Ten years ago, few people could have predicted where Hollywood would be now — recovering from a pandemic and battling a job shortage following two historic strikes — let alone where it’ll be in ten more. Yet, as Marshall Professors and Hollywood veterans Sherry Gunther and Michael Napoliello like to remind their students at the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies: with uncertainty comes opportunity.

Adjunct Professors of Entrepreneurship Michael Napoliello and Sherry Gunther are teaching their students the skills to seize these opportunities and mold what’s next in a turbulent industry. With their respective classes, BAEP 475 Entertainment Entrepreneurship and BAEP 575 Entrepreneurship in the Media and Entertainment Industry, Napoliello and Gunther are using their years of experience in Hollywood to prepare students for the endless entrepreneurial possibilities across the film, television, and media landscape.

“In this industry, where it survives and thrives on every level is entrepreneurial,” Napoliello said. “For example, writing a pilot for a TV series is an entrepreneurial endeavor. I’m taking a risk that my words will spark interest and I’m investing my time.”

It’s not just writers who have this mindset, according to Napoliello. Producers, directors, craftspeople, actors, and many other industry workers are entrepreneurs in their own right, betting on themselves in an industry built on self-starters and changemakers.

“An entrepreneur must think, ‘What’s next?’” Napoliello said. “If you’re doing what’s happening right now, you’re a day late.”

Gunther’s and Napoliello’s courses prepare students to answer these questions with hands-on, experiential exercises and projects. At the end of Gunther’s BAEP 575, for example, students must design, develop, and critique an entertainment-based venture that can exist in a dynamic market.

Over the years, Gunther has watched class projects evolve in step with Hollywood. From AR/VR proposals to new streaming networks to bold artificial intelligence integration, her students are pushing the limits of what’s possible and what’s next. Their pitches may seem off the beaten path, but as Gunther points out, the ideas proposed in her class are the future of Hollywood.

“These discussions are what shape each other’s points of view and vision of what the opportunities are in the future,” Gunther said.

Napoliello’s BAEP 475 class has the benefit of being open to all USC undergraduates. Whether it’s artists working to learn the business side of the industry or business students hoping to learn the artistic angles, his course is filled with a diverse range of perspectives and goals.

While Gunther instructs the graduate level course and Napoliello teaches undergraduates, they both have a similar approach to their courses. Each has traveled unique paths in the industry that date back decades, often using those experiences to inform their lessons and provide students a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the business.