writing – Page 18 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

19 Bingability 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: They do a really good job of holding the tension for you to keep watching on to the next episode and I think that’s really well done yeah so.

Rosanne: We used to think when streaming came along that wouldn’t be as important because the idea of leaving a show with a bit of a cliffhanger was so you’d wait a week and you’d remember to come back the next Thursday at nine o’clock or whatever that was and then we’re like oh streaming. You just binge right through it you don’t need it but of course, Netflix will say no no now we need what they’ll call the binge-ability factor. Oh yeah, we need you to see the thing that says next episode and click that right away. We want you to watch five in a row. That’s just as important as coming back next week and I think that’s really a funny — we thought there was a change there and it’s not necessary at all.

HOST: Yeah just because it’s on this platform where you can binge it doesn’t mean that people will automatically just go to the next episode if you don’t make it enticing for them to do so. I mean I’ve watched a lot. I’ve started a lot of shows on Netflix and I didn’t move on to the next episode like you didn’t

Rosanne: It didn’t catch you.

HOST: — I don’t see the reason.

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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45 Casting and Production Issues from 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:

But now I had to deal with everybody else and their stereotypes. One of which was oh so the gang should clearly be Black or Hispanic and I was like no no we’ve done that too much. In my neighborhood, they were Armenian gangs at the time. Not that you want to pick on any one group but you know it was a new group that hadn’t been picked on too much on TV. I argued for a good solid two days in that room why it should be an Armenian gang and I kept getting flack about America doesn’t understand that. They only understand these two groups blah blah and I was losing that battle and one of the producers told me to shut up and I kept talking because I didn’t want to lose that battle until finally, the person who usurped me was the casting director who knew that was the storyline we were playing with and he came in the room and he said I don’t have an Armenian actor who could be a guest star but I have this guy Renoly Santiago who had just done Hackers, Conair and oh the Michelle Pfeiffer movie where she’s a teacher and she used to be the military. it’s not Stand and Deliver… Dangerous Minds. He had just started all three of those movies and he was willing to do a television episode. So the casting director came in and said we got him. He’s Hispanic. That’s the gang and I lost the argument based on the popularity of the guest actor they could get.

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11 Underestimated? 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:

Rosanne: …and here’s the person to send in terms of what Horace Greeley may be thinking. I mean she knows how many languages? So she’s going to be comfortable anywhere and maybe a woman can get more information from people — can get into different parts of society right? A general — a military guy — maybe not.

Tammy: Because she’s not intimidating in a separate country where they don’t know all of the stuff that she knows. Like her reputation does not precede her. She’s just a woman. She’s in skirts.

Rosanne: Right.

Tammy: You know why don’t I tell her all my secrets you know.

Rosanne: Exactly. Exactly and you know but of course she’s also an excellent writer and that again is what he needs. You’re going to get there. You going to get the information quick. You’re going to give it to me so I can have it in the newspaper and that will I have the scoop right? It’s all about who gets the scoop first.

Tammy: Yeah well and so she’s documented as the first female like international correspondent and war correspondent right?

Rosanne: Exactly and again now she even parallels the transcendentalists we could parallel a little bit with the Algonquin round table because Dorothy Parker and Edna Ferber are just a couple of the only women allowed in that circle.

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18 Murdoch Mysteries from Worry and Wonder | The Courier Thirteen Podcast [Video]

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

Transcript:

Rosanne: The Murdoch Mysteries? The one about the cops…

Host: I think so yeah.

Rosanne: Canada’s got some interesting tv. Interesting business there too. It’s called Murdoch Mysteries. It’s on Netflix for a few seasons. It’s run for ten seasons. It’s about a constable. It is what they call their police in Canada in the turn of the century 1900. So you’re getting a period piece and his girlfriend, who becomes his wife later on, is the coroner because she was a rich woman who learned to be a doctor but nobody will trust you to be a doctor. So she basically cuts up cadavers and helps solve crimes and what they did beautifully is they’re very interesting little you know detective stories but they have a lovely cast of surrounding characters and eventually they married these two people and in the States if you marry characters the show’s over right? Bones they got married shows done. Castle they got married shows done. We don’t understand that the day after you get married like that’s when the story starts.

Host: Yeah there’s this trope that marriage and then that’s the end game. Like the end game was getting married but there’s nothing after that yet yeah.

Rosanne: Whereas they’ve been I think married for four or five seasons now and you know they’re perfectly interesting and fun and work together.

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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44 Sneaky Methods from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video]

Transcript:

Well, first of all, I wanted to pitch a show. I’d read an article about a priest in LA who worked with gang kids who were also parents and I wanted to do something where a boy had to pick whether he should be — oh look it’s a father episode — more devoted to the family he created or to the gang that was his fake family right? He had to learn that the gang wasn’t real but his own family was real.

I wanted to pitch that but I knew that one of the other episode guys– one of the other writers — didn’t like to do things with gangs. I was like well that’s stupid that’s writing out a whole sort of storyline. So I had to get my boss alone and the boss on this show happened to be a female and interestingly enough there’s one place that a girl writer could follow a female producer that none of the boys could follow us — the loo — ladies and gentlemen, so I waited until she went to the bathroom one day and I followed her in and while I was washing my hands very vigorously I said “Martha I’ve just read this marvelous article about this priest who works with gang boys and I thought what if he did an episode about a teenage gang dad,” and she was like “Well that’s marvelous. We should do that. Let’s talk about it,” and we went back into the room, where there were two guys I knew didn’t want to do anything about gangs and she pitched it and they can’t say no to the boss. So I got it.

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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10 Fuller and Italian Reunification 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: My joke, I have Sicilian relatives that I visited and they always say, “Come there if you’re traveling in Europe because you see Greek ruins and Roman ruins” and you know mosques everybody, everybody invaded Sicily and took over at some point. So it’s like the whole world, in a nutshell, and my cousin’s actually a teacher of Sicilian literature and language and there are dictionaries that’ll give you the entire Italian language translated into Sicilian and it’s that much — that different.

Tammy: Love it.

Rosanne: Exactly and so what’s happening is is Margaret has read and heard about Mazzini, Giuseppe Manzini and he was a group called Young Italy and they wanted to create a union right? Which is what we did among all our various territories right? All our you know we became a union. So it was like getting a chance to live through our revolution to experience another country doing it.

Tammy: Wow yeah

Rosanne: …and I think that’s what drew her.

Tammy: Exactly because you’re seeing history like creating itself.

Rosanne: Exactly meeting the founders.

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09 Why Italy? 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:

Tammy: Why does she go to Italy? What is going on and what is she excited about?

Rosanne: You know Italy — we forget because we had our founding right but in Italy, they were a scattering of different city-states basically up until we’re talking the 1860s is when this finally gets settled and it’s in the 1830s that this roiling begins. We should be all one country. Remember the roman empire. We owned the whole world. Now we can’t even own this little boot that’s part of us

Tammy: Right and Italy was all these like little like city-states and it wasn’t really the Italy that we know today.

Rosane: Austria owned some parts of it right and France owned some parts of it. Sicily was its own country. It was not part of Italy.

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17 More On Wynonna Earp from Worry and Wonder | The Courier Thirteen Podcast [Video]

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

Transcript:

Well, many things worked about the show. One of which was her sister was a lesbian and she and the female sheriff in town had a relationship and Emily Andreas, who produced the show in Canada knew the trope of killing your gays and she made a promise upfront that neither of these women would ever die and, sure enough, as you get to the end of the 4th season, the last episode is their wedding which is really quite beautiful after you’ve watched the characters across 4 years. but the fact that she did that to counter this negative thing that had been happening in tv and because you knew that. the fun was in always getting one of those 2 women in a terrible situation that they should have died and you knew they were going to have to work their way out of it and so often you would say “Oh, don’t tell me how something’s going to end because I need the tension of worrying.” I didn’t have to worry about them dying but I had to wonder — so it’s worry and wonder, are the 2 most important things for an audience that pulls them through a show — I had to wonder how’d they get out of it. So it still worked and I thought that was brilliant. So I think that’s a really good show and people probably think it’s an American show because it was on American TV as well.

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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43 Protecting Your Story from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video]

Transcript:

As I’m thinking about this idea, I didn’t pitch it for a while because I knew the answer would be to marry them and I didn’t want to do that and then one day Mrs. Doubtfire was on TV and I was watching. It reminded me of the article and I thought “Oh I will immediately pitch the story where the wife is already remarried” because the answer from angels can’t be get a second divorce in order to go right. So that was my reasoning around why they didn’t get back together and when I pitched it, it worked because I got the story I wanted and not the story that would have been molded from somebody else’s opinion. It’s hard when you’re in a writer’s room and you’re not the head of it because you are doing their show. It’s what they want done right but you have to keep some of yourself inside there too because that’s the theme. That’s the attitude. That’s the voice that you’re bringing to the story. So I couldn’t pitch it until I knew that I could protect the full story the way I wanted it to come out.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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16 Wynonna Earp from Worry and Wonder | The Courier Thirteen Podcast [Video]

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

Transcript:

Actually, I’ll tell you what. It’s actually not an American show but it aired on the Sci-Fi channel. It’s from Canada. It was Wynonna Earp which just wrapped up after four seasons — four and a half seasons and I love that. It was the story — science fiction, of course. Wynonna Earp is the great great great granddaughter of Wyatt Earp of the OK Corral, the gunfight and Tombstone, and all that stuff and in their envisioning — it’s based on comic books — the first person in every generation after Wyatt Earp is gifted this gun called the Peacemaker and all the people that Wyatt Earp killed in his life come back to life as ghosts and the only thing that will kill them is this gun and so you’re stuck with the job of fixing the mistakes he made in the past. This guy you never met and it was really well done because you’re watching her go through this obligation. So the little coverage of Buffy the Vampire Slayer — you’re born in this generation to take care of this problem but she had much more more problems. She was a drunk and all those things.

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

Subscribe: RSS