30 to Watch (Literally)

The rising reputation of Biola’s Snyder's School of Cinema and Media Arts is a major credit to the many alumni who are making an impact through their craft and character across the entertainment industry. Over the decades, the school (and its preceding programs in film and television) have equipped hundreds of alumni for careers in entertainment, media and storytelling — with more than 50 new graduates being added to their ranks each year. Here, meet just some of the gifted alumni from the past 10 years who have especially bright futures and bold ambitions, selected with help from Snyder faculty and staff.

At wiip, the studio behind Mare of Easttown and Dickinson, English’s role consists of tracking the development slate, supporting the cofounder and CFO, and coordinating special projects from events to company initiatives, like creative asset management. After graduating from Biola and finishing her MFA at Pepperdine University, she had the opportunity to work at Warner Bros. as well as teach as an adjunct professor at Biola, both of which were dreams come true, she said. She and her husband also produced a short film called Where We Were. A play she wrote called Boundaries was produced in Hollywood and then went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Notable Credits:
The Mandalorian, Thor: Ragnarok, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Dune (2021)

How Biola Prepared Me:
Biola provided a strong community of students to grow with. There was always a shoot happening that we could work on to really get our hands dirty and explore the various elements of the filmmaking process. They also provided the tools that if we ever just wanted to grab a camera and go film something, we could.

What I Do:
Along with a tight-knit team, I am the gatekeeper of everything you hear in a movie. I wrangle dozens to hundreds of layers of sound effects and words to make a movie feel intimate, relatable and larger than life.

Notable Projects:
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Dialogue Editor); Tenet (Foley Editor); Bill & Ted Face the Music (Dialogue Editor)

How Biola Prepared Me:
In class, we studied movies and treated them as if they were pieces of literature. That transformed the way I perceived films and I brought that with me when I began working on films of my own, helping me to develop a gentler ear and a keener conviction for how a story deserves to sound.

While at Biola, Clark and fellow student Grace Lindblad secured one of the top five spots in the annual Coca-Cola Refreshing Films competition and received $15,000 as finalists to produce a 30-second film, “Neon Jungle.” At Facebook Reality Labs, it’s his job to “own and maintain relationships between established brands, internal artists and vendor studios to ensure highest-quality branded augmented reality content is delivered within expected timelines.”

Zach King is one of the most recognized faces on the internet. His short videos, often centered around elaborate, comical magic tricks, have won him a wide and devoted fanbase of more than 100 million followers across all social media channels. And he currently holds the Guinness World Records title for the male with the most followers on TikTok (over 60 million as of the magazine’s publication).

King — the winner of Biola’s Young Alumnus Award in 2016 — began to build his career while still a Biola student, creating YouTube videos from his dorm room. (One of his early viral hits, “Jedi Kittens Strike Back,” features Star Wars-obsessed felines battling in Biola’s Media Production Center.) It wasn’t long before he translated his growing success into a thriving business, King Studio — where many Biolans have gotten their start as interns and employees.

These days, in addition to producing original content for his channels, his King Studio creates digital ads for brands like Disney, Apple, Mercedes-Benz and Coca-Cola, and partners on promotions for films (giving him the chance to co-star with celebrities like Chris Pratt, Selena Gomez and Jack Black). He’s also published a series of augmented reality books, been a contestant on The Amazing Race with his wife, Rachel (Holm, ’13), and appeared in a 2020 Super Bowl ad for Sabra hummus.

To see him hit Biola’s president in the face with a slow-motion pumpkin pie, check out the video “Amazing Things at Biola with President Barry Corey and Zach King” on YouTube.

AV Squad, a Hollywood-based vendor that specializes in entertainment marketing, is contracted by various studios to help produce, edit and finish trailers and TV spots for films and television series. Hensley has edited montages that aired during multiple Academy Awards ceremonies, and trailers/TV spots for clients including Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBO.

What I Do:
I run a little production company with partners Delaney Buffett, Katie Corwin and musician/entrepreneur Jimmy Buffett. My job is to identify stories or scripts that resonate with us, package them by attaching a director and/or talent, then pitch the packages to independent financiers and buyers (networks, streamers, distributors). Then we try to get the movie made despite being told “no” a hundred times. There’s a reason this process is commonly referred to as “pushing boulders uphill.”

Notable Projects:
Identifying and shepherding the four-time Oscar-nominated Mudbound (2017) into our fold and helping produce it from square one was the highlight of a lifetime. For various reasons, I’m also proud of the work I did in the producer’s unit on Elvis & Nixon (2016), JT LeRoy (2018) and Billionaire Boys Club (2018).

How Biola Prepared Me:
Biola prepared me for this work by rooting me in my faith and giving me the biblical perspective needed for this mission field. There’s a lot of brokenness and emptiness in this business, and my hunger to enact change and embrace my biblical perspective points directly back to my time at Biola.

What I Do:
I help manage the workload for the story artists/editors/assistant editors and make sure we’re hitting our weekly target while also making sure the other departments receive the latest story updates to continue their work.

Notable Projects:
Minions 2: Rise of Gru, Secret Life of Pets 2, Sing 2 and The Bad Guys (Editorial/Story Production Coordinator) and Star vs. The Forces of Evil (Episodic Production Coordinator)

How Biola Prepared Me:
My time at Biola taught me the value of keeping God at the center when trying to balance work aspirations and following the calling on your life. In addition, the CMA professors gave much valuable insight that provided the foundation on how I navigated the work landscape and how to forge my relationships with those around me.

As an assistant director (and new member of the Directors Guild of America), Hernandez works in the logistical arm of entertainment, helping stories and vision come to life through coordinating and scheduling. To date, she’s played a role in such projects as Warner Bros. Pictures’ The Little Things (starring Denzel Washington), FX’s Mayans and HBO’s “Untitled Lakers Project.”

Rizkallah is currently a fellow for the Deutsche Bank Frieze Los Angeles Film Award with his film Dear Mama. His Biola film Mallory, Los Angeles won Best Short Film at the Riverside International Film Festival. And his senior thesis, Habib, has screened at multiple festivals across the nation.

What I Do:
I am in Disney’s new Executive Incubator Program, where I get to rotate in development, casting, current programming and marketing to learn about the TV business through the executive lens. In short, I’m like a junior TV executive in training and I get to make an impact in multiple, diverse fields.

Notable Projects:
While doing a rotation with Freeform’s Development team, one of the scripts I reviewed did not depict the deaf community accurately. The team listened to my feedback and ultimately passed on the project. I also co-founded and co-led ENABLED LA — Disney’s disability employee resource group for the L.A. chapter that advocates for disability inclusion, accessibility and representation in entertainment and the workplace. I also drafted a proposal for disability inclusion outlining a Central Accommodations Office for Disney, and it was positively received by Chairman Peter Rice.

How Biola Prepared Me:
A consistent theme I learned at Biola is the importance of grit and work ethic in Hollywood. For my Paramount internship, I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and arrived at the door while it was still locked. Taking the posture of a servant’s heart like Jesus enabled me to not only be a professional resource, but a personal support to those around me.

Brian Ulrich (’12) recently wrote, produced and directed his first feature, Last Three Days, a dramatic, mind-bending thriller with a philosophical undercurrent. It was sold to Gravitas Ventures at the 2020 Cannes market and released on iTunes in November 2020. Ulrich produced the film alongside his wife, Julianna Ulrich (’12).

Last Three Days follows an undercover cop named Jack (played by Walking Dead: World Beyond star Robert Palmer Watkins) who wakes up one day to find himself drugged and his wife (Deborah Lee Smith) missing. A crucial subplot involves a powerful Japanese crime syndicate called the Yaku.

“Ten percent of the movie is in Japanese,” Brian said. “My inspiration came from working with professor Dean Yamada on a Biola short film, Persimmon, which I edited. Jack Hafer [then department chair of Cinema and Media Arts] helped me put together a viable business plan. And then [Biola alumnus] Mark Joseph came on as executive producer in post-production.”

The film’s crew featured several Biola film alumni — Megan Mead (production designer), Kianna Bliven (art director), Townsend Dick (1st assistant camera), Nathan Johnson (production coordinator), Hannah Parrott (composer), Davy McCall (associate producer), Natalie Grace Comstock and Blake Kliewer (editors).

“At the end of the day I wanted to make an action movie. To get audiences hooked,” Brian said. “But I also wanted to deconstruct the typical Hollywood love story, which is built up around getting the girl and living happily ever after.”

What I Do:
I problem-solve and bridge the flow of motion-capture and facial-capture information between our editorial, sequence (virtual art department) and stage departments to build files for camera capture (the phase in which the director composes and records CG shots).

Notable Projects:
Avatar 2, Avatar 3

How Biola Prepared Me:
Biola equipped me with skills and self-confidence to confront the unique professional and spiritual challenges of the film industry. My professors empowered me to think critically, to ask the right questions and to listen well.

“One of my projects that I am most proud of is my senior thesis, The First Dance. It captured a moment of my family history and made a small difference in portraying the Latino community. My film was about how my grandparents met during the 1960s. One of the actresses that auditioned for my film told me that even if she was not chosen for the film, she wanted to thank me for making the film because it was the first film she had auditioned for that she was not playing a member of the drug cartel or an illegal immigrant crossing the border. My actors also were grateful for starring in a film that showcased the Latino community in a positive light. I am very proud of the small impact my short film had.”

Notable Projects: Love You Anyway (feature with Wayfarer Studios); executive assistant for Yoruba Saxon (which just signed a first-look deal with Disney+); producer of smaller-scale commercials and music videos that include clients like The Gospel Coalition, Nickelodeon and Kamiyada+.

What I Do:
I coordinate all the nuts and bolts that go into our leadership training initiatives at the studio. A fun way to put it: I play Tetris with schedules, ping-pong with emails, and DDR with Zoom functions for classes and meetings.

Career Highlights So Far:
Most recently, my team rolled out a program called “Leading Inclusively at Pixar” that equips all leaders across the studio to cultivate a healthy filmmaking culture. As part of The Palette studio resource group for people of color, I cofounded Asiana, Pixar’s “swatch” that advocates for and celebrates Asian heritage and representation. Also, I wasn’t in production, but Soul is my first Pixar feature credit!

How Biola

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