OVERVIEW

Studying at the Film Academy's location in New York is like living at the crossroads of the world. New York City has a way of thrilling the senses that is as constant and direct as the subways rumbling beneath its surface. For size, diversity of landscape, people, and culture the city is unparalleled. One can hear dozens of different languages, choose from the cuisine of six continents, and rub shoulders with diplomats, designers, machinists or musicians on any given day.

New York is a city of distinct pieces: the bustling shops of Chinatown and Spanish Harlem, the stately museums, the neighborhood brownstones. New York is about neon lights and taxi horns and street music, bookstores and landscaped parks and ten million inhabitants working together, each as unique as the next. All told, New York City, dynamic, rich in layers, always alive, is the perfect training ground for filmmaking. The city challenges and stimulates students on every shoot, every step of the way.

Our students have shot in virtually every neighborhood in the city: from SoHo lofts to East Village bars, from Brooklyn delis to Times Square at rush hour. Film shoots — student, commercial, and Hollywood — abound in New York. The support system — production offices, supply houses, actors, theaters, labs and people — is enormous. Simply by volume alone, New York is indisputably the greatest center of independent film production in the world. Like many filmmakers, novelists, playwrights, and painters, our students find that New York itself helps to shape their artistic vision. The city is not only a setting for their stories, but also an active element in the lives of their characters.

FACILITIES

The New York Film Academy's film school has two facilities in Manhattan: our headquarters overlooking Union Square Park in the historic Tammany Hall building on Park Avenue, and our new facility located in the heart of SoHo at Prince Street and Broadway. The Academy's film schools and acting schools are easily accessible to the rest of the city. A short walk takes the student into the neighborhoods of Greenwich Village, Tribeca, Little Italy or Times Square. A twenty-minute train ride brings the student to the door steps of Columbia University and Harlem, or Chinatown, Coney Island, Central Park, and the Brooklyn Bridge. It provides a haven from the hustle, and at the same time gives the student a springboard straight into the thick of the city's life.

EXTRA CURRICULAR

After a long and exhausting day of filmmaking or acting for film in out film school, students may want to relax by taking part in many the exciting activities available in the Big Apple. For dining, film, night life, shopping, and museums; the list goes on - New York ranks number one in the world. Opportunities for cultural activities are unlimited.
For the film lover, New York is full of mainstream and independent theaters: films often debut in the city months before they appear in theaters in the rest of the country.
New York boasts many of the world's largest museums, all located a short subway ride away from the Academy. Students dine in the town of innumerable restaurants, explore the bars and clubs of the West and East Village, Tribeca, Chelsea, and SoHo, and spend hours perusing the many art galleries and bookstores that are scattered throughout the city. Some of the best musicians in the world, from jazz to alternative to classical, play in New York. For theater, students have their pick, from opulent Broadway plays to guerrilla off-off-Broadway productions.

HOUSING

Our NYC Housing Coordinator helps students find safe and convenient accommodations within walking distance of the Academy or a short ride on mass transit. For more information on housing please click here.