Tuesday, October 16, 2018

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM, Herscher Hall, Guerin A, Live Webcast

The Hollywood Masterclass: TV, Film and Video - Packaging - Producing - Bundling - Distributing in a Cross-Platform World

Adam Arkin, Emmy award-winning, Director, Executive Producer, Actor

Lidia Porto, Actor, co-star, GET SHORTY (Series on Epix)

Don Handfield, CEO/President, Motor, Producer, “The Founder” & “Kill The Messenger”

Goya Robles, Actor, Get Shorty, The Mentalist

Dwayne Johnson-Cochran, Writer, Producer, Director, "White Water", "Be Known

Moderator, Catherine Clinch, TV Writer, TV veteran, Hunter, Jake & The Fat Man, Knight Rider, Love Boat, Hart to Hart

Catherine Clinch’s produced writing credits include: HUNTER, JAKE & THE FATMAN, KNIGHT RIDER, LOVE BOAT, HART TO HART, FOUL PLAY, TRUE CONFESSIONS and, most recently, RESCUE BOTS. She has served for nearly two decades as an Adjunct Assistant Professor, teaching Advanced Video Production, Screenwriting, Communication Theory and Social Media Strategy & Content Marketing at California State University Dominguez Hills. She has written, produced and presented more than 250 hours of LIVE interactive broadcast. She was Associate Publisher of Creative Screenwriting Magazine and

was a key organizer of the first five years of Screenwriting Expo. In addition, she has written for Cultural Weekly, Studio System News, Film News Briefs and The Huffington Post. Catherine serves as a media strategy and content advisor to companies through her consultancy Clinch Digital Media. She has moderated panels and / or spoken at numerous conferences in Los Angeles, Nashville and Orlando. Catherine has also been awarded three US Patents for inventing a mobile platform and a new form of mobile entertainment. Catherine is currently writing and developing a project with new IP for Stan Lee’s POW Entertainment.

Adam Arkin, Emmy award-winning, Director, Executive Producer, Actor: Adam Arkin has been a favorite with audiences and critics alike for over 40 years both as an actor and as a director in Theatre, Film and Television. He was thirteen when his father, actor Alan Arkin, cast him in his first acting role in the Academy Award winning short film, People Soup, and Arkin has been working ever since. In 1977, Arkin landed his first series regular role as the central character in the CBS comedy, Busting Loose. Over the next three decades the versatile actor has appeared in countless TV shows and films, including Life, Sons of Anarchy, Hitch and the Coen Brothers’ Oscar-nominated A Serious Man which earned a Boston Film Critics’ Award for Best Ensemble Cast. He earned Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Guest Actor for his standout depiction of Adam, a reclusive loner who never wore shoes, on the CBS hit series, Northern Exposure, for his performance as Frasier’s obsessive fan on the NBC series, Frasier and for his role as Dr. Aaron Shutt on CBS’, Chicago Hope. He received a Drama Desk nomination for his performance in Donald Margulies’ Brooklyn Boy and a Tony nomination for his Broadway debut in Paul Rudnick’s comedy, I Hate Hamlet. Arkin first tried his hand at directing during his stint on Northern Exposure and soon the versatile actor/director found a unique niche directing projects in which he also appeared. Today, he is one of television’s busiest directors with a list of credits that include Justified, Sons of Anarchy, The Bridge, Sneaky Pete, Masters of Sex, Billions and HBO’s upcoming Succession. In 2010, Arkin began extending his duties to producing, first serving as Producing Director on the critically acclaimed FX spy drama The Americans and then as Co-Executive Producer on Season 2 of Secrets and Lies for ABC. He currently serves as Executive Producer/Director on Get Shorty for EPIX.

Lidia Porto was born in Barranquilla, Colombia, raised in Texas, and has travelled a lot. She majored in French and also studied Spanish and International Affairs at Trinity University in San Antonio and in Strasbourg, France with an internship at the Council of Europe. She started training as an actor after getting her B.A. and currently plays Mob Boss “Amara de Escalones” on the hit Epix Original Series “Get Shorty.” Her overnight success only took 34 years and included every type of acting gig possible, including Blue  Walrus and Mock Trial defendant, as well as various other industry jobs.  For years, she was a staple of the Houston performing arts community, accumulating credits in TV and film as well as commercial, voiceover and educational projects for a wide gamut of clients. She directed plays, wrote for herself and others and briefly studied playwriting with the late Edward Albee.  In 2012, at age 50, she started acting full-time with the role of “Maria” in “Scary Movie 5” followed by recurring roles on shows such as “Shameless”, “Jane the Virgin”, “American Housewife”, and “Major Crimes.” She’s had small, comedic roles in films like “Rocketman,” “Idiocracy,” “Extract," “Horrible Bosses 2",  and “Dope”, and larger dramatic roles in indie films like “Running Wild”,  “Pray for Rain” and Lifetime’s “Girl Missing.”  Her work in the short film, “Doris” garnered her a Best Actress award at the Festival de Cine Social in Toledo, Spain and a nomination from the Official Latino Short Film Festival in New York City.  She has enjoyed living and working in Los Angeles since 2013 and especially exploring the emerging Digital entertainment landscape.  She played the criminal family matriarch Antonia in Machinima Prime's online series, "Chop Shop” and has worked on shows for Netflix and Amazon as well.  Inspired by other Creatives, Lidia spends a lot of her free time writing and is working on various personal projects including comedic short stories, a bit of stand-up, a web series based on her time raising her son and a film inspired by her parents incredibly short courtship and impressively long marriage.

Don Handfield, CEO/President, Motor: Don is a filmmaker, screenwriter, producer and novelist. He is the co-creator of History Channel's drama series Knightfall, premiering winter 2018. Handfield produced The Founder starring Michael Keaton and Kill The Messenger starring two-time academy award nominated actor Jeremy Renner. Handfield wrote and directed the Saturn Award winning film Touchback that starred Kurt Russell and Christine Lahti. Handfield also wrote the novel, which was a top seller on Amazon and received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly.  He has co-written three comic series, including The Rift, published in 2017 and the upcoming series The Source and The Mall. The Rift was recently optioned for television with a pilot shooting in Summer/Fall 2018. His short film My Name Is starring French Stewart won best short at several film festivals including the top prize at the Atlanta Film Festival, qualifying it for entry into the Academy Awards. He was named one of the top new faces of independent film by Filmmaker Magazine in 2005 and has written screenplays for Warner Brothers, DreamWorks, Paramount and Lionsgate, among others.

Dwayne Johnson-Cochran is a writer, producer, director and educator based in Los Angeles. Born and raised in Chicago, Johnson-Cochran trained as a geologist at the University of Illinois and was editor of his college newspaper. He worked for an oil company in exploration until he found his true calling as a filmmaker. Accepted into the MFA program at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, his concentration was filmmaking and film history. After working as a journalist/cameraman for local newspapers and television stations, Johnson-Cochran joined Burrell Advertising producing numerous commercials and short films. Johnson-Cochran shifted to documentaries joining the local PBS station WTTW-Chicago producing, writing and directing documentaries including "Going Home to Gospel with Patti LaBelle”, "Babies at Risk" on infant mortality in Chicago and "School Reform-Power to the Parents" and was a field producer for the Emmy-award winning nightly news show 'Chicago Tonight featuring John Calloway.' With the award-winning novelist An Chee Min (Red Azala, Katherine), Mr. Johnson-Cochran was invited to The People's Republic of China to create and produce "Stories from America," a 20-part television series, focused on the lives of Chinese-American scientists and professionals living and working in the United States returning home for the first time. Johnson-Cochran transitioned into screenwriting after his very first spec screenplay 'My Tribe is Lost' sold to Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks. Johnson-Cochran was the co-creator of NBC hit series "Minor Adjustments" and wrote and produced on the CBS series "Angel Street," executed produced by John Wells (The West Wing, ER). Johnson-Cochran's directing debut, "Love and Action in Chicago" (HBO) featuring Kathleen Turner, Courtney B. Vance, Jason Alexander, Regina King and Ed Asner was purchased by HBO and sold to sixty countries around the world. He continues to make documentaries through his company Johnson-Cochran Films including “Story of a Village” starring actor/director/producer Regina King and “Side by Side” executive produced by former Secretary of State Madeline K. Albright for National Democratic Institute (NDI). Johnson-Cochran also works with UNESCO as a writing/filmmaking instructor around the world and "Be Known" a jazz documentary about Kahil El Zabar executive produced by Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance and nominated for NAACP award and Black Reel Awards.  In 2015 he co-wrote and produced "White Water," a period drama staring Sharon Leal and Larenz Tate, nominated for three NAACP Image awards and is currently airing on TVONE. Currently, Johnson-Cochran is in pre-production as the creator and Co-EP of the FX network series “Heist 88” starring Courtney B. Vance (The People vs. O.J. Simpson) and in preparation to direct the crime thriller “Tourist.”