STAFF
Faculty
I am a professor specializing in film and video production in the Department of Television, Film and Media Studies. I have been a university professor for the last 43 years. I have been on the faculty here since 1981, with two years leave (82-84) to work as Program Director in charge of the Video Center at The American Film Institute. Prior to joining the faculty at Cal State LA, I taught at Temple University in Philadelphia, West Virginia State College and California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. As a director, producer and/or writer I have made more than 300 films and video tapes in the last 52 years.
M.F.A., California College of Arts and Crafts Professor; Film and Video Directing EMAIL: [email protected]
April Brown is an award-winning journalist and Assistant Professor at California State University, Los Angeles. Previously, she was a Producer and Special Correspondent for the PBS NewsHour, where she focused on education and foreign affairs and covered science, technology, and innovation. Brown was based in London before joining the NewsHour, working for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Independent Television News (ITN). She covered both British and international stories, including the Civil War in Sri Lanka, Iran’s Green Revolution, and produced the first television interview with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
M.A. International Broadcast Journalism
Now retired after more than two decades of teaching at the state university level, Tony Cox has been a tenured professor and former Associate Chair of Journalism in the TVFM department at California State University, Los Angeles. He continues to teach part-time under the FERP Program (Faculty Early Retirement Program) and teaches courses in Sports Broadcasting, Capstone, and Interviewing for News Media. He was the founding Faculty Advisor for the campus’ Golden Eagle Radio and Golden Eagle student Media and spearheaded the creation and upgrade of journalism from an option to a fully CSU-approved major. Cox is a nationally recognized veteran TV and radio broadcast journalist with a long and distinguished resume for his work both on and off the air. His work has been honored with seven L.A. Press Club Awards, five Southern California Broadcaster’s Association Golden Mikes, two NAACP Image Awards, and an Emmy..
Email: [email protected]
TBA
Heather Fipps is a filmmaker, designer, and video editor. She earned her MFA from California State University, Los Angeles in Television, Film and Theater Production, where she is now an assistant professor in the Department of Television, Film, and Media. She works in a variety of genres including narrative and documentary films, commercials, and television shows. As an independent filmmaker, she has developed projects for clients such as the Los Angeles Children’s Court, California Air Emissions Board, and the New Jersey State Department of Health. Her design work has been seen on BBC, CBS, PBS, SyFy, and Netflix. She also works as a video designer for multi-media theatrical productions in New York and Los Angeles. Most recently, she directed the documentary: “Rio Terà De Pensieri: Process Collettivo.” The film follows Mark Bradford at the United States at the 2017 Venice Biennale, and his collaboration with Rio Terà dei Pensieri, an Italian nonprofit that creates opportunities for skill-based training and reintegration for inmates in Venice prisons. It was an official selection in the Venice Human Rights Cultural Festival.
Julie Patel Liss is a journalism professor and a national Emmy Award-winning journalist. She previously worked at Fullerton College and before that, the Better Government Association and the Center for Public Integrity, investigative journalism nonprofits. At the Center, she delved into money-in-politics and the Internal Revenue Service. Her stories were part of a package that won an Editor & Publisher EPPY award and was a finalist for a 2015 Online Journalism Award.
M.A. in Communications, Stanford University B.A. in English & Gender Studies, University of Chicago
Email: [email protected]
Juristisches Staatexamen (Bar Exam in Law), Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin)
Professor; Hybrid Transmedia Visual Storytelling, Critical Game Design, Virtual Reality, and Narrative in Social Media
EMAIL: [email protected]
OFFICE: MUS 237
Award winning editor Rachel Ann Pearl earned a BS in Neurobiology from Cornell University before she came to her senses and moved to Boston, MA to attend Berklee College of Music. She forgot to leave. Pearl spent the next 15 years performing jazz, folk, and rock music and making short films before earning her MFA at the UCLA School of Film and Television. Rachel taught Film and Television with a focus on Post Production for the last 17 years in the LA area, most notably at LMU, Pasadena City College, and California State University Northridge. She is thrilled to be part of the TVFM team atCal State LA. Rachel’s Pearl’s editing work spans narrative, multimedia and documentary genres. Her feature work includes the documentaries "Fema City" and "Change is Gonna Come", a film about the Peace movement. Her most recent documentary, “Where She Lies” is available on Netflix. Her narrative features include “Courting Chaos” a romantic comedy with clowns and “Muslimah’s Guide to Marriage” an award winning Muslim American romantic comedy.
Email: [email protected]
Ph.D., U. of Massachusetts
Professor; Film History, Theory and Aesthetics.
EMAIL: [email protected]
OFFICE: MUS 249
Ph.D., UCLA
Professor; Documentary History, Theory and Criticism.
EMAIL: [email protected]
OFFICE: TVFM 212
M.F.A., Antioch University
Assistant Professor; Television and Film Writing, Producing
EMAIL: [email protected]
OFFICE: TVFM 214
ADJUNCT FACULTY
Justin Chen is a university instructor in the TVFM department of CSULA, teaching largely critical studies courses. Chen's graduate specialization was in documentaries and non-fiction content. In addition Chen has a passion for video gaming and online culture.
Email: [email protected]
Jeff Fust is a singer-songwriter, filmmaker, and educator. In 2006, he worked as a backup vocalist for Neil Young’s Grammy-nominated album Living with War, which protested the Iraq-Afghanistan wars. His debut album Appassionata was released in 2009 and his latest album Angels of Christmas was released in December 2020.
Daniel Spitz, Esq. is an Entertainment attorney who runs a law practice focused on assisting writers, producers, actors, directors and musicians with various contract and intellectual property matters. Daniel is an adjunct instructor at CSULA where he teaches courses in Media Law (TVF-4200) and Entertainment Financing and Law (FIN-4820). He is a graduate of Southwestern Law School, Ivey Business School, and The Second City’s conservatory improvisation program.
www.danielspitzlaw.com
J.D., Southwestern Law School
I have been lecturing at TVFM since 2016, soon after receiving my PhD in Film, Television, and Digital Media from the University of California, Los Angeles. My publications have appeared in Film History, Film & History, Afterimage, Mediascape, and Senses of Cinema and I have contributed anthology chapters to AFI’s The Epic Film in World Culture and to Blackwell’s A Companion to Fritz Lang. Though eclectic in scope, my scholarship collectively explores the aesthetic politics of film, engages controversies on authorship and creative intentionality, and seeks to illuminate the historiographic functions of archives in cinematic practice. I have also worked as an archivist at the Chicano Studies Research Center at UCLA, overseeing film, photo, and manuscript materials that have since found their way into award-winning books, museum exhibitions and feature documentaries. My own film and video work has screened at the Museum of New Art, The Midwest Film Festival, and UCLA’s Critical Media Festival and my current book project (with the University of California Press) is titled The Volume of the World: Archival Rhetoric and the Cinematic History of Cecil B. DeMille
PhD Film & Television, University of California, Los Angeles, June 2016 MA Cinema and Media Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, June 2008 BA Interdisciplinary Film Studies, Magna Cum Laude, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, May 2006