About Brian Forbes
Brian Forbes started at Paramount Pictures while still a business student at the University of Southern California. Originally he was recruited by Henry “Hank” Ehrlich, Paramount Feature Films Director of Special Projects and Bob Goodfried, Paramount’s Publicity and Promotion Chief. He initially worked with fellow Detroiters Robin Williams and Pam Dawber on Paramount Television’s Mork and Mindy and worked with Gene Roddenberrry during the production of the Start Trek motion pictures. He also worked with Producer and former Paramount Studio Chief Robert Evans and again with Robin Williams on Popeye. Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s Brian developed his “Showman Style” marketing campaigns and his employment Agreement with Paramount allowed him to work on loan to other Studios and production companies during downtime. Brian also started working with other Paramount Studio departments including Studio Public Relations, and in Business and Legal Affairs with Licensing and Merchandising which is where he focussed his activities learning the intricate details of researching rights and ownership of Intellectual Properties for licensing opportunities for the Studio.
Publishing nd Printed Media and Products
While Brian’s licensing experience covers, a wide range of products including soundtracks and music; film clips; apparel and accessories; toys and games; video games and digital products, his major specialty is published media and has been since a very early age.. He spent much of his free time during his teens developing personal relationships with writers and artists. On visits to New York he would spend days at the St. Regis Hotel with Salvador Dali; at the New Yorker building with Charles Addams; in the Theater District with Edward Gorey, or visiting vintage pulp editors and writers including Harry Bates. Brian was a personal correspondent of Rod Serling during his Night Gallery production and until Serling passed away in 1975.. Serling was very encouraging of Brian’s own writing and helped prepare him for the Hollywood business industry.
Much of Brian’s licensing deals have involved international published media including novelizations, and books and magazines relating to studio intellectual properties. Shortly after starting with Paramount, Brian was asked to help develop a publishing division of Paramount in cooperation with publishing company Simon and Schuster which was owned by Gulf and Western, the same conglomerate as Paramount. G+W CEO Charlie Bluhdorn had the idea that published media based on Paramount’s movie and television properties could be more profitable than selling licenses to publishing companies. Development stopped upon Bluhdorn’s untimely death in 1983.
In the late 1990’s Brian was hired to develop a similar publishing line for MGM Studios in part funded by the German publishing giant, Tessloff Verlag featuring original content by modern writers under the famous brands from the studio. Brian is also an avid reader, writer and book collector himself and has developed and maintained close friendships and business relationships and collaborations with many well-known authors over the years. In the early 1980’s he started a literary collaboration with science fiction giant A. E. van Vogt and David Bowie and although both have passed away they encouraged Brian to finish the project which he has promised to continue with.
In 1982 he was approached by long-time best friend Forrest J Ackerman and writer friends Ray Bradbury; A. E. van Vogt; Robert Bloch; Harry Bates; Arch Oboler; Zenna Henderson, George Clayton Johnson and set design artist Kenneth Strickfaden to start a small publishing company which would publish and distribute their books they way they wanted. With the help of British special effects genius Roger Dicken and with encouragement from Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson, Henry Slesar and Stephen King, Brian bought interest in a small publishing company in Berkshire, England and named it Morrison, Raven-Hill. Brian still owns the publishing company though there have been additional investors through the years, the publishing company still exists now called McNae, Marlin and MacKenzie, Ltd.
Printing Technologies for Publishing, Apparel and Consumer Products
No matter what a Licensor or a Licensee needs printed, we can help. When Brian was in grade school at Brookside School, Cranbrook, he was able to print newsletters using the school’s mimeograph machine, a gelatin printer and small letterpress that he bought through the Johnson Smith Novelty Company catalog. In high school he bought a Varityper (an early typewriter that could set right-justified type for printing.), a larger letterpress printing machine, and an AB Dick 360 offset printing machine to print his newsletters and small magazines out of a friend’s garage. When he started his internship at Paramount Pictures during college Brian met Michael Norman, the garment printing contractor for Paramount and other studios. Michael specialized in silk screen printing and embroidery for apparel and garments used by the studios and as producion wardrobe by studio costumers. Often a single garment was needed for a show by a studio costumer and silk screen printing was a time consuimg and expensive process, so Brian invested with Michael to buy a Xerox 6500, the first color copier with a capability of making a heat transfer with a wax carrier that could be used on light colored fabrics. Brian continued to invest in printing equipment that was used for the specialty priting of apparel and studio props including sublimated dye transfers machines, hot foil stamping and embossing machines, pad tampo transfer printing machines, laser cutting machines for adhesive vinyl and sandblasting etching machines. Most of Brian’s short-run apparel printing is done with a Brother GTX Pro Direct to Garment inkjet printer.
Broadcast Media
Brian has also long been an advocate of the use of radio in motion picture and television marketing and publicity. Long before audio books, podcasting and audio streaming services, he had proposed to Gulf and Western that they revive a marketing strategy that Paramount’s President Adolf Zukor had developed as far back as the 1930’s in order to promote films through produced teaser radio scenes and short interviews with talent to be played during commuter and office radio time. Although Gulf and Western did not go ahead with Brian’s proposal for the Paramount Radio project, radio promotions for filmed entertainment did increase substantially. Brian received his Amateur Radio license while in his teens. Currently he holds over 7 privately held FCC radio licenses including Restricted; General Mobile; Marine; Restricted Commercial and both Amateur Radio and Television licenses.
Currently Brian is involved in merchandising development of published and broadcast media with several properties including Stanger Things and the MGM / Netflix show, Wednesday which he feels is appropriate since he was also a friend of New Yorker Magazine cartoonist Charles Addams, the originator of characters in The Addams Family.
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Associates
Members of our expert staff are available to help our clients, both studio and distribution companies and licensees complete every aspect of the field of Entertainment Marketing and Merchandising – from Intellectual Property and Contract Law; Promotional printed material preparation and printing; Electronic Press Kit production and distribution to Merchandise and Product Prototype design and creation and Apparel design and printing..
Emanuel Bergmann
Eli Bergmann has been an international entertainment journalist and publicist for over 30 years. In addition to planning press junkets for studios including Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount. He has also been responsible for foreign language translation of entertainment press materials for studios and media companies throughout Europe, the United Kingdom, India and the United States.
Eli is also a successful novelist. His recent international bestseller, The Trick was a top pick by Simon and Schuster. His new novel Tahara was released internationally on February 24, 2024.
Andrew Candelaria
Andy Candelaria is one of the most renowned Art Directors in the advertising world having headed Art Direction at Grey Direct. A life-long graphic artist, fine art painter and photographer, he is an expert at creating display advertising and was Art Director for lines of the Mattel Hot Wheels and Collectors Barbie dolls. His other clients included Technicolor, Avery Dennison and MGM Entertainment..
Steven Machat
Entertainment and Intellectual Property lawyer and son of the legendary Entertainment lawyer Marty Machat, Steven Machat joined his father’s firm to represent such names as Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Frankie Valli, Sam Cooke, Leonard Cohen, Freddie Mercury, Michael Jackson, David Copperfield, Sharon Osbourne, George Bush, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Suge Knight, Tupac, Biggie, Gianni Versace, Phil Spector, Joan Collins, Donny Osmond, Bobby Brown, and many more..
In addition to legal work, Steven is a well-published writer, music author and music and motion picture producer.
Bruce Schultz
Bruce is a presentation and prototype specialist in the fields of casting, painting and sculpting. He has worked for over twenty years with Mattel’s Hot Wheels division where he was responsible for the creation of many of the paint master prototypes as well as the “poster shoot” models of the castings that were to be put into production. He also did artwork for some of the 100% Hot Wheels sets, such as the American Graffiti 2-Car Set. In addition to Mattel Hot Wheels prototypes and design, Bruce has also created prototypes for the Monster High dolls, and Bratz Dolls for toy companies MGA Entertainment, Spin Master and Jakks Pacific.
Dana Schneider
More people around the globe have seen Dana’s jewelry than any other jeweller in history. Her jewelry made for films and television are iconic. From The Hunger Games to The Matrix, Top Gun and many of the Marvel filmed brands Dana brings a stylized sophistication the embodies that overall character of the show. A graduate of Kingswood, Cranbrook and the Rhode Island School of Design, Dana spent time at Tiffany’s in New York before launching her own successful jewelry line and then was recruited by Hollywood where she has become the go-to source for the costume and prop industry.
Debbie Randolph
Debbie is a graphic artist and an apparel printing and embroidery specialist, and has been the main supplier of prop and costume printed wear for the studios’ wardrobe departments in Hollywood for over 45 years. Debbie’s company, The Wizard was a fixture both on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood adjacent to the motion picture and television studios and with a printing factory in the San Fernando Valley for larger silk screen runs and embroidery. Today The Wizard does small and large run silk screen printing on fabric and apparel and also does DTG (Direct To Garment) printing, sublimated dye transfer printing for garments and embroidery.
Michael Selsman
Michael has been an Agent, Studio Executive, Press Relations Expert and Producer in Hollywood through its Golden Age. He was Agent to Marilyn Monroe, Robert Mitchum, Orson Welles, Judy Garland, Lawrence Harvey, Rock Hudson, Gene Kelly, James Stewart and many others. Michael was also a studio executive at Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, MGM, Universal and Samuel Goldwyn. Nobody has as many Press Contacts in the field of movies and television
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