New York Film Academy

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.

Film school a major decision and expense, so this isn’t like a review for a thrift store or restaurant. This concerns your education and future. You’ve chosen a daunting industry, so avoid a major mistake and don’t go to NYFA.
NYFA gives off strong, false impressions of legitimacy. The ads sell intensity and top notch equipment. They have a new spot at Battery Park and draw students from all over the world. Google «filmmaking,» and NYFA is the second link. The truth: I can’t tell my parents how horrible it was because they helped me pay for it, and I don’t tell my friends because I’m embarrassed. Allow me to elaborate.
Hint: You’re looking at Unilocal.If you’re set on film school, look at Newsweek, THR, or other, more objective rankings of actual universities. Better yet, look at where your favorite filmmakers went to school. NYFA will be on none of those lists, and for good reason. Most of all, be patient. Do not make the same mistake I did.
You got in? If you apply, you’re in. (Hence the large international student body).
Between the teachers and students there is a lot of wasted passion here. The teachers really care about filmmaking and the students, they’re good people, but they’re part of a broken system. I sincerely hope they all find better opportunities.
Your tuition does not go to opportunities, facilities, or career advancement. From my perspective as a student, it goes towards advertising and nowhere else. There aren’t even desks, but ads on every bus stop from JFK to Washington Heights? No problem.
That year-​round enrollment? That’s so they can keep a constant turnover rate to make money. There’s very little emphasis on student value. NYFA gets you right out. Literally. Our «graduation» was thirty minutes after my last class.
This school should be investigated with the other for-​profit schools for lack of job placement, among other things. I know «film school,» and «job» rarely occupy the same sentence, but there is no career guidance department and no counselors. But over half their staff is advertising and recruitment, so that shows you their priorities right there.
You don’t get your schedule until days into the semester, and it changes every week. The computer lab has one black & white printer, and not all the computers are connected to it. At other schools you get hundreds of color printers and your schedule months in advance.
Don’t be sold by the big names they advertise (Pacino, Spacey, Spielberg, etc); when they do get someone it’s at the LA campus, not NYC. And these are SPEAKERS, NOT ALUMNI.
There’s no attempt to collaborate students between departments. We filmed our shorts with entire crews of screenwriters. There’s no time otherwise to collaborate, and the other departments run on wildly different schedules anyways.
Lastly, they offer limited networking opportunities, which is so so so important for building a filmmaking career.
Please look elsewhere to gain confidence in your abilities.

I worked here for 1 day in the accounting dept. It was by far, the one of the MOST draining experiences I ever had. The accounting staff doesn’t know what was up. After that 1 day they said it won’t work. And they didn’t pay me for that day! In the interview the staff should have mentioned it was a trial period. But their lack of communication skills failed to mentioned that.
After about 1 month later, I went and I spoke with Jerry. I noticed people staring at me and started to talk amongst themselves. Because they saw me before and remembered me from the previous month. I told him what happened. He asked me was I paid? I said no. Then the accounting staff started to move around nervously. Jerry then called Pamela out and told her to pay me what was expected. She came out and asked me what my pay was. I told her. She said she will not take out the taxes since it was so little pay.
Later I started to hear about these negative reviews about this school. People kept on saying it was mismanaged, how people don’t know what they are doing, and the negative feeling coming from this school.
I spoke with some of my friends about this school. Some of them being artists, actors, and musicians told me they never heard of students getting jobs after graduating from this school.
This is not even a school — it’s more like a scam.
If you are serious about your career don’t go to this school. Go somewhere else better.

The reviews on the NYFA site, which is the first to come up in google, is monitored and negative reviews are removed by NYFA, because negative reviews are the majority, you will see only a handful of 5-​star ratings and nothing else. Foreigners who are just grateful for the tourism in the city are happy to put on a NYFA baseball cap and shirt and pretend they are a filmmaker and really it takes an American to be honest and give the one start rating NYFA deserves.
This is not a bad film school, it is a building disguised as a film school.
You will TRULY have more resources at your disposal doing this yourself, and you will save a LOT of money and learn a LOT more. AVOID this academy.

Attending the New York Film Academy had been my most unfortunate experience yet.
From the unorganized scheduling of classes to the non-​professionalism of almost every faculty member (aside from the main teachers and chairs). What a painful year.
–The scheduling is deplorable. There were many instances where I’ve attended class only to learn that the class was canceled with no heads up to the students. They get away with a lot of last minute actions here that I don’t find acceptable.
–I have never in my life experienced such attitude from the faculty of a school I was attending. Majority of the people (again, aside from the main film teachers and chairs) working at NYFA seem unqualified. But fact is, is that majority of the faculty were previous students that were hired once they graduated. So if you plan to attend this school, expect to be dictated by people practically your age (if not than 1 – 3 years older). They have no respect and always have the demeanor that they are higher than you.
–Out of the entire school, only about 5% are actual New Yorkers or Americans (Including I). With the faculty being so used to being rude to the foreign students, they were certainly taken back and not happy when I put them in their place for trying to be rude to me as well. If they spoke to someone that way on streets the way they do in this school, 75% of these faculty members would be in a coma or on their death bed.
–This school takes no discipline in it’s students or it’s environment. The musical theater students are mixed in with the film students. They allow the music theater students to obnoxiously sing, dance, and scream as they walk down the halls. Disrupting many of the classes I’ve had in film. They sound so bad. This school truly hosts the most untalented and unprofessional people. But it’s to be expected when they accept anyone willing to pay the tuition.
–The favoritism this in this school is disgusting. I’ve watched faculty say no a skinny Asian with glasses and say yes to a voluptuous blonde from Brazil who was asking the same question. I truly do find this institution sad and pathetic. And I bet that same Asian girl that was turned away will become more than anyone at this school turned out to be.
With the money that I’ve spent and the experience that I received, I would have rather my chances at Tisch or SVA. I don’t recommend this school for any New Yorkers with pride or integrity. This review does not speak for the LA location. I have a feeling that they may be more professional over there. As for the NY location though. Not cutting it.

No wonder they only get 2 stars overall. I only read the reviews, didn’t believe what people said. Now I’ve experience it myself. There’s no communication between the admission office, international office and our advisor. The first I got there, They wanted me to fill out some forms, I did. And then a month later, they wanted me to fill out the same form again, so I did email the forms to NYFA, and a few days ago, I came to visit the campus to pay my tuition, and THEY ASKED me to fill out The same forms AGAIN? HOW MANY TIMES should I fill out these forms!!! So unprofessional!!! I’m so mad now. And this morning my advisor told me to email her the same form again. WTF? Wasting my time and my money!!! I don’t like NYFA even though classes haven’t started yet.

Just learned from a friend that their professors are paid $ 30 per hour (and are offered not that many hours per week work. A full course load of exhausting teaching for 200 bucks after taxes?).
Wouldn’t you want your professor to be professional, advanced-​degree successful NYC industry? Treated well enough to motivate you without distraction?
Before enrolling in this or any graduate program — do your due diligence on how professors are treated. After all, you are in a professional training program — this probably will be you at some point.

I enrolled in the 1 year animation program at NYFA with a background in Graphic Designing. I previously had a 3 year diploma in 3D animation but I wanted to get a more specialized experience. I learnt a lot more at New York Film Academy. I could see the difference in the quality of my work as I completed various different projects during the year. The instructors were from the industry and made sure that our work matched the standards of the same. The course is definitely intensive and requires a lot of time and efforts but the guidance flows throughout. I was given extra time if needed for any difficulties in my projects. All my queries and doubts were always cleared. The classes were well sized which was very beneficial and provided one on one interaction and equal attention. Overall it was a really good decision to join New York Film Academy.

I completed a 5 week digital film making class in 2002. I felt it was a strong basis for learning things that I was interested in. It was very focused, classes were not too large and the teachers were excellent. I see all the different programs they offer now and I am jealous that they were not around when I was younger. I had a positive amazing experience and have had a lucrative career from working in TV news stations, to now working for the State of NY.

Like Jake G, I usually «don’t like to pooh pooh on anyone», but I think I can offer a slightly different perspective here.
As an actor, I’ve had the opportunity to work with students from a lot of different film programs in the city– Columbia, NYU, NYFA, Brooklyn College, SVA. Different projects have obviously had different levels of success and these are students after all, so it’s a learning experience no matter what.
I have to say, my filmmaking experiences with NYFA are by far the most appalling. I’m really surprised this school continues to attract students because as far as I can tell, they learn nothing here except for fancy terminology. They don’t seem to understand the different roles of crew, how to act professionally on set, how to treat actors. They don’t learn about basic things like room tone and I’ve been on projects where the AD is sleeping because he was out late drinking the night before. More than any other school these projects feel like students doing a homework assignment. The mentality is just to get it done whereas I feel like students from other schools are passionate, take their jobs seriously and generally know what they’re doing.
Anyway, I wouldn’t recommend going here. You might as well put the tuition money towards making a film on your own and figuring it out as you go along.
And no, I don’t work on NYFA films anymore.

I enrolled in the 1 year filmmaking program with absolutely ZERO experience in all technical aspects of filmmaking. I had also already previously graduated from Purdue university so I understood the «college game.» This school differs then most in that it is 80% handheld. The first semester you are shooting a short every weekend, along with working on numerous others. They throw the workload on you fast and often, but I don’t know a better way to learn, then learn by doing. Where NYFA loses out is that it isn’t a «standard» university.
As far as the staff and professors, I could not be more pleased. Of course with any industry you get some who may not be as great as the others, but I have learned more then I ever expected to learn.
The price may seem high but compared to the «standard» universities, NYU, UCLA, ect. The experience you have, the people you meet, and the films you make are well worth the bill.

I enrolled in the 1 year online screenwriting program at the NYFA. I had some writing experience, but nothing as far as writing for film or TV.
The first 3 or 4 classes our teacher actually taught us about how to structure our story and create an outline. After that we were pretty much left to fend for ourselves.
We were given a list of movies and told to watch one each week so we can discuss it in class. We were left to find these movies on our own (some of which I never found). When students tried to help each other out and post links to the places they found the movies, we were told by the teacher we couldn’t do that…
We were told to write a screenplay and to keep writing and to submit what we had so the teacher could give us notes. The problem was we were never really told how to write a screenplay.
There are video lectures by another «professor» at the school that did most of the teaching, however the videos are poorly made and there were times when the audio was so bad, you couldn’t understand what he was saying. (you would expect them to be good, coming from a film school…)
I don’t know if the classroom version of this class is better, but I would not recommend this class online (at least with the current teacher)
Think if it this way, if I counted correctly, there were 10 – 15 students in the class when we started. At the end there were 4. I know 2 of those 4 passed, but not sure about the others.
The last thing that irked me… Our teacher was traveling a lot all over the world. She held classes from India a few times and once from a plane, during which she kept loosing her internet connection and would disappear from the class or just wouldn’t show up. Very unprofessional.
Basically this class is more like a book club for movies. We watched the movies on the list they give you (if you can find them) and then talk about it in the class. Save your money and find a school that will teach you what they say they will!

I’ve just read these reviews, and then the many hidden ones. All of the 4 and 5 star ratings were posted within a two-​week period in April 2011. I think that the powers-​that-​be at NYFA saw that their Unilocal ratings were dismally low, panicked, and told students to log on to Unilocal and write glowing reviews. Looks like they got more than they bargained for because just as many were 1 or 2 stars and quite negative. How obvious a ploy to look good, akin to spending so much money on advertising, plastering every bus shelter in the city with their posters instead of acquiring better faculty and faciliities. I’m firmly on the 1-​star team. This fast film junk school is a waste of money. Good on ya, Unilocal,for recognizing obviously solicited, bogus reviews and filtering them.

I enrolled in the two year screen writing program, but left after a semester once I saw a sea of red flags. They were:
–We never were asked to read a full screenplay. For a screenwriting program this is beyond unacceptable.
–Most of the professors hadn’t broken into the industry themselves.
–Very little organization.
Now, it wasn’t all bad. I did learn some good things there, I met a lot of cool people, and the professors were all very nice.
If you’re serious about becoming a screen writer, your money is better spent elsewhere.

I had wonderful time at NYFA at Union Square, New York last year. Most of the teachers did care about what our wants and needs are. For those who have no filmmaking experience, I guarantee, can learn more than they expect in one year. Of course, you have to be ready and determine to work really hard to achieve your goal. And those who have some film experience, including me, can have as much freedom of creation as we want. The teachers respect our ideas and try to help us accomplish them. The only few things I would like the school to improve are 1. they need to improve the equipments and encourage students to shoot on film camera; 2. they need to build a standard screening theatre for New York students. Other than those issues, I was happy to spend one year with my fellows at NYFA.

I don’t usually like to pooh pooh on anyone, but I wish that I had been given this heads-​up before wasting so much of my money.
I completed the one year screenwriting course at the NYFA in New York. What a disgracefully run institution. Classrooms were constantly double-​booked. We’d sit and waste class time (which in this case was literally money$) while the teacher found us another classroom.
And the teacher’s were of varied ability and intelligence. The department head was smart and well versed in the industry. However, some of the teachers seemed under-​qualified, and their screenplays were sometimes unbelievably awful.
To echo a common complaint among my fellow alumni, NYFA did not prepare us to work in the industry beyond repeating the mantra, «enter contests!» This is mostly because unlike the professors teaching Masters Degree programs who want to pass along their knowledge and experience, most of the teachers here are just trying to make money while they try to break into the industry themselves.
The bottom line is that NYFA spends your money on advertising and polishing their façade. However once they have your money and you step inside, you feel like you just sat into a Ferrari, only to find that It doesn’t have an engine.
Sorry, but that is the honest opinion and experience that I shared with my classmates.

I actually studied at the New York Film Academy in an intensive digitial filmmaking program a couple of years ago. For each major aspect of filmmaking studies (camera/​lighting, directing, writing, and editing) with exception to the business production end of it (which I didn’t focus on), I thought all the instructors were very competant and knowledgable, but overall I felt that certain things could’ve been meticulously covered in more depth. Moreover, I thought the timing to complete certain film projects was too short, expecially in terms of postproduction. Also, the editing room is very tight and cramped, and dreadfully hot in the summer, and can get so busy that it becomes impossible to find an available work station in which to edit. I had to rectify that problem quickly by setting myself up at home with a computer and applicable software (i.e., FinalCut) to make things easier and more practical.
I’ve heard mixed reviews from other students who’ve studied at NYFA, and overall it doesn’t have the best of reputations, with film programs at schools like the School of Visual Arts and New York University probably getting better praise. In short, the instructors are definitely the best part of NYFA, and if you happen to be in classes with less than 15 people or so, you’re apt to get more individual attention, which is needed in something as intensive as filmmaking.