Faculty Directory

Igor Torgeson

MFA Film, Boston University; BA Journalism, George Washington University. Freelance editor and actor in Los Angeles. Has edited for clients including the Gameshow Network, National Lampoon, McGraw-Hill Publications, Southern California Gas Company, and Cessna Aircraft. Commercial credits include campaigns for Citibank and Brighthouse Networks.

Matthew Toronto Acting for Film Instructor

MATTHEW TORONTO – After a two-year stint on Netflix, Matt’s coming-of-age feature, FACE 2 FACE, which he wrote and directed, continues to inspire audiences on Paramount +, Epix and several other platforms. Besides an array of award-winning features, shorts, pilots and web series, Matt recently directed two features to be released by Artist View Entertainment in 2023 and is scheduled to direct two more this year. Matt earned his MFA in directing from Penn State University where he later joined the faculty and taught acting, directing and musical theatre for eight years. On stage, Matt directed the world premiere of the widely renowned musical ORDINARY DAYS as well as a long list of plays and musicals in New York City, Los Angeles and across the country. He began his professional career as an actor, performing in national tours, Off-Broadway and in celebrated regional theatres. He also spent five seasons in the RADIO CITY CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR dancing alongside the Rockettes! A father of three, Matt loves to tell stories that reveal humanity in unexpected ways.

Nebojsa Vulovich

Andrew Todd Wankier

Award-winning screenwriter Andrew (Andy) Wankier joined NYFA after teaching English Composition full-time at UCLA. Prior to this, he also taught screenwriting at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He firmly believes that in order to better write creatively, one must learn to write academically and is known for his friendly Socratic approach, encouraging students to become more comfortable in finding their own writing voices. Andy is a freelance journalist and blogger.

Selyna Warren

Selyna Warren makes up one half of the multi-hyphenate team S&M, along with Marissa Read. They are writers and directors who act in their own material. They sold our first show, Foursome, to ATV/Youtube Originals and continued to showrun the series which ran for four seasons, breaking the network’s record. They worked with CounterBalance and Sony on the 1/2 hour comedy, Bad Apple. In the feature space they are writing an *NSYNC love letter alongside Rachel Bloom for Tristar. For the Screenwriting Department in LA, Selyna teaches Comedy Writing, Acting as part of the Script To Screen course, TV Workshops, and Web Series.

Barbara Weintraub Senior Director of Career Development and Industry Outreach

Barbara Weintraub has been a producer, a network executive and an entertainment career advisor. Her first job in the business was as an actor in a Martin Scorsese film, which convinced her she wanted to work on the other side of the camera.

Weintraub sharpened her production skills working with producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson on Beverly Hills Cop and Top Gun. She moved on to the senior management team and helped launch Movietime, which became E! Entertainment Television, the first cable channel exclusively programming entertainment content. During her tenure, she produced The Hollywood Reporter Executive Report with top Hollywood filmmakers including Brian De Palma and Ivan Reitman.

Launching her own production company, Weintraub produced a variety of television shows that included an NBC comedy special with Kelsey Grammer, Jason Bateman and Tony Shaloub, Diva Detective, a reality series for Women’s Entertainment Television (WE TV), 195 episodes of a game show for the USA network, and The New Adventures of Robin Hood, an action adventure series for TNT.

Weintraub is also a Founding and Board member of GreenLight Women.

Christina Weir

MA in Mass Communications/TV Production, Emerson College.
Christina has worked in television, comics, film, and games for over two decades. Along with her writing partner (Nunzio DeFilippis), she was a writer/producer on HBO’s Arliss and wrote for the Disney Channel series Kim Possible. They have had features optioned at Hollywood Pictures, Process Media, and Humble Journey Films, and developed a video game at Sony and a TV movie at Oxygen. She and her partner have written for the comics New X-Men, Adventures of Superman, Batman Confidential, and Dragon Age, among many others. They created the comic franchises Bad Medicine (developed at Closed On Mondays with NBC), The Amy Devlin Mysteries (developed as a TV series at E!), and Frenemy of the State (co-created with Rashida Jones, optioned as a feature film by Imagine Entertainment/Universal Pictures.) For the Screenwriting Department in LA, she teaches Thesis Workshops, TV Pilot, Sequential Art, Transmedia, Interactive Narrative, Character Workshop, and Story Generation.

Naomi White

Naomi White is a feminist, artist, activist, and educator invested in ideas at the intersection of political ecology and photography. She is the winner of PDN’s Objects of Desire award and has exhibited throughout North America and Europe, including the Center for Creative Photography, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, GE World Headquarters; CAMP Gallery, Scope Miami, and Photo LA. She has been awarded residencies at Jentel Arts and Artist Residencies in Motherhood.

Her work has been published in PDN, The Brooklyn Rail, Uncertain States, and On Art & Aesthetics. White holds an MFA in Photography and Related Media from SVA in New York, and a BA in English Literature from San Francisco State.

Mike Williamson Associate Chair of Film Arts Department (Cinematography)

MFA in Cinematography, AFI. Award-winning cinematographer living in Los Angeles. Shot four independent feature films, including “Bilal’s Stand”, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival. Photographed TV & web series including “30 Days of Night: Dust to Dust” for Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures. Additional credits as gaffer on independent features, shorts and commercials.

Natasha Wolfgang

MFA, American Film Institute. Natasha is an artist, both traditional and digital. She started her career as a costume designer, and worked on period films in Europe. After moving to the US, she continued work in New York’s Off-Broadway theater scene. Natasha has also worked on shorts and features in various art department positions and has several years of experience working as an interior designer.

Suné Woods

Suné Woods work takes the form of video installations, movement, photography, and collage. Woods is invested in holistic healing modalities and the wisdom that comes through interspecies relationships. 

Woods has served as Visiting Faculty in the CalArts Photography & Media Program, Visiting Lecturer in the department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University, and as Visiting Associate Professor at University of California Los Angeles in the department of Art. 

John Zuur Platten

John is a creative director at Google’s Niantic Labs which makes Pokemon Go and Ingress. He is co-author of the acclaimed book The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design. He has extensive experience in the game industry and film industry. John was a producer on the Sega CDs Ground Zero Texas and Double Switch. As a result of his relationship with Sega, John designed, produced and wrote the highly successful Sega CD Tomcat Alley. John’s work as designer, writer and producer on Johnny Mnemonic for Sony Imagesoft lead to an overall production agreement with Propaganda Code, during which he developed several titles for Philips Media. His many other game projects include The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, (Xbox, PC), I am Alive (Xbox, PS3, PC), Scooby-Doo 2005, Constantine, Red Ninja and Taxi Driver.