NYFA
Faculty Directory

Faculty Directory

Richard Friedman

Richard Friedman is a director, writer, and producer of motion pictures, television movies, episodic TV, network specials, and music videos. He has over 30 years experience in directing and producing ﬁlm and TV, including 14 Independent Feature Films, Television movies, Episodic Television Series, Reality TV, and Music Videos.

Éva Gardos

Éva is an award-winning film director and editor born in Hungary. Éva’s screenwriting and feature film directorial debut, An American Rhapsody, starred a young Scarlett Johansson. The film is based on the true life events of Éva’s family escaping from Hungary in the 1950s and being forced to leave their infant child (Éva) behind.

Lee Gordon

MFA in Screenwriting, AFI. With over a decade of industry experience, companies such as Disney and Warner Brothers have trusted Lee Gordon for his writing expertise. Having worked as a screenwriter and story consultant, Lee’s talents have taken him into adventurous corners of Hollywood. He was field producer for the scrappy indie documentary, Undefeated, which won the 2011 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature; writer for the Jean Claude Carriere Lifetime Achievement Award production for the Oscars narrated by Jeremy Irons; and has helped write several award-winning trailers.

Ben Granoff

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.

Rick Greenwood

As a writer, director, producer and cinematographer his works have appeared in over 50 film festivals and earned 13 awards. Currently in pre-production for his directorial feature debut with Therapy Pictures. MFA in Filmmaking, New York Film Academy; BFA in Fine Art, University at Albany, NY.

Jeff Hare

Jeff Hare has been writing and directing movies, television, television commercials and infomercials, corporate films and videos, and documentaries for over twenty-five years. His work is extremely diverse, and has been seen on movie screens worldwide, as well as television networks like Fox, American Movie Classics, Lifetime, LMN, MY NETWORK, Cartoon Network, and Discovery, to name a few.

Scott Hartmann

Scott Aaron Hartmann (Eastern Shawnee) is a filmmaker and storyteller, and proudly holds an MFA in film production with an emphasis on directing from Chapman University. Scott has written and directed a long list of short films, commercials and music videos. His independent short films have screened at festivals all over the world, garnering a number of awards. He has been fortunate enough to be able to direct many great performers, including Joseph Runningfox (“Geronimo,” “Ravenous”) and the late Misty Upham (“Frozen River,” “August: Osage County”). As a Los Angeles-based director, Scott continues to develop his own projects while also teaching directing and screenwriting to future filmmakers. Scott has also worked as a screenwriting consultant, with some student work accepted in the Oscars Library. Most recently, Scott he has served as the Academic Chair for the New York Film Academy campus in Abu Dhabi, teaching both filmmaking and screenwriting.

Arthur Helterbran, Jr.

Arthur has been with NYFA since 2011, holding many leadership positions within the Academy. Currently he is a full time senior faculty member focusing on film directing, while creating and producing his own projects within the greater Los Angeles area.

Liz Hinlein

Liz Hinlein is an accomplished DGA director, creative director and visual artist with a vast portfolio of critically acclaimed work across film, commercials, and immersive media. Her debut narrative feature, Other People’s Children, premiered at the Director’s Guild of America and garnered high praise from Variety as “an intriguing debut.” The film received multiple film festival honors, including the prestigious Panavision New Filmmakers Grant, and is currently available for viewing on Apple Tv+ and Amazon Prime.

Liz’s short films have been screened globally at renowned festivals such as the Berlin Film Festival, Slamdance, and The Hamptons Film Festival. In the immersive space, her documentary VR experience, OSAGE ’85, is currently supported by the Venice Biennale. Liz’s work in the VR/AR space has earned recognition from clients such as the NFL, Walmart, Accenture, and Byton Auto, with her Accenture project winning Best VR Branded Content at CES.

As a sought-after director for high-profile commercials, branding videos, and music videos, Liz has worked with a diverse range of brands and artists, including Castrol Oil, Dove, Lifetime, Revlon, Gillette, Maybelline, A&E, Wella, NARS Cosmetics, Bare Minerals, Clairol, and MAC Cosmetics. She has also creatively directed and photographed projects for renowned artists such as Mary J. Blige, Britney Spears, Quincy Jones, Incubus, and Fishbone. She was selected for the DGA Directors Initiative, The Sony Initiative and the Viacom Initiative.

Liz is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts and holds an MFA in Cinematography from The American Film Institute. She is also the Creative Director of Film and Cinematography at the New York Film Academy, where she created and hosts the popular Zoom talk show series The 20/20 Online Series, which amassed over 1.5 million followers. Currently, Liz is in pre-production on OSAGE ’85, which will premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

Kenneth Johnson

Writer, Director, Producer. Creator of V, The Incredible Hulk, Alien Nation, The Bionic Woman, and other Emmy Award-winning shows. Director of numerous TV movies and feature films, including Short Circuit 2 and Steel. Winner of the prestigious Viewers for Quality Television Award, multiple Saturn Awards, and The Sci-Fi Universe Life Achievement Award.

Lenny Jones

I’ve worked for the last 30+ years in Los Angeles as a Sound Designer, Editor and Supervisor.

My body of work includes hit TV shows such as Ancient Aliens, Curse of Oak Island, Penn and Teller’s BS and Unsolved Mysteries. Theatrical campaigns for Sony, Dreamworks, Warner Bros, Paramount, 20th and Marvel studios. VR experiences for Netfilx’s Stranger Things, Daredevil and Death Note. Independent features: Terror on The Prairie (2022), The Fallen (2022), Cinnamon (2023) and Bunker (2023) I also own my own publishing company for Music and Sound Design elements. I’ve been teaching at NYFA since 2022.

Claude Kerven

Kerven’s career began with the debut of his short film Candy Store, which won an Academy Award for Best Dramatic Student Film. In 1982, he directed a series of Afterschool Specials for ABC-TV, including the Emmy Award-winning Starstruck and the Director’s Guild of America-nominated High School Narc. Kerven also directed over 25 short films for Saturday Night Live, including the much-celebrated Synchronized Swimmers. His most recent directorial work, They Never Found Her, starred Madmen’s Elisabeth Moss and Fargo’s Peter Stormare. In 1990, Kerven co-authored Mortal Thoughts, for Columbia Pictures, starring Bruce Willis, Harvey Keitel, and Demi Moore.

Barry London

Barry London holds a BFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Following graduating in the late 90’s he worked as a boom op and as a location mixer on a number of independent films. He mixed the film Personal Velocity which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival in 2002. Following that, he spent years working in all different facets of the industry. From film, television, commercial, reality, documentary, hidden camera, and competition shows the list goes on and on. Where ever you may need sound he can be found, boom pole in hand, and trying to get someone mic’d up. In addition to being well versed in location sound, Barry ran a recording studio for 10 years in Brooklyn, and has a background in post audio and studio recording.

Rebecca Louisell

Rebecca Louisell graduated from Carleton College with a B.A. in Studio Art (photography, mixed media) and an M.F.A. in Production from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts (USC). While at USC, she was awarded several scholarships and a College Television Award for her producing and directing work. Moving between indie narrative, documentary and new media projects, Louisell has served as Associate Producer on Limited Partnership: a documentary about love, marriage and deportation which was awarded the IDA Humanitarias Documentary Award 2014 and showed on PBS’ Independent Lens, and You See Me, which screened at Dances With Films and Docutah Film Festivals. She is Producer-Director on an upcoming web series, LA Picker.

Dana Lustig

Dana moved to LA from Israel and started her career after graduating the American Film Institute. She has directed five feature films and produced over 20. Her latest work includes Jungle, a true survival story with Daniel Radcliffe, and Look Away with India Eisley, Jason Isaac, and Mira Sorvino. Recently, Dana executive produced Spider in the Web with Ben Kingsley and Monica Bellucci, and has also shot nine episodes of the mega-hit Israeli TV show Very Important Man. As a director, Dana worked on Kill Me Later with Selma Blair, Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber with Jennifer Love Hewitt, Wild Cherry with Rob Schneider, and A Thousand Kisses Deep with Jodie Whittiker (Doctor Who).

Bruce MacWilliams

Bruce MacWilliams (AKA: Brewster MacWilliams) is an award-winning film director that started directing commercials at Biscuit Filmworks in 2002. He now works as an independent director at Fast Rocket Films. He is a member of the DGA.

Bruce MacWilliams is honored to be featured alongside super star film directors, Fredrik Bond and Daniel Kleinman, in Tom von Logue Newth’s excellent book about TV commercial production; The Ad-Makers.

At the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, Bruce was selected by the Saatchi & Saatchi Agency as one of the best new commercial directors in the world. In 2004, Shots Magazine (London), Grand Prix Awards Edition, ranked Bruce MacWilliams the 3rd best new commercial director in the world.

Bruce has now directed more than 100 TV commercials (in America, UK, and Canada) and PSAs (Public service announcements) to bring awareness to horrific conditions in Haiti, Darfur, Uganda, working with many stars including Kobe Bryant, Channing Tatum, James Franco, Ludacris, and Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers. He has also filmed and interviewed: Senator Mitt Romney, and President Barack Obama.

In 2006, NBC / Universal Studios hired Bruce MacWilliams to write and create a half hour comedy TV series titled, AD DADS. In 2011, Bruce directed a commercial campaign for Cox Communications that aired on the Super Bowl and won Bruce a Mark Award for best direction.

Bruce MacWilliams earned his BA studying architecture, photography, and creative writing at Cornell University. He studied filmmaking at Columbia University. He went on to write and direct an independent feature film, The Last Hand, (AKA: After the Game) which was showcased at the Cannes Film Festival. Lions Gate Entertainment distributed The Last Hand domestically and internationally in 2000.

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