Faculty Directory

Bruce Buckley

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

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.

Todd Buonopane

Todd Buonopane is an award winning actor, singer, director and story-teller. On Broadway, he starred as Jean-Michel in Cinderella, Amos in Chicago, Roger in Grease, and many characters in …Spelling Bee. He appeared Off-Broadway in The Butter & Egg Man, Henry & Mudge, and The New Yorkers at Encores! Touring audiences have seen him in The Play That Goes Wrong, Godspell, & Chicago (which he also performed in Tokyo, Seoul and Dubai.) Regionally, he has performed at the Alliance, The Old Globe, Asolo Rep, MUNY, Signature, Pasadena Playhouse, 5th Avenue, Ordway, Papermill Playhouse, Goodspeed, Maine State, the Argyle, North Shore and Barrington.TV credits include “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”, “Grey’s Anatomy”, “Braindead”, “Law & Order:CI”, and “30 Rock” (as Weinerslav). Todd is also a director, having directed productions of The Prom, Urinetown, Legally Blonde and Spelling Bee. toddbuonopane.com

Nancy Burson

Acclaimed artist/photographer Nancy Burson’s work is shown in museums and galleries internationally. “Seeing and Believing”, her traveling 2002 retrospective originating at the Grey Art Gallery, was nominated for Best Solo Museum Show of the Year in New York City by the International Association of Art Critics. She has served as a visiting professor at Harvard and was a member of the adjunct photography faculty at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts for five years.

Her work is included in museums worldwide including the MoMA, Metropolitan Museum, and the Whitney Museum in New York City, as well as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris, the LA County Museum of Art, and the Getty Museum, MoMA (San Francisco), the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC, as well as many others. She has collaborated with Creative Time, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Deutsche Bank in completing several important public art projects in NYC.

Andrea Marie Bush

Andrea Marie Bush (she/her) is a multi-faceted teaching artist and performer based in New York City. She holds a BM and MM in Vocal Performance as well as an advanced certificate in Vocal Pedagogy from NYU Steinhardt, where she also served as Adjunct Instructor of Voice for three semesters. She is a graduate of the Summer Vocology Institute at The University of Utah.

A year after her undergraduate studies, Andrea was selected by Tony-winning director Bartlett Sher to join the 1st National Tour of Fiddler on the Roof as a principal and ensemble swing (500+ performances). Additional performing credits include The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Rona Lisa Peretti), Brigadoon (Fiona MacLaren), Titanic (Caroline Neville), and other featured roles. Film and TV work include SNL (NBC), The Night Agent (Netflix), Dexter: Resurrection (Paramount+), and The Devil Wears Prada 2 (20th Century Studios). 

A self-proclaimed “voice nerd”, evidence-based vocal pedagogy is at the core of Andrea’s education and teaching style; she has been fortunate to learn directly from leading voice scientists in the field of vocology, including Dr. Ingo Titze, Dr. Marco Guzman, Dr. Kittie Verdolini Abbott, Lynn Helding, Dr. Ana Flavia Zuim, Dr. Aaron Johnson (NYU), and many others. She was recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Voice and Speech Review for her book review on philosophical practices in the private voice studio. Andrea is a proud member of NATS and MTEA, both organizations in which she continues to pursue opportunities to further her education as a teaching artist. 

Michael Thomas Cain

Michael Thomas Cain is a writer, director, and producer for film and theatre. Michael is the founder of Forgotten Artist Productions (a full service production company), and in the last few years, this production company has produced several film projects (all written and/or directed by Michael) that have been screened at prominent international film festivals and collected numerous film awards and nominations at these festivals. The current movie Not Approved For Cancer Treatment, also written and directed by Michael, was recently screened at the Austin Revolution Film Festival, gaining 4 award nominations. In May of 2022, Michael wrote and directed the play version of “Not Approved For Cancer Treatment” in the New York Theater Festival. Recently, Michael’s play ENOUGH’S ENOUGH! was presented by the UR Here Theater Company in Fresno, California. In recent years, Michael wrote and directed WHERE ART LIVES (performed at UNDER St. Marks Theater) and “Eliminated” (performed at Manhattan Repertory Theatre) for the stage. In 2012, Michael wrote, directed, and produced ENOUGH’S ENOUGH! at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club as part of the NY International Fringe Festival. Michael has earned an M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from Adelphi University and a B.A. in Communications/Theatre from Augusta College.

Derrick Cameron

Derrick Cameron is a native of Chicago, IL. Upon seeing “Do The Right Thing” at the age of 11, he set out on a path to his chosen profession. He graduated from Morehouse College in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts in history. He then matriculated to the graduate school of film at Florida State University, where he graduated in 2002 with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Motion Picture, Television, and Recording Arts.

Derrick has written and directed four acclaimed short films entitled “The Man,” “Caroline,” “Cherry Hook,” and “It Never Entered My Mind.” “Caroline” screened at the Toronto Film Festival, San Francisco Black Film Festival, and the RAI channel in Italy. “It Never Entered My Mind” is currently on the festival circuit, having screened at the Cannes Short Film Festival, Chicago South Side Film Festival, Portland Film Festival, and won Best Short at the Malta Film Festival. Derrick has produced three short films, most notably the short film “ANTS,” which won first place in the comedy category at the 2003 College Television Awards and screened at the Cannes Film Festival, both of which Derrick attended. Several of Derrick’s screenplays have won awards, specifically his original pilot “The Saint of Striver’s Row” and his spec Western “The Widower,” which placed in the top 10% of the Nicholls Fellowship. He was also featured in the February 2004 issue of Vanity Fair magazine as one of Budweiser’s New Discovery Filmmakers. Finally, Derrick also wrote and directed the 2008 feature film, “Right on Louise.”

Derrick is a past Executive Director at Ghetto Film School (GFS) in the South Bronx, NY. He left GFS to pursue personal projects and resume his career in academia as an adjunct professor of filmmaking at New York Film Academy.

Tony Candelaria

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

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

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.

Neil Casey

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

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.

Marina Catala

Marina Catala is a New York-based Producer and Editor who has developed, produced and edited hundreds of hours of television content for networks such as ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN, Bravo, and The CW. She graduated with an MFA in Editing from the AFI Conservatory in 2003, just as reality TV was emerging as a major presence on broadcast and cable television. She was an Editor on shows like The Biggest Loser, The Amazing Race, and Big Brother, before a desire for more creative input took her out of the edit chair. For several years she oversaw the Post departments of shows like Ink Master and I Used to be Fat, and then took her command of Post Production and applied it to all aspects of Production – from development to pre-production to field producing – as an Executive Producer. Most recently, she was the EP of Impractical Jokers for seven seasons, and the Showrunner of its spin-off, After Party, for three seasons.

Kristy Cates Chair of Performing Arts

Kristy Cates began her Broadway career in the original cast of Wicked, performing in the ensemble and understudying the role of Elphaba, originated by Idina Menzel. She later went on to perform the role on Broadway, on the First National Tour, and in the Chicago production. Her additional Broadway credits include Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Grandma Josephine) and Finding Neverland (Ms. Bassett).

Kristy has appeared at renowned venues including The White House, Radio City Musical Hall, the Palace of Versailles, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center, and has headlined Off-Broadway and regional productions. Her international work includes performances in Milan, Paris, and Budapest.

On screen, she guest starred on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and is featured in an upcoming video game. As a voiceover artist, her voice has been heard in national campaigns for brands including Skyrizi, Almay, and Subway.

Kristy holds a BFA, magna cum laude, from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (Alumni of the Year 2019) and was the first recipient of the Laurie Beechman Scholarship. A founding faculty member of the Musical Theatre program at the New York Film Academy, she has been with the institution since 2009 and currently serves as Chair of Performing Arts, overseeing both Musical Theatre and Acting for Film.

She is a proud mother to her daughter, Gracie, and is based in New York City.

Craig Caton Creative Director of Media Arts Department

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.

Edward Cha

MFA in Film, UCLA TFT
Ed Cha is a writer-director-producer of film and theater. He has worked as a Technical Director for theater, working with world-renowned artists including, Tim Miller, Holly Hughes, Rachel Rosenthal, and Oguri. As a Line Producer, he has produced for the Rolling Stones, and produced Katie Q, Shuffle, and Hello Herman. His company Mean Panda Productions is overseeing a short film production series anthology Three Palms, View Obscured focusing on the themes of homes and homelessness. Ed’s has written and will direct one of the shorts, My Honey Bee. For the Screenwriting Department in LA, he teaches Storytelling with Purpose, Scene Study, Elements of Screenwriting, and Feature Workshops. For the Filmmaking Department in LA, he teaches Thesis Prep and Producing.