FACULTY W - Z
Ken Wales, a veteran filmmaker, has made his mark on both film and television as the producer of several enduring works. His latest triumph is Amazing Grace, the recently released historical feature about abolitionist William Wilberforce; other credits include The Tamarind Seed, Islands In The Stream, Wild Rovers and The Prodigal. For television, he created and executive produced the award-winning television series, Christy, co-produced the Emmy-nominated and Golden Globe-winning miniseries John Steinbeck’s East Of Eden, and served as an associate producer for Cagney and Lacey. Ken also authored the novel Sea Of Glory, and is currently in development on a sequel to Chariots Of Fire.
Michael Warren spent eight years at Paramount Studios as Executive Story Consultant on Happy Days. He was then Executive Producer of Perfect Strangers (The adventures of Larry and his cousin Balki from Mypos). During the following fifteen years at Warner Bros. he was the co-creator and Executive Producer of
Step by Step (Patrick Duffy and Suzanne Somers with a blended family) and Family Matters (Steve Urkel and his love for Laura Winslow). Michael has written or produced over 800 episodes of prime-time, network television shows.
Hayma “Screech” Washington is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning Executive Producer of The Amazing Race. Prior to producing the hit adventure reality show, he served as Vice President of Production at Buena Vista Television, supervising shows including Bill Nye The Science Guy, Win Ben Stein’s Money,
Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, Live With Regis and Kathie Lee and Win Lose Or Draw during his ten years there. Screech also produced Phil of the Future and made his mark in the directing world with The Jersey and Honey, I Shrunk The Kids. His independent directorial debut, The Drive, was produced by his company, Screechers Pix, Ltd. He is currently working to expand that shingle, developing several scripted and non-scripted properties, including a game show for CBS – and in the middle of his thirteenth race around the world.
Ralph Winter is one of Hollywood’s most profitable producers. For the past eight years, he has worked with Twentieth Century Fox on some of the studio’s biggest box office successes including the X-Men Trilogy and Fantastic Four movies, and is currently in production on Wolverine. During his career, Ralph
has produced more than twenty-five films for various studios and topped four billion dollars in worldwide box office receipts. He also produced and directed television for Steven Spielberg at DreamWorks and is a founding partner in the award-winning commercial production company, Thomas Winter Cooke. A UC Berkeley graduate, Ralph is active in community affairs and arts projects, speaks at universities and film festivals worldwide, and serves on several boards, including a recent term on Act One’s Board of Directors.
Kris Young was born in Los Angeles. Got his BA in film from USC and was a staff R&B lyricist for five years with songs recorded by a number of Grammy award winning groups. He’s written six films for the Disney Channel, including the produced Secret Bodyguard, Teen Angel, Teen Angel Returns, as well as pilots for CBS and Nickelodean. After graduating with an MFA in screenwriting from UCLA in 1998, his script, Charlie Apana was optioned/rewritten for Lion Rock producers Terence Chang and John Woo. But all that really matters is that Kris has avoided a real day job for over twenty years. Kris continues to tortuously write screenplays in his famously cluttered office and currently teaches screenwriting at UCLA, the Los Angeles Film Studies Center and East West Players.