On Wednesday, December 2, 2020, New York Film Academy (NYFA) had the pleasure of welcoming award-winning director SARAH PIROZEK as part of The 20/20 Series, created by NYFA’s Creative Director of Filmmaking and Cinematography, Liz Hinlein. The conversation was moderated by Hinlein and was held virtually, allowing individuals to join NYFA and the special guests from all over the world.

The 20/20 Series, created by Hinlein, is a virtual pop-up event that takes us into the homes, hubs, and workspaces of an array of dynamic creative visionaries to allow for relaxed, engaging conversations on craft, creation, and artistic vision.

Sarah Pirozek is an award-winning Writer/Director/Producer with a fine arts and documentary background. Her original feature, #LIKE, is currently earning accolades and winning “Best Script,” “Best Director,” and “Best Actor” awards at multiple film festivals. Pirozek has several projects in development including her autobiographical, original script, The Squatters Handbook, her 1/2 hour TV pilot, Rockaway, and the documentary The Coffee and Cream Club. Her short, Confessions of a Girl Who Never Received a Visitation From The Sacred Heart screened at the London International Film Festival.

She has directed shorts, music videos, and over 100 commercials, as well as programming for The Sundance Channel, MTV, VH1, PBS, HBO, NAT GEO, AMC, BBC, and Channel Four TV in London. She also co-created the TV show, Crafty, for the Discovery Channel. Her other projects include the feature Free Tibet, featuring the Foo Fighters, Bjork, De La Soul, among many others, which was picked up after winning the “Best of Fest” award at The Edinburgh International Film Festival, and as a producer, the indie feature Flora, premiering at LA’s Outfest, winning Showtime’s “New Talent Award,” distributed by Regent Entertainment.

Hinlein opened up The 20/20 Series with Sarah Pirozek by showing a trailer for Pirozek’s film #LIKE and urged the audience to guess how high the budget was for the film. With such a stunning portraiture of characters, story, and frames captured, the audience was shocked to learn that the film was made on a microbudget.

Hinlein and Pirozek began to discuss what directors, producers, and others need to do to produce a quality film on such a small budget without making it look like a small budget. Pirozek shared that she thinks about those things early on in her writing process. “For #LIKE, I thought ‘okay well I have access to this scary basement, what can I write there?’ Knowing that the budget was going to be low with my first narrative feature, I had to work with what I had.”

But it isn’t just the budget in her head when she is writing, it’s her actors too. Marc Menchaca (Ozark, The Sinner), who plays one of her leads in #LIKE, was the actor she had in mind to play The Man when she was drafting her script. “When I met him, I said ‘i’m going to write a script for you’ and he said ‘okay great,’ and six months later I brought him the script and he read it and said that he would do it.”

While working with a small budget, Pirozek shared that can sometimes impact your casting and the time you have with them prior to filming. “We did have the opportunity in the casting sessions, but we had no official rehearsals,” she shared. “A lot of actors with stage experience like a lot of rehearsal but a lot of TV actors like it to be fresh, which is what we had to do. I think it would have been great to rehearse a bit more, but unless you have a ton of time to work with the actors, then it’s best to work with them fresh and fine-tune it as you go along.”

While Pirozek had every confidence in her cast, she shared with all the aspiring filmmakers listening to the conversation that when it comes to getting your film bought and distributed you are likely to find greater success with well-known names. “If you don’t have a name in your film, think about how you can pitch your cast. Sarah Rich, my lead actor, had a cameo in Orange is The New Black and Law & Order, and we ended up marketing her as one of those names in the credits as ‘Introducing…’ to make it feel like an event or showcase for this new talent, and it’s true, she is incredible.”

Finding an actor like Sarah (Rich) among so many actors was no easy task, but Pirozek reminded the audience that it’s about being “very clear” about what you are looking for when sharing a casting call and making it a role anyone (including an A-lister) would want to play. “Rewind to your script and write interesting characters. Ask: Who is your character? Are they developed? Are they someone your actor can sink their teeth into?”

New York Film Academy would like to thank special guest Sarah Pirozek for joining the NYFA global community to discuss creating an award-winning film on a micro-budget for The 20/20 Series, created by and moderated by Liz Hinlein. Pirozek’s film, #LIKE is set to be screened at the Woodstock Film Festival and will also be available on a/ptr through January 31, 2021.

To watch the full conversation, click the video below or click here.

These guests are not faculty and do not teach at NYFA, but they have appeared to share their stories and experience with our students. As guest speakers are scheduled based on their availability, NYFA cannot guarantee whether a guest speaker will visit during a student’s attendance or who that guest speaker may be. This guest speaker forum is not part of any NYFA curriculum and attendance at guest speaker events is purely voluntary. Students should be aware that guest speaker events do not represent a job opportunity nor are they intended to provide industry connections.

On November 18, New York Film Academy (NYFA) had the pleasure of welcoming former NYFA instructor and acclaimed film director PABLO BERGER as part of The 20/20 Series, created by NYFA’s Creative Director of Filmmaking and Cinematography, Liz Hinlein. The conversation was moderated by Hinlein and was held virtually, allowing individuals to join NYFA and the special guests from all over the world.

The 20/20 Series, created by Hinlein, is a virtual pop-up event that takes us into the homes, hubs, and workspaces of an array of dynamic creative visionaries to allow for relaxed, engaging conversations on craft, creation, and artistic vision.

Pablo Berger is one of Spain’s most acclaimed international film directors and a former instructor at NYFA. His debut feature film Torremolinos 73 (2003) was a local box office hit and premiered at the Malaga Film Festival, winning Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress. Torremolinos 73 was nominated for four Goya Awards and received prizes in many international film festivals. His second feature, Blancanieves (2013), premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and won over 100 awards worldwide, including ten Goyas, the Special Jury Prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival, nominations for Best Film and Best Director at the European Film Awards, a César Awards nomination for Best Foreign Film, and selection as Spain’s Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film.

Berger’s latest film Abracadabra (2017) premiered at the London Film Festival and was also a box office hit in Spain. Abracadabra was a finalist for Spain’s Oscar 2018 entry and was nominated for eight Goya Awards. At the moment he is in pre-production of his new film, Robot Dreams. Berger has been collaborating with NYFA since the early nineties and has directed their film program at La Fèmis (France).

Hinlein and Berger began the conversation by discussing Berger’s break into the Spanish film industry. “It was hard to get my first film off the ground,” remembered Berger. “I thought I was a big shot after graduating from film school, but I was really still an apprentice.”

Networking, Berger emphasized, is key to raising funds for your next film and he encouraged the audience to understand the producing aspect of filmmaking in addition to their own craft. “I am a producer in all my films because as a director you also need to be part of that process in how the films are getting made,” he shared.

Hinlein and the audience continued to question the director about everything from casting to writing, and Berger’s motivation when it comes to creating his films. On casting, Berger shared that for his films in particular he focuses on the faces, typically casting lead roles with bigger stars, but emphasizing that the supporting roles are what he is most intrigued about, encouraging improvisation in his casting rooms and diving deeper to ensure that person is a good fit for the ensemble.

“Casting is like I am a wedding photographer,” joked Berger. “It’s like I am putting the cast together and taking a photo, and that includes supporting roles and extras. That group photo has to be unique.”

Creating those unique characters all begin with a story, which Berger explained, all comes down to visualizing his audience and how they will react to the film. “If you see all my films, they are visually different, and I have one goal; surprise the audience,” he shared. “I think of cinema as a circus and I like being a magician and surprising my audience. If I feel like the film is unique and the audience will be on a roller coaster ride, that is the film I want to make.”

That film, Berger, explained, is never done. “You’re never done with the story after you finish writing it. You just let it go and abandon it,” he began. “When you are shooting your film you are writing your script and when you are editing you are still writing your script. You are never finished with the film.”

Berger encouraged the audience that filmmaking may feel like an area where there are parameters and rules to follow to create a good film, but the reality is that there are no rules. “It helps a lot to know the end of the script and what the climax of the story is, and it’s good to read all the manuals, but the first rule of filmmaking is that there are no rules.”

New York Film Academy would like to thank former NYFA instructor and award-winning director Pablo Berger for joining the NYFA global community to discuss his filmmaking process and the reality of being an active creator for The 20/20 Series, created by and moderated by Liz Hinlein.

Watch the full conversation by viewing the video below or clicking here.

These guests are not faculty and do not teach at NYFA, but they have appeared to share their stories and experience with our students. As guest speakers are scheduled based on their availability, NYFA cannot guarantee whether a guest speaker will visit during a student’s attendance or who that guest speaker may be. This guest speaker forum is not part of any NYFA curriculum and attendance at guest speaker events is purely voluntary. Students should be aware that guest speaker events do not represent a job opportunity nor are they intended to provide industry connections.

Originally reported in Deadline, NYFA Producing alum Krystina Christiansen has been named one of four finalists who will compete for a chance to sign a deal with Sony Pictures Television (SPT) and win additional prizes in Gemstone Studios’ inaugural Rising Storytellers Search.

The Houston, TX native originally received her BA in Public Relations at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, TX before coming to New York Film Academy. “I have been running around with a camera in hand since I was a kid,” shared Christiansen. “I didn’t know what I was doing was called filmmaking and I didn’t grow up obsessing over the art of filmmaking. I just really love storytelling.”

“When I got to college, I didn’t see a ‘reasonable’ path to filmmaking outside of being an entertainment lawyer so I went to law school in San Diego with that intent,” she revealed. Not long after, Christiansen recalled sitting in a class one day watching a documentary and it was there she realized she would rather be the person who made that documentary than the student watching it, leading her to study at New York Film Academy.

“What I got from my time at NYFA was what education has always given me – the confidence I feel I need to move towards my goals. Specifically to NYFA, I love how diverse the community is; I was one of 3 Americans in my class.”

After pursuing her MFA in Producing at NYFA, Christiansen worked on an array of productions, directing and producing music videos and a web series, followed by a handful of short films. “I realized I was burning myself out working on shoe-string budget passion projects so I started working as a coordinator.” She then landed her first feature with Black-owned production company Hidden Empire Film Group as a Travel Coordinator for the film Traffik starring Omar Epps and Paula Patton.

“The cinematographer on Traffik, Dante Spinotti, taught me so much with his actions. He really raised the bar of expectations on the type of people I want to work with. Talent is great, but kindness is key,” shared Christiansen.

Since then, the NYFA alum has been working in the digital and commercial space as a coordinator and has worked her way up to production managing and producing with companies like Participant’s digital arm SoulPancake, and in 2020 she produced, wrote, and directed for TikTok, The Redford Center, USC Keck Medicine, and others in the commercial and doc space.

Now Christiansen is being recognized for her work and ideas for her project The Narrative by Sony’s Gemstone Studios by being named one of the four finalists in the inaugural Rising Storytellers Search. Her entry pitch for her project, The Narrative, a hybrid docudrama that takes an anthropological view of decades of civil unrest in Houston.

“When I was 13, I overheard a newscaster talking about the 30 year anniversary of a trial in Houston called ‘The Houston 12.’ While watching it I recognized one of the men was my dad,” she revealed. “He was working overseas at the time and there’s nothing about this trial online so I kept hitting walls anytime I’d inquire about it. My dad is incredibly humble about this, but I knew there was a story here and as mentioned, I love a good story.”

Christiansen did everything she could to dig deeper into her research to uncover the truth behind The Houston 12 and spent 2019 flying back and forth to Houston to sit in Rice University’s basement reading two decades of microfilm to do research for the story. Throughout that process, she noticed alarming patterns within media stories that revealed covered up corruption and, eventually, the articles detailing the Houston 12 trial.

“When COVID-19 hit, I didn’t think that a story about protesting and police brutality would feel relevant in a world where we no longer had the situational elements that would encourage a handshake, so I stopped working on the project,” shared Christiansen. “Of course, I was in for a rude awakening and I want to share what I’ve learned by creating The Narrative; it’s a hybrid docudrama that takes an anthropological view of decades of civil unrest in Houston. It will not only cover the Houston 12 trials, but my dad’s involvement with The Rainbow Coalition, John Brown Revolutionary League, Workers World, and their work alongside People’s Party II: a pre-Black Panther Party chapter in Houston founded by Carl Hampton.”

The four finalists for Gemstone Studios’ inaugural Rising Storytellers Search, including Christiansen, will receive tools from Sony Alpha and team up with mentors from both SPT and Ideas United to refine their final pitch reels before presenting them for judging in November. In addition to a deal with Gemstone, the creator of the winning proposal will take home equipment from Sony and get access to the company’s Digital Media Production Center (DMPC) technical-virtual training. All finalists will also be given a 24-month subscription to Celtx Video Production Studio Software and Josefinas products.

New York Film Academy is thrilled to share the exciting news about Krystina Christiansen being named a finalist and wishes the NYFA alum the best of luck and all the support for her biggest and most personal project yet, The Narrative.