Faculty Directory

John Baumann

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John Baumann has been working in and around the digital content space in NYC for decades. He began as a traditional animator before he became owner and creative director of Celefex and worked on commercials, film and broadcast projects. He has variously been an animator, director, as well as a mobile, web and game developer and is intimately familiar with a host of digital creation tools. He has taught at the New School, the School of Visual Arts and also at The Cooper Union, where he received his BFA. He has been awarded two Emmys for his broadcast work and an Addy for his commercial work.

Bruce Buckley

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Bruce attended Sheridan for college where he studied art fundamentals. His primary focus was photography, shooting both 35mm and 4×5. Commercial photography was exciting and he did lots of studio work and architectural photography.

After earning his degree, Bruce took a job with the Canadian government working with microfilm. There he discovered computers and became curious about the possibilities of using them to make art. After nine years there Bruce returned to school to study technical illustration.

In 1987 he went to NAB where he met fellow Canadian Steve Williams who was at the conference presenting with Alias. A phone call from ILM in 1993 brought Bruce to ILM. At ILM he went to work right away on films including; Casper, Dragonheart, and Congo helping to develop systems and tools to make the artist’s work move seamless. In 1995 Bruce was headhunted away by Disney to come work on Dinosaur. Bruce’s credits include; Atlantis: The Lost Empire, The Incredibles, Monster House, Beowulf, Scott Pilgrim, Tree of Life, John Carter, Prometheus, Fate of the Furious, Kong: Skull Island, and Deadpool 2, to name just a few.

Today Bruce teaches at the NY Film Academy and is a Freelance CG/VFX Supervisor.

Tony Candelaria

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Tony Candelaria began his career at Cafe FX in Santa Maria CA. as a CG modeler for feature films and television. In 2001 Tony worked at Warner Bros animation, developing and animating pilots. in 2005 he worked at Laika animation, making stop-motion animation for films, Coraline and Paranorman. Currently, he is creating puppets for Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio at Shadow Machine. Tony lives in Los Angeles.

Craig Caton

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Craig started out by doing makeup effects and animatronic puppets on movies such as Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, Tremors, and Ghostbusters. Moving into the digital era, he worked as a character technical director for Disney Feature Animation and for DreamWorks Animation as a layout artist. Working for Stan Winston, Craig supervised the creation of a network of Silicon Graphics workstations that would later become a core piece of the Digital Domain when Stan partnered with James Cameron and Scott Ross. He is credited as one of the eight co-founders of Digital Domain.

Frederic Durand

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Frederic Durand graduated from the Ecole Nationale des Arts Decoratifs and studied for a year at NYC’s Cooper Union while earning his Master’s degree. He has worked on both animated and feature films in addition to his commercial work for over 20 years and has served at such companies as Disney Animation, Sony Imageworks, DreamWorks, Jim Henson’s Workshop, MPC, the Mill, and Digital Domain. He also co-founded Noroc Studio and is the lighting and shading supervisor at the Los Angeles company Mousetrappe. His prior film work includes Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Tomb Raider 1 and 2, SharkTales, Speed Racer, 2012, Beowulf, Monster House, Chicken Little, and many more.

Having authored a number of educational DVDs that instructed viewers in the subject of computer-generated illumination, Durand is an expert lighting artist employing a methodology that is as creative as it is technical and utilizes core elements of cinematography. In addition to teaching at NYFA, Durand also serves on the faculty the Gnomon School of Visual Effects, the Global Cinematography Institute, the Otis College of Design, and the University of Southern California.

Ben Granoff

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Ben Granoff has worked in New York City for twenty years as a visual storyteller with production houses, animation studios, advertising agencies, publishers and museums. Since his teenage years, he has been teaching cartooning for after-school programs, summer camps, charter schools, and social service agencies. He has been helping NYFA students bring their imaginations to life since 2017.

Jim Hillin

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Jim came to Los Angeles in 1979 as an artist, animator and musician. He began is career in computer graphics at a start-up in 1985 in Pasadena, CA. while also attending The Art Center College of Design. As an artist, he pushed to learn the engineering side of CGI, eating and breathing the new discipline.

In his fifth year in the business, Jim was chosen to be the Artistic Supervisor of CGI for “Beauty and the Beast” at Disney.

In 1993, he was hired as the Director of Digital Production for a new VFX shop, Digital Domain. He hired the first crew, created specs for the original software, including “Nuke” and worked on many motion pictures.

In 1995, Jim returned to Disney to head up a new live-action animated project, called ‘Dinosaur.’ After completing his work on the film, he worked as a Writer-Director at Disney Animation, pitching five animated features and two shorts in six months.

In 2000, Jim was elected by his peers into the Visual Effects Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In addition, Jim belongs to the Visual Effects Society, The Animation Guild and he has recently joined The Television Academy.

Isac Kalsky

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Isaac Kalsky (Instructor) is a 3D Animator with over 10 years of digital media experience. He has created animations for advertising agencies, film, television and fine art companies. Isaac teaches animation, rigging, and motion capture at the New York film Academy.