Faculty Directory

Arsenio G. Assin

Arsenio G. Assin received his BFA from City College of New York’s Picker Institute in Film and Media Studies. Afterward, he worked for several years in various genres in New York, including music videos, documentaries, commercials, industrials, ENG., and independent shorts and features in the different crew departments, such as a key grip, sound, electrician, AC, production design and eventually DOP. His work history has ranged from work for bigger productions, such as an AC for the New York second unit crew of Stanley Kubrick’s last film, Eyes Wide Shut, to smaller productions of independent companies such as cult favorite Troma Entertainment’s feature films Citizen Toxie and Poultrygeist. As a cinematographer, his work in indie films, The Viscous Circle and Sad Spanish Song has been accepted in several festivals as well as had a theatrical release. His longtime collaboration with director Preston Miller has seen his work in the micro-budget film Jones, reviewed by Amy Taubin in Film Comment as “a find.” He believes that it was these varied work experiences that gave him insight into the challenges that face new and upcoming filmmakers.

Carl Bartels

A working cinematographer since 1996, Carl is credited with dozens of feature films and several award-winning documentaries. Originally from Massachusetts, Carl is now based in Los Angeles. He has shot numerous shows for Discovery and A&E, and directed several episodes. His most recent credits include Greedy, Lying Bastards, a documentary produced by Daryl Hannah, and Taken 3 starring Liam Neeson and Forrest Whittaker, on which he shot “A” Camera (he is credited on the entire Taken series of films).

Sanora Bartels

Producer for several feature documentaries including Michael & Me and Taking the Hill: A Warrior’s Journey, a documentary about PTSD. Most recently, she was the Field Producer for the documentary Greedy, Lying Bastards, executive produced by Daryl Hannah. She has worked as an Assistant Director on shows for Discovery and NatGeo Channel.

Piero Basso, AIC Chair of Cinematography

Born in northern Italy, Piero Basso graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies, Cinema, from the University of Turin. During his career, exceeding two decades, Basso has photographed 17 feature films, and TV series, along with numerous documentaries, short films, music videos and commercials.

His work has been honored at some of the most prestigious film festivals around the globe, including Venice (Una Famiglia, Competition), Locarno (Seven Acts of Mercy, Competition), Cannes (Darker than Midnight, Semaine de la Critique), Berlin (Dafne, Panorama – Fipresci Award as Best Feature Film), Turin (Santina, Competition), Oberhausen (Zakaria, Competition), Clermont-Ferrant, Busan, Huesca, Marrakech, Santa Barbara, and several others. He recently received a Best Cinematography Award at the 23rd Beverly Hills Film Festival. In 2009, he was invited to join the AIC, the exclusive Italian Association of Cinematographers.

Amanda Brzezowski

Amanda Brzezowski received her MA in Film Studies from Columbia University. She has presented papers at multidisciplinary conferences held at Emory University in Atlanta and the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. Previously Amanda worked at POV, the longest-running documentary series on PBS, screening documentaries in consideration for the series, and coordinating the annual Editorial Committee Meeting with programmers and independent filmmakers. Since 2013, she has screened documentary films in consideration for festivals including DOC NYC, Camden International Film Festival, and Tribeca Film Festival. Amanda has also directed short documentaries for local nonprofits to help raise money for community programs supporting children, seniors, cancer survivors, and musicians. Currently, she teaches in the Documentary Traditions & Aesthetics courses for the NYFA Documentary Conservatory programs.

Xiaoxiao Chen

Xiaoxiao Chen is a professional editor managing post production processes and storytelling techniques for feature films, TV, art exhibitions, installations, and commercials. Her clients include such giants as HBO, Paramount, Museum of Modern Art, Sony Pictures, Apple, New Balance. Career history of developing creative projects including works screened at Cannes Film Festival, DOC NYC, TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, and the United Nations.

Joseph Gordon Cleary

Joe Cleary is the owner of Ambitious Engine, a film production agency in NJ focused on the healthcare industry and is a Dean’s List graduate of the New York Film Academy Documentary Program. His film “Get it” was featured at the 2019 DOC NYC film festival.

Joe’s interests include shooting music videos, concerts and commercials with a focus on strong story telling, cinematography and sound design.

James H. Coburn IV CAS

James H. Coburn IV has been teaching production sound at college level for fifteen years. He is a Production Sound Mixer of 25 independent feature films, including The Bronx Bull, Free Enterprise and All’s Faire In Love, and TV series including Roger Corman’s Black Scorpion and Guru To Go for Discovery Networks. He was one of the mixers on the 2015 documentary Kobe Bryant’s Muse. His most recent project was consulting about sound and mixing for the documentary feature, Be The Beauty, which showcases Poet Laureates around the country. Before turning to mixing he was a boom operator and has worked on numerous network TV series, documentary projects and features. A long-time member and former Board member of the Cinema Audio Society, he was instrumental in creating the CAS Technical Awards. James wrote the Foreword to the authorized biography of his Oscar-winning father, “Dervish Dust: The Life and Words of James Coburn” (Potomac Books, 2021) and is currently working on a new book about the art of Production Sound mixing.

Tamera Daugherty-Martin

An award-winning film/tv editor, Emmy-nominated producer, and a life-long educator, guiding some 2500-plus undergrad, graduate and professional students across the post-production landscape since1994. Committed to empowering others to create and deliver their own stories, Tamera has helped shepherd numerous environmental, social justice and educational projects for U.S. and global distribution. Most notable films: Without Lying Down (Frances Marion and the Power of Women in Hollywood) and The Day My God Died, which gained worldwide support and recognition from the Gates Foundation, International Justice Mission, Reebok Foundation, The Royal Family, Kofi Annan, and Madeleine Albright.

Bob Eisenhardt

Bob Eisenhardt is an Academy Award nominee, three-time Emmy Award winner and recipient of the coveted “Eddie,” or American Cinema Editors Award. He has edited over 60 films, which have garnered another two Academy Award nominations, three more Emmys, a Peabody Award, three Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Award nominations, and even a Grammy nomination. Meru won the Audience Award at Sundance (2015) and was shortlisted for the 2016 Oscar. HBO’s Everything is Copy premiered at the 2015 New York Film Festival and earned another two Emmy nominations. Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood made its world premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. Jerusalem, Meru, Valentino: The Last Emperor and Dixie Chicks: Shut Up & Sing are among the highest earning documentaries of all time. Other editing credits include Wagner’s Dream and Living Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders, which was also shortlisted for the Oscar. Bob shares a director’s credit, an Emmy Award, IDA Award and a DGA Award with legendary documentarian Albert Maysles.

Mary Beth Fielder

Mary Beth Fielder is a filmmaker and teacher with over twenty five years experience in film and television.

Fielder has written screenplays for Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros and directed the television drama, thirtysomething. She wrote and produced award-winning feature films Wild About Harry, named Best of Fest at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in 2009 and Togetherness Supreme, winner of Best International Feature Film at the 2011 Santa Barbara International Film Festival and multiple African Movie Academy Awards. Fielder has taught film directing, screenwriting and acting at USC, Loyola Marymount University, Tel Aviv University, New York Film Academy and the Dodge College of Film and Media at Chapman University.

Lizzie Gottlieb

Lizzie Gottlieb has been directing film and theater in New York for the last 25 years. Lizzie’s most recent film, Turn Every Page, is a documentary about the prickly, funny, wildly productive half-century collaboration between Lizzie’s father, the editor Robert Gottlieb, and the author Robert Caro (The Power Broker, The Years of Lyndon Johnson). Caro, 87, and Bob Gottlieb, 91, are in a race against time to finish their life’s work. The film premiered in June 2022 at the Tribeca Film Festival and has since played at dozens of festivals, winning several audience awards, was named one of the best five documentaries of the year by the National Board of Review, and has received rave reviews. The film was purchased by Sony Pictures Classics and is currently playing in theaters across the country.

Her first film, Today’s Man, about her brother, who is on the Autistic Spectrum, aired on PBS (Independent Lens). Her film Romeo Romeo, about a young lesbian couple on a quest to have a baby, was also on PBS (America Reframed) and won the NLGJA award for excellence in Documentary.

She founded and ran an Off-Broadway theater company dedicated to producing new plays at accessible prices. With that company, Pure Orange Productions, she produced and directed plays, including Keith Bunin’s The Principality of Sorrows^[4] with Robert Sean Leonard, David Lansbury, and Joanna Going; Marking by Patrick Breen, starring Peter Dinklage, Amy Ryan, Adina Porter, and Maria Tucci. Other productions included Jonathan Marc Sherman’s Evolution with Josh Hamilton and Peter Dinklage, Noel Coward’s Private Lives with Sara Ramirez, and Fifth Planet by David Auburn with Christina Kirk and Michael Ian Black. Gottlieb directed plays for Naked Angels, New York Stage and Film, malaparte, and Julliard.

Andrew Gross

Manhattan School of Music; USC. Andrew has composed original scores and licensed his music to hundreds of features and episodes of TV. Scoring credits include: Bio-Dome (MGM), The King of Queens (CBS/Sony), and Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny (New Line). His music has been licensed across all media, including: American Idol (ABC), So You Think You Can Dance (Fox), Nacho Libre (Paramount) and Ratatouille (theatrical trailer, Disney). Recent credits include scoring and music supervision on the Emmy nominated, Why We Fight (Verizon GO90) and the upcoming comedy series, The Dress Up Gang (TBS). Andrew has received 4 BMI TV Music Awards.

Denise Hamilton DEI Los Angeles Education Chair

Denise Hamilton has over 30 years experience as a writer and producer for NBC, ABC and PBS network specials and syndicated programs. In the area of documentary film she most recently was co-producer of BEING MICHELLE, a feature which won the 2022 Audience Award as Best Documentary at the Florida Film Festival, and presented at fourteen other festivals. Ms. Hamilton was writer and field producer for four internationally-shot documentaries, including “NGONE’S STORY: A Tale of Africa’s Orphans”, which aired on NBC affiliate stations; as well as the feature “Hollywood Musicals: Singing and Dancing” which screened at the Palm Springs Film Festival and as a 4-part series for PBS. She served as series producer of “Where Cultures Collide”, a 5-part web series for KCETLink, and was coordinating producer on “For Peace Sake”, the Emmy award-winning 2-hour NBC-TV special, as well as the “Motown 40: The Music is Forever” documentary special for ABC-TV. She has served on the awards selection committee of the International Documentary Association, and has taught documentary film production for Spelman College. For eighteen years Ms. Hamilton also served as co-chairperson of the Black Association of Documentary Filmmakers-West.

Ronald Kopp

Ron Kopp has been a regularly featured film commentator for NPR, the “Dr. Video” columnist for barnesandnoble.com, and the Film Programmer for the Paramount Center for the Arts. He is currently in post-production on a short fiction film, “The Resurrection Love Song.” His feature-length version of Jeff Cohen’s play “The Soap Myth” has been broadcast on PBS. Both “The Soap Myth” and his documentary “I Will Refuse to Bubble” are distributed by Digital Theatre. Ron joined the faculty of the New York Film Academy in 2010. He teaches Documentary Cinema Studies and hosts master classes with visiting filmmakers.

Susannah Ludwig

Susannah Ludwig’s dynamic career in film production includes producing KINGS POINT, which was nominated for an Academy Award. Her latest project, ON MEDITATION, was released theatrically and via Netflix in 2016. ON MEDITATION features such notable personalities as Congressman Tim Ryan, Filmmaker David Lynch, Giancarlo Esposito, and Peter Matthiessen. Additionally, Ludwig has served as an Executive Producer for Snapdragon Films, working with clients such as Microsoft, Xerox, Weight Watchers, Conde Nast Traveler, Johnson & Johnson, and Lululemon. She co-created the docu-series BOOMTOWN, about the effects of oil discovery on a town in North Dakota. BOOMTOWN, which aired on Discovery/Planet Green, won the IDA award for best documentary series 2011. STOLEN, a documentary exploring the 1990 art heist at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, was released theatrically in 50 cities, distributed via Netflix, and broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens series. Five years ago, she started PORTRAITS THAT MOVE, a business that creates short documentaries of children for families. Ludwig serves on the board of the Kids In Need Foundation, a non-profit that provides school supplies to children who cannot afford them. She lives in Long Island.