writing – Page 51 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

30 More On Jane Espenson from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (58 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:

Likewise, she wrote many Buffy’s but one of the best is an episode called Earshot and Buffy’s all streaming for free on Facebook right now so you can watch. (Audience: I grew up watching that.) I Iove Buffy, I know. It’s really brilliantly written show. Earshot was a brilliant episode about Buffy who is the Vampire Slayer being cursed with the ability to hear what everyone is thinking — so mental telepathy and the problem is the cacophony in your head starts to make you crazy because if you can hear what everyone was thinking you couldn’t think your own thoughts and along the way — she’s in high school — she hears someone say “It doesn’t matter tomorrow by noon they’ll all be dead.” So now she knows she’s in a school with a shooter but who is it because she can’t pinpoint where the voice came from. So the whole episode is about trying to find the kid and of course, you trace the kid who looks the most bullied and seems to be the most stereotypically that kid. I’m not going to tell you you did it but — spoiler alert — it ain’t that kid right? So it’s really again excellently written episode using all the tropes of the era so Jane Espenson a pretty important writer.

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V10 Issue 1: Creative resistance tactics in the work of English Canadian screenwriters by Kerry McArthur

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

Creative resistance tactics in the work of English Canadian screenwriters by Kerry McArthur

This article analyses how eight successful English Canadian screenwriters negotiate various norms of screenwriting practice, in particular the criteria for three-act structure, character development and closure as advocated by Hollywood. The writers discuss their interpretations of what they consider essential narrative elements in screenplay projects, while dismissing other edicts of the screenwriting industry. Analysis of interview transcripts reveals that most of these writers take their inspiration from their own experience of screenwriting and their interpretations of other screenplays and historic texts on narrative rather than from contemporary screenwriting textbooks. The focus for almost all of these screenwriters is on writing screen stories in original ways, rather than adopting standardized narrative directives, even when elements of these directives have their uses.

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

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V10 Issue 1: An insider perspective on the script in practice by Vincenzo Giarrusso

An insider perspective on the script in practice by Vincenzo Giarrusso

The machinations of industry, the exigencies of film funding and the producer’s prominent role in setting fiscal and marketing objectives for film production seem incongruous with scriptwriting as a generative creative practice in the filmmaking process. This article presents a case study that investigates the agency of creative practice from the insider perspective of a scriptwriter. In mobilizing the concept of the boundary object, the case links the problematic and transitional status of the script – as it passes out of the hands of the writer – to other roles under the control of filmmaking practitioners. In combining a practice-based reflexive narrative with theoretical observations, the article explores the processes and imperatives that mediate the script and scriptwriting as an embodied experience for the scriptwriter.

Get your copy and subscription to the Journal of Screenwriting Today!

Join me at the Screenwriting Research Network’s Annual Conference in Oxford, UK

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30 Lillian Hellman from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (55 seconds)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

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Transcript:

Another woman — we’re moving kind of through — now we’re moving to the 40s and 50s — Lillian Hellman. More people know of her because she was a playwright. They know about her winning some Tony’s and then her stuff was transferred to film. The Children’s Hour was almost a Pulitzer Prize winner but it’s the story of two lesbian women who run a girl’s school and one is accused of lesbianism and the Pulitzer Prize committee actually came out and said “we’re not giving an award to a movie that discusses that” — Oh to a play, excuse me. So it was won that year by Zoe Akins for a play that has been falling out of — nobody cares about anymore — et people are still performing The Little Foxes and you can still of course watch the Bette Davis version, which is quite brilliant. So Lillian Hellman is a pretty amazing woman. She’s also famous to us because during the Blacklist there was a threat of blacklisting her and when she was asked to give names to the committee in Washington that’s what she said — which could have destroyed her career.

Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses the women in her new book “When Women Wrote Hollywood” which covers female screenwriters from the Silents through the early 1940s when women wrote over 50% of films and Frances Marion was the highest paid screenwriter (male or female) and the first to win 2 Oscars. Yet, she fails to appear in film history books, which continue to regurgitate the myth that male directors did it all – even though it’s been proven that the only profitable movies Cecil B. de Mille ever directed were all written by Jeannie Macpherson film ever won for Best Picture was written by Robert E. Sherwood (who people have heard of, mostly due to his connection to Dorothy Parker) and Joan Harrison.

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† Available from the LA Public Library

From The Journal Of Screenwriting 7: Book Reviews

Highlighting the articles in the latest edition 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

Reviews

Authors: Levi Dean, Mikayla Daniels, Yasser O. Shahin, Ilona Rossman Ho

Television Antiheroines: Women Behaving Badly in Crime and Prison Drama, Milly Buonanno (2017) Bristol: Intellect, 285 pp., ISBN-13 978-1-78320-760-2, p/bk, $45k

The Girl Who Knew Too Much: Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Elaine Lennon (2016) Seattle: Amazon Digital Services LLC, 132 pp., ASIN: B01KTWF08U, e-Book, $3.99

Writing for the Screen, Anna Weinstein (ed.) (2017) New York: Routledge, 254 pp., ISBN 978-1-13894-511-1, p/bk, $32.95; ISBN 978-1-31567-157-4, e-Book, $31.30

The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest For Wholeness, Maureen Murdock (1990) Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, 232 pp., ISBN 978-0-87773-485-7, p/bk, $18.95; ISBN 978-0-81356-342-8, e-Book, $10.98

Get your copy and subscription to the Journal of Screenwriting Today!

* 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!

Paperback LA Reading at Stories Books and Cafe, Echo Park via Instagram

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Paperback LA Reading at Stories Books and Cafe, Echo Park

I was among 5 writers highlighted in the Paperpback LA 3 Issue Trilogy and did a reading from my article “Hey, Hey, They Wrote The Monkees!” which was reprinted in Paperback LA #3

It was a great night, with great writing and reading and with a full house of people.

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?

Order Examination Copies, Library and Campus Bookstore orders directly from McFarland

Presenting “When Women Write Horror” Talk

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Presenting “When Women Write Horror” Talk

Cal Poly Pomona University Library

Watch the complete presentation

* 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!

Paperback LA Reading at Stories Books and Cafe, Echo Park via Instagram

Follow Rosanne on Instagram!

Paperback LA Reading at Stories Books and Cafe, Echo Park

I was among 5 writers highlighted in the Paperpback LA 3 Issue Trilogy and did a reading from my article “Hey, Hey, They Wrote The Monkees!” which was reprinted in Paperback LA #3

It was a great night, with great writing and reading and with a full house of people.

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?

Order Examination Copies, Library and Campus Bookstore orders directly from McFarland

Location as Character: The Craft of Writing Place Panel via Instagram

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Location as Character: The Craft of Writing Place Panel

From @writersguildf – Writers Guild Foundation

We team up with @ColumbiaChi to talk about how locations inform and impact characters on TV with @qu33nofdrama, @SparksAnthony, Matt Lutsky, @RosanneWelch and Connor Kilpatrick.

* 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!

Reading as time travel via Instagram

Reading as time travel

From @douglaswelch …

Rosanne grabbed this book “The Secrets We Kept” at The Book Soup store at the Bradley International Terminal before we took off on our trip to Porto. She finished it on the trip home.

Look for a review of “The Secrets We Kept” soon from Rosanne.

I think Rosanne uses books as a sort of time travel. She dives into the book and wakes up wherever she needs to be. This is very useful when flying 9.5 hours East and 12 hours west.

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* 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!