Department: Master of Fine Arts in Film, Television and Digital Media

Lee

About: Sanghoon Lee teaches in our MFA Film, Television and Digital Media program. When he is not teaching, he is a director, producer, writer and cinematographer for independent film projects.

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Education

  • MFA, Film, Video, New Media, and Animation, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
  • BA, Philosophy, Sogang University, Seoul, Korea

Experience

Lee has completed several award-winning dramatic features as the cinematographer and producer, including Second Moon (2007), Chicago Heights (2009) and Hogtown (2014). His credits also include feature documentaries Edit (2003), Today We Saw the Face of God (2011), and Breakfast at Ina’s (2015). In 2018 he wrote directed his first feature film, Banana Season.

Recently, Lee served as cinematographer for a variety of short films and documentaries, including Fugue (2019), What Remains: The Burning Down of Black Wall Street (2021), and The Birder (in post-production), as well as the feature film, Ghostwriter (2021).

Currently, Lee is working as a producer and the cinematographer on a feature documentary project, Art and Pep (in post-production). The documentary tells the important story of Chicago’s crucial role in America’s LGBTQ+ movement through the eyes and love of two men at the helm of the progress over the past 40+ years. The film will be completed in the spring of 2022.

Before UGA, he taught film production and studies at Governors State University, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, DePaul University and Northwestern University. He is a native of South Korea.

Landau

About: Neil Landau is an award-winning screenwriter, producer, author and screenwriting professor.

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Education

Master of Fine Arts, Screenwriting, University of Georgia
Bachelor of Arts, Film/Television, University of California, Los Angeles

Teaching Specialties

Landau served as an assistant dean at UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television and co-director of UCLA’s MFA Screenwriting Program for many years. This Fall, he’ll be the founding Director of Screenwriting in the new MFA Film & Television Program at the University of Georgia.

Experience

Landau’s screen credits include the cult teen comedy Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead; Melrose Place, The Magnificent Seven, Doogie Howser, M.D., The Secret World of Alex Mack, Twice in a Lifetime, MTV’s Undressed. His animated movie projects include Tad: The Lost Explorer (aka Las Adventuras de Tadeo Jones) for which he earned a Spanish Academy “Goya” Award and Cinema Writers’ Circle Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (2014); Tad2 (Tadeo Jones and the Secret of King Midas), from Paramount, premiered in August, 2017 (once again to record box office). Neil is working on the Tad #3 for a 2022 release by Paramount. He also co-wrote the animated feature Capture the Flag (also for Paramount); and the animated movie, Sheep & Wolves, for Wizart Animation (The Snow Queen), 2017 release. He’s currently Head Writer and Co-Executive Producer on the new animated feature film Finnick for Riki Animation Studios, and serving as Co-EP and Executive Script Consultant on Mummies for 4 Cats Pictures and Warner Bros. Both are currently in production for 2022 release. Neil’s new projects include Strings (for Warner Bros.), the live action miniseries for Amediateka/HBO Europe entitled Patient Zero and a remake of Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead slated for remake in 2021.

Neil is author of five books, including the bestselling 101 Things I Learned in Film School (Grand Central Publishing, 2010, reissue by Random House/Crown in early 2021; and The TV Showrunner’s Roadmap (Focal Press, 2014; second edition to be published in 2021).

Neil served for several years as executive script consultant in the international divisions of Sony Pictures Television and Columbia Pictures. He gives lectures, keynotes, and hosts workshops around the world on the art and craft of screenwriting, including keynotes in Milan, Rome, Seoul, and Sochi.  He’s lectured at USC School of Cinematic Arts, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, La Femis in Paris, Met Film School in London, University of the Andes in Santiago, Alexander Mitta Film School in Moscow, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Shanghai Film Art Academy, Starlight Media in Kiev, and Accademia Nazionale del Cinema in Bologna, Italy.  He’s a member of the WGA west, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, PEN west, and is on the Board of Directors for OUTFEST.

Kohn

About: Dr. Kohn teaches advanced screenwriting, producing for film/television, documentary film, and qualitative methods; directs the Cannes Film Festival and Cannes Lions Study Abroad Programs; directs Roger Ebert’s Film Festival; and produces feature films and television programs.

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Education

Ph.D., Communication, University of Illinois, May 1995
M.S., Radio/TV, University of Illinois
A.B., English Composition/Literature, University of Illinois

Research Interests and Activities

His scholarly interest include qualitative methodology, celebrity, writing for the screen, autobiography, new technologies and critical tourism as viewed through the interpretive prisms of cultural studies, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and the new ethnography.

Teaching Specialties

Dr. Kohn teaches courses in writing for the electronic screen, producing for film and television, and cultural studies.

Experience

Dr. Kohn produced Zulu Dawn starring Burt Lancaster and Peter O’Toole; the independent feature Somebodies, which premiered at Sundance (2006); Rain, the Bahamas’ first indigenous feature which premiered at Toronto (2007) and on Showtime (2010); the feature film Bottleworld (2010); he was Executive Producer on the BET television series Somebodies (2008); he was Producer on the feature length documentary Bayou Maharajah that premiered at the SXSW Festival (2013); he produced the Emmy Award-winning short documentary Ebertfest 2012; and he was Executive Producer on The 73rd, 74th  and 75th Annual Peabody Awards Specials for PivotTV/Participant Media (2014, 2015 and 2016).  He has served on juries and mentored screenwriters at the Atlanta, Hawaii, Kerala, and Bahamas International Film Festivals. He is a board member of the Arkansas Cinema Society.  And he is the author of numerous scholarly articles and of the book Pursuing Hollywood: Seduction, Obsession, Dread (AltaMira Press, 2006).