USC Trojan Vision Invites ALL USC Students - ANY MAJOR to apply for (or enroll in)
this special Fall 2025 Course
 

Lights, Camera… Reality!

This Fall 2025, the USC School of Cinematic Arts and Trojan Vision are launching a new one-of-a-kind, hands-on, industry-level class. We’re looking for a select few bold, passionate, and creative students from all disciplines (Drama, Business, Engineering, English, Cinematic Arts, Music, etc.) ready to make their mark in entertainment.

If you love the drama and storytelling of reality tv shows, and want to learn how to develop and pitch a show, this class is for you! You won’t just be learning about TV; you’ll be creating a pitch and pitching it, and you’ll be taught by two TV industry veterans and Trojan alums, Aaron Kaplan (Neighborhood/Delhi Crime/The Chi) and Scott Stone (Top Design/The Mole/Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style).

YOU will collaborate with a group hand-selected, equally motivated students anxious to sit in the producer’s seat to develop, cast, film, edit & pitch a fully realized TV concept to major networks and streamers. If you’ve always wanted to learn how TV is developed and pitched, now is the time. By the end of this course, students will walk away with a deeper understanding of the television production process and a finished TV show pitch, including concept development, rough budgeting, a sizzle reel, and a pitch deck.

Trojan Vision CTPR-409: Re-furbish, Re-model, Re-vamp, Re-fresh, RE-ality TV

Spots are LIMITED
 

APPLY NOW BY CLICKING HERE

Taught by: Aaron Kaplan, Scott Stone, Adam Werbach & Adam Everist,
award-winning producers of dozens of hit TV series

   
AARON KAPLAN (Executive Producer, Kapital Entertainment)
SCOTT STONE (Executive Producer, Stone & Company Entertainment)
ADAM WERBACH (Head of Unscripted & Digital, Kapital Entertainment)
ADAM EVERIST (Senior Producer, Trojan Vision Program Director)
 

These Hollywood producers will take you behind the curtain and guide you through every step of developing and pitching a television show—from crafting pitch decks to producing sizzle reels to pitching the show in the room. This powerhouse team will train you in storytelling and content development like you’ve never experienced before.

Spots are LIMITED. We’re looking for bold, passionate, and creative students
ready to make their mark in entertainment. If that’s YOU, don’t wait!
 

APPLY NOW BY CLICKING HERE

Let’s build the next must-watch reality TV show!
 

About Aaron Kaplan

Aaron Kaplan is the founder and CEO of Kapital Entertainment, a leading independent production company that produces a vast array of television and digital content for the broadcast, cable and streaming markets.  Since the launch of Kapital in 2009, the company has produced 36 series and 1100 episodes of television.

Kapital is currently in production on “The Neighborhood” and “Watson” on CBS, “Crutch” on Paramount+ and “The Chi” on Showtime.  On the feature side, Kapital is in production on “One Mile” and “One More Mile” for Paramount Global. Kaplan also executive produces the series “Delhi Crime” for Netflix, which recently won an International Emmy Award for Best Drama Series and two Asian Academy Awards for Best Drama Series and Best Original Program by a Streamer.

Some of Kapital’s past production highlights include: Drew Barrymore’s “Sant Clarita Diet” on Netflix, five seasons of “A Million Little Things” on ABC, Oprah Winfrey’s “Black Cake” series on Hulu, “Women of the Movement” with Will Smith and Jay-Z on ABC and five seasons of “American Housewife” on ABC. 

Prior to forming Kapital, Kaplan served as the Worldwide Head of Scripted Content at the William Morris Agency, where he was also on the Board of Directors.

A graduate from University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and a former teacher at the School of Cinematic Arts, Kaplan remains an active alum. In March 2017, he created the “First Jobs” program, which provides recent Cinematic Arts graduates their first paid entry-level jobs in the entertainment industry. First Jobs has launched over 1400 jobs for USC alumni, of which Kaplan has personally hired 60.

Kaplan most recently launched the Sibs app, an app that brings people together through trade, buying or selling. Sibs is building a community through exchange while helping to end the cycle of waste.

About Scott Stone

Scott A. Stone, the founder and driving force behind Stone & Company Entertainment, has created and produced more than fifty television series that have aired in nearly every country in the world. Stone has always been a consummate collaborator known for having a keen eye for talent, having introduced America to Anderson Cooper, Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Carolla, Dr. Drew Pinsky, Kristen Wigg, Nicole Scherzinger, Josh Henderson, and Greg Kinnear, to name a few.

Always the mentor, Stone is also an Adjunct Professor teaching television at his alma mater, the top-rated film school in the country, the USC School of Cinematic Arts, for over ten years.

Stone began his career while attending USC, working for Academy Award® winning documentarian, Charles Braverman. His first television job, at the ripe age of 19, was finding financing for and producing the documentary, Nixon: Checkers to Watergate. He went on to work with Braverman producing the popular Showtime cable series The Big Laugh Off and What’s Up America?, and the historic comedy special, Andy Kaufman Plays Carnegie Hall.

Just one year out of USC, Stone started his first production company, SamStone Productions. A year later he sold the company to start-up TV syndicator, Telepictures. He worked at what become Lorimar-Telepictures for seven years, rising to Senior Vice President, First Run Syndication, launching such shows as The People’s Court, Love Connection and Thundercats. After Time Warner purchased Lorimar-Telepictures in 1988, Stone left to start another production company, Stone Television, this time producing two shows he had co-created, the Emmy winning children’s series, Fun House, and the anthology horror series, Freddy’s Nightmares, based on the Nightmare on Elm Street films.

Since then, Stone has stayed in continuous production running three successful companies: Stone Television, Inc. (1988-1990), Stone Stanley Entertainment (1990-2004), and Stone & Company Entertainment (2004 - current), creating nearly 2500 episodes of television and specials airing on 28 different networks, making him one of the most prolific producers in television.

Stone also sits on several community boards including: the Alumni Advisory Counsel of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, and Sigma Alpha Mu Fraternity. He credits his partner, artists Gary Frederick Brown, and their two sons with helping to keep his sensibilities on the cutting edge.

About Adam Werbach

Adam Werbach is the head of Unscripted and Digital for Kapital Entertainment.

Werbach first became known when he was elected National President of the Sierra Club at age 23.  As Sierra Club President, Werbach developed media and outreach campaigns for the Sierra Club, lowering the average age of a member from 47 to 37 during his tenure. Werbach helped pass the laws to create Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks. He worked with President Bill Clinton to protect Grand Staircase-Escalante, a fragile 1.7 million acre ecological zone in Southern Utah. 

He left the Sierra Club to pursue his passion for media and technology, creating Act Now Productions and producing the investigative newsmagazine “The Thin Green Line” for two seasons on the Outdoor Life Network and the music documentary This is Noise Pop, which Rolling Stone Magazine named one of the best music documentaries of the year.  He sold Act Now Productions to the Publicis Groupe and joined the executive board of Saatchi & Saatchi, where he led marketing campaigns to launch iconic products including the Toyota Prius. Werbach was inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Hall of Achievement, which he described as, “like Sarah Palin getting an award from the American Grammatical Society.” His second startup, Trove, provides the software and logistics to sell used products for brands including Patagonia, REI, Allbirds, Canada Goose and Lululemon. Trove recently closed a D round, led by G2 Venture Partners, bringing Trove’s total funding to date to $122.5 million.

Meanwhile, Werbach continued to build games and apps independently with media and technology leaders including Reid Hoffman and Samantha Bee. With Bee & TBS, he led the development of “This is Not a Game, the Game,” a comedy-quiz app which launched in the top 10 games in the Apple App store. Werbach was recruited by Amazon to launch their sustainable shopping efforts globally. He used machine learning to develop new products, reduce packaging, and change the search algorithm so that sustainable products receive 10% more views than conventional products, but was saved by Aaron Kaplan when he was brought to Kapital Entertainment to lead Kapital’s Unscripted and Digital department. At Kapital he works on a diverse slate of projects and recently produced 40 episodes of the new court TV show, Civil Justice with Sean Collinson, and Comedy Pays with Cedric the Entertainer.

About Adam Everist

Throughout his career, Adam has built an impressive portfolio with titles such as Legends of the Hidden Temple for The CW, Paradise Run for Nickelodeon, & A Season With Florida State Football for Showtime where he contributed as both a Senior and Supervising Producer. His experience spans scripted and unscripted formats, where he has managed teams, executed strategic content planning, and worked across development, production, and post-production. With awards from competitions like RealScreen’s Formagination, Adam’s work is distinguished by its creativity, attention to detail, and his collaborative approach to storytelling.

Contact Information

Name: Adam Everist
Email: aeverist@cinema.usc.edu