ACTING & FILM SCHOOL

Photography, Game Design, Dance, & Audio Programs Announced by New York Film Academy

The New York Film Academy is proud to announce four new additions to their acting and film school programs - Photography, Audio & Sound Design, Game Design and Dance. Click the pictures above to take you to their program.

We at NYFA are expanding our programs to accomidate students interested in focusing their eduction in these specialized entertainment and artistic fields.

If you would like more info please email film@nyfa.com

Hyun Yong Park Films Documentary in Haiti after Earthquake Disaster

“I can’t stop crying when I interviewed the woman who lost her husband and two month old baby from this disaster” says New York Film Academy Film School student Hyun Yong Park.

Hyun traveled to Haiti last week to shoot his first documentary and returned to New York City with a story of his own.

“With my crew GMIT, the Korean American Film Organization which is based on California, I stayed for a week. First, we flew from JFK for 4 hours to Dominica Republic and transfer to a bus to get to Haiti international Airport, it took 8 hours,  then after another 1 hour trip, I finally got to Port-au-Prince. I was able to witness the places that reporters and volunteers couldn’t go due to the security and trouble in transportation. I almost got my camera taken away by gang members and was even beaten in the middle of a riot.

The reason why I am making the documentary is so that people can see the importance and need to help Haiti. I videotaped the destroyed Haiti, people with diseases and their everyday life after the disaster the earthquake brought to Haiti. I filmed 7 hours of footage which will be used for my documentary.”

If I Only Had More Time…

As we critiqued the final films from first semester our 3D Animation program today the students felt the the eternal unrest that haunts artistic ventures. “If I only had more time…” was the continual refrain. Each student felt the twin feeling of pride and disappointment. They felt pride at the obvious improvements in their work, pride in new knowledge made visible in more detailed textures, emotive lighting, compelling models evocative camera work and the controlled movement of budding animators. Yet each one of those could have been better. The knowledge gained by completing the second film made them view that work with eyes that saw the flaws they had when beginning the film, flaws they no longer have but still made it on screen nonetheless. It showed that, even with the visible improvement in each of them, not all the new knowledge made it to the screen. This disappointed my students but made me pleased, it means the starting point for their next work will be that much higher, even though it will end with the same phrase “If I only had more time…”, because it always does, each and every time.

- Bill Stout, New York Film Academy Instructor

Film Instructor Richard Shore: How my Career in Filmmaking Began & Continues

I got my first job at the age of 15 as a darkroom printers assistant for a firm specializing in high end flattering portraits of CEO types. The printer was immensely skilled and I learned a good deal working by his side. It paid $.75 per hr.

The following year I found another job, cleaning 16mm prints. The work made me rather dizzy. It’s no wonder, as the cleaning solvent was Carbon Tetrachloride. A highly toxic chemical now classified as a “dangerous substance”.

At 17 I made a documentary film about lobster fishing called “The Lobsterman”. The film won a prize and is in the permanent collection of the Boston Public Library.

When I turned 18 I enrolled in the film department at the University Of Southern California (USC). At that time the USC curriculum included:

• Motion Picture Laboratory Chemistry
• understanding and using logarithms
• plotting H&D curves
• cinematography
• film editing
• writing film criticism and analysis
• lectures given by visiting film makers including professional cinematographers
• and watching at least one film daily in the USC theater.

Upon receiving my Masters in Arts from USC, I was drafted into the Army during the Korean War.

Following Basic Training at Fort Dix I was assigned as a cinematographer to the Signal Film Studios in Astoria, NY (formerly Paramount Pictures and now a museum) where I worked on training films and documentary films for 2 years. Four years later I was Honorably Discharged from the Army.

After my discharge I went on to win three Emmies with credits including: Bang the Drum Slowly, In the American Grain Night of the Dark Shadows, The Responsive Eye, and Three Women Alone. And after working for forty years in twenty countries and working as the Directory of Photography on hundreds of commercials, documentaries, educational and scientific films I retired.

I am currently the Senior Instructor at the New York Film Academy where I give the “Special Guest Lecture” to all our Film School classes in New York City. Please join me as I continue to live, love and teach filmmaking.

By Richard Shore

Screenwriting Program Embraces New Media

Click Here to Watch Video

My writing partner and I gave a talk at American Film Institute (AFI) Digi Fest 2009 last month about new media and new forms of storytelling in portable spaces like iPhones and touchscreen TV Sets.

The talk that I gave there was drawn from a lecture that I give in the final week of my Adaptation Lecture in the 1-Year Screenwriting Program at the New York Film Academy in New York City and is available on YouTube now (my portion of the talk starts in minute 10:00).

Using the iPhone to View Films & Read Books

For most of the last century audio/visual storytelling has existed in the form of feature films and episodic television shows – platforms that are stable, predictable and familiar. However, in the last five years the platform for mass media consumption has changed from theater multiplexes and living room television sets, programmed from the top down, to computer screens, cell phones and mp3 players with content provided twenty four hours a day by individual users as much or more than corporate media conglomerates. This shift in production and distribution has had an immediate effect on commerce, but is still being sorted out on the creative level of storytelling. The Screenwriting Program at New York Film Academy trains young writers to work in traditional forms, but also to think outside of the constraints of traditional forms and embrace the possibilities these new platforms provide, whether it is the massive and all encompassing cinematic experience of “Avatar”, serialized homemade videos on YouTube, or new applications for the portable devices that have changed the way the world communicates and experiences media.

By Benjamin Maraniss, New York Film Academy Screenwriting Program Instructor in New York City