INDUSTRY 101 EVENT SERIES

Humanitas Industry 101:
Los Angeles Times presents Breaking Into New Hollywood
Conversation & Book Signing

Wednesday, August 20, 2025
Doors 6:30 PM
Program 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM

Dynasty Typewriter
2511 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90057

Join Humanitas Industry 101 for the launch of Breaking Into New Hollywood: A Career Guide to a Changing Industry, the new book from The Los Angeles Times and journalists Ada Tseng and Jon Healey!

Ada and Jon will discuss the book (available everywhere August 12) and various career paths with invited industry professionals across departments. After the event, Ada and Jon will stay to sign books and chat!

About Los Angeles Times presents Breaking Into New Hollywood

For the millions seeking to pursue their Hollywood dreams, this is the definitive guide to breaking into the entertainment industry that explores and demystifies dozens of careers from acting to post-production, and also takes into account changes brought by the rise of streaming and AI.

About The Los Angeles Times

Published since 1881, The Los Angeles Times is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States, as well as the largest newspaper in the western United States.

Learn more about the book on the Simon & Schuster website.

Book bundle ticket purchases include a copy of the book which will be available for pick-up at the event. Skylight Books will also be on-site night-of selling copies of Breaking Into New Hollywood.

Tickets: $18 Early bird | $20 General Admission | $49.99 Book + Ticket Bundle (Book bundle includes General Admission and a copy of Breaking Into New Hollywood.)

Nik Dodani

Nik Dodani is an actor, writer, and filmmaker best known for playing Zahid in Netflix’s Atypical, with additional roles in Murphy Brown, Twisters, Escape Room, Waitress on Broadway, and several animated series. He most recently starred opposite Lisa Kudrow and Brian Cox in the HBO Max comedy The Parenting.

Nik began his writing career in stand-up comedy, making his late-night debut on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and in the nonprofit world, crafting campaigns for organizations like MoveOn.org and Alicia Keys’ HIV/AIDS initiative. He went on to develop scripted series for both Netflix and Disney.

Behind the camera, he wrote and directed a short film adaptation of the award-winning novel Blue Boy, currently in development as a feature, and recently completed Houston Rising, a documentary short for Amazon.

Nik also co-produced the Tony Award–winning Life of Pi on Broadway and its North American tour, and is the co-founder of The Salon, a nonprofit supporting South Asian artists and executives working in film and television.

Marilyn Fu

Marilyn Fu is an American writer of Taiwanese descent with a focus on adaptations and true stories that explore American themes with a multicultural lens. She wrote the feature film Rosemead starring Lucy Liu, based on the award-winning LA Times article by Frank Shyong, “A dying mother's plan: Buy a gun. Rent a hotel room. Kill her son” which premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. Also in features: The Honor List, executive produced by Zoe Saldaña and released by Lionsgate, and The Sisterhood of Night based on a short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Steven Millhauser, for which she won the Creative Promise Award at Tribeca. In television, Marilyn is a writer on Peacock’s espionage thriller series, The Copenhagen Test, starring Simu Liu and executive produced by James Wan. She adapted the novels by New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury into The Baxters, a faith-based series for Amazon/MGM, executive produced by Will Packer and Roma Downey. As a writer/reporter, she has been involved in over forty publications for Time, Inc. She was educated at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University's School of the Arts, where she was the first recipient of the William Goldman Screenwriting Fellowship and later taught television writing.

Mike Gioia

Mike Gioia is a writer and AI systems architect. He worked for many years in Network television and independent film productions, then in 2022 started adopting the use of generative AI in filmmaking, especially diffusion models in VFX. Since then he's worked on many productions designing and implementing AI systems to aid in the vision of the director. Mike specializes in creating AI pipelines that produce realistic, variable, high-quality outputs in creative fields.

Mike co-founded AI on the Lot, the largest AI film conference, and regularly organizes gatherings of filmmakers interested in positive applications of AI in their work. Mike co-founded a company called Pickaxe that made AI workflows easy and accessible to non-technical people. In 2025 Mike left Pickaxe and now works for Sean Parker at his new generative AI media venture Cantina. 

Angela C. Lee

Angela C. Lee is the Director of Artist Development at the LA based arts non-profit Film Independent, where she leads all programs supporting fiction and non-fiction storytelling. For over thirty years, Artist Development provides year-round programming and support to visionary artists who embody diversity, innovation curiosity and uniqueness of vision. Recent films supported through Artist Development include 2025 Sundance Grand Jury prize winner documentary Seeds, 2025 Berlinale Grand Jury prize winner Holding Liat, and 2025 Critics Week premiere Left-Handed Girl produced, co-written, and edited by Oscar winner Sean Baker. Additional filmmakers who have participated through Artist Development programs include: Andrew Ahn, Linda Yvette Chavez, Jon M. Chu, Ruben Fleischer, Jomo Fray, Marvin Lemus, Smriti Mundhra, Justin Simien, and Lulu Wang.

Angela is a Spirit Award-nominated producer for Academy Award winner Chloé Zhao’s debut feature, Songs My Brothers Taught Me, which premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival and Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes. She also produced the fiction short The Row (w/d Philiane Phang), commissioned by Condé Nast, which has garnered over 1.7 million views on YouTube and counting. Angela has been supported by the Berlinale Talents and Co-Production Market, Film Independent Producing Lab and Fast Track Finance Market, The Gotham Film and Media Institute, PGA Diversity Workshop, SFFilm, Sundance Institute Creative Producing Lab and Women at Sundance Fellowship, and the Center for Asian American Media Fellowship.

A native Chicagoan, Angela graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in Economics.

Chris Noriega

Chris Noriega is a Partner at Verve and an integral member of the Television Literary team, which has a track record of converting writers into showrunners, and for driving breakout successes across broadcast, cable, and streaming in an evolving post-peak TV landscape. He also helps spearhead Verve’s industry-leading presence in the animation space. Noriega began his career in finance before making the transition to entertainment. He joined Verve in 2012 and was promoted to agent the following year. In 2017, he became the first person in company history to rise from assistant to Partner—cementing his reputation as a trusted, forward-thinking advocate for creators. He is based out of the agency’s Los Angeles headquarters in the Hollywood Media District.

Ada Tseng

A former editor at the Los Angeles Times, Ada Tseng is the co-author of Breaking Into New Hollywood: A Career Guide to a Changing Industry, with Jon Healey. She co-hosts the Asian American pop culture history podcast, Saturday School, with Brian Hu, and she's running the 2025 TCS New York City Marathon in November to raise money for the Asian American Journalism Association.

Jon Healey

Jon Healey worked as a journalist for four decades, retiring in December after a 24-year stint as a reporter and editor for the Los Angeles Times. He specialized in explanatory journalism, helping readers understand complex issues and tackle problems -- including those faced by would-be Hollywood professionals. His side hustle is editing board game rulebooks, which is even more fun than you'd think it would be.