Faculty Directory

Bill Einreinhofer

Created Emmy Award winning nonfiction content; from traditional documentaries and news reports, to narrative driven “real-life” stories and magazine-show segments. Developed and produced programming for PBS (“PBS NewsHour,” “INNOVATION,” “China Now”), ABC (“Good Morning America”), CBS (“60 Minutes”), Discovery (“Spacewalkers,” “Cathedrals of the Sky”) and HBO (“Diary of a Red Planet”).

Producer/Director/Writer/Host, “China: Frame by Frame,” one-hour 2023 documentary tracing his 30+ years of making stories in and about China. Seen on 250+ Public TV stations, and the PBS App. Historic and original footage gathered for this project is the basis of the Bill Einreinhofer China Archive, at the University of Southern California’s East Asian Library. Past co-production partners include the ABC (Australia), Globo (Brazil), CCTV (China), SMG (China), ZDF (Germany), NHK (Japan), KBS (Korea) and SVT (Sweden).

Veteran educator. Chair, NYFA Broadcast Journalism department 2013-2022. Prior adjunct appointments: Parsons School of Design, Rutgers University, Saint Peter’s University. Lectured at United Nations and East China Normal University.

Honors include three Emmy Awards; Judge – National News & Documentary Emmy Awards; Judge – International Emmy Awards; two CINE Golden Eagles; two Telly Awards; Gold Medal, New York Festivals; Golden Gate Award, San Francisco International Film Festival. Member, Directors Guild of America.

Josh Eiserike

MFA in Film Production, USC
Josh Eiserike is a writer/cartoonist who has written for television shows such as Legacies (CW), Warigami (CW SEED), and G.I. Joe: Renegades (HUB). Additionally, Josh has sold a show to POP TV and a couple of TV movies. He has also written and published several comic books, including The Very Final Last Girls from Darby Pop Publishing and Charm City from Scout Comics. Originally from Washington, D.C., Josh previously worked as a newspaper reporter, covering everything from Congress to the Warped Tour. Other writing credits include MAD Magazine. For the Screenwriting Department in LA, he teaches Sequential Art, Feature Workshops, TV Pilot, Elements of Screenwriting, Story Generation, as well as Online Screenwriting.

Kadina de Elejalde

Kadina de Elejalde is an actress and Acting teacher who has appeared in numerous films and television shows, most notably in HBO’s Indictment: The McMartin Trial, Richard the Second, and The Haunting. She has also worked extensively in the theater in both Los Angeles and New York; Her credits include “Another Part of the House” by Migdalia Cruz at Classic Stage Company, and “Bicycle Country” by Nilo Cruz at The Strasberg Theater in Los Angeles. She is committed to working on new plays, and was the recipient of a Dramalogue award for her work in The Padua New Playwright’s Festival. Presently, she is an Acting Instructor at New York Film Academy, but has also taught at Columbia College Hollywood and Woodbury University in Los Angeles. She recently was interviewed on a podcast series called Best In Fest which is titled “The Essence of Character.” She holds a Masters Degree in Acting from the Yale School of Drama.

Nate Entz

Nate Entz is an NYC based actor with a passion for storytelling and teaching. He’s worked with NYFA’s Summer Kids Camps for two years now and loves bringing his experience, education and passion for his craft into his instruction. He has been acting all his life and graduated with his BFA in acting from SUNY Purchase’s conservatory program. He has acted professionally in theater regionally, in NYC, and has also starred in several short films.

Danielle Evenson

MA in Communication, USC
Danielle Evenson & Heather Huntington are two halves of one set of headphones. The podcast writers have been featured in Deadline, WhoHaHa, Podcast Delivery, PodFluence, Audio Drama Debut, Fiction Podcast Weekly, Pajiba and Broadway World. When they’re not knee deep in sound cues, they also write for TV and film, including The New Adventures of Old Christine, Noggin’s Tales From The Playground, PBS’s Frankenstein MD, MGM’s Craft, Cafe of Love, for Reel One and a Christmas series for Disney. Their audio series, Up a River for Aural Stories launched this summer, and their series A Midsemester Night’s Dream starring Bridgerton’s Charithra Chanran will be released this fall. They teach together (as they write together) for Screenwriting LA in classes like Podcasting and Storytelling with Purpose.

Fabrizio Famà

Fabrizio was born and raised in Catania, Sicily, Italy. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in media and communication studies, he decided to open his own advertising company in Sicily named 095mm. A few years later, he felt his career as a video editor needed a big turn, so he decided to leave Italy and move to New York City. Shortly after arriving in the U.S., he was hired by Thin Edge Films to be the senior editor on “Thirsty,” a musical film directed by Margo Pelletier and produced by Lisa Thomas. To this day, he still collaborates with the studio, working as a video editor for features, short films, and music videos.Most of the projects he edited have had the honor of getting nominations and winning awards across the USA, Canada, and Europe. As an experienced film editor, he has the privilege of collaborating with many of his colleagues, bringing to the table his creative and passionate style of work and being rewarded by their trust and continuous interest in partnership. Currently, he is living between Europe and the United States, where, besides working as an editor, he also shares his knowledge and expertise working as a post-production instructor at the New York Film Academy with BFA and MFA students.

Tim Fannon

MFA in Acting, Brooklyn College; BS in Theater, Skidmore College; trained at the Royal National Theatre and the British Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Extensive stage experience and commercials; film and television roles include “Kidnap”, “Bar Flies”, “After I’m Dead”, and “Review with Forrest MacNeil”. Founding member/artistic director of Fovea Floods Theater, and company member of Moving Arts.

Alessandro Farese

Born in Naples, Italy, Alessandro Farese graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Photography, Cinema, and Television from the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples in 2018 and completed an advanced course in film restoration from the University of Suor Orsola Benincasa in 2021. Farese has directed photography for numerous projects, including feature film, short films and documentaries.

Farese’s work includes serving as the director of photography for “Il Cammino delle Certose” (Region of Campania, 2017), “La Bellezza della Conoscenza” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Research Council, 2018), and “Campania Italian Special One” (Region of Campania – Grandi Stazioni Retail, 2018). His recent projects include “Pucundrìa” by Erica de Lisio (Best Documentary at the Tulipani di Seta Nera Festival, 2020), “La Rivoluzione” by Joseph Troia (Galway Film Fleadh Festival, 2019 and Villerupt 2019), and “Formiche” by Federico Spiazzi (2023).

Throughout his career, he has worked as a sound engineer on various acclaimed projects, such as “Il Sogno di Apuleio” with Peppe Servillo (Pompeii Archaeological Park, 2016) and “Il Signor Rotpeter” by Antonietta De Lillo (Venice Film Festival, 2017). In 2012, he co-founded Radio Cometa Rossa, an online archive showcasing works by around 400 musicians.

In 2019, he relocated permanently to Florence, Italy, to further pursue his career in the arts, continuously contributing his expertise and passion to various new projects.

Lance Fisher

Lance Fisher has been in the camera dept for over 35 years. He has worked in all formats of the Motion Picture Industry – Features, Episodics, Documentaries, Commercials, Music Videos, News… if it had a camera, he was there. He’s worked at all the major studios and came up through the camera dept, beginning as a film loader and 2nd assistant.

He specializes in developing students’ skills by teaching the fundamentals of camera and lighting and the ‘grammar’ of visual story telling. He has taught students at all academic levels and enjoys watching their excitement as new techniques are acquired with real hands-on training.
When Lance is not shooting, he flies helicopters professionally!

David Fratto

Executive Producer, BBC Worldwide; Sr. Director of Development, Scholastic Inc.; Director of Development, Vivendi Universal Games, Executive Producer, Knowledge Adventure; Education: Harvard University, BA.

Colette Freedman

MAT in Drama, Colgate University
Screenwriter, playwright, novelist, and actress. Colette has written the Lifetime film Sister Cities (Jacki Weaver, Alfred Molina, Stana Katic) and twelve other made-for-television films with her writing partner Brooke Purdy. Her feature films include Meli (starring Wendie Malick), And Then There Was Eve (2017 LA Muse Jury Prize Winner at LA Film Festival) and Miles Underwater. Colette is an internationally-produced playwright with over 35 produced plays, voted “One of 50 to Watch” by The Dramatists Guild. Plays include Serial Killer Barbie, The Affair, and Blind Spots (Encore Award 2018 Hollywood Fringe fest) and the upcoming Mozart2 the Musical and Amelia the Musical. She has written ten published novels, including the thriller The Thirteen Hallows (Tor Publishing) with #1 New York Times author Michael Scott; the YA book Anomalies with Sadie Turner (Select Books); and the legendary Steve Dorff memoir I Wrote That One Too (Backbeat Books). Freedman has co-produced several independent films, including Quality Problems (Freestyle Media, 2017 Best Feature, Women Texas Film Fest), Dancer in Danger (Lifetime) and Dangerous Cheaters (Lifetime). As an actress, she has worked on many television shows, including That 70s Show, The Young and the Restless, and JAG, as well as several independent films. For the Screenwriting Department in LA, she teaches Feature Workshops, Storytelling With Purpose, Script To Screen, Playwriting, and Scene Study.

Richard Friedman

Richard Friedman is a director, writer, and producer of motion pictures, television movies, episodic TV, network specials, and music videos. Richard has directed and produced 15 feature films which include “BORN”, starring Alison Brie, “Thou Shalt Kill” starring Vince Lozano; “Acts of Desperation, Starring Paul Sorvino and Jason Gedrick; and many more. As a television Director, Richard’s accomplishments include the extremely successful movies for network television: “Shadow of Stranger,” starring Joan Chen, Emma Samms, Parker Stevenson, and Michael Easton, which he also wrote, and “Someone’s Watching,” starring Daniel J. Travanti, Chris Noth, Joan Van Ark, and Rick Springfield. A veteran of over thirty-five episodes of Network and Syndicated series TV, Richard has directed multiple episodes of Warner Bros.’“Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” “Baywatch Nights,” “Silk Stalkings,” “Friday the 13th, The TV Series,” “Tales From the Darkside,” and “Monsters.”

Richard’s additional writing and producing credits include three theatrically released features:
“Street Knight,” “Scared Stiff,” and “Deathmask,” a psychological thriller, starring Danny Aiello. Richard is currently in pre-production on his next film, “Hyena”. Richard spent years on the cutting edge of music video, having directed Billy Joel in his video, “You’re Only Human,” a passionate statement against teen suicide which won the Presidential
Medal of Honor. Richard’s other directorial music video credits include numerous high profile
artists and popular tracks.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Richard holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Brooklyn College. He then went on to New York University’s prestigious Graduate School of Film where he received a three-year Master of Fine Arts Degree in Motion Picture Directing and Film Production. Richard also taught Directing at UCLA and is currently an Adjunct Professor at New York Film Academy.

Richard is a member of the Director’s Guild of America, Writer’s Guild of America, and
Television Academy of Arts and Sciences, and currently resides in Los Angeles California with
his wife Monica and twin teens, Emma and Max.

Brennan Gallagher

A born and bred Massachusetts man, Brennan is an educator, actor, and sometimes poet. He spent many years as a classical actor both in New York City and regionally. He holds an MFA in Acting from Ohio University, and has taught students from the preschool age up through undergraduates. When not acting or teaching, you can usually find Brennan either reading, drinking coffee, spending quality time with his car, drinking coffee, or playing games and doing puzzles, while drinking coffee.

Nedra Gallegos

Nedra is an Instructor at the New York Film Academy-Los Angeles, where she teaches History of Acting, History of Theatre, History of Women in Film, TV and Theatre and Psychology of Production. Her background as an actor, director and teaching artist in New York City and Los Angeles uniquely qualifies her to work with students from all walks of life and backgrounds.

Matt Galuppo Chair of Media Arts Department

Matt has been working in entertainment for over 10 years beginning his career as an intern on Inception. From there he worked on a dozen or so films as a previs artist, including The Amazing Spider-Man II, Warcraft, Poltergeist, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. After that Matt began his directing career, making commercials for Fortune 500 companies including Toyota, Fiat, Netflix, and Nintendo. Spots, he produced, have garnered hundreds of millions of views and earned American Advertising Award, Muse Creative Award, among others. As a copywriter he has worked on Superbowl spots for brands like Verizon, Microsoft, and the NFL. Matt recently began his TV career selling animated pilots to COMEDY CENTRAL and SYFY.

More than all of this, Matt is most proud of the accomplishments of his students. In Matt’s 7 years of teaching animation his students have gone onto work on academy award winning teams, make effects for tent pole franchises, like Justice League and Star Wars, and even push the industry the forward helping create the industry standard software used by artists around the globe.

Kuldeep Gangola

Kuldeep Gangola is a filmmaker and post-production instructor based in New York. With over six years of teaching experience at the New York Film Academy and over 8 years of industry experience, he brings a deep understanding of nonfiction storytelling, editing craft, and industry-standard workflows. He has worked on films for platforms including Netflix, Amazon Prime, PBS, and HBO. Kuldeep is passionate about mentoring young filmmakers and helping them find their unique voice through visual storytelling.