Faculty

Ben Harris
Ben is Manager and Lecturer in the UCLA Producers Program.  He graduated from the Producers Program in 2005 and was recruited by the faculty head, Professor Denise Mann, to run the academic and administrative operations of the program.  He also oversees the school’s internship program and teaches undergraduate classes on the entertainment industry and producing.

In summer 2008 Ben was asked by Dean Rosen to design the curriculum and recruit instructors for an executive training seminar that was co-sponsored by UCLA TFT and China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) and endorsed by the Chinese national government.  The seminar exposed a group of 25 high-level film and television executives from China to the inner workings of Hollywood and laid the foundation for closer cooperation between the two industries. Ben has produced five award-winning short films, among them COLLECTIBLES, which recently won the DGA Student Film Awards for its director, and THE DAY I KNEW I LOVED YOU, which was a finalist for the Chrysler Feature Film Competition.  Since 2006 he has produced, shot and edited thirteen episodes of D.I.P.S.: THE DELPHINUS INTERGALACTIC PARCEL SERVICE, a sci-fi comedy series that runs on the Internet: www.DIPSCorp.com.

In 2008 Ben was a Faculty Fellow at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation’s Faculty Seminar.

Ben was born and bred in Hamburg, Germany.  He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Kent, United Kingdom, and his MA in Critical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.  He lives in Los Angeles.

Denise Mann (Overview of Contemporary Film and Television Industries: Navigating Hollywood)
Denise Mann, Associate Professor and Chair of the graduate MFA Producers Program in the Department of Film, Television, and Digital Media, UCLA, teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on contemporary entertainment industry practices as well as critical studies seminars on film and television history and theory. Mann routinely delivers talks at scholarly conferences and is frequently invited to deliver industry talks at international film festivals and conferences such as the Tokyo International Film Festival and Shanghai International Film Festival and at major universities in Asia and Europe, Beijing Broadcasting Institute, Shanghai University, Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne and Institut National de L’Audiovisuel (INA). She has served as a consultant to Creek and River Co., a media management firm in Tokyo, and served on the board of the Association Internationale des Médias (AIM) in Paris. Her book, Hollywood Independents – The Postwar Talent Takeover (University of Minnesota Press, 2008), has been receiving positive reviews (Variety, Boston Globe, DGA Quarterly).  Mann co-edited Private Screenings: Television & the Female Consumer (University of Minnesota Press, 1992) and has published articles on television and consumer culture in a range of journals and book-length collections including Jeremy G. Butler, ed., Star Texts: Image and Performance in Film and Television (1991); John Caldwell, Miranda Banks, Vicki Mayer, eds., Production Studies: Cultural Studies of Film, Television, and New Media Work Worlds (forthcoming); and Daniel Bernardi, ed., Different Visions, Revolutionary Perceptions: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Work of Contemporary Filmmakers (forthcoming). Mann served as an associate editor on Camera Obscura, a journal of feminism and film theory, for six years (1986-1992).

Navid McIlhargey
Navid McIlhargey graduated from graduate school at Columbia College in Chicago where he studied film.  After an internship at Jodie Foster’s Egg pictures, Navid moved to LA where he began his career at UTA.  He quickly became an executive at Revolution Studios where he worked on White Chicks, Peter Pan, and many others. 

Navid worked for 4 years at Joel Silver's company where he was the Executive Producer of RockNrolla and oversaw many of Joel’s larger action fare including The Forbidden Planet, Logan’s Run, The Dirty Dozen, Altered Carbon, Masters of the Universe, Hot Wheels, Time and Again, Empire, and more. 

Navid recently began as Senior Vice President at New Regency productions under Hutch Parker.  He has been tasked with finding and developing new franchises for the "new" New Regency.

Tom Garvin
Tom Garvin has represented films that have won every major international film award including the Golden Palm in Cannes, Academy Awards, Golden Globes and Golden Bear.  On his tenth anniversary as a producer's representative, Garvin was honored in 1992 with two tributes by the American Film Institute in Los Angeles and at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. with a retrospective program showing some of the over 200 films he represented for financing and/or distribution.

He has served as a producer or executive producer on numerous international co-productions including The Arc, a United States and United Kingdom co-production which premiered at the 1992 Berlin International Film Festival; The Garden of Eden, a Canadian and Mexican co-production which premiered at the 1994 Venice Film Festival; Rob Tregenza's Inside/Out, which premiered at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival; Walter Salles' Central Station, a French/Brazilian co-production which won the 1998 Golden Globe Best Foreign Film and the 1998 Berlin Film Festival first prize Golden Bear; and the Lorne Michaels and Mick Jagger 2001 production of Michael Apted's film Enigma.  Tom has arranged the financing and/or distribution of innumerable films since 1979 including recent films K-19: The Widowmaker, The Wedding Planner, K-Pax, The Quiet American, T3: The Rise of the Machines, Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, Oliver Stone's Alexander and Barry Sonnenfeld's comedy RV.

Tom is a member of the Advisory Board of the Sundance Film Festival, Founding Chairman of the UCLA Entertainment Tax and Finance Institute and has since 1998 been a Visiting Assistant professor in the UCLA Graduate School of Theatre, Film and Television.  He is the past Chair of the Intellectual Property & Entertainment Law Committee of the International Bar Association.

Myrl Schreibman
Award-winning Producer/Director and Adjunct Professor at UCLA Department of Film Television and Digital Media, Myrl Schreibman has produced for Theater, Feature Film, Television and the Concert Stage in his 40 years experience as a producer. He has produced both independently and for studios and his book The Indie Producers Handbook, Creative Producing A - Z has been declared by Movie Maker magazine as the #1 book on Producing. It is now translated into Chinese and is being used by independent producers and film students in China. His projects include the cult film classics, The Clonus Horror, and Hunters Blood, the highly successful movie for television The Girl, The Gold Watch and Everything, as well as Chicago in Concert, the Emmy Awards, and the Broadway productions of On the Waterfront and The Ice Show.

He is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Film and Television where he teaches in both the graduate Producing and Directing MFA programs. His course on Planning the Independent Production is the one major required course in the MFA Producers Program and his book, The Indie Producers Handbook, Creative Producing from A - Z, is used by every major film school in this country and has been translated and published in China for professionals and film students in that country. His students have gone on to direct and or produce major feature films some of which were developed in his course

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