What Does a Producer Do?

Effie T. Brown is an award winning film and television Producer, known for championing inclusion and diversity in Hollywood. Through her company, Duly Noted Inc., Brown has produced Stranger Inside, Jane Campion’s In the Cut, Real Women Have Curves, Everyday People, Rocket Science, and the Sundance hit Dear White People. With a love of multiple platforms, Brown focused on digital episodic content and produced over 130 episodes of WIGS, an award winning, original content channel funded by Google/YouTube. In 2015, Brown joined Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as Producer and Mentor for the controversial reboot of Project Greenlight. In 2016, Brown Executive Produced the hit series Star on FOX. In keeping with her commitment to inclusive and diverse content, Effie Executive Produced Disney Channel’s Zombies.

Diana Williams is the CEO & Co-founder of Kinetic Energy Entertainment. She is an award-winning producer with franchise IP expertise across all media including video games, film/TV, and interactive/immersive location based experiences. With a mission to support creative innovation and cultural impact, she operates at the convergence of entertainment and technology, and across legacy Hollywood and the new creator economy. Throughout her career she has partnered with both emerging and established creators to champion a wide range of voices and talent in an ever-changing industry.

Kinetic Energy Entertainment is a multi-platform venture studio specializing in transforming ideas into IP that is entertaining, culturally relevant and accessible across all media, by building value with go-to-market business models and strategy. Kinetic’s slate includes the TV series adaptation of The Gatecrashers comic, political sim videogame Political Arena, podcast series Founder Hustle, YA sci-fi adventure Space Hoppers, Guardian Rogue Rangers animated series to launch on YouTube, and a TV series in development at HBO. Kinetic is also an advisor to companies like Fermata that are utilizing cutting-edge technologies to innovate in traditional entertainment categories.

Prior to Kinetic, Diana was the Creative Development and Franchise Producer for Star Wars at Lucasfilm, overseeing film and tv (including Star Wars Rebels, Rogue One), mobile and console video games (including 2015’s Battlefront), and publishing (Marvel’s Star Wars comics and novel expansions). While at Lucasfilm she was also one of the founders of ILM Immersive (formerly ILMxLAB), the immersive entertainment and VR/AR/mixed reality lab behind award-winning experiences including Vader Immortal for Oculus/Meta, Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire for The Void, and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Academy Award© winning VR experience Carne y Arena. Diana has also worked with BET Networks as a production consultant on Let the Church Say Amen, Gun Hill Road, and The Kenya Barris Project.

An Executive Producer on the Apple+ documentary Number One on the Call Sheet, she also produced the critically acclaimed feature film Our Song, which earned her a nomination for an Independent Spirit Award in the Producer category. Other productions include documentaries Room 237, the Emmy© award-winning Sylvia Drew Ivie, Student Academy Award©-nominated Another First Step, Industrial Light & Magic: Creating the Impossible, Method to the Madness of Jerry Lewis, and Dear Mom Love Cher.

Diana was formerly the Chair of the Peabody Interactive Board of Jurors for digital and immersive storytelling for the Peabody Award. She is currently on the Strategic Planning Committee of The National Academy of Sciences’ Science and Entertainment Exchange; the advisory committee for the Royal Shakespeare Company/Digital development; the advisory board for UK-based Future of Film; and on the boards of Diverso (a non-profit student-led organization, centered on the under-represented storytellers of the next generation), genre focused The Overlook Film Festival, and The Immersive Experience Institute for interactive and location based experiences and theater. Diana is a member of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

Producing partners, Nina Yang Bongiovi and Forest Whitaker have gained a stellar reputation for having in-depth knowledge of film financing, creative and physical producing, and a knack for discovering talent, like that of Ryan Coogler (Marvel’s Black Panther), whose first film, Fruitvale Station (2013) was produced by Forest and Nina.

Together under their banner, Significant Productions, Nina and Forest have produced a number of critically-acclaimed films by auteur filmmakers, including Dope (2015) by Rick Famuyiwa, Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015) by Chloe Zhao, Roxanne Roxanne (2018) by Michael Larnell, and Sorry To Bother You (2018) by Boots Riley. More recently, Forest and Nina produced Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut, Passing, based on Nella Larsen’s renowned Harlem Renaissance novel. The producing duo is currently executive producing the premium tv series, Godfather of Harlem, which is in production on Season 2 at EPIX. Nina and Forest are consistently in active development on a slate of multi-cultural feature films and television projects that they love.

Significant Productions’ mission is to create opportunities and push inclusivity for underrepresented narratives and storytellers by championing culturally-significant films and television shows starring BIPOC talent, alongside diversified representation behind the camera.

Forest is a member of The Academy of the Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS), and the Television Academy. He notably received the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in The Last King of Scotland. Forest actively serves as a Special Envoy in Conflict Resolution for the United Nations, through his foundation, The Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative.

Nina is a board member of Film Independent, The Oscar Grant Foundation, Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE), and The Producers Guild of America. She is also a member of The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences’ (AMPAS) Producers Branch and the Television Academy. She is fluent in Mandarin, Chinese, and received her graduate degree in Entertainment Management from the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California.

Josh Penn is a producer with the Department of Motion Pictures. He produced Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), which won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, the Caméra d'Or at Cannes, and was nominated for four Academy Awards (including Best Picture). He has also held producing roles on Patti Cake$ (Sundance 2017), Western (Sundance 2015 Special Jury Prize Winner), The Great Invisible (SXSW 2014 Grand Jury Prize Winner,) and Contemporary Color among other films. Josh premiered two projects at Sundance 2018: Monsters and Men (Special Jury Prize for Outstanding First Feature) and the live documentary A Thousand Thoughts. 

Mary Jane Skalski began her career at Good Machine where she worked on the early films of Ang Lee, Ed Burns and Nicole Holofcener. As a producer, her credits include four films with director Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent, The Visitor, Win Win, and The Cobbler); Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin, Wilson directed by Craig Johnson, Todd Louiso's Hello I Must Be Going, Adam Salky’s Dare, Peter Callahan’s Against the Current, Julian Goldberger’s The Hawk is Dying, Jem Cohen’s Chain, and Naomi Foner’s Very Good Girls. Mary Jane was an executive producer on Pariah, Trick, and Putzel. Her most recent film is Bart Layton’s narrative debut, American Animals which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and will open later this year.

Sev Ohanian is a writer/producer who’s been a producer on 13 feature films – including Sundance films Fruitvale Station, Results, and The Intervention. Most recently, his film Search, which he co-wrote and produced, also had its world premiere at Sundance ’18, where it was awarded the NEXT Audience Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Award, and Sev was the recipient of the Sundance Institute / Amazon Studios Narrative Producer Award. He's been named one of 11 Innovators Changing Hollywood by The Wrap, alongside Angelina Jolie and Jimmy Fallon, and he also serves as an adjunct professor at USC.