Madison Jennings, graduate of the Acting for Film program at the New York Film Academy Australia, Gold Coast campus, is bringing fantasy characters to life in her role at Ever After Parties.
Ever After Parties provide multi-talented performers for not only children’s birthday parties, but also corporate events, weddings, schools and shopping mall displays, and were nominated for Best Party Entertainment in the What’s On 4 Kids Awards 2017.
Playing Sleeping Beauty, “Snow White and Ana (“Frozen”), to name a few, Jennings has been spreading joy and wonder throughout the South East Queensland area.
During her time at NYFA Australia, Jennings enjoyed “the amazing bonds made with the lecturers and endless opportunities that followed with those bonds.” She continues, “I also loved being in such a tight knit community with fellow actors and filmmakers.”
Jennings’ advice to aspiring performers is to “use the gifts you have been given to be a voice for those who don’t have one.” She believes that “hard work is silent, let your work be the words.”
Now signed with Williams Talent, Jennings has already auditioned for the Queensland Theatre Company and has been auditioning for various roles in film and theatre productions.
New York Film Academy Photography School student Rutvik Katuri’s final project for his Photo I class is currently the cover of Imirage, a monthly magazine that applauds relevant and visually stunning features on art, design, writing, film, music, photography, style and other creative genres.
The Indian festival of Holi, which celebrates colors and love, inspired Katuri’s project. “It’s a play of analogous and complementary colors,” said Katuri about the work on his cover image. “Technically it was just a simple one light setup with a beauty dish and capturing the images with a simple macro lens. To me it was more about picking the right colors and figuring out what were the right designs that fit the face. We started out by adding red around one eye and we let the design go wherever it took us, but we kept in mind that it has to be symmetric on both the sides.”
Growing up in the southern part of Hyderabad, India, Katuri’s interest in photography began as a hobby but slowly grew into a passion after shadowing local event and wedding photographers. He grew even fonder of the art after discovering the work of fashion photographers like Emily Soto and Lindsey Adler. From there, Katuri moved to New York City, where he is currently enrolled as a photography student at NYFA.
“NYFA has definitely improved my skills in terms of getting the light setup quicker as well as with working on post-production in Photoshop,” says Katuri. “To give you a little bit of perspective, it used to take me 30 minutes to get a simple setup with one light. Now I take about 30 minutes for a complex four-light setup. Same goes for my post-production — it has cut my time in half.”
Katuri is now heading more into studio fashion and beauty photography, and will be expanding to on-location fashion photography.
Two projects that he is currently working on are entitled “Futuristic Fashion” and “Symmetry.”
On Saturday, April 29 the New York Film Academy Los Angeles participated in the annual Burbank Parade. This year’s aloha theme saw plenty of leis, grass skirts, and palm trees. Many of the local groups NYFA works with were involved in the parade including the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America, the Burbank Rose Bowl Committee, and the Walt Disney Company.
“It is important for the New York Film Academy to be part of our community. We help the Coordinating Council with holiday gifts and food. The parade is a celebration of Burbank. Of course it is important that we are part of the celebration as well,” said Head of NYFA C.A.R.E.S. Paul McKenna.
Burbank heroes like Debbie Reynolds and Ron Howard have been honored at past Burbank parades. This year Burbank business owner and actor Joe Mantegna attended the procession and honored our veterans.
Along the parade route students handed out NYFA pendants as onlookers waved to the students and faculty member inside the truck. The vehicle was covered with NYFA banners displaying different programs at the New York Film Academy. Colorful images of the tropics, streamers, and flowers brightened up the atmosphere and every participant was bestowed with a brightly colored lei.
At the end of the day the float walked away with a third place ribbon for Best Non-Commercial Float. This was our second year in the parade and we came in third place. That level of approval and acceptance shows that Burbank has welcomed us and our role in the community will only grow,” McKenna said of the honor.
The New York Film Academy would like to thank our neighbors in Burbank, CA for letting us be a part of the show, all of the students who came out to make this a wonderful experience, and the staff who were there to support the work.
The New York Film Academy College of Visual & Performing Arts (NYFA) facilitated an exclusive, hands on Game Design workshop for service members and veterans that were interested in pursuing an education in the field of game design and game engineering. Veterans from across Southern California, including Los Angeles and San Diego, met at the College’s campus located in Burbank, CA.
“Veterans working together to build a game during the workshop”
Bryan Parent, Founder of Team Push, and a workshop participant, stated, “These types of events are important to our veterans; it is an opportunity to learn how their military skills can be used in a civilian setting, where they can work together as a team with other veterans and co-workers, and to break apart any assumptions we have leaving the military, or what others think we are coming out of the military. NYFA put all of that into an easily digested workshop that left all of Team Push Up’s members asking for more.”
The College’s Veterans Services Department organized the event; Chris Swain, NYFA’s Game Design Department Chair facilitated the workshop. Swain is a seasoned game designer and game design engineer, who has authored 50+ games for Activision, EA, Sony, Microsoft, Disney and many others.
“The New York Film Academy has a long history of supporting veterans and while this workshop was geared towards those interested in learning more about the burgeoning game design industry, the occasion also provided an opportunity for veterans to network with each other and be around those with similar life experiences,” said Eric Brown, US Navy Veteran and Veterans Coordinator at NYFA.
While many young artists flock to New York City from all around the world, few realize just how difficult it can be to break into the competitive world of “show business.” This personal and relatable struggle was the inspiration behind director Rodrigo Baumgartner Ayres’ film “Felices Acá En New York” (“Happy Here in New York”), which stars NYFA alumna Caroline Rosalino. Both Ayres and Rosalino met during their studies at the New York Film Academy and collaborated on the project soon after.
The film has been well received, having screened at eight film festivals and having been recognized with a “Best Actress Award Nomination” at the Queens World Film Festival. The film won a “Best Audience Award” at Indie Works and a “Best Actress Platinum” at NYC Indie Fest.
NYFA caught up with the two alumni to discuss more about the film and their blossoming careers since graduating.
Congrats on the success of your film! Can you tell us where you’re from, and what brought you to NYFA?
CR: I’m from Brazil, but I also lived in Argentina for five years where I did my BFA in Acting, as well as working in their “off-Broadway theater circle.” I came to the US for the first time for a three month work intership, and I walked past NYFA the very first day I was in New York City. I even have a picture of myself in front of NYFA saying, “Mom, I don’t think I am coming back,” and the funny thing is, it became true. I started researching about NYFA and I found it was exactly what I was missing in my work — since at that point my focus was mainly theatre and soap opera acting.
RA: I am from Porto Alegre, Brazil. I decided to come to NYFA during my last year of adversing & marketing school in Brazil. I wasn’t excited about pursuing that career, I felt there was somehitng missing and it was one of my instructors Anny Baggiotto who had attended NYFA a few years earlier the recommended the school to me.
Caroline, can you tell us how you met Rodrigo?
CR: While at NYFA, I saw him working everyday at our computer lab, but we never had the opportunty to work together during school time. During my OPT time after NYFA, I invited Rodrigo to direct this film and luckily he dedicated himself entirely to the project.
Rodrigo, in your own words, can you tell us what this film is about?
RA: It’s about me, and Caroline’s, and a whole bunch of other foreigner artists’ lives. People who come to NYC with a dream to make it in show business, but soon realize that life here is harder than it looks. It’s about the idealized image that people in our home countries have of us because of the fact that we are living in New York City, supposedly the city of dreams. They don’t know what it means to be a foreigner in this country: working day jobs, struggling with money, having a constant fear of failure, which will culminate into us having no other option besides going back to our home countries with a feeling of defeat. It’s also about friendship. Sol’s character is sacrificing a long lasting friendship with Vicky in order to fulfill her dreams. And these ‘breaking apart’ situations happen no matter how hard you try to keep in touch with friends and family because your life in NYC is very intense; you can’t take a breath between working day jobs and pursing your career as an artist.
How did this film come about?
RA: This film was a nine day pre-production process: one day of shooting and over six months of editing, which I did myself. Caroline sent me a story written by Alejandro Escaño, a writer and theatre performer from Argentina, and she told me she wanted me to DP it. She thought I had a camera and equipment, which I didn’t, and she had another director lined up for the shoot. I told her I didn’t have a camera, but I might be able to put the production together. Apparently, the other director wasn’t showing much interest, so I took over and brought my friend Daniel Rey Lozano to DP and operate the camera, borrowed sound equipment from an indie company called ‘Gradient Films’, whom I worked with before, and Caroline called Andrei Costanzi Posse to operate the sound, a Brazilian actor who lives in NYC, which I had also previously met in another project.
We were only five people on set and shooting guerrilla style. Months later, in the later stages of editing, I brought in my cousin from Brazil, Saulo Baumgartner Mosna, to compose the music for us.
The biggest challenge was adapting the story that was sent to us by Alejandro, which was a great story with a lot of heart, but also not written in a standard script format. It was a story written in Word, which required a lot of changes if we wanted to have any hopes of executing it as a film. The original story involved a higher budget, at least three or four days of shooting, and more time of pre-production. So with nine days until the shooting date, Caroline and I were re-writing the story and adapting it into our ‘one day’ schedule.
One day of shooting seems like a lot to handle. Can you tell me how you were able to pull off a one day shoot?
RA: We got a crew of reliable people who are in it for the art rather than money, and that’s why we were able to shoot for some 16 hours. It was definitely exhausting, but when you have people like that, you know are going to see it through to the end. When Carolyn and I were writing the script I was careful with how I was shaping the scenes. Like I said, the original story was quite different — more places, different style — so I tried to make it logistically viable, so that we could travel quickly between locations.
What did you see in Caroline that made her a perfect fit for the role of Sol?
RA: Caroline is a great actress, seasoned, reliable and she really fit the role, because just like her character Sol, Caroline is also an immigrant who is struggling to make a living here in NYC. Except maybe for the ‘killing’ visions and day dreaming, Sol and Caroline are quite similar. But the fact was that Caroline reached me with the story first. Knowing her for her professionalism and talent, I had no doubts that we could make this project work.
Caroline, can you tell us a little bit about Sol and who she is as a character?
CR: Sol is a struggling actress that has been living in NY for three years. She wants to sustain the image of a successful life, but deep down she is not completely proud of all her choices. The truth comes to surface when her best friend from Argentina comes to visit her.
Would you two say your NYFA experience was useful in terms of being prepared for this film?
CR: I was truly blessed to have a great group at NYFA. From my colleagues that had so much potential — not even mentioning the unforgettable time we had together — but also our teachers were excellent and always open to work as well. NYFA prepared me not only to shift my theatre acting experience into film format and understand the professional filmmaking process, but essentially to understand acting as a business and how the film industry works in the US.
RA: NYFA played an absolutely fundamental role in my career as a filmmaker. I had no previous background in film before — coming from advertising and marketing — so everything I learned was at NYFA. I did the One-Year Filmmaking Conservatory, which was very intense and an incredible learning experience. Kudos to my directing instructor Paul Warner; he was my main source of inspiration and I follow his teachings blindingly. I definitely learned a lot from him. NYFA cultivated my passion for the art and set me on track for a career that I can no longer live without. NYFA’s program is complete. I graduated the school feeling confident about my talent and what I could accomplish in the future.
Tell us what’s next for the two of you.
CR: I have a few jobs lined up. I might be traveling around the country for that. One of them is a virtual reality film. I can’t wait for the experience of shooting in 360. And for certain the feature of “Felices Acá en New York.”
RA: I am shooting two new short films in May – June, 2017. One is a comedy that pays tribute to NYC as a romantic and also productive environment. The other one is a drama about loss and grief that criticizes America’s support program to veterans of war. Besides that, I also work as 1st Assistant Director, so I am involved in a sci-fi short film to be shot in September, 2017. I am also constantly writing. I have six scripts in the works that are dialogue pieces primarily made for the stage and that I also intend to turn into films.
Last week, the New York Film Academy Filmmaking students were given an in-depth lecture on storyboarding from one of the best, John F. Davis. As a Storyboard Artist and Illustrator for over 70 major motion pictures, Davis has designed camera shots and scenes for directors such as Sydney Pollack, Martin Scorsese, Sam Mendes, Robert De Niro, Baz Luhrmann, Lasse Hallstrom, Jonathan Demme, M. Night Shyamalan and Barry Sonnenfeld, among many others, with an initial collaboration in 1983 with Jim Henson and Frank Oz. In 2005, Davis won the Best In Show Award for the Society of Illustrators’ first “The Art of the Storyboard” exhibition, an international competition with over 300 entries worldwide.
Since coming to New York City in 1979 from the Yale School of Drama, he has been a Production Designer, Visual Consultant, Storyboard Artist and Illustrator. Davis won two Emmy Awards in 1988 for designing the broadcast sets for the Summer Games of the XXIV Olympiad in Seoul for NBC Sports; he has also been a political media consultant on presidential, senatorial and gubernatorial campaigns and in 1993 produced and directed a 3-hour nightly literacy show for the State of Mississippi (where he is from originally). In 1982, he designed all the News and Sports sets for ABC and has designed two independent films as well as creating concepts, storyboards and set designs for numerous music videos, industrials, and television commercials since the mid-80s.
Davis began the lecture by allowing the students to check out his original storyboards from several major films including “The Departed,” “Black Swan,” “Zoolander,” and many others. The focus of the lecture was “awareness.”
“There’s an awareness factor that needs to be in storytelling,” he said. “To engage the audience in a way that they’re surprised and taken by it.”
He also stressed the fact that research is imperative. “If you do the right research it’ll inform your project,” he said.
While Davis did admit that drawing is the foundation of the visual arts, he did say that a filmmaker doesn’t necessarily have to be great a drawing in order to create a storyboard. Davis broke down the drawing process, allowing students to understand how to properly draw and interpret a scene from page to visual.
The process of storyboarding is extremely beneficial when it comes time for a director to set up his shots. Davis’ lecture brought about a true appreciation for storyboard art and the man or woman who provides the art for each of our favorite films.
New York Film Academy Game Design Instructor Scott Rogers is bringing his two great loves of classic sci-fi cinema and gaming together for his next project “Rayguns and Rocketships.”
Described as “an inventive dual-scale miniature board game for 2-4 players that takes place in the golden-ago of Sci-Fi space operas,” the game promises hours of fun for fans of role-playing and strategy games.
Rogers debuted the game on the New York Film Academy’s Twitch Stream. He demonstrated how to play through the game, premiered characters like the Space Pirates and Astro Rangers.
Have a look at Rogers’ Kickstarter campaign below, which has already surpassed his goal!
Now in its 25th year, the New York Film Academy has established itself as one of the premier visual and performing arts schools in the world. Its reputation has not gone unnoticed, as shown in Variety’s “Entertainment Education: Stellar Film Schools in 2017” article, which listed the 30 most “stellar” entertainment academies in the U.S. and abroad.
Now with locations in New York; Los Angeles, CA; South Beach, Florida; Gold Coast, Australia; Florence, Italy; and Beijing, China; the New York Film Academy offers a variety of accelerated degree, conservatory, or workshop programs.
The editors at Variety highlighted the continued success of NYFA’s alumni, who have screened films at the foremost film festivals in the world, such as Cannes, Sundance, SXSW, Toronto, and Venice. Variety also published an article in which they recognized NYFA’s Musical Theatre program for its outstanding and original movie musicals, which have reignited the genre for young performers.
This past year we proudly recognized many alumni success stories, including Jean de Meuron and Raphaela Neihausen, who were recently producers on Academy Award-nominated short films. Alumna Issa Rae, star and creator of the HBO series, “Insecure,” was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Comedy or Musical. Alumni Themo Melikidze starred alongside Mark Wahlberg in the Peter Berg action thriller, “Patriots Day.”
Our students have had the privilege of sitting in on hands-on Master Classes with industry professionals such as Matthew Modine (“Full Metal Jacket,” “Stranger Things”), Bill Duke (“Predator,” “A Rage in Harlem”), film critic Peter Rainer, and many more. Furthermore, NYFA continues to offer its Guest Speaker Series and welcomed many new faces this past year, including Academy Award winner Mel Gibson, Seth Rogen, Kim Cattrall, Kevin James, and many others.
As a continual effort to provide real-world experiences, NYFA’s Industry Lab has allowed our students and alumni to work on major productions for professional clients such as Warner Bros., Snoop Dogg, Matthew Modine, and others.
NYFA’s professional faculty has maintained a working relationship with the film, TV, and entertainment industry. Some recent examples include NYFA Cinematography Chair Tony Richmond, who was the director of photography on “Diary of Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul.” NYFA Dean of Academic Advising at NYFA Los Angeles Mike Civille directed the film, “The Rachels,” which premiered on the Lifetime Movie Network. Acting instructor Ken Lerner has acted in critically acclaimed series like “This is US,” “Legion,” and “American Crime Story.”
The New York Film Academy looks forward to a bright future as it continues to grow and expand its diverse and multi-talented student body, faculty, and staff.
New York Film Academy Musical Theatre alumna Sophie Kim So-hyang became the first Korean actress to be cast in an American production after landing a supporting role in the U.S. production of the hit Broadway musical “Sister Act.”
“My Korean agent told me that there will an audition for ‘Sister Act’ in the Asian tour and that I should try to get in,” said Kim. “At first, I didn’t think too much about it because there are no roles for Asians in the play. But since it was an Asian tour, my agent told me that there would be a slight possibility of getting the part. So, I auditioned, got several callbacks, and finally got it. I was so excited!”
Kim will play the part of Sister Mary Robert, a quiet and timid nun who becomes inspired by the main character Delores to eventually break out of her shell. The show is a musical adaptation of the hit 1992 comedy film of the same name starring Whoopi Goldberg.
Born and raised in Korea’s theatre district, Kim and her mother went to many shows as a child. “My parents were really supportive and always encouraged me to be an actress,” she recalls. “I was the kind of girl who loved to sing and dance.”
While in Korea, Kim performed in many shows such as “Rent,” “Aida,” “Mamma Mia,” “Dreamgirls,” “Fame,” “West Side Story,” “Evita,” and “Wedding Singer.”
After attending and graduating from NYFA’s Musical Theatre Conservatory, Kim also became the first person to join the AEA (Actors Equity Association) as a theatre actress from Korea. She played Gigi in “Miss Saigon” (Paramount Theatre) and Tuptim in “The King and I” (Harbor Lights Theatre). Kim also appeared in “Oliver,” “Spool Girl,” “6 Month Club,” and “Portrait of Father.”
“Everything I’m doing now I learned from NYFA,” said Kim. “I learned history, preparing for auditions, ballet, vocals, stage combat, jazz, tap, Meisner, makeup, improv, and so much more. I would never be able to get a job if I didn’t go this school.”
On Friday, April 28, Kim performed in the EnoB Benefit Concert at Saint Peter’s Church in Manhattan. The Benefit Concert is a semi-annual fundraising event hosted by EnoB, a non-profit music outreach organization that serves hospitalized and disabled children, youth and senior citizens through the joy and the healing power of music. It’s an opportunity for EnoB to raise funds to sustain the critical services for people in need and celebrate its work among friends and family.
The Asian tour of “Sister Act” will begin in Singapore from May 9-28.
Please note: NYFA does not represent that these are typical or guaranteed career outcomes. The success of our graduates in any chosen professional pathway depends on multiple factors, and the achievements of NYFA alumni are the result of their hard work, perseverance, talent and circumstances.
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The film has been well received, having screened at eight film festivals and having been recognized with a “Best Actress Award Nomination” at the Queens World Film Festival. The film won a “Best Audience Award” at Indie Works and a “Best Actress Platinum” at NYC Indie Fest.
