New Adjunct Faculty

MALIK AHMAD

Malik studied biology with an emphasis in computer science at UC Irvine. He’s a passionate serial entrepreneur who has built a multitude of startups in various industries and is currently a co-founder and partner of BingeLabs, one of the world’s leading media research firms focusing on streaming and new-age entertainment.

BRIANNA BROWN

Brianna is a staff writer on the TV series Superstore. A Chapman-trained MFA from Saint Paul, Minnesota, she says she’s lucky to have been mentored by our own Barry Blaustein. Being the first in her family to complete high school, earn a college degree and receive a master’s taught her that defying the odds is possible. She’s worked under the Oscar-winning screenwriters of BlacKkKlansman  and strives to tell stories that genuinely represent people of color, as well as promote underrepresented narratives.

FRANCESCA BUTLER

Franki graduated from Chapman in 2013 with an MFA in screenwriting. She’s an L.A.-based TV writer whose credits include Netflix’s Sweet Magnolias and Showtime’s The L-Word: Generation Q. She currently writes on The Republic of Sarah for The CW. She is active in discussing diversity and representation on television, both in the writers room and onscreen.

 

ANITA M. CAL

A former L.A. Times cop and education reporter, Anita is now an award-winning storyteller who’s worked on Tyler Perry’s House of Payne and Meet the Browns, as well as Colours TV’s The Chin Chinns. She landed her first development deal with Showtime while still in graduate school. Her screenplay, Fathers of God, a thriller that exposes the grim secrets of Catholic priests, won a Garry Marshall Best Screenplay Award and was a Nicholls Fellowship semi-finalist. Known to her students as “Dr. C,” Anita teaches producing and line producing, and earned her doctorate in organizational leadership from Pepperdine University.

BETH DE ARAUJO

Writer-director Beth de Araújo was recently featured in Filmmaker magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Her feature screenplay, Josephine, was included in the 2018 Sundance Directors Lab and Screenwriters Lab and will mark her feature directorial debut. Last year Araújo performed in three sold-out shows for the Moth Mainstage. Her AFI short film I Want To Marry A Creative Jewish Girl, based on her Gawker essay, won best screenplay at the Hollyshorts Film Festival. She has a BA in Sociology from UC Berkeley and an MFA from the American Film Institute.

PETER JOHN DICKINSON

As a research analyst with a background in entertainment and market research, Peter uses data-driven insights to help convey students’ stories to their audiences and industry stakeholders. He manages Chapman’s content accelerator program, coupling student teams with the most popular up-and-coming public domains. Students develop new adaptations of these public domains with industry agents, managers and producers as a way to break into the industry.

ARUNA EKANAYAKE

Aruna earned his Ph.D. in film and television at UCLA’s department of Film, Television and Digital Media. As a practicing artist, he has worked in media ranging from metal and ceramic sculpture to film and digital media installation — much of which informed his research at UCLA. He’s currently doing research on Third Cinema theory, as well as completing a project about TV programming on PBS in the 1970s.

 

CHARLIE FINK

A Forbes columnist and the author of a new book, Remote Collaboration, Virtual Conferences and the Future of Work (as well as his previous books Charlie Fink’s Metaverse and Convergence: How the World Will Be Painted With Data), Charlie’s a consultant to some of the leading companies in the XR (AR/VR) world; Variety called him “XR’s explainer-in-chief.” As a 28-year-old Disney executive, he came up with the idea for The Lion King, then became chief operating officer of VR pioneer Virtual World Entertainment. In addition to being head of story development for Disney Feature Animation (1985-1992), Charlie was chief creative officer of AOL Studios and president of American Greetings Interactive and Blue Mountain.

YU GU

Yu Gu is a filmmaker and visual artist born in Chongqing, China, and raised in Vancouver. She explores themes of identity, migration and artistic freedom with a lyrical and visceral approach. Yu’s hybrid documentary, A Moth in Spring, follows her family’s fight for freedom of expression in China and was shown on HBO. She co-directed the feature documentary Who Is Arthur Chu?, chronicling an Asian-American Jeopardy! champion-turned-internet iconoclast. Other credits include A Woman’s Work and the upcoming Interior Migrations. Yu received her MFA in film production from USC and a BA from the University of British Columbia.

FELICIA D. HENDERSON

Felicia is the award-winning creator of the landmark Showtime hit Soul Food: The Series, television’s first multi-season drama featuring African Americans. In 2018, through her production company, WaterWalk Entertainment, she signed a three-year development contract with 20th Century Fox to create TV comedies and dramas. Under this deal, she will executive produce three series for the Fox network during the 2020-2021 season. Last season, she was a consulting producer on Fox’s Empire. Currently, she is a consulting producer on NEXT. Additional credits include: Sister Sister, Moesha and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

JAN-CHRISTOPHER HORAK

Jan-Christopher is the former director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Before that, he was director of Archives & Collections at Universal Studios. Among his many distinguished positions, he has held professorships in Rochester, Munich, Salzburg and at UCLA, and has curated dozens of international exhibitions and film programs.

 

 

ERIN LI

Born in the US to immigrant parents from Taiwan and raised in New Jersey, Erin chased what she thought was the American Dream and worked on Wall Street before pursuing her passion for film. A sci-fi filmmaker and fan, she won the Mary Shelley Award for directing Kepler X-47. As a commercial director, her work has been recognized by SHOOT and Free the Work. She’s held directing fellowships with the FOX Filmmakers Lab, AFI Directing Workshop for Women and Film Independent Project Involve. She’s also taught filmmaking in low-income public schools in Los Angeles as part of Latino Film Institute’s Youth Cinema Project, and currently mentors filmmakers through Visual Communications’ Armed with a Camera.

ASMARA MAREK

Marek isn’t just a Brown University graduate with a double-major in Africana Studies and Architectural Studies; she’s also a champion coxswain, writes poetry and is learning how to make quilts. This is on top of her skills as a teacher and filmmaker, honed while doing doctoral studies at Columbia and FAMU (the Prague Film Academy). She’s the founder of two production companies, Cinema Belongs To Us in Prague and KINOVAT, based in San Francisco, where she was born. Her films include Anywhere Else, The Tour Guide and Little Pickpocket.

LUCI MARZOLA

Luci is a film historian whose research focuses on how technological infrastructure affects creative production, focusing particularly on early Hollywood. Her forthcoming book, Engineering Hollywood: Technology, Technicians, and the Science of Building the Studio System, will be published by Oxford University Press.

 

RON MCCANTS

Ron writes dramas that explore the human experience, his stories often fueled by dark secrets and deep shames at the intersection of crime and family. He’s from a small town in Missouri “whose chief exports are cotton and violence,” he says. One of 10 siblings, he received a BA in engineering from Dartmouth College and an MFA in playwriting from UC San Diego. An award-winning playwright, in 2016 he was selected as a Disney ABC Program Writer. He’s been a staff writer on Speechless and Chicago Fire; he wrote a music video for Nas and has also worked on Marvel’s Falcon and The Winter Soldier.

NATHANIA OH

Originally from the Cayman Islands, Nathania Oh is an entertainment industry veteran with more than 20 years of production experience that started with hosting a music video show. After earning her B.A. in telecommunications from Pepperdine University, she went on to earn her animation stripes working on the groundbreaking series “The Ren & Stimpy Show” and has worked with such media giants as Sony Pictures Entertainment, HBO and Cartoon Network. She first discovered her enthusiasm for mentoring as an entertainment and marketing executive where she was proficient in leading large, interdisciplinary work teams. Eager to share this real-world industry experience with collegiate students, she completed her MFA in nonfiction and screenwriting with University of California, Riverside. Through instruction she inspires students on ways to harness their passion and authenticity while making their mark on the world.

MOISES PEREZ

Moises began his filmmaking training at Los Angeles City College (LACC) and in 2012 graduated from Cal State Northridge (CSUN) with a BA in film production and an emphasis in cinematography. He has written and directed more than a dozen short films and was a first-place winner at one of the most prestigious festivals in Mexico, the Oaxaca Film Festival. He has an MFA in film and television from Mount Saint Mary’s University.

STEVEN DAVID REINER

Steven Reiner is an Emmy Award-winning former producer for CBS News’ 60 Minutes and an emeritus associate professor of broadcast journalism at Stony Brook University. He’s a former executive producer of NPR’s All Things Considered and staff writer for The Atlantic magazine.

 

 

PHILLIP RODRIGUEZ

Phillip Rodriguez’s documentary work has chronicled the Latino and California experience for millions of PBS viewers through such films as The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo, Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle and Pancho Villa & Other Stories. Phillip has been a senior fellow at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the Institute of Justice and Journalism and the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University. The first recipient of the annual United States Artists Broad Fellow Award, he has a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley, an MA in Latin American Studies and an MFA in film and TV production from UCLA.

KOJI STEVEN SAKAI

Writer/producer Koji Steven Sakai is the founder of Little Nalu Pictures. He’s written five feature films including the indie hit The People I’ve Slept With. He’s also written and produced several series and features, including Last Girl, now in post-production. His novels include Romeo & Juliet Vs. Zombies, Zombie Run and Santa Vs. Zombies. In addition, he produces and hosts three podcasts: Guy Code, Best OR Worst Podcast and Midnight Watchers.

 

ROBIN SCHIFF

Robin most recently worked on the Darren Star series Emily In Paris. Her noteworthy TV credits include Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, Grosse Pointe, Almost Perfect and Party of Five. She was a member of the famed L.A. improv troupe The Groundlings, which is where she honed her comedy skill, and has served two terms on the board of directors of the Writers Guild West. An L.A. native, Robin has a degree in history from UCLA.

AMY STRAUS

Amy has been a staff writer on ten shows, including Friends and Grounded for Life. While on Friends, she co-wrote The One With the Embryos and has also has co-written pilots for ABC and CBS, as well as material for Malcolm in the Middle. Most recently she created branded content for Zillow and is in post-production on a documentary. She holds a BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

AUBREY TANG

Aubrey, who teaches popular culture and film aesthetics, completed her Ph.D. dissertation, Hong Kong Experience: Johnnie To’s Cinema and the Phenomenology of the Senses, at UC Irvine. Her research interests include film theory, as well as Chinese and Sinophone cinemas. Before enrolling in her graduate programs, she was a published short-story author, columnist, translator and radio host — and even a wedding singer in Hong Kong and the US. Raised by her blind grandmother in Hong Kong, she finds her passion in phenomenology.

ANNA WOZNIEWICZ

Since earning her BFA in film production (with an emphasis in sound design) Anna has worked as a creative technologist and sound designer at the intersection of entertainment, tech and XR. She’s the co-founder of Noctvrnal, a spatial audio studio specializing in VR/AR content, installations and site-specific activations; she’s also spoken at GameSoundCon and Game Developers Conference, and has created and taught VR classes for both Chapman and Orange Coast College.