MPI's Creative Council
Cecilia deMille Presley, granddaughter of the celebrated filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille, is a dedicated film preservationist, philanthropist, and producer. She is the president and the guiding spirit of the Cecil B. DeMille Foundation, the long-time benefactor of higher education, child welfare, and film in southern California. She serves on the Board of Councillors of the UCLA Foundation and the Board of Trustees for Chapman University, actively supports the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Hathaway Home for Children, and has served on the board of the National Film Preservation Foundation.
Howard S. Hogan is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. Hogan's practice focuses on media and intellectual property litigation and counseling, including trademark, copyright, patent, false advertising, right of publicity, licensing, defamation, and trade secret matters. Many of Hogan’s matters have tested the application of traditional legal principles to the Internet and new media, including search engines, social media, and online sales. Hogan received his B.S.F.S., magna cum laude, in 1994 from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service where he was Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D., cum laude, in 1999 from New York University School of Law, where he was editor-in-chief of The Commentator and research and writing editor for the Moot Court Board. Hogan is also an alumnus of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, where he spent the 1992-93 academic term as a visiting student. From 1999-2000 Hogan served as a law clerk to the Honorable Naomi Reice Buchwald, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. Hogan frequently speaks and writes on issues relevant to news media and filmmakers.
Harry Kloor is a producer at Jupiter 9 Productions. He is also a writer, director, scientist, inventor, national technology policy advisor, and chief technology officer, with eleven years of writing and producing experience and twenty-six years of experience in science and technology consulting, policy making, and commercial and military product development. Kloor started his career as a freelance writer for Star Trek: Voyager and the animated series Godzilla, and was one of the key developers of the series Earth Final Conflict. In 1994, Kloor earned the unique status of being the first and (to date) the only person in the world to simultaneously earn two PhDs; he holds doctorates in physics and chemistry.
Frayda Levy owned and managed a book distribution business for eighteen years. After selling her business, she co-founded the New Jersey chapter of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), which teaches grassroots activists how to lobby legislators. Having begun her career as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill, she worked in the Reagan–Bush administration. She currently serves on the boards of the Club for Growth, Americans for Limited Government, and the Foundation for Economic Education. She holds an MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia and a BA from the University of Connecticut.
Rob Long began his career as a writer on the long-running sitcom Cheers, which he also co–executive produced in its final season. During his time on the series, Cheers received two Emmy awards and two Golden Globe awards. Long’s most recent television series are George and Leo, starring Bob Newhart and Judd Hirsch; Love & Money on CBS; and Men, Women & Dogs on the WB Network—all three of which he created with his writing partner, Dan Staley. Their production company, Staley/Long Productions, has been based at Paramount Studios since 1993.
A contributing editor for National Review and Newsweek International, Long also writes occasionally for the Wall Street Journal. His book Conversations with My Agent chronicled his early career in television, a story that he continued in his 2005 book Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke.
Long graduated from Yale University in 1987, and spent two years at the UCLA School of Film, Theater and Television, where he has also been adjunct professor of screenwriting. He serves on the board of directors of My Friend’s Place, an agency for homeless teens in Hollywood, and of the American Cinema Foundation.
Evan Coyne Maloney is an award-winning documentary filmmaker based in New York City. An early pioneer of video blogging, he got his start in filmmaking by posting short videos to his website, Brain-Terminal.com, which have since had tens of millions of views.
Maloney posted his first video in February 2003, years before the advent of YouTube, and it quickly "went viral." Picked up by the cable news program Special Report with Brit Hume, it was discussed for days on talk radio programs around the country. Over the following years, Maloney produced nearly two dozen titles, including an interview with Michael Moore and the feature-length MPI documentary Indoctrinate U, which takes a humorous look at the state of free speech and free thought on American campuses.
Indoctrinate U premiered in 2007 at the Washington, D.C., Kennedy Center to a sold-out crowd that gave the film a standing ovation. The film has since spent years among the top ten best-selling titles in the Documentary Channel's online store, and has screened in theaters, on television, and at hundreds of college campuses around the world.
Michael Mandaville is a bondable line producer/unit production manager whose films include Taken with Liam Neeson, Havoc with Anne Hathaway, The Kiss with Terence Stamp and Billy Zane, and American History X with Edward Norton. Mandaville produced the indie feature The Almighty Fred, directed the political shorts Winning the Race and The Big Bucks, and line-produced The Iraq Study Group, a short directed by David Zucker. In addition to directing commercials, shorts, and documentaries, Mandaville has written several scripts and novels, including Stealing Thunder, A Cold Death, and Citizen Soldier Handbook: 101 Ways for Every American to Fight Terrorism. He graduated from the University of Southern California with his M.A. in professional writing. He received his BA in philosophy at UC Santa Barbara and attended the undergraduate film program at Columbia College.
John Papola, a graduate of Penn State University's film program, is an award-winning director and producer who has been working in entertainment for the past decade with major brands including Spike, Nickelodeon, and MTV as well as leading agencies such as Crispin Porter, Razorfish, and JWT. He is the co-founder of Emergent Order, a premier media company dedicated in part to the exploration of the values of a free and peaceful society.
Papola co-wrote, produced, and directed "Fear the Boom and Bust" and "Fight of the Century," which have become global sensations with over 4 million combined views on YouTube. They are used in classrooms worldwide. An MPI fellowship allowed Papola to co-create, along with economist Russ Roberts, EconStories, a groundbreaking media brand dedicated to re-imagining economics education through creative storytelling.
Papola's other recent efforts include the viral "Look Closer" mixed-media campaign for the Video Game Awards and the "Back to the Future" viral campaign featuring Michael J. Fox for Spike's Scream Awards, which garnered over 2.5 million views in three days. With MPI support, Papola is currently developing a short film on education reform entitled "Bad High School Musical."
Duncan Scott is a filmmaker and video director based in Santa Monica, California. He has over 150 productions to his credit and has won four Emmy Awards.
Earlier in his career, he was an assistant director on feature films such as Deathtrap, Nighthawks, and Zelig and worked alongside filmmakers such as Woody Allen, Richard Brooks, and Sidney Lumet. He collaborated with Ayn Rand, Hank Holzer, and Erika Holzer on the restoration of the film classic, We The Living, based on Rand’s first novel. His company now owns and distributes the film (WeTheLivingMovie.com).
Scott produced over thirty half-hour programs for the public television series, Innovation. He is the director of the non-profit Objectivist History Project, which he founded in 2004. The OHP conducts videotaped interviews with many of the pioneers who helped launch the Objectivist and Libertarian movements (www.objectivisthistory.com).
Scott’s most recent project is the feature length documentary, Inside the Mind of Ayn Rand, produced in partnership with MPI. It’s the first major film to focus primarily on Rand’s philosophy rather than biographical details about her life (AynRandFilm.com).