Education Department, teamed up to co-edit “Gloria Steinem: A Life in American History,” the second installment of their book series focused on women’s contribution to American history and culture released Aug. 2.

The book, written by William Prudent and published by ABC-CLIO, covers the life of feminist journalist Gloria Steinem. After previously working with ABC-CLIO on “Women in American History,” an encyclopedia dedicated to detailing women’s contributions in American history and culture, Lamphier and Welch were sought out by the publishing firm to co-edit a larger book series.

Other subjects in the book series include Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Hillary Clinton, Helen Keller, Sally Ride, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ida B. Wells and Delores Huerta.

“If we’re going to have a series on women, what I want is books on women that don’t have 13 other books about them,” said Lamphier on the decision to incorporate Steinem into the series. “We keep trotting out the same women; it’s like we can only know 10 women at a time in America, so we got some people like Wilma Mankiller and Gloria Steinem.” A world-renowned feminist, Steinem’s life experiences were crucial to the feminist movement which compelled the lecturers to include her story in the series.

Read the entire article

21 You Can’t Keep Up With TV Shows from Worry and Wonder | The Courier Thirteen Podcast [Video]

Watch the entire presentation – Worry and Wonder | The Courier Thirteen Podcast | Episode # 29 here

Transcript:

Host: Was it called the little things?

Rosanne: Yeah it just came out on me on Netflix or HBO sorry.

Host: Yeah HBO Max.

Rosanne: Brand new so, again, you can’t keep up with 420 TV shows

Host: No, you can’t yeah.

Roanne: That’s that’s why buzz and word of mouth is now one of the most important things. It kind of always was but when there were only three or four channels or even 50 cable channels, you found things that people gelled around, and then it became a big event like Mad Men or something like that or Breaking Bad. Now it really becomes your little circle of friends. You recommend a show. I watch it. I tell somebody else I know outside of that circle. They might tell their group. That has become such an important sort of Venn diagram. Who’s seen this and who’s seen that and if you like this you’ll like that and we — that’s where we get our information from. So it’s a really important conversation for people to have for the benefit of the programs to get their audiences.

It’s always fun to sit down with students and share stories about entering the television industry and how things work at all stages and I had that opportunity the other day.

The Courier Thirteen Podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Audible.

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June Mathis: An Eye for Talent — Dr. Rosanne Welch, Script magazine, October 2021

Though she wrote over 100 films in the Silent Era and was a founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, June Mathis appears in film history books (when she does) as a writer-producer with an eye for talent in that she gave both Buster Keaton and Rudolph Valentino their debuts on film.

She came to film from an early career as a child in vaudeville, despite suffering from undiagnosed heart issues. Born as June Hughes in 1887 in Leadville, Colorado there was no father listed and the child would later take Mathis, the last name of her stepfather, as her own.

Read June Mathis: An Eye for Talent — Dr. Rosanne Welch, Script magazine, October 2021

Read about more women from early Hollywood

47 Selling Your Nightmares from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video]

Transcript:

What I learned from being in a writer’s room is the things you need to do most are the things you learn in English and Humanities classes. First of all, you’re selling your nightmares. What are the worst things you can imagine happening? Make stories out of that. They’re the what-ifs of your life. That whole Down Syndrome baby thing. I was pregnant when I wrote that. You have no idea when you’re going to have a kid right unless you get all the tests and even if you get all the tests you’re not sure until the day the kid shows up and you imagine all the awful things that might happen right? So I was in the middle of that when I wrote that episode. So that was my true emotion that was happening. I wrote an episode once about what if your husband committed suicide. I’ve got all kinds of episodes. I just thought what are the worst things that could happen to me and bam they became episodes over and over again right? So you’ve got to mine your nightmares and manage them.

Watch this entire presentation

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

* 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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13 Fuller and Her Relationships from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

Watch this entire presentation

Concord Days sends love to Margaret Fuller on the anniversary of her death in 1850.

The conversation focuses on Margaret’s exciting days in ITALY!

Dr. Rosanne Welch takes us through her adventures and enthusiastically reminds us what she was like when she was living her best life!

Transcript:

Rosanne:…and it fascinates me because they’re also having relationships in their lives because Anita had been married to someone else and she ran away with Garibaldi. Her husband was an abuser and a terrible guy and then he eventually died. So they were able to get married but they had a couple kids outside of wedlock.

Tammy: That sounds familiar yeah

Rosanne: Exactly and yeah hello Margaret’s going to show up right with Ossoli who’s a beautiful gorgeous man who’s also fighting for Italy and they’re not married but they do get that little secret marriage in before the baby’s born because that’s very careful.

Tammy: As long as everything’s legal right like that’s that that’s actually what matters yeah.

Rosanne: Well because you know we forget nowadays because it’s not a big deal to us but it was all about inheritance, If you were not the legal child, you would not inherit any of the father’s money or land or title in this case. So you know she definitely wanted to make — I assume she wanted to make sure her child would be given all that he was owed.

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20 Screenwriting: Television Vs. Film from Worry and Wonder | The Courier Thirteen Podcast [Video]

Watch the entire presentation – Worry and Wonder | The Courier Thirteen Podcast | Episode # 29 here

Transcript:

You know, the difference between TV, obviously, and movies — movies you are going to tell me the most interesting 2 hours in someone’s life. What are the most crazy, interesting 2 hours and we’re done. Maybe there’ll be sequels, of course, blah, blah, blah — but, in general, that’s what you’re going for. In a TV show — especially a pilot — you need to give me enough fodder to understand that there are at least 20 hours — nowadays with streaming, 40 — used to be 100 — in order to get to syndication — but that there’s that much interesting embedded conflict among this group of people that I’m going to be constantly interested in watching them overcome whatever their problem might be. Whatever their issue might be. So, every show has what we would call an overarching dramatic question that is trying to be answered. It’s like — and it can be — it should be — the bigger it is, the more universal. So, for me, an easy example is Bones, right, which some people realize what was — she’s uber-smart and autistic and he’s uber-Catholic and, you know, goes for the emotion. Which, of course, is a flip to what we think gender-wise. It should be the dude being super-logical and the girl being super-emotional, but they flipped it so that’s interesting. But really it’s a show about science versus religion and the 2 characters represent those 2 points of view and there’s never going to be an answer to that question. Except if you accept that the answer is you need them both and that’s how they solve their crimes is the 2 of them together are better than each separately. So, you’re overarching question every week is being addressed. The individual question each week is simply who committed this murder. That’s always going to be solved but the overarching dramatic question can never be solved or your show’s over.

It’s always fun to sit down with students and share stories about entering the television industry and how things work at all stages and I had that opportunity the other day.

The Courier Thirteen Podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Audible.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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