Faculty Directory

Matthew Bellows Acting for Film Instructor

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Matthew Bellows is a classically trained actor with an MFA from the prestigious Old Globe. With over 50 current tv and film credits to his name, Matthew’s credits range from the professional stage in Anna Christie, The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure (and more) to Television in The Mandalorian, recurring roles on New Amsterdam and Snowfall, and major roles on FBI International, United States of Al, Brooklyn 99, as well as big studio features, The Gray Man, Captain Marvel and Hereditary to name a few.

Michael Bershad Acting for Film Instructor

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BA, Criminology, University of MD. Trained with Stella Adler, Michael Shurtleff, David LeGrant. Series regular, 2 seasons, “Capitol”. Theatrical Agent with Stephan Gray Artists. Casting: Glenn Larson Prods, White Eagle Prods (Sylvester Stallone). Cable Ace Awards Judge, 5 years. Produced 3 films, including the feature, “Dispatch” (Netflix, Amazon), which he also wrote and starred in.

Joseph Bonier

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An active Sound Mixer and Sound Designer, Joseph graduated with a BA from the University of Maryland. Joseph also has a degree for Recording Engineering from the Recording Connection. He has worked as Boom Operator and Sound Mixer for numerous features, TV shows and shorts. He also worked as an Engineer at Avalon studios in Washington DC and Matrax productions in Philadelphia, PA.

John Briscoe

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Editor of multiple commercials broadcast both in Western Pennsylvania as well as Los Angeles. Worked as a freelance contractor on various independent films, webisodes and commercials. Editor of an 8-episode “war time” style documentary independently and aired locally in Los Angeles. Director, Producer and Editor of various segments airing on Pennsylvania television including a commercial for Hyundai, as well as various local food establishments and businesses.

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.

Joe Burke

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Joe Burke is an award-winning indie filmmaker, actor, and director known for his heartfelt, character-driven stories and resourceful approach to micro budget filmmaking. Originally from Toledo, Ohio, he studied filmmaking and theater at Columbia College Chicago before earning his MFA in Directing from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Burke gained early recognition with his debut feature Four Dogs, and recently world premiered his new award winning movie Burt, winning Best Comedy Feature at Cinequest, Best Picture at the Phoenix Film Festival, and the Special Jury Award at the Florida Film Festival. He’s been a film professor at NYFA since 2014.

Joe Burke

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Joe Burke’s debut feature film, Four Dogs, world premiered to great reviews at the Los Angeles Film Festival. He’s directed such shows as Newsreaders on Adult Swim and FOX Digital’s half-hour comedy, Bad Samaritans, along with having written/directed several award-winning short films. Joe has a few new exciting film projects in the works at different stages of the process. He has also spent plenty of time on the other side of the camera as well, acting on screen in movies, national commercials, and television shows, including the critically acclaimed Showtime show Ray Donovan and Freeform’s Good Trouble. Joe earned his MFA in Directing from the American Film Institute, and his BA in Film/Minor in Theater from Columbia College Chicago. He is a member of both the DGA and SAG-AFTRA.

Preston Butler

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MFA in Acting, California Institute of the Arts.
Preston Butler III is a multi-hyphenate artist who engages in acting, directing, writing, and music. He has performed all across the United States as well as internationally in France, Belgium, and Scotland. Butler starred as Kitch in the West Coast Premiere of Pass Over by Antionette Nwandu (She’s Gotta Have It) at ACT Seattle, in which he won Best Actor in a Play. In 2021, Butler made his network television debut as a jazz pianist (Kendle Spotnitz) on NCIS. Preston also wrote and directed an original theatrical production at his alma mater, Vanguard University. Created in collaboration with current students, the play, God So Loved: Do We?, explored the complexities of racism, social justice, and faith. This “Digital Play” centered on the new reality of ‘stay-at-home’ virtual communications with each scene taking place via Zoom, FaceTime, and social media posts. Butler voices Cooper Calhoun, a recurring character on the Focus on the Family audio series, Adventures in Odyssey. Most recently, Preston narrated The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois for Apple Books as a part of their celebration of Black History Month. As an educator, Preston worked intensively with the CalArts Community Arts Program (CAP) developing new programs centered on digital content creation and the various elements of filmmaking. For the Screenwriting Department in LA, Preston teaches Acting in the Script To Screen course, as well as Scene Study. For the Producing Department in LA, he teaches Acting for Producers.

Rachel Callman

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BA in Advertising, University of Florida
Rachel is a comedy writer who has written for the Comedy Central show Tosh.O and worked for the Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards. She is the Director of Operations for Untitled Ladies Script Club and a mentor at Made In Her Image. She currently has a comedic biopic about the co-founder of OPI Nail Lacquer in development at Cavalry Media with Dana Brunetti (The Social Networ, Captain Phillips) with Robert Luketic attached to direct and a half-hour pilot in development with Idina Menzel’s Loudmouth Media. In the Screenwriting Department in LA, she teaches Comedy Writing, Adaptation, Story Generation, and TV Workshops.

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.

Hal Cantor

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MA in Dramatic Writing, NYU; MS in Journalism, Northwestern University.
Hal writes television, film, and theater. He is currently writing on the second season of Great Escapes with Morgan Freeman for The History Channel. His comedy, To Hal & Back, was optioned by Sony Pictures Television. He wrote on Fusion channel’s acclaimed special, The Naked Truth: Dirty Little Secrets, which broke The Panama Papers story. Prior to that, his drama pilot, Mouthpiece, was bought by Fox Television Studios. He wrote The Lake Effect, a one-hour drama pilot for Showtime, developed with Emmy-winning director Scott Winant. Hal also sold the drama pilot, Twilight, to Sony Pictures Television. In features, he developed a comedy with John Davis Productions. Hal’s had multiple plays produced. His new one-man show, The Importance of Being Anxious, debuted at London’s Camden Fringe. For the Screenwriting Department in LA, he teaches Online Screenwriting courses in Television.

Denise Carlson

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Denise Carlson is a producer, consultant and development executive with twenty five years of experience in the entertainment industry. She was at Disney Channel for 9 years as the Director of Original Movies, responsible for overseeing the development and production of 47 television movies, including the megahit High School Musical, as well as other highly successful films such as Wendy Wu and The Cheetah Girls movies. She has also produced series for Disney+ and independent productions. She is on the board of the LA Femme film festival, which is dedicated to presenting films that are made by and about women. She has a BFA from Rollins College and a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from Ryokan College.

Roxanne Captor

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Roxanne Messina Captor is an Emmy-nominated, Humanitas Prize-winning creator/ producer/writer/director. She executive produced and wrote the story for Hallmark Channel’s Dream Moms, starring Tamera Mowry-Housley and Chelsea Hobbs, premiering on May 13. Captor admits. “I always write from personal experience,” and fortunately, she’s had an interesting life to draw from, but she is equally focused on elevating others, especially women, to gain a foothold in the entertainment industry. Towards that end, Messina Captor is a current member of the California Arts Council, appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom, and she’s currently a Film and Television Studies professor at New York Film Academy and Santa Monica College, after teaching at Cal Arts, Emerson LA, UCLA and Loyola Marymount.

Messina Captor received the Emmy nomination and a Humanitas Prize for producing CBS’ Home Sweet Homeless, she also directed and produced Lifetime’s Her Married Lover and CBS’ Fatal Vows, produced HBO’s Dead on Sight, and wrote/produced/directed and choreographed countless other award-winning shorts and theatrical productions. Messina Captor is the former Executive Director of the San Francisco International Film Festival and Film Society, and she was awarded France’s Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her producing/directing work in films.

It all began in Chicago, when her mother, a ballet dancer, gave up her career to become a devoted mom who inspired her daughter’s appreciation for the arts, especially dance. Messina Captor was accepted into the Chicago Lyric Opera at 12 after dancing as a child in Equity musicals and at the Goodman Theatre, followed by stints in NY’s Harkness Ballet, the Béjart Ballet in Brussels and Paris and guesting at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet before eventually being cast in Bob Fosse’s Pippin on Broadway after 11 previous rejections for Fosse shows. She also danced on-screen in the films The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Xanadu and Pennies from Heaven, and she became the assistant choreographer to Gene Kelly on her mentor Francis Ford Coppola’s One from the Heart. “By age 30, I and most dancers are looking for new careers as their bodies are done,” says Messina Captor. She became one of the founding production executives at TNT. Overseeing other people’s films helped her clarify her actual goal of being a creator herself and telling her own stories as a producer/writer and director. Messina Captor confessed, “I realized that my dance skills of passion, discipline, organization and dedication, coupled with my network exec background, were perfectly suited to producing, so I never looked back and stayed happily behind the camera ever since.”

Messina Captor’s awarding-winning documentary shorts, Homecoming: Veterans, Wives and Mothers and Thank You for Your Service also screened at the UN and Doctor Biden’s Common Defense Organization. Her award-winning short, A Couple of White Chicks at the Hairdresser premiered at the Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner before debuting on Comedy Central.

With multiple films and TV series in pre-production or development, Messina Captor continues to find inspiration for her future projects all around, but her best source material is always found in the woman in the mirror.

Neil Casey

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Neil Casey is a cinematographer whose body of work includes feature films, short films, documentaries, music videos, and live events. He started his career in New York, where he worked as a camera operator and lighting technician for film and television before moving to Los Angeles to earn his master’s degree. For over a decade he has had the pleasure of working with a variety of artists and companies, including Stan Lee’s World of Heroes and POW! Entertainment. At NYFA, Neil works to teach aspiring directors and cinematographers the art, practices, and technologies that exist in the ever-evolving world of cinematography.

Christopher Cass Acting for Film Instructor

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BA in Theatre, University of Georgia. NY and LA credits include “Rounding Third,” “Jerusalem,” “Gaining Ground,” “RFK” (Off-Broadway), “Sleepwalk,” “Born in the RSA,” “Much Ado” (Central Park), “Henry V” (Off-Broadway) and “Macbeth.” Television credits include: “ER,” “Like Family,” “Tucker,” “Fired Up,” “Cedric the Entertainer,” “Night Court,” and many more.

Craig Caton Creative Director of Media Arts Department

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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.