Biography
Noble House Entertainment, Inc & The Script Broker ® Educational Technologies
DEVORAH CUTLER-RUBENSTEIN - Writer/Director/Producer/Educator/Speaker
Devorah ("Devo") Cutler-Rubenstein's passion for storytelling and artistic expression brought her to California Institute of the Arts where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film and Television. While at Cal Arts she was selected to receive a grant from the Scottish Arts Council to attend Edinburgh Arts. Her documentary about this unique educational setting inspired her documentary film EDINBURGH ARTS, which aired in part on Grampian Television. Returning to Cal Arts, she had an opportunity to study with Alexander MacKenrick, where she wrote, produced and directed PEACOCK BLUES, a short film casting the as yet unknown Ed Harris and Annie Potts.
Upon graduation Devo launched her career in the entertainment industry at Twentieth Century Fox, rising quickly up the ranks in story development. She was Director of Story Department for Sir Lew Grade's Marble Arch productions at CBS Studios. She helped design a new story department as Director, Literary Affairs at Columbia Pictures TV, and not long after became VP of Marketing and Promotion for Connoisseur Video. Simultaneously, she began to develop projects for theater under her banner New Play Productions and then partnered with Mary Saxon to form Cutler-Saxon Productions, with an eye to leverage small theatre as a vehicle for larger budget television and feature film projects.
Currently as CEO and President of Noble House Entertainment, she continues to develop and produce multi-platform projects, in a career that has spanned over thirty years working within all aspects of the entertainment industry. She has developed over 500 projects under various production banners, including producing the feature film franchise THE SUBSTITUTE, for MGM, Live Entertainment and HBO, starring Tom Berenger and Treat Williams, respectively. Inspired by work she did with stand-up comedians coaching them on the development of one-person shows, she won a grant to co-produce and co-write with her husband, Scott Rubenstein (Star Trek: TNG, MacGyver, Night Court) the documentary NOT AFRAID TO LAUGH, about using comedy to heal cancer. The intimate documentary won The Communicator Award and was nominated for a Peabody Award, now archived in the Chicago Museum of Broadcasting for its "artistic excellence, social relevance and historical significance." As a narrative director, she helped out on another award-winning documentary, TELL ABOUT THE SOUTH, which aired on PBS; she helped cast and the documentary was shot entirely on locations in South Carolina and Virginia. Adapting a John Irving short story, she competed and won a grant from Chanticleer Films/The Discovery Program to write and direct a narrative short, which she co-wrote with her husband, Scott Rubenstein, who also exec produced; the short film starred Poppy Montgomery, Bill Forsythe and Tony Plana and won Best Film at Moondance Film Festival and aired on Showtime Television. A writer at her core, Devo continues to pursue a creative outlet as a published poet, short story writer, and as a member of the Writers' Guild of America, West. She has written and/or produced film and television projects for ABC, Columbia Pictures, FX, Showtime, MGM, Live Entertainment, Fries Entertainment, Interscope Entertainment, among others. Her desire to promote cultural diversity was acknowledged by a NALIP Screenwriting Fellowship, and in 2015, Devo fulfilled a lifelong dream and received a Master's in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California, Dornsife College of Letters, Arts & Sciences.
Over the years, Devo recognized the need for fellow working artists to understand the intersection of their art and their careers. She designed and created empowerment workshops, like "Survival in the Showbiz Trenches," "Knowing the Right Buyer for your Project," and numerous pitching seminars for film and sales' markets worldwide. She has written numerous published articles for such magazines a MovieMaker and Scr(i)pt on the challenges of writing and producing and has been interviewed for radio, podcasts and print, including for People Magazine and I-Heart Radio. Especially enthusiastic about "The Art of Pitching," Devo was voted Best Pitching Coach by Hollywood & Vine Magazine in 2012. Additionally, her credits include being a contributing screenwriter to "Now Write! Screenplays," and "Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, published by Tarcher/Penguin. As an adjunct professor, Devo has also taught Production and Preproduction courses for a number of universities, including UCLA and Columbia College Hollywood and California State University at Northridge, California. Her textbook, WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA? WRITING SHORTS, lead her to become the script coach for fifteen years at University of Southern California, helping students from around the world create short films through USC's School of Cinematic Arts Summer Program's Directing Intensive. As an actor-friendly director, she has also over the last six years brought her knowledge of the business and her director's vision to a university based in Paris, France. For Acting International's conservatory, Devo helps actors hone survival skills, for instance "Branding for actors" and "Seeing Through the Director's Eyes For Actors," and "Audition Coaching for Today's Market and Beyond." In her role as an educator dedicated to preparing her students for the "reel world," she is able to advise them on the legalities of creative partnerships, as well as help them find intellectual properties that nurture their brand and can help them launch their careers. As a producer's coach she advises on loglines, pitching decks and on the creation of business plans and financing strategies for a variety of formats and international markets. Her how-to video, produced through Creative Screenwriting, THE INSIDER'S GUIDE TO FILM FINANCING, is still being sold and is used to help filmmakers at all levels of experience understand the slippery slopes of development, financing and production on the way to producing television and feature films.
Ultimately, Devo combines executive, artistic and business skillsets towards a comprehensive perspective of how PR and Business Coaching is vital to an artist's growth and survival. To that end, as CEO of The Script Broker®, Devo helps writers and other creatives get ready for the marketplace, giving them guidance, coaching and access to buyers. She is proud to say one of her students from USC won the Academy Award for Best Student Short within the last few years. She is currently mentoring a student from Spain attending The University of Westminster outside of London, completing her master's project, a Horror-Comedy.
Most recently, Devo has partnered with a small group of talented and experienced international film, cable and television executives in SEE U FILMS, a multi-dimensional coaching service for the entertainment industry worldwide. SEE U FILMS is intent on helping producers, writers and directors bridge the diverse demands, creative formats, unique cultural and always evolving industry practices by bringing our high-level expertise to projects in various stages of development, financing, production, post production and distribution strategies.
Devo currently lives in WeHo & Newport Beach, California with offices in West Hollywood, California.
SHORT BIO (Below)
Devorah (Devo)'s career spans decades of creating on a number of media Platforms. She has been a stand-up, a poet, an author, a studio exec, a painter, an exec producer and a dedicated educator, teaching at USC and UCLA Extension, among others. As a member of the WGA since 1982, she has worked for television and written feature films. Her documentary, NOT AFRAID TO LAUGH, which she co-wrote with her husband, Scott Rubenstein, about turning to comedy to heal herself of breast cancer, was nominated for a Peabody and is archived in the Museum of Broadcasting for "Social Relevance and Historical Significance..." She co-wrote the book DATING YOUR CHARACTER, a new character-based writing tool with Literary Managers Marilyn Atlas and Elizabeth Lopez. She has dedicated her life and her art to challenging people's perceptions about their world, themselves and their relationships.
