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Grow Your Mo’s for Movember!

While the “Movember Challenge” can be a fun activity for volunteers to involve themselves with, the primary reason for the cause is to save and improve the lives of men affected by prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and mental health problems. To date, the Movember community has raised $559 million and funded over 800 programs in 21 countries.

As many of us are now aware, the month of November marks the month of Movember, which is an international cause to bring awareness and change to the face of men’s health. As a literal reminder, men are encouraged to grow moustaches, or “mo’s” to initiate this essential conversation in the public eye. However, Movember’s not just for men! Women who support men’s health, aka Mo Sistas, are also an important part of Movember’s success.While the “Movember Challenge” can be a fun activity for volunteers to involve themselves with, the primary reason for the cause is to save and improve the lives of men affected by prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and mental health problems. To date, the Movember community has raised $559 million and funded over 800 programs in 21 countries.

Sign up on the official Movember website and join the New York Film Academy team.
To do so, visit http://moteam.co/new-york-film-academy
and click the ‘sign up’ button in the top right corner.
Start growing out that moustache and encourage your friends to do the same!
Donate to the cause and/or encourage others to donate!
Share your photos and videos on social media and include @NYFA and #NYFAMos.

The top 5 NYFA members who raise the most money will be able to choose from
an amazing list of prizes.

Additional Creative Involvement with NYFA

In addition to your active Movember participation, the New York Film Academy is producing videos and documentary pieces for men and women interested in sharing a personal story of how men’s health has affected his or her life.

To be a part of our Movember Documentary and video initiatives, we ask that you send an honest story of 250 words or less of how men’s health has affected or been an active part of your life. We’re looking for compelling stories that will touch others and encourage an active conversation in the community. You must be comfortable taking photos and being interviewed on camera, as this will be integral to the production of the projects.

If you’re interested in actively participating with us, please send your 250 word personal story and a photo to [email protected]. Please note that for this portion of the Movember Challenge, you must be a student, alumnus, or faculty member in New York City, as we will be working periodically on location throughout the month of November.

We look forward to seeing your mo’s around campus!

NYFA to Award Two Scholarships at Abu Dhabi Film Festival

abff 2014 — NYFA Provost, Michael Young at ABFF 2014

The New York Film Academy in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Film Festival 2014 will be offering two scholarships to UAE nationals under the short film competition. The “New York Film Academy – Abu Dhabi Aspiring Filmmaker Awards” were open to the Student Narrative and Student Documentary competitions. The 8th edition of the festival is currently running until November 1st and the winners will be announced on that date.

The two winners will be enrolled at NYFA into a course that provides the students with the opportunity to write, shoot, direct and edit a number of films, as well as crew on their colleagues’ films.

At the opening ceremonies of the ADFF, producer Ed Pressman was honored with a lifetime achievement award. Ed Pressman has produced more than fifty films, including City Hall, Wall Street and Bad Lieutenant. In his acceptance speech, he referred to “inquisitive and intelligent students” he met at his ISB Expo workshop as “illustrating to him that there is a bright future for film in the UAE.” Many of the students he was referring to were students from the New York Film Academy Abu Dhabi, who attended the event with their instructors Scott Hartmann and Lars Myrvang.

The NYFA team had the opportunity later in the evening to introduce Mr. Pressman to Ayham Subaihi, one of the NYFA students in attendance.

“It was a very proud moment for both NYFA students and faculty, hearing this reference in Ed’s speech,” said Artistic Director of NYFA Abu Dhabi, Allan Nicholls. “We wish all participants good luck and look forward to welcoming them at the Abu Dhabi campus in Jan 2015.”

Take NYFA’s Horror Movie Death Quiz

For this Halloween, we decided to take a look at some of the more legendary deaths in the horror genre, creating a choose-your-own-adventure style game where you can pick between two paths to see how you would most likely die in a horror movie. Of course, this is all in fun and while we don’t expect you to be in the shower while playing along, we wanted to create a fun exercise that would guide you through the iconic deaths of horror while poking a little fun at the genre’s more predictable impulses.

So get started on your horror journey and once you meet your grisly end, be sure to share with us on social media or the comments below the details of #HowIDied.

Renowned Casting Director John Levey Visits NYFA

New York Film Academy students gathered this week to view the pilot episode of Showtime’s hit TV series Shameless, and participate in a Q&A with the show’s illustrious casting director John Levey. The Q&A was moderated by NYFA LA’s Dean of Academic Advising Mike Civille.

John Frank Levey is a casting director for John Welles Productions and is one of the most respected in the industry. Levey has won four Emmy awards (ER and West Wing) and is the recipient of the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the Casting Society of America. Levey is best known for his casting credits for hit TV shows like Southland, ER, The West Wing, China Beach, Third Watch, and Shameless (currently airing on Showtime). Levey started his career as a theater director with the NEA fellowship at the Mark Taper Forum and continues to direct theater in Los Angeles today.

John stressed the importance of working with a casting director in low-budget films. The role is often considered nonessential given the restrictions on this level. Although a student film, for instance, may not be able to afford to hire John, the production could work with his assistant who has access to his knowledge. Having an expert to “people” your film (as John puts it) is just as important, if not more, as having a cinematographer, production designer, or digital editor. After all, it’s the characters who keep the audience’s interest.

When asked what John focuses on most during an actor’s audition he said “the life within them.” John often “plays the fool” in the audition room to keep a light atmosphere in which the actors feel comfortable in allowing their true self to come out. It’s a talent for allowing magic to happen and identifying the right flavor of persona that John has refined throughout his career.

Actors in the audience were interested in knowing how they could get the attention of a prominent casting director such as John. His answer to this question was simple, “Do the work!” There is no substitute for this. Any other explanation for why an actor hasn’t been discovered, for instance, “I don’t have the right agent,” is just an excuse. It is your hard work and talent that will bring you success and nothing more.

John is currently casting for his fifth season of Shameless.

Actor Ronen Rubinstein Returns to His Alma Mater

New York Film Academy Acting for Film graduate Ronen Rubinstein has come out of the gates running. Since graduating from NYFA, he’s appeared in a few features, including It Felt Like Love, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and landed him representation with Radius Entertainment and The Gersh Agency. Last night, Ronen returned to his alma mater to screen the film and discuss life “in the real world.”

The independent feature truly captures the raw emotions of a teenage girl coming into her sexuality without a mother in her life. The lead, Lila, fixates herself on an older boy, Sammy, played by Ronen. Sammy is the kind of guy who seems to be willing to sleep with any girl at the party and yet Lila becomes infatuated with him. Given the somewhat misogynistic nature of Sammy’s character, Ronen initially found the role challenging.

“I would take pieces of people I knew in high school and mold them into the character of Sammy,” said Ronen. “I actually knew a lot of ‘Sammys’ in high school, but was afraid to talk to them.”

With no real rehearsal time and a first time director, Eliza Hittman, Ronen was able to tackle the part in what became an unprecedented nineteen day film shoot in Brooklyn. In the feature film world, that’s almost unheard of. Nevertheless, the film found itself at Sundance, screens across the country, and is currently available on Netflix. Ronen says that Sundance really propelled his career and confidence in the business. Seeing the likes of Robert De Niro, and Robert Redford gave Ronen the inspiration and confirmation that a career in acting was the right path for him.

Ronen provided a unique prospective to students on life after acting school. Given the fact that Ronen is only two years out of NYFA, it was refreshing to hear first-hand the possibilities of being a working actor right out of school. One piece of advice that Ronen learned at NYFA: “You can’t judge your character. If you judge them, you won’t be able to properly portray what they’re doing in the film.” As an example, if you’re asked to play a murderer in a film and go in with a negative attitude towards that person, the ability to truly capture that person will be extremely difficult.

While reflecting on his time at NYFA, Ronen recalled one of his favorite instructors, Paul Warner. What he loved most about Paul was that he never sugarcoated anything—much like the real world. Having that critical tutorage is a key to success.

In addition to It Felt Like Love, Ronen will be appearing in the features Condemned and Some Kind of Hate. Not only that, he will be appearing in season 3 of Netflix’s hit show, Orange is the New Black.

Love and Business Blossom at NYFA

After working post-production in New York City and Los Angeles for five years on projects like Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, New York Film Academy graduates, Helena Hilario (Producing) and Mario Pece (Directing) have decided to explore other opportunities in the Brazilian market by starting their own business. Their company, StratoStorm, will focus on developing visual effect sequences for commercials, films, television, music videos and digital projects for creative advertising agencies, production companies, and talented directors.

“There is a demand in Brazil for VFX for advertising, television and films,” says Helena Hilario. “We wanted to bring our experience from Hollywood to Brazil.”

Helena and Mario have invested in a state-of-the-art studio in São Paulo, equipped with workstations and render farms. Their remote-based workflow system allows them to work with clients and artists from around the world while residing in the tropical Brazilian countryside.

Thus far, StratoStorm has hit the ground running, as they’re currently working on a TV commercial for Combatant Gentlemen, which will air in the United States. They are also creating visual effects for the Brazilian feature film Jonas e a Baleia, directed by Lô Politi, set to premiere in movies theaters in South America in the beginning of next year.

Helena and Mario met while attending NYFA. From there, they developed a life-long relationship both personally and professionally. Helena had been working as a line producer at Academia de Filmes, one of Brazil’s largest production companies, until she decided to move to New York to learn about the movie business. “It was my dream to attend NYFA, I always heard about the great programs, excellent teachers and impeccable reputation of NYFA. When I found out about the Producing program, I had no doubts that it would be one of the best experiences of my life.”

Following her studies at NYFA, Helena worked in NYC at Downtown Reel, a production company which specialized in TV commercials for foreign markets. After that, she moved to Los Angeles, where she was hired to work on the production team at KGB, a boutique, independent production company based on the legendary Paramount Studios lot in the heart of Hollywood. In mid 2013, she joined the team at Ingenuity Engine as a VFX Executive Producer and New Business Development. There she worked with various ad agencies and production companies.

Helena’s partner, Mario Pece left Italy in 2008 to attend the 8-Week Directing Program. While enrolled, he directed several shorts films and decided to continue his education in the One-Year Directing Program. His focus was primarily on creating innovative and unique ways to incorporate VFX into his storytelling. After graduating, Mario became the lead VFX artist at Ingenuity Engine, an award winning VFX studio creating VFX for numerous clients such as Doritos, Reebok, Callaway, Jello, UFC and Virgin Holidays. For television, they produced the visual effects for TV shows Parks & Recreation, Happy Endings and Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Winner of Best Comedy at the Golden Globes 2014) and award-winning music videos. One of the music videos, Katie Perry’s Wide Awake, was nominated at the 2012 VMA’s for Best Visual Effects.

“Our training at NYFA was definitely very important for our careers,” said Helena. “We created hundreds of projects from concept to delivery, including the award-winning trailer for the suspense thriller Out of Home, starring Patrick Boll.”

Helena and Mario encourage talented visual effects artists and freelancers to send his or her reel to StratoStorm at [email protected].

Mario Pece Reel 2014 from StratoStorm on Vimeo.

How Two Former NYFA Students Formed Fact Productions

One of the many positive aspects of attending a film school like New York Film Academy is the opportunity to meet and collaborate with motivated and creative artists. What’s fascinating about the collaboration between former NYFA students, Ion Beroiz and Ivan Leon, is their partnership came after not having seen or worked with each other for nearly eight months. Ivan, originally from Bogota, Colombia, had the desire to start his own production company, but needed the right partner who shared a similar passion of producing quality content. After discussing his ideas with Ion at party in Los Angeles, the two of them soon found themselves on the same page. Two days later, they registered the corporation name Fact Productions, Inc. They haven’t looked back since.

Since it’s nearly impossible to start from scratch and acquire paid clients, the duo put together a few spec commercials, using footage from their NYFA productions, stock footage, and personal videos. Soon after, they submitted their best commercial for a contest and were awarded second place. Now that they were “on the map” and beaming with confidence, they were able to parlay the victory into a few video gigs for some local restaurants. Not exactly international acclaim, but certainly a step in the right direction for a blossoming young production company.

It wasn’t long until NYFA was on their mind again. The duo pitched two more commercial ideas to NYFA Los Angeles’ Jean Sherlock and Dan Mackler. Jean and Dan were quite taken with their ideas and decided to assist in the production of another spec commercial, providing more quality content for Fact’s reel.

After improving the portfolio, they landed their first major client: Samsung. The production called for a voice-over in Hungarian and re-editing two commercials—washing machines were the product. Following Samsung, Fact began working with Mattel, producing internal communications.

As the ball continued to roll, a friend of theirs was able to introduce them to a contact at the record label, Universal Music Spain. It just so happened that the label was looking for a production company to take the lead on an upcoming video. Perfect, right? Well, they only had six days to prep! Looking back at their NYFA days, they realized, six days was plenty of time. They locked treatment with Universal two days before the shoot, providing them with 48 hours to produce a music video with full crew, 22 extras, a big band from Spain, and a mega star of the Spanish rock world, Enrique Bumbury. A hell of a challenge, to say the least.

Fortunately, the team pulled it off. The band was thrilled with the final product and so was Universal. After that, the phones were ringing.

“No matter how big or small our projects are, we always prepare them in the way our mentor from NYFA, Jonathan Pope Evans, told us, ‘As detailed as possible’,” said Ivan. “As Ion and I say, going to set is like going to war. We got that sense of preparation from NYFA.”

Fact’s most recent project was a music video for the band Marlango, featuring their new single Dinero. Have a look at the video below!

New Indie Comedy “Teacher of the Year” Comes to NYFA

This week New York Film Academy Los Angeles gathered to watch the new indie comedy Teacher of the Year and participated in a Q&A with the movie’s writer/director Jason Strouse and lead actor Matt Letscher. The event was moderated by Tova Laiter, who has producing credits on such films as Varsity Blues, The Scarlett Letter, and Cop and 1/2.

In a mockumentary fashion, Teacher of the Year depicts the honest efforts of a well-meaning teacher, surrounded by an eccentric faculty at Truman High School, as he grapples with whether he should accept a lucrative California Teacher of the Year award, which would mean leaving his job and abandoning the students he cares so much about. The movie was funny and played very well to the students who concluded its the kind of Indie movie they would like to make.

Jason Strouse began his writing career on NBC’s Caroline in the City and appeared regularly as a stand up comic before ditching it to become a teacher in L.A. He directed The Audience that premiered at the Palm Springs Short Film Festival. Teacher of the Year is his first feature film. Matt Letscher was most recently seen as “Charles” in the Academy Award nominated Her. His extensive film/TV credits include Scandal, The New Adventures of Old Christine, The West Wing, NYPD Blue, Criminal Minds, and Entourage. He currently recurs on the final season of Boardwalk Empire as Joe Kennedy and on Castle.

Writer/director Jason spoke about his roots in TV comedy show writers rooms and doing stand up comedy. The dynamics of both are very similar. He said that TV comedy writers are the funniest and smartest people you will meet, and keeping up with their witty banter in the room is quite a challenge. The writers room is where the magic happens. If your goal is write for TV, you should try to get in the room at all costs. Jason started out as a writer’s assistant, his talents were soon apparent to the writing team and he replaced a staff writer who couldn’t cut it. Later after having worked in the industry, Jason transitioned into teaching high school and works as a principle as he continues to write, produce, and direct. His teaching experience is what inspired Teacher of the Year. He used the mockumentary style to utilize his resources and tight shooting schedule to the greatest effect. The result is an outrageously funny and touching film coming from a truthful place.

Actor Matt Letscher spoke in depth about the actors process. He discussed the differences between theater and film acting—which he describes as an “acting out” (theater) as opposed to “letting the camera in” on what’s going on inside the actor (in film). However, regardless of the acting style, the process of breaking down a script and understanding the reasoning and motivation behind every action is always the same. He believes acting is just like carpentry or any other craft, and your skills improve only by “doing the work.” Matt carried a massive notebook around with him on the set of Teacher of the Year, filled with his own notes about his character and the story, and would delve into it every moment he got in between shots and takes. When he worked early in his career with Anthony Hopkins, he saw a similar scenario with Hopkins making notes on every paragraph of his script.

Jason and Matt stayed after their Q&A to mingle and take pictures with students. We sincerely thank Jason Strouse and Matt Letscher for visiting NYFA, and wish them the very best in their future filmmaking ventures!

Filmmaker Denny Tedesco Brings ‘The Wrecking Crew’ to NYFA LA

Last week the Documentary Department at the Los Angeles campus of the New York Film Academy held its first Industry Perspectives Class of the Fall semester. Our first guest lecturer in the series was director Denny Tedesco, who screened his film The Wrecking Crew. Denny has worked on a number of Comedy Central productions, as well as The 72nd Annual Awards.

His most recent documentary film tells the story of a group of studio musicians in LA who played on hits for such famous artists as The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Sonny and Cher, The Monkees, and the Mamas and the Papas. The group also comprised Phil Spector’s famous Wall of Sound. The music industry in the 1960s was rapidly changing from artists who had others create the arrangements, write and compose the music, and play the instruments, to bands who did everything themselves. The film interviews include icons such as Glen Campbell, Cher, Brian Wilson, Dick Clark, and the members of the Wrecking Crew itself. It also includes footage of Phil Spector and Gold Star Studios and other recording sessions from that era.

The Wrecking Crew has been picked up by Magnolia Pictures and will have a theatrical release in March 2015.