Alumni Quick Takes
These alumni are making power moves worth noting.
Brad Ableson ’97 directorial debut film Minions: The Rise of Gru will premiere in Annecy this summer.
Monica Ahanonu ’13 worked with Frito Lay on a new campaign to design all 5 variations of Cracker Jill and partnered with Toms for their Artist Series.
Tayo Amos ’19 was selected to take part in producer Will Packer’s Scene In Color film series, where she will be mentored by Packer and receive a blind script deal with NBCUniversal. Her short film Magnolia Bloom was released on Peacock.
Victoria Aveyard ’12 wrote the novel Red Queen, which has been acquired for a series adaptation.
Emma Ben Ayoun ’22 will be joining SCA's Division of Cinema and Media Studies as Postdoctoral Fellow for the year 2022-23.
Michelle Askew ’21 wrote the script Hot Girl Summer, selected for the 2021 Black List.
Jason Michael Berman ’06 will produce a feature on the true-life story of Nike sneaker man, Sonny Vaccaro.
Thomas Berry ’14 co-wrote the script False Truth, selected for the 2021 Black List.
Becky Hutner ’03 directed, produced and co-edited her first feature documentary, Fashion Reimagined, which will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Michelle Denise Jackson ’17 won a WGA award for best Adapted Long Form her work on the show MAID. She's currently a producer on the Morning Show.
Cecilia de Jesus ’13 received the first-ever LXiA Animation Spark Grant, sponsored by Netflix.
Dr. Jeanne Jo ’17 was featured in What Am I Doing Here?, a collection of short films that is on view at the Southern Utah Museum of Art.
Kelley Kali ’17 is set to direct the feature Kemba for MPI Original Films and BET and was the 2021 Academy Domestic Gold Fellowship for Women Recipient.
Zhang Kang ’16 is currently directing his first feature film in China.
Aaron Kaplan ’90, producer and founder of Kapital Entertainment, has teamed up with SK Global, Jeff Sagansky and Florence Sloan to found Jaya Entertainment. The company will focus on developing, producing and financing international series.
Min Shi ’18 and Curry Tian ’20 were speakers at Motion Plus Design Festival (March 26th, 2022).
Ian Shorr ’08 will write the remake of the Korean thriller, Time for Hunt, for Netflix.
Jhanvi Shriram ’13 launched the interactive NFT game SolarPups on August 22nd.
Jason Shuman ’96 has signed a multi-picture development deal with Sony Pictures International.
Zaiver Sinnett ’18 was included in the 2022 Out Loud List, an annual list of the best unproduced queer-focused television pilots of the past year. Sinnett’s script They Suffered, Beautifully, was selected.
Trace Slobotkin ’95 was the Head Writer of the Huluween Dragstravaganza, a musical-comedy variety show airing on Hulu throughout the month of October.
Rob Smart ’17 has signed a two-book publishing deal with Gaudium.
Chad Stahelski has been tapped to direct Netflix’s feature film adaptation of The Black Samurai novels.
Tim Story ’94 directed The Blackening, which premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival and whose worldwide rights were acquired by Lionsgate.
Akela Cooper
Cooper graduated in 2006 with an MFA from Writing for Screen and Television, where she was the first recipient of the NAACP/CBS Writers Fellowship.
She wrote the script for Malignant, last year’s horror hit from director James Wan, considered one of the year’s best. She was named to Variety’s 2021 list of 10 Screenwriters to Watch.
Cooper has previously done a plethora of outstanding work in television, penning and producing on such series as Luke Cage, Grimm, The 100, American Horror Story, and Witches of East End.
She is currently a co-executive producer for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and has accumulated a variety of accolades. Cooper is set to be the showrunner for the upcoming HBO Max television adaptation of the novel Monster by A. Lee Martinez. She is also the screenwriter for two projects set to be released in 2023: the science-fiction horror film M3gan, another collaboration with James Wan; and The Nun 2, directed by Michael Chaves.
Lauren Brown ’15 and Alexandria Jackson ’16 edited and directed the short film Sophie and The Baron, which has been acquired by Disney+ as its first original documentary.
Zoe Brown will produce the play, Get It Together, at the Zephyr Theatre on Melrose Ave.
James Cahill ’10 and Brian Jacobson ’11 have co-edited a new issue of Representations (Winter 2022) with Weihong Bao on Media Climates.
Christopher Cantwell ’04 will serve as showrunner and write the adaptation of the series reboot of Max Headroom.
Guillermo Casarin ’21 was awarded Best Student Documentary for Bad Hombrewood at the Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at Cannes.
Simon Wilches Castro ’14 finished working on station IDs at Titmouse for Hulu.
Elyse Kelly ’11 was nominated for an Emmy in Outstanding Social Issue Documentary for In the Dark of the Valley.
Jenny Klein ’07 is the showrunner of The Thing About Pam and did an interview about it with Oxygen in early April.
Daniel Kunka ’01 wrote the script Lift, selected for the 2021 Black List.
Ezra Lerner ’23 was announced as a finalist for the Museum of the Moving Image’s Student Grand Jury prize.
Shawn Levy ’94 will direct the Disney+ series adaptation of Real Steel. Fellow alumni Robert Zemeckis ’73 and Don Murphy ’88 will serve as executive producers on the project.
Michael Lewen ’11 will direct the Netflix adaptation of Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between.
Tim Story ’94 has entered a first-look television deal with Entertainment One.
Adam Sztykiel ’99 will write and direct an original, live-action Wonder Twins film for HBO Max.
Jason Taylor ’00 received an Australian Academy Award nomination for “Best Film” for Sissy.
Rawson Marshall Thurber ’99 will oversee a flagship ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ TV series for eOne.
David E. Tolchinsky ’88, the director of the Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab at Northwestern University’s Department of Radio, Television and Film, was featured in an article in Variety. The program focuses on mental health and its role in filmed entertainment.
Ke Huy Quan
In Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, this year’s mind-bending, genre-defying, jaunt through a multiverse, Ke Huy Quan plays Waymond Wang, the sensitive husband of Evelyn Quan Wang (Michelle Yeoh) who possesses multitudes of his own.
It holds a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes with critics praising Quan’s performance of Waymond, with the New York Times lauding his “Chaplinesque ability to swerve from clownishness to pathos.”
In the 80s, a teenaged Quan enjoyed breakout success when he was cast by Steven Spielberg to play Short Round, the orphaned sidekick to Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. A year later, he starred as Data in the ensemble comedy film The Goonies. After graduating from the School of Cinematic Arts Film & Television Production Division with BA in 1999, Quan found there were limited opportunities for Asian American actors in Hollywood. He turned to stunt coordination and assistant directing, enjoying a fruitful career in both Asia and the United States.
The film Crazy Rich Asians inspired Quan to return to acting. After acquiring an agent, the first script to hit his desk was Everything, Everywhere. As GQ put it, Quan’s performance is “giving Hollywood a good, hard look at the undeniable star they could’ve had the last two decades.”
Brenda Chen ’19 was nominated for an MTV award for Best Metaverse Performance for her work on Justin Bieber – An Interactive Virtual Experience.
Calvin Chin won 10 awards at the 2021 Clio Entertainment Awards for his movie trailers and TV spots for Disney campaigns at Tiny Hero.
Alex Convery ’14 wrote the script Air Jordan, selected for the 2021 Black List.
Danny Dalah ’17 wrote Everybody Wants to Date My Sister, which will be screened at the Channel 101 film festival.
David Liu ’17 was awarded the 2022 SFFILM Rainin Grant for his narrative feature in development, Santa Anita. David will write and direct and Xin Li ’17 will produce under their Journey West Pictures banner. The project was also selected to participate in the 44th edition of IFP/Gotham Week in New York City.
Miles Lopez ’21 premiered his short film Cartas Para Axél at Outfest on July 20th.
Sophia Lopez ’18 wrote the script A Hufflepuff Love Story, selected for the 2021 Black List.
Marisa Torelli-Pedevska ’22, who founded The Inevitable Foundation, released their first ever Cost of Accommodations Report, which reveals the costs of disability-based accommodations for Hollywood productions, aiming to destigmatize such. The report was featured in The Hollywood Reporter.
Richard Tucci ’05 directed Behind The Reality Curtain: The Tila Tequila Story, starring Michael Rousselet ’04 and produced by the company Tongal. It received an honorable mention at the WWCSFF Film Festival. Two follow up pieces were ordered from Tucci: Behind The Reality Curtain: The Floribama Shore Story and Revelations.
Manouchka Kelly Labouba
Manouchka Kelly Labouba is assistant curator for “Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898-1971” the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures exhibition that will run through April 2023. The exhibit speaks to the historical and cultural significance of filmmaking while documenting the African American pioneers who worked on and off camera.
Labouba received her MA ’12 and Ph.D. ’20 in Cinema & Media Studies from the School of Cinematic Arts, as well as a Certificate in the Business of Entertainment ’18. Her research primarily focuses on International Cinema, Sub-Saharan African cinema, New Hollywood and Blaxploitation. Her studies have been published in the Journal of African Cinemas and Spectator, the African Studies Review, and Film International.
She is curating an exhibition on John Singleton’s career at the School of Cinematic Arts, to accompany the current retrospective of his films.
Danny Dalah ’17 wrote Everybody Wants to Date My Sister, which will be screened at the Channel 101 film festival.
Jeff Davis ’00 and Jason Ensler ’97 are set to executive produce the Paramount + series Wolf Pack. Ensler is also set to direct the pilot episode.
Teddy Dief ’12 released We Are OFK on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation. The interactive animated series is a mixed-industry project between television, animation, games, and pop music.
Stephen E. Dinehart ’06 worked for Super Nintendo World, which won the Themed Entertainment Association Award for Outstanding Achievement in a Theme Park Land. He also co-designed and wrote the attraction Mario Kart, which won the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Technical Innovation.
Ross Dinerstein ’05 will produce a feature documentary with 101 Studios on the corruption within FIFA.
Shaun Dixon ’07 was the cinematographer for the 3D Finale and 2D live assets of the Stranger Things Experience, created for Netflix and Fever.
Leon Lozano ’04 was selected for the Warner Brothers Directors Workshop and will direct an episode of All American: Homecoming. He will make his television directorial debut on August 16th with the BET Network show Tales. He is also wrapping post-production on his feature film A Little Hope For Chicago and his short comedic doc Prom Night, created as a part of the Netflix and HotDocs - It’s Funny Because It’s True program.
Tina Mabry ’05 has signed on to direct and co-write Pretty Big at Warner Bros. and HBO Max.
Spencer Marentette ’17 co-wrote the script Go Dark, selected for the 2021 Black List.
Luci Marzola ’10, ’16 Engineering Hollywood: Technology, Technicians, and the Science of Building the Studio System won the Media Industries’ SIG CEMI Award for Best Book in 2021.
Charlie Matthau ’86 will develop and produce an adaptation of the novel Jane of Austin: A Novel of Sweet Tea and Sensibility, as a TV series.
Meera Menon ’11 will direct Universal’s adaptation of Naomi Novik’s novel A Deadly Education.
Michael Turcios ’22 has accepted a two-year Post-Doc in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at Northwestern University.
Brian Tweedt ’98 served as Director of Photographer on Still Working 9 to 5, which will be screened at South by Southwest. Fellow alum Jon Berry ’06 worked as an additional editor on the project.
Ioana Maria Uricaru ’11 is a 2022 recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.
Rebecca Usoro ’13 wrote, directed, and starred in The Family Meeting and was selected for the 26th LA Shorts International Film Festival.
Chris Van Dusen ’03 will co-write and executive produce Entertainment One’s TV series adaptation of They Both Die at the End.
Ketsia Vedrine ’14 joined The Bulfinch Group as a Financial Representative.
Samantha Vilfort ’17 was featured on the Disney+ show, Sketchbook.
Kyle Mooney
Among the major Saturday Night Live (SNL) cast members making their exodus this season is SCA alumnus Kyle Mooney (BA, Film & Television Production, 2007).
Mooney made his first appearance on SNL as a featured player in 2013. He was subsequently promoted to a repertory player. She is curating an exhibition on John Singleton’s career at the School of Cinematic Arts, to accompany the current retrospective of his films.
Mooney was known for his animated celebrity impressions on the show, including Steve Jobs, Johnny Depp, and Macklemore. Last year Mooney co-created, wrote, and executive produced the adult cartoon comedy show Saturday Morning All Star Hits! for Netflix.
Mooney left an incredible impact on SNL and his departure from the iconic variety show will entice fans and followers to see what new projects he plans to pursue next. His most hilarious moments from past SNL seasons can be revisited via Peacock and Hulu subscriptions.
Shaun Dixon ’07 was the cinematographer for the 3D Finale and 2D live assets of the Stranger Things Experience, created for Netflix and Fever.
Hwang Dong-hyuk ’04 is developing a satire, The Best Show on the Planet, based off the creation of his hit-Netflix series Squid Game.
Susan Downey ’95 will produce HBO Max’s Sherlock Holmes spinoff series.
Grafton Doyle ’19 (Dornsife and SDA) made his writing and directorial debut with Dope Queens.
David Eilenberg ’99 joined Roku as Head of Originals to oversee its Original Programming.
Sonia Misra ’22 has accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Connecticut College.
Dr. Triton Mobley ’21 penned the essay "Volumetric Black: Post-Cinematic Blackness" which was published as part of the book Materializing Digital Features: Touch, Movement, Sound and Vision.
Raamla Mohamed ’08 will extend her overall deal with ABC Signature. Raamla’s legal drama Reasonable Doubt, has received a series order by Onyx Collective to stream on Hulu.
Mercedes Bryce Morgan ’16 will have her first feature premiere at TIFF. The feature was directed by Mercedes and produced by Katrina Kudlick ’16.
Sophia Wagner-Serrano ’19 and Manouchka Labouba ’20 are part of the curatorial team which opened the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Fall 2021.
Dr. Clea von Charmier Waite ’19 had two papers accepted to the ISEA conference in Barcelona. Her papers Supra-Dimensional Cinema: VR Case Study TesserIce and Navigating the 4D Space-Time of Climate Change: Tesserice entail her groundbreaking work in VR.
Jenny Waldo ’04 wrote and directed her debut feature Acid Test, which will have its West Coast premiere in Los Angeles at the Dances with Films festival on June 18th.
Delon Warren ’18 was a storyboard artist on the Amazon Prime series, The Boys.
Athena Wickham
Wickham is executive producing two highly-anticipated futuristic shows in Amazon’s Fall 2022 lineup: The Peripheral, where a woman discovers an alternate reality, and Fallout, an adaptation of the post-apocalyptic video game.
Wickham (BA, Film & Television Production, 2002) has served as a creative executive at Bad Robot and Kilter Films. She has produced on shows such as Fringe, Person of Interest, and Alcatraz, and was an executive producer on HBO’s popular dystopian, neo-Western television series, Westworld.
Kirk Ellis ’83 will Executive Produce the Apple TV+ series adaptation of A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America.
Carmen Emmi ’12 was a finalist in the 2022 ScreenCraft Feature Competition.
Andrew Scott Ferguson wrote the script The Villian, selected for the 2021 Black List.
Kate Fortmueller ’14 published both Below the Stars: How the Labor of Working Actors and Extras Shapes Media Production and Hollywood Shutdown: Production, Distribution and Exhibition in the Time of Covid with University of Texas Press in 2021.
Kate Fortmueller’s ’14 book Below the Stars: How the Labor of Working Actors and Extras Shapes Media Production is on the long list for the 2022 Krazna-Krausz Foundation Moving Image Book Award.
Broderick Fox ’99, ’03,’04 directed the feature documentary Manscaping which will have its West Coast premiere at Outfest.
Kristen Fuhs ’11 co-edited Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness with Routledge Press in 2021.
Brad Fulton ’02 will release a set of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo-themed playing cards in October. He currently owns a playing card company and collaborated with the Hitchcock estate on the project.
Jeffery Gary ’84 premiered his documentary Letters From Brno at the Museum of Tolerance on November 9th.
Jonathan Glickman launched Panoramic Media, a multi-platform content venture.
Jessica Granger ’12 co-wrote the script Candlewood, selected for the 2021 Black List.
James Gray ’91 is set to direct MadRiver Pictures’ biopic of young John F. Kennedy. Production is planned to begin next year.
James Grisom ’21 is a Caucus Foundation recipient for his film Eye for an I.
Jeff Hammer produced American Gadfly, which has been acquired by Gravitas Ventures.
Ryan Stevens Harris ’06 directed and John Michaels Elfers ’04 produced Moon Garden, which was nominated for a Panavision award for Outstanding Feature and for Best Director, Cinematography, Writing, Editing, Music, Actor and Actress at the Micheaux Film Festival.
Eric Hoyt ’08, ’12 published Ink-Stained Hollywood: The Triumph of American Cinema's Trade Press with University of California Press in March 2022.
Adam Novak ’90 had his book Rat Park released as an audiobook.
Maren Olson ’03 was hired at 30West and will serve as EVP Film.
Graham O’Young ’13 worked as the lead modeler on the Dreamworks movie The Bad Guys.
Ankita Panda ’20 directed the visuals for the mini opera, The Beginning of Everything.
Stuart C. Paul ’05 wrote the script Yasuke, selected for the 2021 Black List.
Philana Payton ’20 has started a position as Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies at University of California, Irvine.
Olivia Peace ’22 won a 2022 Student Academy Award for their interactive piece, Against Reality.
Kelly Peters ’05 was accepted as a mentee into the Women in Film 2022 mentoring program.
Christina Piña ’13 is an executive story editor on Charmed and wrote the Season 4 episode, “Cats and Camels and Elephants, Oh My…” that aired on April 29.
Erich Rettstadt ’16 won the SXSW Midnight Shorts competition for his short Tank Fairy. The short will premiere at Outfest on July 15.
Shonda Rhimes ’94 was named one of TIME’s most influential people of 2021.
Jay Roach ’86 is set to direct a new Ocean’s Eleven movie, which is in active development at Warner Bros.
Veronica Rodriguez ’15 signed with Verve after her NAACP image award nomination for Outstanding Directing on Let’s Get Merried for VH1 and MTV.
Geoffrey Roth wrote the script The Way You Remember Me, selected for the 2021 Black List.
Alex Rubin ’21 was selected for the Blacklist and Women in Film 2021 Episodic Lab.
Tiller Russell ’01 released the podcast “The Dangerous Art of the Documentary” through his production company Tillerman Films. The podcast was featured on the Guardian’s Best Podcasts of the Week.
Rox Samer ’16 published Lesbian Potentiality and Feminist Media in the 1970s with Duke University Press.
Aaron Schneider ’88 is set to direct Next Productions’ Holocaust drama Untold.
Steven P. Wegner ’93 will serve as EVP Production at Jonathan Lim’s new media company, City Hill Arts.
Gina Welch wrote The Sterling Affairs, which will be a six-episode limited series by FX.
Max Winkler ’06 will direct the pilot of the HBO Max series King Rex.
Zheng Lu Xinyuan ’17 directed Jet Lag, selected for the Belinale Forum.
Sergio Zaciu ’20 was a Script Consultant for the film, R.M.N. The film is in competition for Official Selection at Cannes.
Kay Zhang ’22 was awarded Best Student Film for Mother in the Mist at the Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at Cannes.
17 USC students and alumni were recognized as finalists for Humanitas Prizes
COLLEGE DRAMA
Diaspora Blues by Aashka Pandya ’22
COLLEGE COMEDY
Puberty Too by V Marks ’22 - WINNER
The Invasion of Ali Norman by Bailey Abedon ’22
The 1,000 Year Old Virgin by Bridget Parker ’22
COLLEGE DRAMA AWARD
Marcus Crawford Guy ’22
Carrie Finklea ’21
Howard Emanuel ’23
Alex Garcia ’22
Maurizio Ledezma ’22
Dawana Speights ’22
COLLEGE COMEDY AWARD
Monet Clements ’22 & Josh Granovsky ’22
Zane Peña ’23
Gabby Ruiz ’23
EMERGING WRITERS
Grace Gao ’15 (Dornsife)
Maurizio Ledezma ’22
Sam Thomasson ’23