NEWS
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John J. Stanley
President & Founder
Attorney at Law
John Stanley was born and educated in London, UK. After a career in entertainment as a performer, he travelled the globe as an independent consultant in the development, production, and worldwide exploitation of numerous projects in the film and music industries. Subsequently, he was a founder member of the law firm of Wegman, Levin & Stanley in Los Angeles, California, where he has resided since 1986.
In 1986, with his then business partner, Victor Levine, Stanley purchased Warner Bros. Post Production and Audio Recording Studios, then known as Amigo Studios, which he operated for several years. During his ownership, Amigo was the home of such legendary recording artists as Paul Simon, The Doobie Brothers, Bon Jovi, Luther Vandross, and many others. After the sale of the facility to Bollywood mega-producers, the Amritrage Brothers, Stanley focused full-time on building his law practice.
Prior to the formation of Wegman, Levin & Stanley, Stanley held consulting positions with NEC, Sony, Warner Bros., National Panasonic, Sega, and other independent companies with varied interests in the entertainment and retail sales fields. As an agent for both major studios and independent film production companies, Stanley’s primary responsibility was the acquisition of licenses and rights to produce live action feature film versions of the world’s most popular video games. Ultimately, from 23 such projects, gross revenues in excess of 1 billion US dollars were generated for investment partners.
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Mark Litke
Co - Producer
Award Winning Correspondent
& Documentarian
Mark Litke is an award-winning television correspondent with four decades of experience producing and reporting from around the world. As Chief Asia Correspondent for ABC News, Litke provided extensive coverage of historic events that have shaped modern China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Iraq, Israel, Egypt and South Africa. His most recent reporting from Vietnam for the PBS program “World Focus” garnered two national
Emmy Award nominations in 2010. For the anniversary of 9/11, Litke also wrote and co-produced a one hour special for Bloomberg TV—“Tragedy & Triumph: Wall Street after 9/11.”
As a correspondent in China, Litke covered the rise of China’s global influence from the days of the Tiananmen democracy movement through the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. In Korea, Litke was repeatedly on the front lines covering the rise and fall of tensions on the Korean peninsula. In India, he was among the first to report the long simmering Sikh rebellion and the assassination of Indira Gandhi. He was also among the first to reach the scenes of some of the world’s most catastrophic events of recent decades, including India’s Bhopal gas disaster, Japan’s Kobe earthquake, and Southeast Asia’s 2004 Tsunami.
In 2004, Litke won his fifth national Emmy Award for his investigative report on the violent “Tiger Force” campaign conducted by American soldiers during the Vietnam War. He was also awarded Emmys for his coverage of Thailand’s drug wars, the highjack of Pan Am Flight 73 in Pakistan, the fall of Indonesia’s President Suharto and the ABC News Millennium special, during which Litke provided live commentary from Shanghai, China. Litke is also the recipient of two Peabody Awards, three Overseas Press Club Awards, a National Headliner Award, and the South Asian Journalism Award.
Litke began his career in 1971 as an assignment editor at KPIX TV in San Francisco, after attending the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. From 1973 to 1975, he was a producer/reporter at KING-TV in Seattle. Litke moved to Los Angeles in 1975 as a producer for KNXT (where he won his first Emmy award for writing). He also worked in Los Angeles as field producer for ABC News and an occasional freelance travel writer for the Los Angeles Times.
Litke joined ABC News in 1979 as a Tokyo-based producer. He was named correspondent for Tokyo in 1980. He covered Asia for the next 11 years from ABC’s base in Hong Kong. Following a two-year stint at ABC’s London bureau, Litke returned to Tokyo for another assignment lasting eight years, followed by another nine years in Hong Kong. He now lives with his wife, Tippin, and two children, Isabella and Daniel, in Westport, Connecticut.
Links to recent stories covered and/or produced:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/reproductive-healthphilippines/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVpWQ8RpBoM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/16/agent-orange-devastates-g_n_158538.html
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/tacloban-still-struggles-rebuild-following-typhoon-haiyan/
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James Barber
Sr. Vice President -
Content Development
Co - Founder
A Graduate of Brevard College in Brevard North Carolina, James began his career in the hospitality industry with CCA, Club Corporation of America, where he was appointed Director of Operations of the Charlotte NC areas. At that time CCA was the largest fine dining member’s only organization in the United States. During James’ tenure, his primary function was to organize and manage various high profile proceedings and events. Following the completion of his CCA contract, he was head hunted by the George Watts Hill Alumni Center of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was appointed Director of Operations. An experience which further allowed him to hone his event management and production skills.
Irresistibly drawn to the entertainment industry, and encouraged by his obvious natural talent for production, he enrolled at Full Sail University where he obtained his second BA Degree and began the pursuit of his true passion. Namely, Audio Engineering and Contemporary Music production. Shortly after graduation from FSU he relocated to Hollywood, CA, and the rest, as they say, is history. While employed at the Black Entertainment Television (BET) Network, he worked on production of the networks flagship series Comic View and Live from LA. As a result of his contribution at BET, he soon found himself in demand at several other successful networks, such as, HBO, NBC, Fox, WB and Disney.
In addition to his experience in every aspect of television production, both in front and behind the camera, James, a natural music talent, was also composing musical content for such television productions as: King Of Queens, Everybody Hates Chris, Boston Public, Proud Family, Hells Kitchen, and Oscar winning Kelsey Grammer’s production, “Girlfriends”. Since then, his work and compositions have been utilized in numerous productions in music, theater, and television, including working along side award winning, TV producer and actor, Ed Bagley Jr., Grammy winning, singer songwriters, Smokey Robinson, George Clinton, Stevie Wonder, and Earth Wind and Fire. (All productions registered with ASCAP and BMI)
James has also directed and produced short films. His works have received recognition and nominations from the Urban Filmmakers Film Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, and The Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. As an accomplished Composer, Producer, Engineer and Production Technician James’s contribution to the Mogul Multimedia production team is unequivocal and immeasurable.
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Thyonne Gordon, Ph.D.
Project Manager
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Dr. Gordon is originally from Washington, D.C. and currently resides in Los Angeles, California. She is an Author, Philanthropist, Story Teller/Collector, Thought Leader and Experienced Business Profit Strategist who works with entrepreneurs, 501c3 organizations, academic institutions and Fortune 500 companies to enhance their long-term growth and profitability. She is the creator of the Aspire Success Network, which is designed to help entrepreneurs increase their profitability and move from surviving to thriving.
Using her proven story weaving technique of the S.T.O.R.Y. (Structure, Target, Ownership, Relatability and YOU) ACCELERATOR to elevate purpose-driven businesses beyond their ordinary story, Dr. Gordon has empowered hundreds of organizations nationwide.
Dr. Gordon is a producer and writer for Entertainment Studios in Culver City; a featured writer in Chicken Soup for the African American Soul; and ghost writer on several projects including a recent collaboration with Grammy nominated recording artist Chante’ Moore.
She has received several accolades and awards including a recent nomination from the Los Angeles Business Journal Women’s Summit Award 2016; a gubernatorial appointment to the Naturopathic Committee Board of Directors in 2014; was voted board Chairperson of Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara in 2015 and has served on the Board of Advisors for Project MuszEd, Hope Community Development Center in San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles and the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Salin Nazarian
Production Assistant /
Principal Office Manager
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Salin Nazarian obtained her Juris Doctorate from the Southern California Institute of Law (SCIL) in May of 2013, and is awaiting the California Bar Examination results. Before attending SCIL, Salin received her Bachelors in Philosophy from the California State University of Los Angeles. Salin has a passion for legal work and has attended many court hearings all across California in pursuit of gaining the knowledge of how the Court system works in California. She has even attended court hearings in Houston, Texas, with senior counsel in order to gain awareness of the court procedural differences between various US states.
Salin also has great experience in al legal arenas, with particular expertise in the fields of research, contract disputes and defenses, and intellectual property as well as real estate rights. She has assisted various negotiations and mediations and helped avoid costly, formal litigation for many clients.
Salin is not only an outstanding legal clerk on her way to becoming an attorney, but she has also mentored many young people pursuing a career in the legal field. Salin is also an inspiration as she is the first generation in her family to attend university in America. Fluent in Assyrian and Armenian, and conversationally equipped in Farsi, Salin is able to meet the needs of minority persons needing a voice.
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Patrick Cirillo
Sr. Vice President -
Film Development
Motion Picture Screenwriter,
Member W.G.A
Patrick Cirillo, veteran member of the Writer’s Guild of America, is a graduate of Fordham University in New York City and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Mr. Cirillo work briefly (very) as a journalist for a small newspaper, before deciding he wanted to create the stories rather than report them. Since that time, Mr. Cirillo has written the feature films “Tears of the Sun,” (co-writer)
starring Bruce Willis, directed by Antoine Fuqua, “Homer and Eddie,” starring James Belushi and Whoopie Goldberg, directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, “The Surgeon,” starring Malcolm McDowell and Peter Boyle and the made for TV movie, “Dangerous Heart,” starring Tim Daly and Lauren Holly, which he also produced.
He has contributed to, but was not credited on, several other feature films and has sold scripts to, or worked on assignment for, virtually every major studio and many of the mini-majors and independent companies in the film industry.His current projects include “Saint Charlie,” Brian Goodman director and Marc Frydman producer, “The Brown Bomber,” (co-written with Joe Gayton) Robbie Brenner and Jeff Kwatinezt producers, “The Lesser Evil,” Cayman Grant director and “Hellfire,” Lex Lutsus producer.
He has also contributed articles on the film industry for “Script Magazine.”
Produced Credits
“Tears of the Sun,” (co-written by). 2004. Action/drama. Revolution Studios. Bruce Willis and Monica Bellucci star. Antoine Fuqua director. Bruce Willis, Arnold Rifkin and Mike Lobell producers.
"The Surgeon," (screenplay by). 1996. Thriller. Capella International. Carl Schenkel director. Malcolm McDowell, Charles Dance, Peter Boyle and James Remar star. Mr. Cirillo also served as a second-unit director on the film.
"Dangerous Heart," (written by/Co-Producer). 1994. Suspense. MCA/Universal. Tim Daly and Lauren Holly star.
"Homer and Eddie," (written by). 1990. Drama. King's Road Entertainment. James Belushi and Whoopie Goldberg star. Andrei Konchalovski director. Winner; Best Picture Award at the 1990 San Sebastian Film Festival.
Current Feature Projects
“Saint Charlie,” Drama. Brian Goodman director, Marc Frydman producer.
“The Brown Bomber,” Adventure. Robbie Brenner and Jeff Kwatinetz producers. Joe Gayton co-writer.
“The Lesser Evil,” Thriller. Cayman Grant director.
“Hellfire,” Drama. Lex Lutsus producer.
Feature Spec Sales
“Homer and Eddie,” King’s Road (1988). Drama.
“Psychotic Reactions,” Warner Brothers (1989) Comedy.
“City of Darkness,” Sony (1990) Adventure.
“Culture Shock,” Picture Fund (1992) Comedy.
“Dangerous Heart,” MCA/Universal (1993) Suspense.
“The Englander,” MGM (1994) Western.
“Aftershock,” 20th Century Fox (1995). Action.
“Tears of the Sun,” Universal/Revolution (1996/1999). Action.
“Fear Itself,” Red Cliff (2000). Suspense.
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Edward Watts
Director / Writer
Award Winning Documentarian
Edward Watts is an Emmy award-winning, BAFTA nominated filmmaker who has directed over twenty narrative and documentary films that tell true stories of courage, heroism and humour from across the world, covering everything from war crimes in the Congo to the colourful lives of residents in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. You can find out more about his work on his website www.edwardwattsfilms.com.