Month: October 2019

Here you can find information about the Executive Council and its activities (below). The current members of the Executive Council are:

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Rosanne Welch, PhD, (Chair) serves as Executive Director of Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting where she created a set of History of Screenwriting courses (because ‘History of Film’ courses become History of Directors’ courses and thereby ‘History of Great Men’) and teaches courses in One-Hour Drama. Her television writing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. Welch edited When Women Wrote Hollywood (2018), named runner-up for the Susan Koppelman Award honoring the best anthology, multi-authored, or edited book in feminist studies by the Popular Culture Association. She co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia (named to both the 2018 Outstanding References Sources List and to the list of Best Historical Materials, by the American Library Association) and wrote Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Popular Culture. In 2016 Welch gave the talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the TEDxCPP (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JFNsqKBRnA). She also serves as Book Reviews Editor of the Journal of Screenwriting.

 

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Anna Weinstein, MFA, (Secretary) is an Assistant Professor of Screenwriting at Kennesaw State University in Atlanta. She serves as co-chair of the Film Area for the Popular Culture Association (PCA), and she is the founding editor of two book series: PERFORM: Succeeding as a Creative Professional (Routledge), which includes eight volumes to date, including Writing for the Screen (2017); and the forthcoming series SCREEN STORYTELLING (Bloomsbury Academic), which will feature volumes dedicated to the study of significant and/or underrepresented screenwriters’ works. Anna frequently publishes interviews with women filmmakers in Film International (Intellect). Her book Writing Women: Creating Complex Female Characters for Film and Television is forthcoming from Routledge, and she is leading a group of student scholars on a digital humanities project on women screenwriters, due to launch in 2023. Anna is currently developing several television series, including a fantasy based on The Jack Tales (1943) with producer Robert Mitas (Ratched) and director Jay Russell (The Water Horse). You can find her at Academia.edu and on her KSU faculty page.

 

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 Jan Černík, PhD, (Newsletter Editor) is Assistant Professor in Film Studies at Palacký University (Czech Republic). In research he combines an interest in the topics of Czech and Czechoslovak cinema, audiovisual industries, and screenwriting. He believes that in an exploration of audiovisual culture, we have to consider the applicability of our findings, which is an idea highly compatibile with the efforts of Screenwriting Research Network. Jan graduated in film studies and philosophy and received his Ph.D. degree in film history in 2018. You can find his publications at ORCID, Academia.edu and Research Gate.

 

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Isadora García Avis, PhD, (Membership and Inclusion Officer) is Lecturer in Audiovisual Narrative at the School of Communication Sciences, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (Spain), where she teaches modules on film and television narrative, screenwriting for television formats and transmedia storytelling. She obtained her PhD at the University of Navarra (Spain), with a doctoral dissertation on transcultural remakes in television. Her thesis was awarded the First Prize of Research in Audiovisual Communication, issued by the Audiovisual Council of Catalunya. Her main academic interests focus on adaptation studies, screenwriting, and television formats (more specifically, scripted series). Her research tends to have a transcultural scope, and it usually combines textual and hermeneutical analysis of audiovisual narratives with other qualitative methods, like in-depth interviews with screenwriters and producers. You can find her at Academia.edu.

 

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Rose Ferrell,PhD, (Website Coordinator) is an independent researcher, film / screenwriting practitioner and adjunct lecturer at one of Australia’s premier acting schools, the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), within Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia. Rose has a background in film production as both a technician and creator of fiction and non-fiction, and as a leader / trainer in community arts film projects. As a screenwriter and researcher, Rose’s interests are in creative practice, screenwriter’s voice and cultural-national inflection in voice. Her writings have been published in the Journal of Screenwriting (Intellect, 2017), Transcultural Screenwriting: Telling Stories for a Global World (Cambridge Scholars 2017), the Palgrave Handbook of Screen Production (2019) and the Palgrave Handbook of Script Development (2021). She was editor of a special issue of the Journal of Screenwriting on Women in Screenwriting with Rosanne Welch, of Stephens College, Los Angeles, and is developing a book on the same theme, again with Rosanne. Rose’s latest work is a stage musical, Her Latest Flame, expected to be produced in 2022. You can find Rose on ORCID, Academia.edu and Research Gate.

 

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Clarissa Miranda, PhD, (Early Career Researcher Representative) is a Lecturer of Antonio Meneghetti College (Brazil). She achieved a Ph.D. in Letters at Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (Brazil) in 2018. Her PhD thesis explores the intersemiotic translation of novels into movie scripts. She holds a Masters in Midiatic Communication at the same institution (2012) and a Bachelors in Journalism from Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (2005). Clarissa has completed several short courses in screenwriting. As a screenwriter and producer, she developed documentaries in the fields of Arts, Music, and Architecture and has also worked on biopics. Nowadays, Clarissa is working on the adaptation of a Brazilian novel to a series, a project that has been selected for the laboratory of TFL TV Next. As an academic, Clarissa has published on Latin American screenwriters, with special interest in women in the field; biopics; and adaptation studies. She works as a lecturer for Antonio Meneghetti College in the field of Entrepreneurship; as international affairs assistant for Fundação Antonio Meneghetti; as a journalist for the magazine Performance Líder; as cultural manager for the Recanto Maestro Youth Orchestra; and as a freelance screenwriter. You can find her at Academia.edu

Minutes for SRN Executive Council meeting

Porto, 11 September 2019 at 1630 hrs

 

Attending: Paolo Russo, Anna Zaluczkowska, Margaret McVeigh, Christina Milligan

Apologies: John Finnegan, Carmen Sofia Brenes, Claus Tieber

 

Paolo Russo acting as Secretary and also Chair in the absence of Claus and Carmen.

 

1. Minutes from previous meeting:  Approved.
2. To pass on to new EC:   Nothing extraordinary to pass on.  
3. Agenda for the AGM:   Proceed with circulated agenda sent out 30 August.
4. Membership:   561 – up 68 from 2018 – mostly UK, Australia, US – also new members from e.g. Guatemala, Italy, Brazil.
   1. Suggested that new EC could work more on encouraging new members from e.g. Asian countries – ACTION POINT (New EC)
5. Executive Council:   No elections needed as nominations match number of retiring members.
   1. Three new members: Roseanne Welch, Rose Ferrell, Rafael Leal.
   2. New Early Career Researcher: Alexandra Ksenofontova – who already confirmed.
   3. Chair: Carmen Sofia Brenes to remain Chair.
   4. At next/first new EC meeting, discuss other positions – ideally Secretary from one of more experienced members
6. Conference format: numbers have increased over the years – from about 40 to start with, to about 180 people registered last year with about 120 papers delivered; this year expected to be about 110-115. 

Discussion over size of conference re number of papers in parallel and number of plenaries.

1. 1. Based on past years, about 90 papers have felt about right for three days. No wish to be prescriptive but maybe 90-100 + 3 keynotes could be suggestion for future conferences.
   2. Is it time to have a four-day conference? Would accommodate 100 papers better – to be brought up at the AGM this year and introduced formally at 2020 conference
   3. Need to have space to encourage ECRs etc.
   4. Are posters a possibility eg? Or other formats? More types of pre-constituted panels?
   5. Discussion around good points (e.g. sponsorship) and bad (focus of discussion away from actual research) of involving the industry as in NZ 2017

 

1. Confirmation of Conferences for 2020-2023
   1. Oxford 2020 – theme: pushing boundaries
      1. Paolo briefs on Oxford and conference statistics in general:
         1. Looks like the SRN Awards have prize secured for next couple of years
         2. Cost of a conference tends to be between 12-18k GBP, including prizes for awards. 
         3. Registration fees tend to be around 90-110 GBP – staying pretty constant although what is included can vary (e.g. whether lunches and/or dinners are included).
         4. Discussion re whether late fee should be double ordinary fee – feeling is that it is a little too punitive – should be less.  
         5. Should we set up a fund for some free places?  Worry about how to administer and whether it is at all fair – how does one decide who gets the places?  Maybe a bursary of some sort? – ACTION POINT (new EC)
   2. Vienna 2021 (confirmed) – theme: global
   3. Missouri 2022 (confirmed, but formal letter pending) – theme: screenwriting and women – or perhaps gender – ACTION POINT: PR to circulate the proposal for 2022 to EC – so that letter of acceptance can be sent to RW
   4. Rio, Brazil 2023 (confirmed) – theme: different take on postcolonial/decolonization

• ACTION POINT – EC could think about publicising the new cycle of CfPs earlier than  they currently have been.

 

• ACTION POINT (new EC, PR) – Should there be a template for future conference organizers?  There is a feeling that this would be helpful – Paolo suggests he could provide it.

 

1. Membership fee: discussion re whether there should be a fee for belonging to the SRN?  Could be a small amount – say 10 GBP? Reprise of past discussions re running an organisation that takes in money – brings responsibilities with it.  Reluctance around the table re this. Further discussion re other ways to handle this and suggestion new EC continue exploring this. – ACTION POINT (New EC)
2. SRN Awards: ask the organizers of this year to announce.
   1. Need to publicise the awards more but they are new, so hopefully now people are more aware of them. – ACTION POINT (New EC)
   2. Agree that rotating the jury every second year feels about right.
3. Domain for SRN webpage is renewed for another two years from July 2019 – possibly after that things will need to be reconsidered.  New EC needs to think about this sooner rather than later.  – ACTION POINT (New EC)

 

Date for next meeting – informal meeting of new EC at conference after AGM.  Next formal meeting date to be decided once new EC gathers

 

Meeting closes 18:10.

 

 

First Meeting of new EC, SRN Conference Porto, September 13th, 2019

Start: ca. 7:50 pm          End: ca. 8:10 pm

Attending: Margaret McVeigh (MM), Paolo Russo (PR), Rafael Leal (RL), Alexandra Ksenofontova (AK), Rosanne Welch (RW), Rose Ferrell (RF)

1. The AGM elected Rafael Leal, Rosanne Welch and Rose Ferrell as new members of the EC for two years.
2. The EC inducted Alexandra Ksenofontova as ECR for one year.
3. The EC unanimously confirms CFB as Chairperson and PR as Secretary. MM takes over the Newsletter, aided by RW (formally nominated as Treasurer). RL will be Website Coordinator. RF will be in charge of Membership.
   1. Reminder that the Chair normally collects suggestions and sets the agenda of the monthly meetings, and the Secretary will write the minutes. In the absence of the Chairperson, the Secretary acts as temporary Chair, and another member of the EC will have to take minutes.
   2. RL to liaise with Anna Zaluzcowska to take over Website ownership.
   3. RF to liaise with PR to take over Membership/JISCMail ownership.
   4. RW to liaise with MM to plan Newsletter.
   5. AK has already liaised with John Finnegan; will continue to coordinate ECR activities and will support the communication, especially via social media.
4. The new EC has to find a fixed monthly date for the regular meetings. Follow up emails confirmed the third Monday (Tuesday for Australia) of each month, starting in October. 
5. The new members should send their bio and a picture to RL to be post on the website.

 

 

Minutes of Annual General Meeting, SRN, Porto, 13 September 2019 at 18:30

 

Apologies: Carmen Sofia Brenes, Claus Tieber

 

Acting Chair:  Paolo Russo

 

 

Minutes from AGM 2018:  Approved

 

Annual Report 2018-19 read by Chair

• Thanks to John  Finnegan for excellent service as Early Career Representative
• Statistics: 561 (+68/ 11.5%) from 51 countries (+4)
• Latin America, Asia, Africa underrepresented as yet
• Gender-balance remarkably balanced
• Membership has been formalised a little after discussion at last AGM
• Discussion re membership fees remains ongoing – if it is introduced, it should be kept quite low – there are fishhooks attached to charging fees
• Awards established this year
• Working groups: four at present – information is on the website – suggested that groups could raise their visibility at conferences – if people wish to establish a working group, this is encouraged – details of how to do this given out
• Early Career Representative activities reported including SRN one-day conference at Falmouth – and Script Department podcast which will soon be made available

 

Action plan has been circulated and will be put up on the website – members invited to get in touch with any feedback

Action plan 2019-20: Approved 

 

Report on progress of publication of articles from Milan 2018 

• Comunicazioni Sociali special issue just out with some articles
• JoSc just out featured some articles
• Members encouraged to submit articles from this year’s conference
• JoSc Special Issues: upcoming issue dedicated to women/gender – CfP has gone out
• Media Aesthetics and Media Usage book series brought to members’ attention
• Palgrave Studies in Screenwriting series reminded to members
• New Peter Lang series brought to members’ attention

 

Conferences:

• Number of panels and papers shown in graph – real growth
• Four-day format proposed
  • Comments on timing of conferences for US members difficult (start of school year). Difficulty for US members re timing would be even harder if event were four days; but other US members see no significant impact compared to three days
  • Or start halfway through first day which Oxford 2020 may/will do
• Discussion re whether to have one day for ECRs, rather than full four-day event
• Discussion re whether abstracts should be peer-reviewed – also re need to ensure abstracts are well focused – and whether number of papers should be limited
• Upcoming conferences
  • 2020 – Oxford Brookes, UK – Weds 9th – Sat 12th September – theme: Pushing Boundaries
  • 2021 – Vienna, Austria – theme: Global – likely early October
  • 2022 – Columbia, Missouri, US – theme: Gender/Women – likely early Sept
  • 2023 – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – theme: Decolonising screenwriting

 

Elections: (Ronald Geerts election officer)

• New ECR: Alexandra Ksenofontova
• New members: Rosanne Welch, Rafael Leal, Rose Ferrell
• EC needs to ensure call for nominations well publicised and early enough each year.

 

Annual Report 2018-2019:  Approved.

 

Awards:

• Jury: Jill Nelmes, Janet Steiger, Tom Stempel
• $500 US prize for Best Monograph
• $100 US prize for Best Article (prize money donated anonymously)

Awarded to:

• Monograph:  JJ Murphy – Rewriting Indie Cinema: Improvisation, pyschodrama, and the screenplay
• Article: Rakesh Sengupta – Writing from the margins of media: Screenwriting practice and discourse during the first Indian talkies
• Eva Novrup Redvall will join Janet Steiger and Tom Stempel on next year’s jury
• Brief discussion re whether languages other than English could be submitted. ACTION POINT (New EC)

 

Meeting closes at 19:45