Los Angeles and Hollywood remain the center of the entertainment universe. From film history and analyzing diversity in front of and behind the camera to commenting on pop culture and studying labor issues, UCLA has experts on the creative and business sides of the entertainment industry. Click an expert’s name for a detailed biography and contact information.
Film industry
Deborah Nadoolman Landis
Landis is an Academy Award-nominated costume designer, directs the Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
Howard Suber
Suber is professor emeritus of film and television and an expert on copyright and creative control. His specialties also include the business of movie making, including labor issues and story structure.
Gabriel Rossman
Rossman is an associate professor of sociology and an expert on culture, mass media, pop music radio and the Academy Awards. Rossman has developed an algorithm to calculate a film’s “Oscar appeal” and determined the amount of box-office boost movies get when they are nominated for an Academy Award.
Joe Olivieri
Olivieri, associate professor in the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and head of the undergraduate acting program, is available to comment on the craft of acting, actors’ performances and awards.
Jonathan Kuntz
Kuntz, a lecturer at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, is a film historian and an expert on the Hollywood studio system.
Tom Nunan
Nunan is a lecturer in the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and the founder of Bull’s Eye Entertainment, an independent film and television production company. A former television executive, Nunan is an authority on how TV networks create schedules and the business of Hollywood to film production and media management, among other things.
Vincent Brook
Brook, a lecturer in the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, has worked as a film editor and screenwriter and is an expert on film and television history and on Jewish history in Hollywood.
Glenn Williamson
Williamson is a lecturer in the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and an authority on the business and creative sides of moviemaking.
Sherry Ortner
Ornter is a distinguished professor of anthropology and an expert on the independent film scene.
Business of entertainment
Kal Raustiala
Raustiala is a professor of law and an expert on international and copyright law. He is the author of the paper “The Piracy Paradox: Innovation and Intellectual Property in Fashion Design.”
Daniel J.B. Mitchell
Mitchell, professor emeritus in the UCLA Anderson School of Management, is an authority on labor relations and strikes who comments frequently on negotiations between Hollywood studios and labor unions.
Jerry Nickelsburg
Nickelsburg is a professor in the UCLA Anderson School of Managment and senior economist with the UCLA Anderson Forecast who authored a report on the impact of the 2007-08 Hollywood writers strike.
Diversity and gender roles in Hollywood
Darnell Hunt
Hunt is dean of the division of social sciences in the UCLA College and a professor of sociology and an authority on the media’s coverage of race-related issues and the depiction of African Americans in film and television. He leads directing a long-term study of diversity in Hollywood, including the disproportionate representation of minorities and women in industry awards like the Oscars.
Chon Noriega
Noriega is a distinguished professor in the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and the former director of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. Noriega is an authority on Latino media and performance and visual arts, and also media access for underrepresented groups.
Myrna Hant
Hant is a researcher at UCLA’s Center for the Study of Women, whose studies focus on the roles of older women in film and television.
Ana-Christina Ramón
Ramon co-authors the Hollywood Diversity Report along with Darnell Hunt.
To find more faculty members with expertise, search the Media Guide to UCLA Experts.
