New York Film Academy

This review is solely based off of my interaction with one of the coordinators (I guess that is what they are called?) over the phone. The campus itself is beautiful! So I called the school to see if they had any internship programs for their students who need credit for working on sets. The person they transferred me to was extremely nonchalant and acted as if it were an inconvenience to be on the phone with him. He was almost rushing me off the phone. It was a very odd experience and he was not friendly at all. I definitely will not be reaching out to this academy again for any of my needs for crew.

This school is a cash cow for its owners. The majority of students are from out of the country. The tuitions are extremely high and though some of the teachers are great in general the school seems to be more interested in making money than providing a positive education for its students. Even after paying the tuition classes were canceled and changed multiple times and the administration actually fought with me over alternative dates that worked for teachers and students alike in some weird admin power struggle. The professor that ran the writing department promised multiple times to meet with me before I paid and after I enrolled and never kept his word. I know some people will get a lot of the schools programs but I would honestly recommend other institutions such as UCLA extension program or any of the other schools in LA. If you want to be with over half non English speakers paying obscene tuition then you should come here.

Actually, what I’m going to say here is also true elsewhere so it’s not JUST the NYFA where this happens. The students I’ve worked for through acting in their projects are conscientious and dedicated but they do NOT get back to me when I attempt to contact them so as to get a copy of the film I was in and use as a demo. The first time it happened, luckily the actress playing my wife in the scene had a link from her Facebook. Why the student director didn’t send me one is beyond me esp. since we worked pretty well together on his film.

I really don’t understand why NYFA isn’t as prestigious in rank as Cal Arts Institute. NYFA is amazing! My son Daniel Kleen came to NYFA as a tween. The Tween Program he went to when he was 13 years old, now 10 years ago, was nothing short of the best! First was a Summer Program, the Spring and repeated the next year. On to the High School Program. Worth every penny for their instruction in class, and on hands experience on the Universal Lot for filming. And GREAT instructors. They were honest about criticism on the films my son made. They were patient, caring and taught my son so much about what is expected in the real world of film and my son had fun! He learned to edit, direct, learned about the camera, lighting, working on a set with so many other people. Following directions, respect for equipment! Writing a script. And producing a film. NYFA has the instructors, equipment and an amazing location here in Burbank, California. I highly recommend NYFA. You will actually learn something. I so glad that the teacher at his junior high school recommend that he program. And it helped him in high school as well. I gave it five stars because it gave him his career path. And gave him something amazingly great to do spring and summer break.

I have to give the school 2 stars. It’s not one of the best school but it’s affordable but you get what you pay for. This is the fact that I face with this school. I still have a lot more but message me, might be a better so I can give you a clear answer. I will have Vdo on YouTube shortly about this school. All is the fact. Just because I feel like if I know someone who willing to tell me the truth when I was looking for school, it may switch my plan around.
1. New Equipment but you only get full gear when you in 2+ years program. It doesn’t matter you know equipment if they don’t teach you then you can’t use it.
2. They all about marketing not education. You got to sit in the different class with different level of knowledge and English. Some people can’t even communicated. So class can really go so far.
3. Most instructor doesn’t follow syllabus. Some not even know what they supposed to be teaching because most time school didn’t tell them in advance So pretty much… You learn from whatever they can pull out of their mind. Because school grown so fast from advertising and marketing… Education is not their main priority. Also if you ever has teacher sub then that class become useless. You will not learn anything.
4. Parking is difficult to find. School provided parking but most of time is not enough. You have to do street parking which it 2 hours parking. If you forget, you got ticket of $ 47. If you walk out at the important of the class, you don’t learn anything. Oh!!! And the most important thing. The parking that school provided has a valet but because it’s pack most of the time, sometime your car get bump or scratch. Within a month my car got scratch twice and my friend car got her bumper hit and fell off. And when you complain to school. School said it as any public parking policy, they can’t be hold for responsibility and it’s a free parking.
5. One time I left the car with valet guy but forgot something. I run down with in 20 mins. I see the valet guy look into my stuff in the truck and grab a snack pack of my truck. Food is not important but privacy is my main point. I complain to school but nothing happened. That guy still work there.
6. This is a private school and school with not do anything to protect their student but will do anything to protect them self. By that mean, if one of the student fake insurance fraud, he/​she will still allow in class. Report to authority? What’s the standard of the school? … I think to keep student in class and give them opportunity is good but to not do thing right by another student is bad.
7. You will learn editing basic 101 but you will not get to learn how to export or transcode you RED footage to you editing program. But school expect you to finish editing and turn in the project. So yes!!! YouTube it is.
8. Post production suck. We have schedule for class of 20 people but when we get there. Post production only have a seat of 4 people. How could you schedule a class that not even have enough space for student??? You paid around $ 18,000/ semester but you got to stand for a class while other people in a room making a loud noise and you not even understand what your instructor said.
9. They send out evaluation for you to fill at the beginning of each semester but most time you not even meet with instructor or learn the issue but when you have an issue an complain, there will be Noone taking into consideration.
10. Dean of student will not help. In fact he is unprofessional and treat you poorly. You are here to be treat as an adult and human being. Don’t let them treat you like something else. Don’t let someone have you wait after 30 mins past appointment without notify you. That’s just not right.
11. Most instructor tech pretty much the same stuff over and over because school doesn’t have plan or schedule for them clearly.
12. Most of time schedule are confuse. You look at your schedule but you don’t even know what you supposed to do. Many time instructor can’t even give you an answer cuz they don’t know it either.
13. If you need school protection, they will not help you. If you found a problem, you have to deal with it. If the problem relate school and effect your class and time to work, they will not help unless something involve media and their image then they will take it priority. Trust me, you want to go to school with a standard education NOT the one that only worry about their image.
14. They schedule you to shoot your thesis but you still have class during that which you will miss the class of you shooting date are conflict. But you can’t ask to check in-​out equipment other than time slot they give you. And if you miss the class you get a lower grade.
15. You will not get to learn business side.
16. They don’t actually teach you the fact of film industry. And hand on is not true! They put you in class with 15 – 25 students. Not everyone get a chance to touch camera or do everything
17. MA program is not qualify as master

The New York Film Academy is, plainly and simply, a misconception. First off, let me start by saying that I’m not in favor of insulting businesses with poor reviews, but after attending this school for over 2 months, I thought I’d help those of you who are thinking about attending the New York Film Academy in the future. First off, NYFA is, in on way or another, a complete scam. The school, primarily in New York, offers no career advancement, no film festivals and invests more in its advertising internationally than its students. Most of the students at this school are international, living in and around NYC on an academic visa. The primary goal of this school is to get you in and out. Whether it’s a 4 month, 8 month, or 1-​year program, this school just wants your tuition money, hence the name, a ‘for-​profit’ conservatory. Secondly, on a more personal level, the film industry is entirely connection based. If you think you can walk out of a school like NYFA, or even Tisch or USC for that matter and land a job directing a 3-​million dollar movie, a 100-​thousand dollar movie, or even a 10-​thousand dollar movie, you’re surely mistaken. This is not 1980 anymore when you can walk out of Tisch and automatically get a job directing Goodfellas. This is 2016! You can’t expect to go to an overpriced film school, walk out of there with a meaningless certificate and suddenly get a job in the film industry. It doesn’t work that way. Take any A-​list director for example (James Cameron, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg, etc.). These directors, first off, were extremely talented and had a vision. The question is what did they do with that vision? Did they drop 20 thousand dollars on a meaningless film degree or did they go out in the real world and build professional contacts? Think about it. What does a director have to do to get «in» the film industry? He or she has to be talented, have an original vision of film ideas, express those ideas to industry members (whether it’s a producer, a screenwriter, a gaffer… whatever), and then finally, he or she has to make a great film. Think about it. What did Quentin Tarantino make? He made Reservoir Dogs. What did James Cameron make? He made The Terminator. What did Steven Spielberg make? He made Jaws. These movies cost a combined total of roughly 10-​million dollars to make and jumpstarted these director’s careers simply through talent, vision, and industry contacts! I’ve been living in New York City for just 4 months and already, I have 3-​year contract with a talent agency, a manager, an entertainment attorney, and several industry contacts… most of which are producers who are interested in buying and/​or hiring me to direct my scripts for feature films. If you want to reach a certain level of success in the film industry, don’t go to film school, and especially don’t go to the New York Film Academy. It’s simply a scam.

I’ve had plenty of failures and successes after film school, all because of my own work, skills, abilities, and guts to put it plainly. NYFA isn’t perfect, but it will give you the tools you need to make films. What it won’t do is to help you succeed because let’s get real for a moment; the film industry is about ideas, networking, and lots of hard work. There’s no school in the world where it is the staff or instructors that care for the wellbeing of students, they’re there to facilitate your instruction and learning experience, you’re there to make this effort to learn and practice it out in the world. So my advice to you is this; if you’re a hard worker with a strong will to learn, create, and aren’t afraid of getting some dirt on your expensive shirt to put your vision out there through film, this school will give you the right tools for it. But if you’re fantasizing about coming to LA to party with the stars just because you’re a student at NYFA, you should definitely stay away. Filmmaking is a hard, vigorous, and sometimes ungrateful business to be in, keep that in mind before taking that major step of enrolling at any film school. Good luck to all!

New York Film Academy. I heard the one in New York is alright, but sadly, I live in L.A. Even though NYFA is the best school I’ve been to, still, I have suicide thoughts every day when I’m in class here. My life is pathetic…
Honestly, some teachers here are awesome. I can give some names like Cathy G., George M., Eddie K., etc. And you can learn a lot if you are lucky enough to have a good teacher. You will gain more interest, and enjoy your life here. It’s even better when all your classmates love and support each other, or throw parties.
However, if you aren’t lucky enough, you probably will drop out before the 4^th semester and lose you interest for films forever, then end up in a shitty job because you film future has been ruined.
Everything here sucks! The elevators don’t work well, the printers don’t work, the Mac computers here will screw you up hard! NYFA has a deal with Apple, so every computer in NYFA is Mac, then you will have to buy certain products (like Mac hard drives) if you want to use school computer. And of course, you pay NYFA.
The school only care about your money, nothing else. Be ready to lose money if you want to study here. With all the money you spent over here, you can produce a low budget film by yourself.
Most of the staff here are rude and mean. I’ve a a member of the stuff organizing chairs with his feet. Some teachers are fake as hell, also very strict and give a lot of homework, you sure can’t be their friends.
The scheduel is ridiculous. You can’t have a normal life because the scheduel won’t allow that. The syllabus is strict and I always sense a little bit of threatening in it.
The ‘Stage to Screen’ class is an irritating class. The ‘stage’ part has a lot of rules and limits, which totally kill the creative art ideas. The script can only be 20 pages and the show can only be 20 minutes, and it’s really hard and unnecessary to fit 10 students in a 20 minutes show. But the ‘screen’ part is just impossible. The school only gives 300 to 500 dollars as budget, even though they make so much money every year! They should take care of all our fees for this class, because it’s unfair for th students to pay for a school shooting, in a big, expensive city such as L.A.
The thesis project, don’t even get me started! It’s like the school wants you to give up ideas that’s creative or interesting, but making crap! So many rules basically make you lose hope for your life!
Finally, the student ID. You have to show your student ID to the security guards every time you enter, even if they know who you are, even if they have seen you millions of times, and even if you just showed it two seconds ago. Once you enter, you have to show your ID. This rule is particularly strict in the actor’s building, but it’s absurd! Who is going to pretend to be a student here?
Anyway, I hope they can make a change, even though all changes they’ve made so far just make everything even worse (like putting windows on the wall, come on, actors need privacy). Hopefully I can change my rating someday.

I just graduation for NYFA MFA Filmmaking. I have to say NYFA is great film school, eventually some times it not perfect as you thinking, but I learn a lot from here. No pushing no bird, NYFA give you intensive feeling cause they want you can succeed !

Many days are filled with one useless class, waiting five hours for nothing, not a lot of learning happens here, avoid this place if you want to learn film, it is a scam

Unfortunately, this place is very amateur. Actors beware and avoid at all cost. Students look somewhere else to give your money and time.
I went to an audition here and the «director» was running an hour behind schedule. Unfortunately, he never came out and told us or apologized or updated the actors. There wasn’t even a sign in sheet, so actors had to remember who came in first and organize themselves. To further exacerbate the situation the director ran out of sides after three actors. The actors started to complain, so a different student made additional copies. Here’s the kick. There were only four lines. Two were in horrible broken English and the other two lines said «Actor Improvises:»
As I was leaving, I complained to the front desk and told them this is not how you treat people. Then the «student director» sent me a nasty email. Again, in horrible broken English. So I called to speak to an administrator. I left two messages to voice my concerns and I never heard back from anyone.
This is a sad excuse for a school that takes money from students with big dreams and gives them little to no skills after they are done. :(

Imagine a screenwriting program that accepts students who can barely speak (let alone write) English, teachers who tell their friends in the industry about your script ideas, and all sorts of similarly reprehensible fuckwittery.
Make no mistake; this is a money-​making machine, nothing more. Run by hacks and taught by has-​been and never-​weres of the movie industry, I don’t think anyone of actual worth has graduated from here in almost 20 years of it operating. Statistically, you’re more liable to find a future film luminary in a cement factory.

If I could give this 0 stars I would. Ok fine maybe a 1 star just because some teachers really do want u to succeed! However this school is all about money and they couldn’t really care about their students let alone remember who they Are! Especially Lynda goodfriend. Don’t be fooled by the last name. She won’t even know who you are let alone bother to help you when you need the help. My advice: stay away from this school there are so many other schools in Hollywood and even more weekly classes that you will benefit a lot more from. However the film making department seem a bit more jacked up!

Worst. Institute. Ever. The staff genuinely does not care about your well being and best interest. They care about your money. Once they get your money, the true colors are revealed. They FALSELY stated that each class would have no more than 10 students, and this semester I see classes with 16 student or more per class. Lynda is a very rude, unhelpful you-​know-​what. She has no respect, kindness, or understanding for the students and treats them like pesky brats. The schedules are ridiculous. And are all set in stone so there’s no way you can build a life whatsoever around attending the crap school. The teachers for the most part are good. But the rest of the staff– front desk receptionists included– are unbelievably rude, you would think they were being held there against their free will. These girls have attitude to spare and their last intention is to help you on any level.
If you are even 1 minute late you get ZERO credit for having been there. Are we sure this isn’t the Nazi film institute?
Please, If you have true desires to become an actor or film professional– PLEASE do yourself a solid and look elsewhere. I promise you can get an amazing education for cheaper from kind individuals who have our best interest at heart. You could get more bang for your buck taking private lessons and going to a community, University or private college. This school is a sad façade that preys on the fiercely hungry and naïve. Do not fall victim to NYFA and their illusions. You will thank yourself and maybe even me for looking elsewhere.

Entertaiment is all about making people entertain and having them keep excitment. this school don’t know the first thing about that. their open house was so boring and stupid if it was a tv show it would get cancel:-P.I walked out with no information. stupid coments like” we have the most red camera in the world” was the highlight of this
do u know you have the most? Did you call all other schools and ask? flash news I’m not here for your red cameras! I’m here to learn how to use one.

This school is one of the best in its field. They have a really good instructors. And one lady «TAMI» helped me a lot to get my admission, she is the kindest person I ever met. I am very existing to go there everyday. «» but”” my concern is the gears, it is ruff sometimes. And we have issues in one thing every time we checkout. The five stars is for pushing them to change it to be «perfect».
I am in love with this school.

I earned my MFA in Producing for Film & TV in March 2013 from New York Film Academy in LA. Prior to NYFA, I received my Bachelors in Business Management from NC State University, worked in the front office of the Carolina Hurricanes (NHL) and was hired to produce an Evander Holyfield fight on Pay-​per-​view in 2011 as well as other professional and entrepreneurial endeavors .
I’m qualifying myself so anyone reading this review will take me seriously. Attending New York Film Academy in Los Angeles was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my professional career. I would love to give NYFA in LA 5 stars but I’m a realist and I can identify that NYFA has yet to reach its potential, BUT I’m 100% certain that it will.
Why am I so confident? The Administration and Faculty are amazing educators who work hard every day to make sure each student has the tools and resources necessary to start a career in the Entertainment Industry.

With my extreme disappointment of this school, the only thing I can say is to STAY AWAY from this school. A bunch of non professionals who are just taking your money away to advertise themselves, and when you have a request of change no one helps you, they get rid of you with the most unprofessional types of answers. They always say from next semester there’s gonna be some major changes, buy you know! who’s paying for the current semester??? and when will that next semester happen??? NEVER. It’s getting worse and worse. It’s 3 semesters they promise us to make some changes that we get positive results and still… It’s just WORDS. Absolute waste of time and money and effort. I’m so sorry for wasting 1 year of my life there and now I should be in the hassle of school changing to be able to get my BFA somewhere else, that worths my inputs.

I posted this 3 years ago and still today I’m appalled at how mediocre and incompetent this «school» is.
As a filmmaker, the reason why I decided to update the review is to warn future aspiring artists to avoid WASTING money. The SAME AMOUNT of money for an MFA can be used at one of the top 3 film schools in the world, such as AFI, USC or UCLA. They literally cost the same for each semester, and plus, don’t have hidden fees like NYFA, have an industry working faculty and up to date equipment.
I’ve worked hard to become a better filmmaking every day, and gave my 150% when I went to school here. However, the school only took my money and offered 10% of their interest to me. They were uncooperative and mediocre in every class I had.
A recognized film school’s mission is to graduate as many efficient professionals to make our beloved industry grow and to make a name for such school. Therefore, the application process is tough and filtered. Type «film school» in google and NYFA will be the first thing that pops, even with 20 different locations worldwide. Just by rationale, NYFA thinks like a business. They have as many branches as possible to maximize their income. And even so, the application process is as easy as opening your bank account. They don’t care if you have experience or a motivation for film. Literally write them a check.
I could go on and on about how NYFA will suck you dry in exchange of no film knowledge and technique. Others might tell you «film school» is not worth it, when it really is and can really help you out since not all of us are PT Andersons or Spielbergs; they are only the 1% of our society. So to conclude, if you really want to go to film school, do a good research, visit schools and make a proper judgment.
And by any means AVOID NYFA. it SUCKS.

I attended the One Year Filmmaking program at New York Film Academy (LA) and I achieved what I set out to do – Learn to make movies. I had no film or digital filmmaking experience when I entered the school. The only way I feel I could learn anything more of true value is to keep making movies.
We only had one drop out in our class, and it was because he is a severe substance abuser. Most everyone I know who actually attends or attended NYFA finds their experience to be invaluable (more so in filmmaking than in acting from what I hear).
The school is not perfect, but no school is perfect. However, this is probably the BEST school for someone to learn from the ground up. Other schools require a portfolio, when after all, we are coming to these institutions to learn. Also, there were students who transferred from other schools and told me they learned more in six months here than two years elsewhere (at least five direct sources).
Anyway, my main purpose for writing this is because I felt everything about the program was exactly what I needed, but the reviews left me hesitant. Most of the people writing on here have never attended NYFA to validate their words.
We had a lot of classroom sessions, but the school is all about learning by doing. It’s the most realistic way to learn an art form, but beware of some traditional universities who may not accept any of your credits if you are planning to transfer … Even though the program is so demanding that I even recall a time when we were in classes from 9 a.m. to midnight — compared to five hours in a week at a typical university.