Independent filmmakers creating low-budget features often focus on the bottom line, looking for ways to cut corners in production and post-production as they bring their films to life. But how can the choice of story itself, and the methods used to tell it, keep the budget down, both for fiction and documentary films?
New York Film Academy professors and alumni (several with films in this year’s Winter Film Awards) will discuss ways to simplify storytelling and share what has worked and not worked for them in the past. Moderated by Crickett Rumley, Senior Director, New York Film Academy Film Festival Department, and featuring panelists Randall Dottin, Samantha Soule, Andrea Swift, and Daphne Yeager Ostendorf.
Come get all of your questions answered! This event is FREE and open to the public but you must REGISTER IN ADVANCE. NY FILM ACADEMY requires proof of vaccination to enter the building. Please be sure to bring proof with you.
About The Speakers
With over 20 years of filmmaking experience, NYFA Filmmaking Chair Andrea Swift served as executive producer and director of PBS’ Emmy-nominated documentary magazine series, “In the Life.” Her films have been screened at the United Nations Earth Summit and honored by festivals around the world, including Berlin International Film Festival and Sundance’s Environmental Film Festival. She has created content for AMC, History, WE, the NY Knicks, Madison Square Garden, and Clearview Cinemas; and has written for and directed top talent including Oscar winner Susan Sarandon, Oscar nominees Laura Linney, Patricia Clarkson, and Lesley Gore, and Tony Award winners Alan Cumming, ...
Crickett Rumley received her MFA in Film at Columbia University and is the founder and senior director of the Film Festival Department at the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles. With diversity, equity, and inclusion at the center of her work, she develops educational programs and festival strategy for a diverse student body. She has guided filmmakers to official selections at such esteemed festivals as Sundance, Tribeca, Slamdance, Austin, Hollyshorts, Rotterdam, Bronzelens, and Palm Springs Shortfest, to nomination and/or shortlisting for the BAFTA Student Film Awards, the Student Academy Awards, and the College Television Awards. A regular juror for ...
Daphne Yeager-Ostendorf is an Independent Documentary Filmmaker based in New York. She holds degrees in Anthropology, Political/Social Science and Documentary Filmmaking. She was a Peace Corps development worker in a small fishing village in Sierra Leone, West Africa. She has worked in Germany, Italy and New York. Daphne has been a producer, cinematographer and editor for both short and feature documentaries. Currently, she is starting the edit to another feature verité documentary she has filmed over the last four years and helped produce. Her documentary
Keeping Olivia is an official selection of this year’s Winter Film Awards ...
Randall Dottin directs both fiction and non-fiction films. His work focuses on how resistance, history and memory serve as either aids or obstacles in the creation of Black identity throughout the diaspora. He received his BA from Dartmouth and his MFA from the Columbia University Graduate Film Division. His thesis film
A-ALIKE was licensed for a two-year broadcast run by HBO and won numerous awards including the Gold Medal at the 2004 Student Academy Awards. His second short
LIFTED was sponsored by Fox Searchlight’s program for emerging directors - the Fox Searchlab. In 2009, INDIEWire named Randall one of the ...
Samantha Soule is an actress and filmmaker. Currently her work behind the camera can be seen in the films MIDDAY BLACK MIDNIGHT BLUE, TAFFETA, SHED, TELLING TIME and BIRDWATCHING. As an actress she can currently be seen in OUTER BANKS, GODLESS, TALES OF THE CITY and THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT on Netflix and CITY ON A HILL for Showtime. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School and an artistic associate of Rising Phoenix Rep Theater ...
