On Wednesday, September 9, New York Film Academy (NYFA) had the pleasure of welcoming acclaimed costume designer MITCHELL TRAVERS 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.

Mitchell Travers is an American Costume Designer, who earned his breakout for his work on A24 indie hit Eighth Grade, which landed him a spot on Variety’s Artisan’s Impact Report. He was then tasked to transform Emma Thompson into a chic pantsuit-sporting Late Night TV host in Mindy Kaling’s Late Night, directed by Nisha Ganatra. His striking work on Lorene Scafaria’s critically acclaimed Hustlers also earned him a nomination for the Costume Designer’s Guild Awards in 2019.

Mitchell’s more recent projects include Home Before Dark, Lin Manuel Miranda’s upcoming musical In The Heights and The Eyes of Tammy Faye starring Jessica Chastain. Before beginning his own work, Travers spent ten years as Associate Costume Designer on projects including Oceans 8, Saturday Night Live, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, The Bourne Legacy, Joy, The Blacklist, and 30 Rock.

At the beginning of the conversation, Hinlein posed the question to Travers on the difference between a costume designer and a costume stylist. Travers, who is a costume designer himself, remarked that Hinlein’s question was a great one because oftentimes the professions are lumped into the same category.

“A costume designer is someone hired by a director to help tell the story,” began Travers. “We come in to do character arcs on large groups of people, character studies, and certain types of socio-economic people. In a way, we are sort of an anthropologist, a bit of a psychologist, and a designer all lumped into one. But, ultimately, our job is to tell the story.”

“A stylist,” Travers explained, “is hired to either promote a product or a person, so stylists take care of red carpet fashion, interview appearances, and editorial needs. So, the goal is not so much storytelling but elevating a person or a figure, and much more about the clothes than the story that is being told.”

Travers, who enjoys the research and concept of stories and people, eventually coupled that with his love of clothes, ultimately steering him to become a prominent costume designer in the film business, where he now has the opportunity to choose his own projects rather than taking the next gig that comes his way.

“For me, I am not someone who limits myself by who is attached to a certain project or how big of a budget it is,” explained Travers when asked about choosing his projects. “It’s more about ‘what is the opportunity to tell this story through clothing?’ I am not someone who can be involved in a project where the clothes aren’t part of the story, and I do best in a situation where you can show the progression of a character through clothes.”

Once Travers picks his project, the next step is approaching how he can make the clothing be part of the story and become an extension of the characters. “Understanding any character’s roots is already ingrained in the work we do. You have to expand to understand all the things that go into making that one person,” explained Travers. He used his work on In The Heights as an example: “For someone who grew up in Washington Heights, I want to discover things like ‘are they proud of their neighborhood or do they want to get away’.”

Having worked with big stars like J-Lo (Hustlers) and newcomers like Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade), Travers also explained to the global audience that no matter how known someone is, his approach remains the same. “From my own perspective, it’s understanding what a character needs to go through in this story and understanding what their high and low points are,” he shared. “I’ve never felt like I am some sort of expert but my expertise is weighed on the conversations that I have with the characters, not who the performer is.”

Like many different departments in filmmaking, the costume department is collaborative and made up of various people who have different jobs and areas of expertise. “So often the idea of costume designers is this mad person who is constantly sketching and draping fabric on people, but that’s only a part of it,” joked Travers. “You are also working with hat makers, beaders, costume coordinators, costume shoppers, etc. It’s important to communicate the vision with them for what we need. There are definitely moments when you may even butt heads with your teammates and you have to find that common ground that each person makes the team better.”

Closing the conversation, Travers thanked Hinlein for the discussion and shared that, like many roles in a film, you may even fail, but that’s part of creating your own masterpiece. “Sometimes you have to throw things at the wall until you understand ‘that’s not it.’ There is pressure to get it right, but failure is an important part of the process.”

New York Film Academy would like to thank Mitchell Travers for joining the NYFA global community to discuss creating characters through costume design for The 20/20 Series, created by and moderated by Liz Hinlein.

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 Wednesday, September 2, 2020, New York Film Academy (NYFA) had the pleasure of having NYFA instructor and Award-Winning Filmmaker WILLIAM TYLER SMITH 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.

William Tyler Smith is an award-winning New York-based independent filmmaker and film educator at New York Film Academy. His film Kiss Me Again (Fred Armisen, Kathryn Winnick, Darryl Hammond), premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and also screened at the Zurich International Film Festival, Berkshire International Film Festival and the Moscow American Independent Film Festival, with a very successful run on the STARZ network.

His first feature documentary, The Third Mind, premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). It was broadcast on the Sundance Channel as part of their series, The Beats Go On. He recently completed Third Mind Blues, which documents the unlikely musical collaboration between Ray Manzarek and slide-guitarist extraordinaire, Roy Rogers. Smith is currently on post-production on a documentary series about the infamous rock and roll band, The Flamin Groovies.

Smith, who grew up in the 70’s, recalled being inspired by films he watched growing up and credits them with helping him to become the filmmaker he is today. The NYFA instructor practically grew up in the history of cinema as we know it, getting to see classics in the theater like The Godfather or The Exorcist. Smith also cited the film Wings of Desire (Dir. Wim Wenders) as a work of art that completely changed his life and proved to be a constant source of inspiration to him behind the camera and when teaching.

Hinlein remarked how sometimes artists tend to learn more about themselves as they get involved in their craft, to which Smith agreed. “Any artwork I do informs me about myself and I am always going to learn something about myself,” Smith explained. He also directed his comments at the audience, encouraging them by saying, “if your creation comes from the heart, of course you’re going to learn about yourself.”

As for what Smith has learned about being a filmmaker, he mentioned it all comes down to how to get along and create with others. “When you are working with people (on screen or on set), you have to learn about yourself because you are ultimately dealing with people and unpredictable situations.”

Smith,who is also an instructor at NYFA, explained that teaching filmmaking has kept him active and taught him to always be on his toes. “Filmmaking is highly collaborative and as a filmmaker you have to learn how to collaborate. Everyone learns differently and I constantly have to be aware of that with my students.”

Even with a collaborative team or crew, Smith explained that it may not always be a cohesive process when it comes to ideas. “You want to work with people on the same creative level as you and if that’s not possible you need to be clear and concise about your communication,” he shared. Hinlein agreed, adding “and be willing to hear different points of view.” Smith responded by sharing something he tells his students all the time in the classroom: “You’re a sponge and you have to be open minded and malleable, but also stubborn as well.”

The conversation came to a close with a member from the global audience asking Smith what was the most important thing to remember as a filmmaker, to which Smith responded:

New York Film Academy would like to thank William Tyler Smith for taking the time to speak to the NYFA global community and discuss being a filmmaker, instructor, and creative collaborator for The 20/20 Series, created by and moderated by Liz Hinlein.

To watch the full conversation, view the video below or watch on our Youtube channel.

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.

New York Film Academy (NYFA) alum Tendo Nagenda recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about what viewers can expect from Netflix in the age of COVID-19, showing that the streaming service giant is not slowing down and ready to provide viewers with more content in the next couple of years.

Nagenda, who studied Filmmaking at NYFA in 1999, went on to become the VP of Production at Walt Disney Studios, where he was involved with titles like Queen of Katwe, A Wrinkle in Time, and Dumbo, among others, until he was nabbed by Netflix in 2018 to be the new VP Original Films. In Nagenda’s new role at Netflix, he was able to give his first greenlight to Spike Lee’s critically acclaimed Da 5 Bloods, followed by Spenser Confidential with Mark Wahlberg, and fan favorite The Old Guard starring Charlize Theron.

In his conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Nagenda shared that right now, with the pandemic in mind, “there are still going to be plenty of movies that people will want to see in the theater. I just think that there is also going to be an awareness that there is a super-high-quality film available that might or might not be in theaters.”

Enter Netflix. The streaming platform has seen tremendous growth since the pandemic hit, accumulating 10 million subscribers in the streaming service’s second quarter, growing the global user base to 193 million. Ultimately, restrictions and safety have caused more people to turn to streaming services in general to consume all the media they want.

As a company, Nagenda revealed that Netflix has shown no signs of slowing down due to the pandemic. “We have a lot of runway, definitely through 2020 and part of 2021,” he shared. “We want to get to work and back into production just like everybody else, and we want to get through this year. We’re still in pretty good shape.”

As for what’s next for Netflix, it’s still competing with the heavy-hitter Hollywood studios that have their own intellectual properties (IPs) and catalogue of directors to choose from. “We have to concentrate our efforts on finding people of that talent level that we can work with as early as possible and then get them to make movies only for Netflix,” explained Nagenda.

“We’re looking at big, broad-audience, PG-level adventure films as something that we want to get into. Something along the lines of the first Star Wars, or Harry Potter 1 and 2. A lot of family live action, fantasy, spectacle movies that we think are big and can play great.”

New York Film Academy would like to congratulate the NYFA alum and Netflix executive on his recent feature in The Hollywood Reporter and looks forward to seeing upcoming original titles like The Gray Man (Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans) spearheaded by one of NYFA’s very own.

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.