Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, The Nice Guys)  Jim Herzfeld (Meet The Parents/Fockers), Fred Dekker (The Monster Squad, Predator), & David Silverman (The Simpsons) reminisce about their college hangout that became the social group that supported their life and art for the rest of their lives.  They describe a house full of UCLA film nerds with a 24 hour open house policy.  It was young guys finding themselves and their drive and their fun by making a scene in the early 1980’s. Movie watching, game playing, movie making, and joking around led to a group of people that has made some of the biggest films of the last 30 years. 

Bio:

JIM HERZFELD is an American film and television screenwriter who has also done work as a television producer. Herzfeld graduated from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television (TFT) and his earliest TV credit – on the ground breaking “It's Garry Shandling's Show” -- was followed by almost 10 years of writing and producing episodes on dozens of sitcom staffs, including the Fox TV classic "Married... With Children." Herzfeld's earliest feature film work was a writing credit on the cult comedy “Tapeheads“ in 1988. His most successful work was writing the screenplay for the 2000 film” Meet the Parents” as well as writing the story and screenplay for its 2004 sequel “Meet the Fockers.” To date, both those films remain on the list of the 20 Highest Grossest Comedies. More recently, in 2015 his screenplay for “Meet the Parents” was selected by the Writer’s Guild of America’s as one of the “101 Funniest Screenplays” of all time. Herzfeld was also the writer of the canceled Circle 7 Animation version of Toy Story 3 and has done countless punch-up and rewrites on dozens of big budget comedies and animated films for virtually every major studio.  Herzfeld has also guest lectured about screenwriting at several major universities, including NYU, UCLA and AFI along with appearing on writer panels at various film festivals, most notably the Austin Film Festival where Jim was a judge for their Comedy Screenplay Competition. Currently, Herzfeld continues to write and develop comedy screenplays and recently became an advisor for Scripthop, a software startup focused on revolutionizing how screenplays are both presented and circulated throughout the entertainment industry. 

FRED DEKKER - Pursuing a movie career, he moved to Los Angeles where his fledgling screenwriting efforts led to a Hollywood agent and a job writing Godzilla: King of the Monsters for director Steve Miner. Although the film went unproduced, Dekker provided the story for Miner’s 1985 horror-comedy House, starring William Katt (screenplay by Ethan Wiley). The film was recognized by the Fantasporto and the Avoriaz Film Festivals, and spawned several sequels. Dekker made his directorial debut with Night of the Creeps, an homage to B-movies that eventually developed a devoted cult following. He went on to direct another cult favorite, The Monster Squad, co-written with his UCLA friend Shane Black. He subsequently wrote five episodes of Tales From The Crypt, including the first episode, directed by Robert Zemeckis. In 1991, Dekker conceived the Denzel Washington starrer Ricochet and the spy spoof If Looks Could Kill, both for Warner Bros. He then returned to the director’s chair for the third RoboCop film, co-written with comic book legend Frank Miller. As a script doctor, Dekker made uncredited contributions to films including Titan A.E. and Lethal Weapon 4. He then served as Consulting Producer and wrote three episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise. In 2015, he reteamed with Shane Black on a western TV pilot for Amazon Studios, entitled Edge. The two went on to co-write the 2018 release The Predator, which Black also directed. Dekker’s international awards include the Silver Raven from the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film; the Estrella de Fantastico Award from the 2019 Bilbao Fantasy Film Festival; and the 2024 Honorary Time Machine Award (Premi Màquina del Temps) at the Sitges Film Festival for his contributions to horror and fantasy cinema. He is currently developing a true crime limited series for Amazon based on a murder which occurred in his hometown.

SHANE BLACK is a writer/director whose writing credits include such films as Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight and The Monster Squad.  He began as a director in 2005 with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and receives increasingly strident sequel requests for 2016's The Nice Guys.  He is currently writing a spec original and trying to lose some weight by New Years'.  Not that he's fat -- he's just old, and being careful.

DAVID SILVERMAN After graduating from UCLA in 1983, David Silverman worked as a freelance illustrator and animator until, in 1987, he landed a job animating on The Tracey Ullman Show — where The Simpsons began. Animating on all 48 shorts led to David directing the first shows of The Simpsons. Starting with the Christmas Special in December 1989, and then the premiere episode the following month, David soon became Supervising Animation Director and a producer on The Simpsons. All told, he has directed 24 episodes and has won 4 Emmys along the way.  When no one was looking, David snuck away from The Simpsons to work at DreamWorks (The Road to El Dorado – co-director), Pixar (Monsters, Inc. – co-director), and Blue Sky (Ice Age, Robots – writing and boarding). But, he came back to the show full-time at the end of 2003 and directed The Simpsons Movie. In 2012, David directed and co-wrote the short film The Longest Daycare about Maggie Simpson, which earned him an Academy Award nomination.
And since the Disney acquisition of The Simpsons (via the purchase of Fox), David has directed 10 Simpsons shorts especially for Disney+, as well as several promotional pieces.