Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, recognized as one of the premiere film schools in the United States, has again proved itself as one of the most alluring teaching destinations for some of the most accomplished and revered members of the Hollywood film community. Among the notable names joining the faculty for the fall 2015 semester are Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences President and respected veteran motion picture marketing executive Cheryl Boone Isaacs; writer/director/producer/actress Rachel Goldberg; screenwriter, producer and director Daniel Petrie, Jr. (Beverly Hills Cop, The Big Easy, Turner & Hooch), director Donald Petrie (Miss Congeniality, How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Grumpy Old Men), former New Line Cinema and Relativity marketing head Russell Schwartz, and Castle Rock Entertainment Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Martin Shafer.

Daniel Petrie will be teaching two screenwriting classes while Donald Petrie will be teaching three directing classes. Cheryl Boone Isaacs is returning to teach Motion Picture Publicity (she was previously Dodge Filmmaker-in-Residence, fall 2014). Russell Schwartz will be teaching courses on marketing and distribution while Rachel Goldberg will be teaching a variety of courses on film storytelling.

“Bringing these Hollywood influentials into the classroom gives our students the chance to learn firsthand what’s happening in the business today,” says Dodge College Dean Robert Bassett. “At the same time, by sharing their time and expertise, these ‘Hollywood’ faculty are invigorated by interacting with the next generation of young filmmakers. It is definitely a two-way exchange.”

About The New Dodge Faculty Members

Cheryl Boone Isaacs
Cheryl Boone Isaacs was recently re-elected for a third term as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences by the organization’s Board of Governors.  She is beginning her 23rd year as a governor representing the Public Relations Branch. During her tenure as a governor, she served as First Vice President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer as well as President of the Academy Foundation, the educational and cultural arm of the Academy. In 2012, Isaacs produced the Academy’s prestigious Governors Awards.

Isaacs has been a respected motion picture marketing executive for more than 30 years. For the last nine years, her company, CBI Enterprises, Inc., has consulted for companies such as MTV Films, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, Lionsgate, The Weinstein Company and Sony Entertainment. Her clients have included Troika Pictures, Andrew Lauren Productions, Linden Productions, Laika Entertainment, Film Bankers International, KTLA, Success Films, Robson Entertainment, Rangeland Productions, and Cube Vision. She has consulted on marketing efforts for films including The Call, The Artist, The King’s Speech, Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, Spider-Man 2 and Tupac: Resurrection.

During her tenure as President of theatrical marketing for New Line Cinema (1997 – 1999), she developed and executed the campaigns for such films as Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, the company’s highest grossing film at that time, The Wedding Singer and such critically acclaimed motion pictures as Wag the Dog, Boogie Nights and American History X. Largely through the efforts of Isaacs and her marketing team, New Line was one of only two studios to have four films – Lost in Space, Blade, Rush Hour, and Pleasantville – open No. 1 at the box office in 1998. Rush Hour’s $33 million opening was, at the time, the largest in the company’s history.

Prior to joining New Line Cinema in 1997, Isaacs served as Executive Vice President, Worldwide Publicity, for the Motion Picture Group of Paramount Pictures. In 1995 and 1996, she orchestrated acclaimed publicity campaigns for Forrest Gump and Braveheart, each of which won multiple Academy Awards®, including Best Picture. In addition, the campaigns were recognized by the Publicists Guild of America as the “Best” in 1995 and 1996.

From 1990 to 1994, Isaacs was Senior Vice President, Publicity, and held the title of Vice President, Publicity between 1986 and 1990. During her tenure at Paramount, Isaacs publicized the launch of such blockbusters as First Wives Club, Mission: Impossible, The Firm, Ghost, The Addams Family, Coming to America, Fatal Attraction, and the Beverly Hills Cop trilogy. Isaacs joined Paramount in 1984 as Director, Publicity and Promotion, West Coast, and was quickly promoted to Executive Director one year later.

In addition to her long tenure at Paramount Pictures, Isaacs served as Director of Advertising and Publicity for The Ladd Company where she worked on The Right Stuff, Police Academy and Once Upon a Time in America. Prior to that, she spent five years at Melvin Simon Productions (The Stunt Man, Love at First Bite, Porky’s) where her last position was Vice President, Worldwide Advertising and Publicity. She began her career in 1977 as a publicist at Columbia Pictures.

In 2014, she was inducted into the NAACP Hall of Fame, was awarded the Trailblazer Award from Essence Magazine and was recipient of the AAFCA (African American Film Critics Association) Horizon Award. In 2013, she was honored by BESLA (Black Entertainment Sports Lawyers Association).

Rachel Goldberg
Rachel Goldberg brings a broad educational and professional background to the challenge of teaching the art of story at Dodge College. A writer, director, producer and actress, she is currently in pre-production on the feature Transformation Awaits.

She was a guest playwright at Lincoln Center in New York, a Film Independent Screenwriting Lab Fellowship Recipient and a Fellowship Recipient at AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women. She has worked in development and post-production for the likes of Miramax and Departure Entertainment, has been a judge at a long list of film festivals, seen her own films win festival awards across the country, and taught a wide range of courses from directing to screenwriting and acting.

Goldberg brings an M.F.A. in Directing for Film and Theater from the California Institute of the Arts along with a bachelor’s degree in Theater and Psychology.  She has acted on television and on stage and is currently a board member of the Alliance for Women Directors.

Daniel Petrie, Jr.
Screenwriter, producer and director Daniel Petrie, Jr. was nominated for an Academy Award for best original screenplay for his first produced script, the box-office hit Beverly Hills Cop, starring Eddie Murphy. Next came Petrie’s original screenplay of the romantic thriller The Big Easy, starring Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin. Petrie then served as producer of the thriller Shoot to Kill, starring Sidney Poitier and Tom Berenger, and as executive producer of the comedy Turner & Hooch, starring Tom Hanks; Petrie co-wrote both films. Petrie also served as executive producer of The 6th Day, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and, most recently, of the upcoming feature Go With Me, starring Anthony Hopkins, Julia Stiles, Alexander Ludwig, Ray Liotta and Hal Holbrook. Go With Me was produced by Rick Dugdale for Enderby Entertainment, Petrie’s and Dugdale’s independent film production and financing company   Go With Me, directed by Sweden’s Daniel Alfredson, is slated to have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, both in September 2015.

Petrie’s directorial debut was the film Toy Soldiers, starring Sean Astin, Wil Wheaton, and Louis Gossett, Jr., which he also co-wrote. Petrie also directed the HBO film Dead Silence, starring James Garner and Marlee Matlin, and adapted and directed the TNT movie Framed, starring Rob Lowe and Sam Neill.

In 2011, Petrie was executive producer, showrunner and co-creator of Combat Hospital, simulcast on Canada’s Global TV and ABC in the U.S. The 13-episode TV series, a coproduction of Canada’s Sienna Films and the U.K.’s Artists Studios, featured an ensemble cast headed by Elias Koteas, Michelle Borth, Luke Mably, Deborah Kara Unger, Terry Chen and Arnold Pinnock.

In 2006, Petrie and producing partner Rick Dugdale founded Enderby Entertainment, an independent film, television and digital media company with an old-fashioned emphasis on storytelling, on the creative side, and transparency, on the financial side. For Enderby, Dugdale and Petrie produced and Petrie directed the indie feature Dawn Patrol starring Scott Eastwood, Jeff Fahey and Rita Wilson; the film premiered at the 2014 Austin Film Festival and was released in theaters and VOD in 2015. Enderby then produced, and Petrie wrote and directed, a second picture for Enderby, Rosemont, starring Grace Zabriskie, Brad Dourif, Michael Gross, Ayla Kell and Brendan Michael Coughlin; it is slated for release in October on Starz.

Petrie has an extensive history of service to the Writers Guild of America West, Inc., serving two terms each as president (1997-99 and 2004-2005) and as vice president (1995-97 and 1999-2001). He also has a lengthy record of service to the Writers Guild Foundation. In 2013, Petrie was the recipient of the Writers Guild’s Morgan Cox Award, given to that “member whose vital ideas, continuing efforts, and personal sacrifice best exemplify the ideal of service to the Guild.”

Petrie served as a Governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (1997-1999) and as a Trustee of the American Film Institute (2004-2011). He is a long-time member of the Academy Foundation’s Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Committee (1996-2004, 2006-present).

Petrie has also long been an active volunteer for the Austin Film Festival and Screenwriting Conference, sitting on the Festival’s Board of Advisors. In 2012, the Austin Film Festival announced the addition of a new “Enderby Entertainment Award” to the festival’s screenwriting competition. The new award is open to feature screenplays in all genres with an original concept and distinctive voice that can be independently produced with a production budget under five million dollars. Finalists and winners are selected by Petrie and Dugdale.

Petrie inherited his dedication to volunteer service from his parents: Petrie’s father was the late, Emmy-winning Canadian director and longtime Directors Guild of America board member Daniel Petrie, Sr.; Petrie’s mother is the Emmy-winning television producer and longtime Producers Guild of America board member Dorothea Petrie. Petrie’s brother, director Donald Petrie, also carries on this tradition through his service as a DGA board member and co-chair of the DGA Foundation.

Donald Petrie
Best known for his hit romantic comedies How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days starring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey for Paramount, and Miss Congeniality starring Sandra Bullock and Michael Caine for Warner Bros. – he also directed the holiday hit Grumpy Old Men starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau and Ann-Margret.

Petrie began his entertainment career as an actor, having trained and graduated as a theatre major, He soon was appearing in many television episodes. In 1980, Petrie decided to shift his focus to directing when he was accepted as a Fellow at the American Film Institute. While there he made a dramatic short film, The Expert, that caught the eye of Steven Spielberg, who offered him the opportunity to direct an episode of Amazing Stories. That episode, entitled “Mister Magic”, starring Sid Caesar, began Petrie’s professional directing career.

Petrie then began a busy period directing episodic television, including MacGyver, The Equalizer and the landmark series LA Law. A controversial episode he directed for the latter entitled “The Venus Butterfly” garnered Directors Guild and Emmy nominations. Soon after, Samuel Goldwyn, Jr. offered him the chance to direct his first feature, the coming of age dramedy Mystic Pizza. Both a critical and box office success, Mystic Pizza starred Annabeth Gish and Lili Taylor and provided Julia Roberts with her breakthrough role. Now considered a “cult classic” it also gave a very young Matt Damon his first onscreen appearance.

Petrie has also been a proud and active member of the Directors Guild of America. Following in his father Daniel’s footsteps, he currently serves on the DGA National Board, and the Western Directors Council. He is also Chairman of the Directors Guild Foundation.

Among Petrie’s other credits are the quirky comedy Just My Luck, starring Lindsay Lohan and Chris Pine; the political satire/romantic comedy Welcome To Mooseport, with Ray Romano, Marcia Gay Hardin and Gene Hackman; the gender-bender comedy The Associate starring Whoopi Goldberg; Warner Bros. family comedy Richie Rich starring Macaulay Culkin; and Disney’s My Favorite Martian with Jeff Daniels and Christopher Lloyd. Most recently, he directed the Fox Searchlight romantic comedy My Life In Ruins starring Nia Vardalos as a guide leading the most outrageous bus tour group ever; Richard Dreyfuss heads up an international cast.

Russell Schwartz
Russell Schwartz has been President of Pandemic Marketing Corp since its inception in 2008. Pandemic Marketing provides strategic marketing, theatrical distribution, ancillary placement solutions and digital execution for the motion picture industry.

From 2013-2014, he was President of Worldwide Marketing at Relativity Media and was responsible for the entire slate including The Family, Don Jon and Beyond the Lights. He also established the Relativity Marketing Council comprised of young execs from the Relativity divisions of sports, music, brand, television, distribution and marketing.

From 2001-2008, Schwartz was President of Theatrical Marketing at New Line Cinema where he oversaw all of the company’s marketing efforts which resulted in over 44 Academy Award nominations and billions of dollars at the domestic box office. Some of the films Schwartz managed and created marketing campaigns for included The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Hairspray, Wedding Crashers, Elf, Rush Hour 2 and 3, The Notebook, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, About Schmidt and Little Children.

Prior to that he was President of USA Films and released such films as Traffic, Nurse Betty, Topsy Turvey, Being John Malkovich and Pitch Black.

From 1992-1999, Schwartz was President of Gramercy Pictures and oversaw the marketing of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Fargo, The Usual Suspects, Elizabeth, The Big Lebowski, Dazed and Confused, Dead Man Walking and many others.

Martin Shafer
Martin Shafer is Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Castle Rock Entertainment.

Shafer has produced such titles as A Few Good Men, (which was nominated for four Academy Awards); The Shawshank Redemption (nominated for seven Academy Awards); The Polar Express; The Green Mile (nominated for four Academy Awards); The American President, Music and Lyrics, Misery, (for which Kathy Bates won the Academy Award for Best Actress); Michael Clayton, (nominated for seven Academy awards and two BAFTA, Tilda Swindon won Academy and BAFTA awards); Friends With Benefits, Honeymoon In Vegas, Before Midnight, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Best In Show, City Slickers, Fracture, A Mighty Wind, No Reservations, In The Line Of Fire, Absolute Power, Bernie, Kangaroo Jack, Two Weeks Notice, Miss Congeniality, The Last Days of Disco, Lone Star, Delores Claiborne, Barcelona, Malice and Hamlet.

The company also produced the enormously popular hit television show Seinfeld. In 1995, Castle Rock Entertainment received the Excellence in Filmmaking Award at ShoWest.

Prior to forming Castle Rock, Shafer was President of Production for Embassy Pictures and served as Executive Vice President of Production at Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. In October 2000, Shafer received the Lifetime Achievement Award at Show East

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