UCLA Producers Program

If you lived in an ideal world and could dream up the best way to train the next generation of creative film and television producers and industry executives, you would aspire to the impossible– unique classes that would enlighten students on the secrets of making tough decisions that are both artistically valid and economically sound.

Ideally, you would hope for courses taught by the most articulate, engaged, intellectually expansive and innovative leaders in the industry who would willingly share how they make tough decisions. And, they would do so in the secure and nurturing context of a closed classroom where questions are welcome and frank discussions take place.

Impossible dreams? These become realities for students in the UCLA Producers Program.

While the television community was abuzz about how, under Steve McPherson's leadership, ABC moved from the 4th-ranked network to No. 1 in the course of one year, McPherson was sharing his strategies in a UCLA classroom.

While others were wondering how a new high-concept show with an ambiguous name could make it in a time slot with no hit show leading in to it, McPherson and his team were teaching how the season's drama, “Lost,” went from an offbeat idea to an Emmy-winning hit TV series.

While “Desperate Housewives” was making headlines, the Producers Program was bringing its creators and production staff from the boardrooms and the sound rooms to the classroom.

Alumnus Tom Nunan '84, an executive producer of the critically acclaimed film “Crash,” who has been a top decision- maker at three networks, created a class that would illuminate the strategies behind the business of television.

"I found the students exceedingly interested, and engaging," McPherson said of his time on campus. "I wish I had had that kind of training when I was coming up in the business. It's not readily available. There's very little training of this kind. It's a bootstrap kind of business. The opportunity for students to interact with people in the business at this level is invaluable."

Learning from the people who actually make the decisions in Hollywood is at the heart of the Producers Program curriculum.

For example, producer David Hoberman has his students participate in the development of his multiple projects. When in production, such as on his Emmy-winning show “Monk,” he showed dailies to the class, and during pilot season, students shared in the drama of his going to New York to find out whether his pilot got picked up.

His feature film “The Negotiator” was test-screened at UCLA, and students were invited to the final film presentation after hearing from the director, writers, producers and the entire creative team. "That he is forthcoming in all aspects of the process, that he is open to this, I find refreshing," said Professor and media scholar Denise Mann, the architect and current head of the Producers Program.

Joe Roth, a producer and director as well as the founder of Revolution Studios, which, in its five years of existence, has generated more than 30 films including the Oscar-nominated “Black Hawk Down,” has taught in the program for several years. Students had a front row seat during his transition from heading Walt Disney Studios to forming Revolution. While he was negotiating to create the company, hire his team and assemble financing for projects with an international scope, he was sharing his strategy with students.

"I remember sitting in his class, thinking, this is phenomenal information!" Mann said. "It was being taught as he's thinking it up, as he's negotiating, as he's strategizing — in other words, the information about how to forge an effective production deal, issues that would be debated and discussed by industry analysts over the next two years in the trades, was being presented in its raw form as he's developing the company."

Roth is known for taking 15 or 20 of the scripts that have been green-lit at his company, pulling the covers with names off, and distributing them unmarked among the class. He asks students to analyze them by adopting the same thinking that a studio head must when choosing a slate of projects. They examine critical business issues surrounding budget, audience, director, casting and more. Then they decide if the project makes good business sense.

Drawing on an encyclopedic knowledge of the business, faculty member Sheila Hanahan Taylor (“American Pie,” “Final Destination” 1 & 2) of Practical Pictures, asks students to assess the commercial viability of their projects by carefully researching what is getting made and why.

Chairman and CEO of Mandalay, Peter Guber, has been teaching in the Producers Program for more than 35 years. To have a class like his on navigating the studio system, taught by the former head of a studio, is a future producer's dream. His current class is based on a movie in pre-production, an untitled David O'Russell comedy starring Vince Vaughn. Students read drafts of the screenplay, watch dailies and hear from the screenwriter and executives at Guber's company, all in an intimate setting of only 15 to 20 classmates.

"Besides bringing a wealth of knowledge, having industry leaders in the classroom keeps it very current," said Barbara Boyle (“Instinct,” “Phenomenon,” “Bottle Rocket”), chair of the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media who has had a career of 30 years in the industry and who teaches in the Producers Program. "Just as in the business, the success of our program involves a team of people with different areas of specialization, each with their own expertise and point of view."

A small sample of the dedicated professionals and the rich offerings they bring to the Producers Program as faculty includes:

• Ken Suddleson of Morrison & Foerster, one of Hollywood's leading entertainment lawyers, who reveals the complexities behind negotiation strategy, entertainment law, and issues of economics and intellectual property.
• With 35 years of experience, former vice chairman of the William Morris Agency, Jerry Katzman teaches courses on television packaging and, as the School's Director of Industry Relations, provides students with an in-depth overview of the different forms of representation offered by agents, business managers and lawyers.
• Howard Suber, who has served as a consultant to every major film studio on copyright and creative control issues, specializes in teaching film structure and the realities of the business. Suber, founding chair of the Producers Program, originated the current strategy of inviting industry professionals to teach.
• Top William Morris television agent, Paul Nagle, articulates the role of the writer-producer, or show runner, in creating television shows.
• Producer Meg LeFauve (“Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys,” “Baby Dance”), former president of Egg Pictures, imparts her skills in film development and production.
• Geoff Gilmore, director of The Sundance Film Festival, explains key aspects of financing and distribution of the independent or "specialty" film.
• Peter Bart, vice president and editor of “Daily Variety,” brings two decades of veteran Hollywood trade journalism and analysis to the classroom.
• Producer Arnold Rifkin, chair of Cheyenne Entertainment, shares his years of experience as agent, and now partner, to Bruce Willis, to help students develop the tools needed to present themselves and their projects with clarity and passion.
• Producer Tom Sherak of Revolution, illuminates how the company got off the ground to become a film powerhouse and investigates with students the strategies behind distribution and exhibition as well as the philosophy, structure and major players which make up the entertainment industry.

These are only a few examples of the expertise of the many industry insiders who bring not only extraordinary knowledge to the Producers Program, but great teaching as well, plus a deep commitment to their students and to the importance of story that begets creative new producers and executives.

"We want to prepare our students to understand the existing system so they will be able to navigate the grand art and commerce divide," says Mann. "Students must employ a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach to learning that includes finding and developing great material, attending courses taught by working professionals, interning to learn tangible skills on the job, and forming collaborative relationships with their classmates in the areas of producing, screenwriting and directing."

Simple lessons being taught by entertainment heavyweights. Complex strategies being shared by real people. The Producers Program intertwines the experienced with the fresh, the artistic with the economic, the ability to watch amazing stories unfold with the opportunity to contribute to them. It teaches lessons, as they occur, that could not be learned so well in any other way.

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