Orange, CA (February 13, 2013) – Hollywood producer Cathleen Summers (The Sandlot, Stakeout, Another Stakeout) has been named the Spring 2013 Marion Knott Filmmaker-in-Residence at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, recognized as one of the premier film schools in the United States. The announcement was made today by Dodge College Dean Bob Bassett.

Every semester, Dodge College hosts an expert filmmaker to meet with and counsel 10 selected scholars, as part of its Filmmaker-in-Residence program. The popular program includes regular, bi-weekly meetings with the filmmaker in a one-on-one setting where the student and mentor have the opportunity to creatively develop a specific project throughout the semester. In addition, the filmmaker interacts with the larger Dodge College community at weekly dinners open to students and screenings of the filmmaker’s films followed by an in-class Q & A.

Cathleen Summers is a successful film producer who has worked in the motion picture and television business for over twenty years. She has served as Executive Vice President for TriStar Pictures; worked as a studio executive for Columbia Pictures, as president of three major independent production companies with studio bases, and as a talent manager, and is a successful writer.

Notable producer credits include the hit movie Stakeout starring Richard Dreyfuss, Emilio Estevez, Madeline Stowe and Aidan Quinn; the sequel Another Stakeout; D.O.A. starring Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan in her first leading role; cult classic Dogfight starring Oscar-nominated River Phoenix and Lily Taylor; baseball adventure hit The Sandlot for Twentieth Century Fox; Mystery Date starring Ethan Hawke; Vital Signs starring Diane Lane, Laura San Giacomo, Jimmy Smits; Dennis Quaid’s directorial debut Everything That Rises; Class starring Jacqueline Bissett and Rob Lowe and featuring  Andrew McCarthy, John Cusak, Joan Cusak, Virginia Madsen, and Lolita Davidovich; A Change Of Seasons starring Shirley MacLaine, and introducing Anthony Hopkins to the American film audience; Mountain Men starring Charleton Heston; Slow Burn starring Minnie Driver; A Man in Love directed by Diane Kurys and starring Peter Coyote and Greta Scacchi; Hideaway featuring Jeff Goldblum, Christine Lahti and Alicia Silverstone; Wizard Of Loneliness starring Lukas Haas and Lea Thompson; and several television pilots.

Summers was the first Executive Vice President at newly minted TriStar Pictures. She supervised The Natural, TriStar’s first production, starring Robert Redford, directed by Barry Levinson and produced by Mark Johnson; Birdy starring Nicholas Cage and Matthew Modine and directed by Alan Parker; Nine and 1/2 Weeks directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger; About Last Night directed by Ed Zwick and starring Rob Lowe and Demi Moore; Places In The Heart directed by Robert Benton and starring Sally Field; Peggy Sue Got Married directed by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Nicholas Cage and Kathleen Turner; as well as providing creative and marketing consulting on Rambo and other TriStar releases. Summers supervised TriStar deals with major talent, including Robert Redford and Sean Connery, and worked closely with Sydney Pollack on his producing projects as well as a consultant on his directorial projects. Summers developed both west and east coast creative staff, and worked on all budgets and strategy for projects in consideration for or in production.

Prior to TriStar, Summers served as an executive at Columbia Pictures. She developed and supervised production on The Wanderers directed by Phil Kaufman and wrote the original story for Jagged Edge. She served as creative executive for Columbia Pictures on Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Summers created and filled the position of liaison between feature and television departments at Columbia, directing feature submissions and developments into numerous movies of the week.

Previously at Paramount, she worked as a story editor for Albert S. Ruddy Productions, having helped create the television series How The West Won – writing the series book and the original story lines.

As a writer, Summers has sold several of her original stories to top studios including Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony and 20th Century Fox, for feature development, and is currently completing a non-fiction resource book.

Summers was a founding partner in ESN, an internet-based production tool and resource system currently in use by Disney and other production companies.

Not only is she a published author, Summers is also a lecturer, instructor, mentor, and scholarship donor at UCLA, Stanford, USC, AFI and Sherman Oaks College among other universities. Other organizations and events she has been deeply involved in include the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, Digital Cinema Solutions, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Producers Guild of America, the Women in Film Foundation and the Los Angeles Parkinson’s Foundation.

“Cathleen Summers brings a breadth and depth of experience in the industry that is particularly valuable to our students as they prepare to enter what is clearly a rapidly changing business,” says Dean Bob Bassett.  “She knows what it takes to look ahead, be flexible and stay in the game—invaluable lessons for tomorrow’s film artists.”

Past notable Chapman University Filmmakers-in-Residence include Academy Award®-nominated producer JoAnne Sellar (There Will Be Blood, Boogie Nights, Magnolia), director and producer Betty Thomas (Dr. Doolittle, Private Parts, Brady Bunch Movie, I Spy), screenwriter and producer Leslie Dixon (Mrs. Doubtfire, Hairspray, Limitless), director and producer Jonathan Sanger (Vanilla Sky, The Elephant Man, The Producers), director Sheldon Epps (Friends, Frasier), producer Michael Phillips (Taxi Driver, Close Encounters of the Third Kind), and director Martha Coolidge (Real Genius, Rambling Rose, Valley Girl).

About Chapman University:

Consistently ranked among the top universities in the West, Chapman University attracts highly qualified students from around the globe. Its programs are designed to encourage leadership in innovation, creativity and collaboration, and are increasingly recognized for providing an extraordinary educational experience. The university excels in film and media arts, performing arts, educational studies, economics and business, law, humanities and the sciences. Student enrollment in graduate and undergraduate programs is approaching 7,000, and Chapman University alumni are found throughout California and the world.

Lawrence and Kristina Dodge College of Film and Media Arts:

One of the premier film schools in the country, Dodge College of Film and Media Arts offers students the unique opportunity to learn filmmaking in a hands-on environment modeled on a working studio.  The college is comprised of the Sodaro-Pankey Undergraduate School of Film and Media Arts, offering degrees in film production, film studies, screenwriting, creative producing, television and broadcast journalism, public relations and advertising, screen acting and digital arts; and the graduate Conservatory of Motion Pictures, offering M.F.A. degrees in film production, film and television producing, production design, and screenwriting, and an M.A. in film studies. Two joint M.F.A. degrees in producing are also offered in conjunction with the business (M.F.A./M.B.A.) and law (M.F.A./J.D.) schools. Dodge College is housed in Marion Knott Studios, a state-of-the-art, 76,000-square-foot studio and classroom building that provides students with 24-hour access to sound stages, edit bays, Dolby surround mixing, a motion capture stage and more.  With an Oscar and Emmy-award winning full-time faculty that boasts more feature film credits than any other film school, Dodge College is where students learn the entertainment business from the inside out.