writing – Page 49 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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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Chatting after the panel via Instagram

Chatting after the panel: “Between the Sheets: Writing About Sex on Television” at the Writers Guild of America.

After our WGA panel on Writing sex scenes for television, Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks to panelist (and Stephens College MFA alum) Sahar Jahani (Ramy, 13 Reasons Why) speak with Intimacy coordinator Mia Schachter.

Writers Guild Foundation – @wgfoundation

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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!

Panorama before the panel: “Between the Sheets: Writing About Sex on Television” at the Writers Guild of America

Panorama before the panel: “Between the Sheets: Writing About Sex on Television” at the Writers Guild of America.

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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

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks with writer-producer Dayna Lynne North via Instagram

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks with writer-producer Dayna Lynne North (ANY DAY NOW, VERONICA MARS, LINCOLN HEIGHTS,
INSECURE) before their panel “Between the Sheets” at the Writers Guild.

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

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

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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

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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.

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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!

20 The 70’s And The Monkees from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later [Video] (57 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 the 70s we’re gonna be on Laugh In. At this point, Peter has left the band. Once the show is off the air Peter leaves the band. So now they’re trying to do it as a threesome. So check us out. Look at how much more Seventy-fied, hippy-ied their stuff is right? So they’re still being talked about in the ’70s. In the 80s, we’re gonna have the MTV Marathon Pleasant Valley Sunday. So a 20th anniversary of the show all of a sudden a new generation of kids are introduced to it. I have a photo of Rachel Maddow because she interviewed Peter after the death of Davy Jones and she said to him as a child of the 80s I learned what it was like to be a kid in the 60s through watching reruns of your show. That’s how I learned what it was like. I thought how interesting with that as it’s going through the decades and of course the Monkees as they toured today. They’re in New Zealand this week actually. It’s just Mike and Micky now. They will say that they have grandmothers, mothers, daughters, and the gettin down to great-grandmothers pretty soon. They have a very wide fandom, which is a big deal.

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

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Save The Date! – Rosanne at SCMS (Society for Cinema and Media Studies) Conference, April 1-5, 2020, Denver Colorado

I’m excited to fly to Denver again this year (twice actually – once for the SCMS conference in April and once for SeriesFest in June – more about that in another post!).

For SCMS (Society for Cinema and Media Studies) I was invited to be part of a panel with 3 other fascinating female academics discussing How Unreliable Narrators harm giving women enough credit in historical research.

A great deal of women’s work has gone uncredited. Its documentation or evidence may not exist in predictable places. Conceiving of how this work was conducted, or had impact, or might be theorized often pose more questions than answers. Our panel is interesteded in meeting these challenges through new and alternative forms of storytelling. How might we identify creative or productive approaches to historical writing that address absences, gaps, rumors, contradictions, or suspect information?

This may involve examining how biography has informed the construction of a star image. Vicki Callahan confronts the inability to reconstruct Normand’s filmmaking career and piece together missing parts of her star biography due to a lack of documentation (in addition to the scandals that arise at pivotal moments). In contrast, Eartha Kitt made a concerted effort to represent herself through “self-narrativization,” according to Philana Payton (who will present “Eartha Kitt vs. Eartha Mae”). Kitt wrote multiple autobiographies, scrupulously examining her private identity versus her public self on stage and screen.

The notion of narrator–whether unreliable narrator, storyteller, cryptic voice–proves useful here. For example, Normand serves as an unreliable narrator, leading Callahan to place historical weight on her scripts and performances (and performativity). Kitt, on the other hand, asserted her authority (and made a bid for black feminist resistance) by claiming her narrator role.

Taking a long-range historical view, my presentation will consider how certain male filmmakers have been unreliable narrators in reference to their collaborations with women in the industry. They often fail to credit their female collaborators or mentors, especially in public. A similar dynamic occurred with Joan Harrison; many of her film and TV contributions have been obscured because of the bright spotlight on Hitchcock. For Christina Lane, this (along with major gaps in documentation) fed into the challenges of historicizing her life and career. Sources came from unexpected places—Harrison’s housekeepers and caretakers—which created an opportunity for alternative feminist writing strategies.

About SCMS

The Society for Cinema and Media Studies is the leading scholarly organization in the United States dedicated to promoting a broad understanding of film, television, and related media through research and teaching grounded in the contemporary humanities tradition.

SCMS encourages excellence in scholarship and pedagogy and fosters critical inquiry into the global, national, and local circulation of cinema, television, and other related media. SCMS scholars situate these media in various contexts, including historical, theoretical, cultural, industrial, social, artistic, and psychological.

SCMS seeks to further media study within higher education and the wider cultural sphere, and to serve as a resource for scholars, teachers, administrators, and the public. SCMS works to maintain productive relationships with organizations in other nations, disciplines, and areas of media study; to foster dialogue between media industries and scholars; and to promote the preservation of our film, television, and media heritage. We encourage membership and participation of scholars and those in related positions not only in the US but around the world.