Page 246 – NYFA

Sinem Yazici: From Advertising Manager to Fashion Photographer

As a graduate from the New York Film Academy Photography School, Sinem Yazici has worked with numerous clients, publications, and agencies. Some of her many clients include Mavi USA, Kikiriki USA, MBM Paris, and many others. Her photographs have appeared in Men’s Health (Turkey, Serbia & Croatia), Glamour Turkey, and others. She’s also worked with may of the top modeling agencies such as Ford, IMG, Elite, and others.

Yazici came to NYFA’s New York City campus from Istanbul, Turkey, where she had been working in advertising for over a decade before becoming a photographer. “I was the advertising manager of a big company when I was 29,” said Yazici. “That was the goal and, once I achieved it, I started to question what my next goal would be and unfortunately I wasn’t happy in advertising anymore.”

After watching Annie Leibovitz’s documentary Life Through a Lens in 2008, Yazici knew she wanted to be a fashion photographer. Her love for New York City and knowing New York is considered one of the capitals for fashion are what led her to study at the New York Film Academy.

“NYFA was very responsive and professional from the very first day,” recalls Yazici. “Training with great photographers such as David Mager and Brian Dilg was an honor and definitely took me to the next level in my photography education.”

After graduation, Yazici returned to Istanbul and assisted a very famous fashion photographer. In her spare time she would test shoot male models at an agency. After getting some post-graduate photography experience, Yazici moved back to New York and immediately started shooting 2-3 times a week while submitting her work to online magazines. It was this hard work and dedication—as well as talent—that enabled her to establish herself as a men’s fashion photographer.

Now she’s based in New York, but always open to travel where the work is. She is currently working on some editorial projects that she is excited to share with us soon!

To view Sinem Yazici’s work, please visit her website at www.sinemyazici.com.

Lee Sheldon on Writing for Games

Last week, New York Film Academy Game Design Chair Phoebe Elefante welcomed guest speaker Lee Sheldon to the classroom. Sheldon is a professional game writer and designer currently working on his 43rd game. Prior to writing for games, Sheldon was a television writer-producer with over 200 produced shows ranging from Charlie’s Angels to Star Trek: The Next Generation. One of his first writing jobs was for a 1976 Hanna-Barbera series called Clue Club, which Sheldon jokingly admitted was essentially another Scooby Doo knock-off.

Sheldon wrote the bestselling book The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game (2011); his book Character Development and Storytelling for Games (Second Edition, 2013) is the standard text in the gaming field.

His recent applied game projects include two games at Rensselaer: The Lost Manuscript 2: The Summer Palace Cipher, a virtual reality game teaching Mandarin and Chinese culture; and These Far Hills, a video game teaching engineering and science for an NSF proposal. He wrote Crimson Dilemma, a business ethics video game for Indiana University that debuted Fall 2014; and wrote and designed Secrets: A Cyberculture Mystery Game, an online class designed as a game teaching culture and identity on the Internet for Excelsior College that went live Fall 2015.

His most recent entertainment games are the AAA Kinect title Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved (2014) for Harmonix and Suburbia 2, a Facebook game for MegaZebra upcoming in 2016.

Sheldon felt the urge to move into gaming after years of churning out episodic television series. It was time for a change.

He now feels that he is much more capable of giving his characters depth in his games, as opposed to the characters in his television scripts. Having worked on games for twenty years, Sheldon says, “In order for me to work on something new, there has to be an interesting idea behind the game. It has to have a different approach [than your average game].”

As to where his ideas derive, Sheldon says it all comes from his own life and experience. “Don’t limit the scope of your interests, ” he said. “Go see plays you normally wouldn’t see, read books, and travel!”

One interesting exercise that Sheldon says he brings to his own classroom is to eavesdrop on strangers. He believes ideas and interesting dialogue can develop by simply listening in on strangers’ conversations. We’re pretty sure that our students in New York City, Los Angeles, and South Beach, amongst others, will hear some pretty enticing conversations.

Producing Student Accepted into Producers Guild Student Program

With graduation coming up on May 27th, 2016 for New York Film Academy One Year Producing Conservatory student John ‘Six’ Reilly, the timing of his recent acceptance into the Producers Guild of America Student Membership Program couldn’t have been any better. The two-year program gives highly-motivated students currently enrolled in a producing-focused degree or certificate program the unique opportunity to become part of their own PGA community by attending regular meetings, creating and supporting events, networking with peers, receiving invitations to PGA events and screenings, and sharing and advancing their knowledge of film, television, and new media.

Reilly is currently producing programs for Brooklyn public access television and developing a spin-off of Black Ink Crew, as well as other projects in film and television. He is also a member of Veterans in Film and Television, The Independent Filmmakers Project and The National Academy for Television Arts and Sciences.

Reilly began working in the entertainment business in music production and promotion with the VH1 hit reality series Black Ink Crew. His work creating story arcs with the show runners prompted him to attend New York Film Academy to further his career in television and film.

With the exciting news of his acceptance into the PGA, we thought we’d catch up to learn more about John Reilly and what’s in store for the upcoming graduate.

Can you tell us a little bit about your military service?

My military service was from 2002 to 2006, when I was medically discharged. I am currently a disabled veteran. I was in the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, an experimental urban combat unit. I was a Fire Team Leader in an Infantry platoon.

How would you describe your overall experience at NYFA?

My time at NYFA made me smarter than I initially believed I was. I walked in very knowledgeable about the film industry but what I thought I knew was nothing compared to what I learned. My ability to translate my ideas into content has increased tenfold. I no longer have to figure out how to get things done. I know now, and that’s the difference.

I came to NYFA because I realized that the people I worked with would only teach me enough to work for them. Now I’m their equal—if not smarter.

Congrats on becoming a member of the PGA Student Program. How did that come about?

I wouldn’t have had an opportunity to become a PGA member if not for NYFA. I wouldn’t have had the ability to impress their board had I not absorbed all the information put out in the producer program. The producer program at NYFA is one of the most comprehensive programs in existence. I speak to other students from other schools and I often hear, “I wish they taught us that at [school’s name].” I walked into NYFA knowing what I wanted and needed. I’m leaving with all I’ve asked for plus more. Though very challenging, if you meet the challenges put before you, there is no way you can’t succeed in a career as a producer. My biggest dilemma at this moment is do I leave NYFA and work for myself, or take one of the many offers on the table.

Would you recommend our current producing students become members of the PGA Student Program?

I suggest every student in the producer program apply for the PGA student mentorship program. It’s a natural progression from NYFA. There is nothing they can throw at you that you won’t be prepared for. The program starts this Fall, so one can ask “How do you know that?” I know what I’ve been trained to do and unless the craft of producing does some weird 180 degree turn on me tomorrow I know I’m prepared for whatever this program requires of me. This is an opportunity to be great, and if you work hard at NYFA the glory is yours.

If you had everything go your way: Where do you see yourself career-wise in five years?

In five years my goal is to be able to be an artist. Producing is administrative but I see it as artistic as well. God is a producer. God produced the heavens and Earth and all things on it. Working for a ginormous company like Disney, producing Marvel movies, is a dream come true, but for me I want to be able to create art that is appreciated and lucrative at the same time. Whether that is TV, film, music videos, commercials or new media, I want to be able to get the ideas in my head manifested into reality. I want people to indulge in my creations—and I would like to be able to afford one of those penthouses on the Brooklyn skyline while doing it.

Best of luck with that! Any final thoughts?

Lastly, I would like to thank all of my instructors at NYFA because their contributions to my education and success are invaluable. I would like to give an extra thank you to Richard D’Angelo for his countless hours of instruction and care; Nick Yellen for pushing me, raising the bar every time I have to perform and prepping me for the PGA program; and last, but definitely not least, Neal Weisman—not only for putting our producing program together, but for taking a big chance on me.

Prior to coming to NYFA I had some hang-ups with the military funding my education. I needed a few days past the course start date to work it out. Neal Weisman, without knowing anything about me, took a chance and vouched for me to start class while we worked out the details. He had no reason to trust I would be worth putting his name on the line but for some reason he did it. If he didn’t I would have missed this PGA opportunity. I really owe him a lot. In this world people don’t have faith in others, typically. He did what producers do and took a risk and I’m happy to have provided a good ROI (Return on Investment).

Photography Instructor Wins Webby & People’s Voice Award for “The Dawn of the Killer Robot”

Photography Instructor, Connelly La Mar’s documentary The Dawn of the Killer Robots—which he and his team at Motherboard pitched, shot and produced for VICE—was awarded both a Webby Award and a People’s Voice in the best online tech film category. Established in 1996 during the Web’s infancy, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. The Webby People’s Voice Awards garners millions of votes from all over the world.

“It is certainly humbling to receive recognition always on behalf of our team and Motherboard,” said La Mar. “I think winning the People’s Voice is special because it is by popular vote, but both awards make us remember that people do appreciate the hard work that goes into our process. So, looking at the springy curious object on a shelf somewhere down the road will always be of source of inspiration, and a reason to remember to dust.”

The documentary started with a simple question about the future of weaponizing technology like robots, and why Google is gobbling up robotics companies, which are contracted to the military and involved in DARPA robotics competitions.

“It got interesting as we met people who were on the extreme, and feared the end of humanity invoking the notion of a modern ‘John Connor’,” said La Mar. “So, an initial question about AI, Google and the military industrial-complex grew into a study of existential risk and the singularity, as we met more people at the heart of and on the periphery of the subject.”

If you haven’t already started watching the documentary, we recommend you hit play on the video above…now. Let us know what you think in the comments below!

Filmmakers Meet Composers Through “Speed Dates”

What happens when thirty composers meet thirty filmmakers and have five minutes to introduce themselves and then move on? It may sound like an exercise in speed dating but the object of the Meet a Composer event held recently at New York Film Academy Los Angeles was not new relationships but new collaborations.

NYFA documentary and narrative filmmakers met with composers and song writers from the Sundance Composers Lab, the Los Angeles College of Music, UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music, and the Academy of Scoring Arts.

“I loved the experience,” said Documentary MFA student Jake Garcia. “The speed dating format took the pressure off of mingling and I made lots of contacts.”

Several collaborations were forged between filmmakers and composers and we’ll see the results soon. Multiple NYFA films featuring scores written by attendees will be ready for screening by the end of the year.

NEW YORK FILM ACADEMY WELCOMES AWARD-WINNING ACTOR BRYAN CRANSTON

Not too many actors have been able to achieve the success and versatility that Bryan Cranston has accomplished. Just when you thought Cranston couldn’t break the mold of his iconic character as the dentist, Tim Whatley, on Seinfeld or Hal the father from Malcolm in Middle, he went and dominated cable television in an entirely different role as Walter White in Breaking Bad.

His career has continually evolved and grown not only in television, but in theatre and film as well. His depiction of Lyndon B. Johnson in the play All the Way earned him a Tony, and his portrayal of Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo received critical acclaim and an Oscar nom for Best Actor.

As part of the New York Film Academy’s exclusive Guest Speaker Series for students and alumni, Cranston sat in for an informative Q&A with Producer Tova Laiter after a screening of his film, Trumbo.

Cranston inspired students with an abundance of advice and wisdom in terms of succeeding as an actor. The overall theme of his message was that to be an actor, you must be all in. You cannot give yourself a deadline or dabble in the art—it’s all or nothing at all.

He also elaborated on the level of confidence needed when going on an audition with a director, producer, or casting agent. Actors should be thinking about how they can offer their talent to that particular project, and not be obsessing over simply getting the job. “Don’t put yourself in a position of need,” said Cranston. “You’re there to give them something.”

Cranston openly admitted that while it’s disappointing when he doesn’t land an audition, he bolsters his confidence with the belief that something better is going to come his way and he’s in fact lucky he didn’t get that particular gig.

Some of the most important pieces of advice came when Cranston stressed that young actors must “put in the hours,” and show up to jobs on time and prepared. It’s that commitment, along with his indisputable talent, that has put Cranston amongst Hollywood’s acting elites.

Representatives from Brave New Films Discuss Documentaries and Gun Control

New York Film Academy students welcomed representatives from Brave New Films—Laurie Jones and Tommie Bayliss—after a screening of their documentary, Making a Killing: Guns, Greed and the NRA. The event was moderated by NYFA Documentary Chair Barbara Multer-Wellin.

Making a Killing: Guns, Greed and the NRA featured stories from people who have been impacted by gun violence, such as the woman who had been attacked by her estranged husband, the family of a young boy accidentally shot at a friends house, and a woman whose fiancé had committed suicide a few months before their wedding. Bayliss spoke to the difficulty of compassionately interviewing people involved, saying, “I think you have to be a skilled director to put people in a place where they’re comfortable.”

When asked about the lack of a segment specifically about school shootings, Jones said, “the media covers mass shootings, but domestic violence and suicide are not [covered] — other short films are available on our website.” Bayliss added that, “you can’t get it all…you grab what you can. It’s a filmmaker’s dilemma.”

Jones and Bayliss concluded the talk with a positive message. “We kind of think our voices don’t matter, but they do.”

Broadcast Journalism School Weekly Recap

There was a big shake-up at CBS News, with the network opting to run their digital news service—called CBSN—on the broadcast network on weekends, instead of producing a separate evening news program. It is typical of how major networks are adapting to a changing media landscape. CBSN is aimed squarely at younger viewers, individuals who relate better to their phones than to a TV set.

Over at NBC Sports, they have a new deal with Snapchat. The arrangement calls for Olympic highlights, based on NBC generated material, to be distributed on Snapchat. This is a play to attract millennial viewers who do not watch conventional television. Since NBC bought the American video rights to the Olympics, they can distribute that footage any way they like. We live in a cross-platform world, and a program that is confined to a single platform is likely to fail.

By the way, NBC Sports is making a major commitment to Virtual Reality (VR) production. Current NYFA 1-year Broadcast Journalism students will be visiting the Associated Press HQ in Manhattan later this month to see how the AP is incorporating VR into news coverage. (They will even get a chance to experience VR themselves.)

Not to be left behind, cable giant ESPN is the latest media company to make a deal with Vice. Vice World of Sports is a new series that will air on ESPN. Once again, it is the need to attract millennial viewers that is driving this collaboration. While ESPN has lots of sports programming already, it wants to attract new viewers through the bold first-person narrative style of program that Vice has perfected. (Current NYFA 1-year Broadcast Journalism students learn these techniques in our Personal Journalism course.)

In yet another related event, Twitter’s Periscope streaming video service has hired an editor-in-chief. At first, this sounds bizarre. But it makes sense when you realize that it is almost impossible to separate the really interesting video on Periscope from the so/so and the simply awful. This means Periscope is in line to be curated. Periscope is also allowing users to permanently save their feeds. However, they will need to add the hashtag #save to the stream’s title.

In “local news,” some of the NYFA 1-Year Broadcast Journalism students went out to cover the Holi Hai NYC Festival last week. This “festival of colors” is always popular, if only for the fact that it is the one day out of the year when you are encouraged to make an absolute mess of yourself, your friends, total strangers, inanimate objects and anything else you happen to encounter.

From the picture above, you can see that this story generated a high degree of “reporter involvement.” To see how the actual story turned out, follow this link. And don’t worry, they protected the camera…

Finally, the Broadcast Journalism program’s lead camera instructor, Trish Gillespie, was invited to pitch her latest documentary project at the prestigious Hot-Docs Film Festival in Toronto. Before the pitch for this non-fiction crime thriller, American Monster, the audience was told that production company Warrior Poets had signed onto the project as a backer just two days prior, and would make the film into a multi-part doc series. Trish has worked long and hard on this, and will no doubt continue to do so in the months to come. (In fact, I think she was shooting in North Carolina this past weekend.) Congratulations, Trish!

“Good Luck Chuck” Screening at NYFA Los Angeles

On Thursday, April 21^st, New York Film Academy students were treated to a screening and Q & A of the hit Dane Cook / Jessica Alba romantic comedy, Good Luck Chuck. Director Mark Helfrich and Director of Cinematography / NYFA Chair of Cinematography, Tony Richmond, A.S.C., B.S.C., spoke with students at NYFA’s Los Angeles campus. Sonny Calderon, NYFA’s Dean of the College, moderated the discussion.

nyfa good luck chuck — NYFA Dean of the College, Sonny Calderon; Cinematography Chair, Tony Richmond; Director Mark Helfrich

When asked how the movie came together, Helfrich said, “I’ve always wanted to direct,” which sent him on the search for scripts. He finally took on Good Luck Chuck, which at that time was a much softer romantic comedy, deciding to turn it into the very sexy R-rated romantic comedy that it became. Commenting on the value of the writing process in the development of the film, Helfrich said, “A screenwriter is worth his weight in gold.” He went on to add that a good script is one where you can’t wait to get to the next page.

Being relatively new to directing after establishing himself as an editor, Helfrich now had to work with actors in a new way. Sonny Calderon asked him how he went about learning those new skills. Helfrich drew on his experience on previous sets in a non-directorial capacity, when he would visit the set as an editor and watch the director work with actors.

The conversation turned to the relationship of directing to editing. Helfrich said that some directors have the movie cut in their head before they shoot, tying that to clarity of vision. This clarity of vision from a director, he said, also influences the amount of coverage directors use to cover the scene, saying also that he leans toward the minimum amount of coverage required. Sonny went on to add that a lot of reshooting tends to kill energy on the part of actors, particularly in a comedy. Helfrich said that the current trend is to “over cover” scenes.

Sonny asked Helfrich about the emergence of digital editing and the differences between that and film editing. Helfrich said that he likes both, adding about film, “It was tangible.” When asked what he looks for in a director, Tony told the audience to look for someone they like, adding, “I’ve never worked with anybody I didn’t like.”