Jason Scott

Jason Davids Scott earned a doctorate in theatre in 2009 at the University of California Santa Barbara, and also earned a master's with honors from UCSB in 2004. Prior, Scott graduated with a BFA in cinema studies from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, and established a career a film publicist ("Dazed and Confused," "The Crow") and development executive in both Los Angeles and New York, working for Castle Rock Entertainment and later actress/producer Helen Hunt. 

 At ASU, Dr. Scott has collaborated with students, staff, and faculty to create unique streaming, promotional, and educational videos to promote community and support the mission of ASU.  These efforts include helping to produce promotional videos for the Mesa Arts Center Museum Store and Visit Mesa; and helping to create and produce several web-based episodes for Zombified Media, an ASU-based collective focused on studying the literal and symbolic meaning of the zombie apocalypse for YouTube's Channel Zed.

Similar efforts have successfully connected students to paying jobs and educational opportunities in documentary projects in the sciences and humanities, including production roles on PBS' television series "Poetry in America," the IMAX documentary "Jane Goodall's Reasons for Hope," and the short film "The Assignment" for ASU's Center for Science and the Imagination, for which Dr. Scott was an associate producer.  Currently Dr. Scott is also serving as associate producer on the climate-themed performance and multimedia project "Weathering the Storm," to be performed live at the MIX Center in Mesa and later broadcast on Arizona PBS.  This project is produced by ASU professor Steven Beschloss in conjunction with ASU's Narrative Storytelling Initiative.

 "Everything but the Script: Professional Writing in the Entertainment Industry," published by Cognella in 2019, was Dr. Scott's first solo publication, and they continue to serve as a freelance publicity and marketing consultant for entertainment firms in both Los Angeles and New York, creating marketing materials for more than 200 film projects and individual clients. 

Dr. Scott's past publications include articles and reviews in the Mid-Atlantic Almanck; the online journals Response and Otherness: Essays and Studies; and the Journal of Popular Culture.  They wrote the artist profiles for "Monologues for Latino/a Actors," edited by ASU professor Micha Espinosa and published by Smith and Kraus. Other publications include chapters or contributions to "Robert Downey Jr. From Brat to Icon" (MacFarland); the "Cambridge World Encyclopedia of Actors and Acting"; "The Films of Wes Anderson" (Palgrave-Macmillan); and "The Cinema of Hal Hartley" (Wallflower/Columbia University Press). Upcoming publications include an essay on the representation of sexual violence and trauma in the television series "Outlander," to be included in a collection published by Macfarland; and more than two dozen entries in the "Cambridge Encyclopedia of Stage Directors and Directing."

After graduate school, Scott was hired a lecturer at Arizona State University (2009-2011), and later as assistant professor at the School of Theatre at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas.  Returning to ASU in 2013, Professor Scott was awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor of Film in 2020.  At Arizona State University, Scott currently teaches  undergraduate courses in Sex and Violence in Cinema, Professional and Technical Writing for the Industry, and Independent Film and serves as chairperson for the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts Faculty Personnel Committee.

Away from ASU, Scott is a member of the Executive Board of the Mesa Arts Center Foundation and Chairperson of the Arts at the Center Committee; serves the extended Arizona community as an adjudicator and respondent for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival; and offers regular lectures for the ASU Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI).  A longtime member an former board member of the Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association (MAPACA), Scott has also presented at conferences hosted by the Architecture Media Politics Society (AMPS), Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA), the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), and the American Society for Theatrical Research (ASTR).

As part of more than a decade of service to the ASU film programs and the Sidney Poitier New American Film School, Dr. Scott helped develop new curricular models to facilitate better retention and students success, helping to expand the production programs offerings and fulfill ASU's missions of inclusion, diversity, and equity.  This included helping the faculty to create a new Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2021, and spearheading (in 2018) the development of the Standard Acknowledgment of Filmmaking Ethics (SAFE) set protocol to train filmmakers to better understand and deal with issues related to abuse of power, harassment, and discrimination in industry workplaces.  They are also the co-founder and former chair of the Arizona Transfer Articulation Task Force for Film and Media, which oversees the film curricula at community colleges and public universities in Arizona (aztransfer.com).

Dr. Scott is gender non-binary and prefers the use of gender neutral pronouns in formal discourse.  They have two dogs (Ernie and Bert) and three cats (Catfish John, Loose Lucy, and Jolson.)