Ben Frahm

Ben Frahm joined the Newhouse School in Fall 2023 as a tenure-track assistant professor in the television, radio and film program. He teaches classes in screenwriting and has been an assistant teaching professor at Syracuse since 2017. 

Prior to joining Syracuse University, Frahm was a visiting lecturer at Ithaca College from 2013-16. Prior to Ithaca College, he served as lecturer at New York Film Academy in 2012 and UCLA from 2010-2012.  

Ben Frahm began his professional career selling the script “Dr. Sensitive” to Universal Studios (with director Tom Shadyac attached) and serving as a story consultant on the critically acclaimed film “How to Train Your Dragon” for Dreamworks Animation, for which he was given a studio credit. Most recently he optioned a script, “48 Hours in Vegas,” to producer Bobby Cohen at Imagine Entertainment (Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s company). The script later went on to garner the attention and formal attachment of Michael Jordan and his production company Heir Jordan Entertainment, led by Jeron Smith and son Jeffrey Jordan; as well as Kevin Hart and his producing partner Bryan Smiley at HartBeat Productions.

Frahm has been commissioned to publish his first book with Save the Cat! Press, the publishing company behind the #1 selling screenwriting book of all time—"Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need” by Blake Snyder. Previously Frahm worked as a story editor and director of development for Snyder and is founder and director of the New York City writing workshops by the same name. Frahm’s book will focus exclusively on the structure of short films and is slated to be published and available in stores in late 2024.

Through his industry relationships, Frahm has developed a class at the Newhouse School called The Writers’ Room, where students write spec screenplays for Hulu, under the development deal of writer, director and producer Jeremy Garelick at American High. He is also the co-creator of the first ever BIPOC Filmmaking Award at Newhouse and helped cultivate a relationship with the Oscar Micheaux Film Festival in Los Angeles, that honors and celebrates diverse storytelling.

Internationally, Frahm was hired to adapt the book “The Discreet Pleasures of Rejection” for Warner Bros. International, which was theatrically released in 500-plus theaters across Brazil and is now available on Netflix. He has also written for the television show “DesEncontros” for Sony Entertainment Television. Frahm earned a B.S. in human development from Cornell University and an M.F.A. in screenwriting from UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). He is a member of the Writers Guild of America, East, and lives in Ithaca, New York with his wife and two sons.