Biography
Damon Lee is an award-winning producer, accomplished executive, and talented filmmaker with almost 20 years experience in the entertainment industry and track record for creating acclaimed and high-grossing projects for film and television. He is the CEO and founder of Deacon Entertainment, a Hollywood production company where he develops and produces projects for urban audiences and its crossover segments.
Damon won a 2011 NAACP Image award as executive producer of Lifetime movie Sins Of The Mother, which won for Outstanding Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special. The film's star, Jill Scott won a Best Actress Award in the same category. The project originated when Lifetime Movie Network, eager to appeal to their large African-American viewer ship, turned to Damon because of his track record with the urban audience. The result was Sins, which became the second most watched original film in the history of the network.
Damon executive produced two of the top five African-American themed films of the past decade: Obsessed, starring Beyoncé, and This Christmas with an ensemble cast featuring Idris Elba, Loretta Devine, Chris Brown, Regina King, and Mekhi Pfiefer. Obsessed is the seventh highest grossing psychological thriller of all-time. Other projects he's executive produced include Taken From Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story for Lifetime Television and One Flight Stand a short, which was an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival in 2003.
Eager to leverage his A-list contacts and vast industry experience for social good, Damon has recently expanded Deacon's purview and begun to produce quality public service announcements (PSAs). In addition to his traditional job as a producer, Damon has taken on the roles of director and writer of these broadcast spots. In this new arena, Damon has already worked with Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Sarah Jessica Parker, John Legend and, most notably, President Barak Obama.
Damon is a pioneer in using the Internet as a fertile creative laboratory within which to develop big screen projects. Years before YouTube hit the scene, in his Executive Vice President role at Urban Entertainment, he was instrumental in developing the animated web series Undercover Brother which he then produced as a critically-acclaimed, live-action feature film for Universal Pictures in 2002; the film grossed over $100 million world-wide. This was the first ever cross-over endeavor from animated web series to live-action feature film, and remains the only one to date.
A graduate of the selective Peter Stark Producing Program, Damon holds a Masters of Fine Arts from U.S.C. and got his BA from Brandeis University. After graduate school, Damon quickly made his way up the Hollywood ranks of executives, working as a Vice President of Production for legendary action producer Joel Silver and was actively involved in the development of The Matrix and Conspiracy Theory. He served as a Vice President at MGM, and most recently was the Executive Vice President of Our Stories Films, which was created by BET founder Robert L Johnson.
The son of two teachers, Damon has always valued education. He was an early participant in the renowned Teach For America Program, and spent his first year out of college teaching in Inglewood, California. In 2011, he began teaching as an adjunct professor in the graduate studies program at UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television.
Damon lives in Santa Monica with his wife Michelle and their two sons Carter and Beckett.
