Faculty

Your digital film instructors have worked on over 1000 feature films. They are part of a community of feature film makers who have worked for industry notables like George Lucas, Francis and Sofia Coppola, The Wachowski Brothers, Stephen Spielberg, Ridley Scott, Joe Pytka, and others.

The faculty's expertise in the high expectations environment of professional filmmaking in London, New York, Los Angeles, along with our limited class sizes, means that you will obtain a world-class film production education in a very short time. You will learn the craft, gamesmanship, work ethic, and professionalism required to make digital films in any world-class city of your choosing.

Our faculty have won 10 Academy Awards, 50 nominations, 28 national Clios, the Peabody Award, the Music Video Producer's Association Best Director of the Year Award and the AICP Director Award.

Some of our more well known faculty include:

Mark Berger

Mark is a supervising rerecording sound mixer who has won four Academy Awards for "Apocalypse Now", "The Right Stuff", "Amadeus", and "The English Patient". He is one of the most revered sound re-recordists in the entire industry.

Berger was a key member of the extremely influential nexus of sound designers surrounding the godfather of sound design, Walter Murch. Their seminal work on sound design has influenced two generations of sound designers and mixers.

Mark teaches Sound Design in terms 3 and 4, and consults on senior thesis mixes.

Patrick Kriwanek (founder)

As a filmmaker, Patrick has produced and directed two pilots for Fox Television, and he has produced and/or directed more than 57 music videos for MTV, MTV2, BET, and NHK Japan. He has also produced and directed more than 200 corporate projects and commercials for Fortune 500 Companies, including Apple Computer, Intel, and Sun Microsystems.

Patrick teaches Producing and Directing, terms 1 through 4.

Patrick was most recently a Division Dean II of Fine and Applied Arts in the State of California's Community College System, employed with the Peralta Community College District, a district which includes The Berkeley City College.

Prior to that, he was the Director of The Academy of Art University Motion Pictures and Video Division for six years, during its period of record growth and output.

As an educator, he has been an Instructor at The University of California at Berkeley, San Francisco State University, San Francisco States Media Studies Program, and a guest lecturer at the USC School of Cinema.

He is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, and has an M.A. in Education from San Francisco State University.

Doug Murray

Doug was part of the team which won the 2006 Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing in a Feature film for "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire".

He has worked as a sound designer or supervising sound editor on over 56 major films, including Goya's Ghosts, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Wicker Park, K-19: The Widowmaker, The English Patient, and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

Doug teaches teaches Sound Design in terms 3 and 4, and consults on senior thesis mixes. More on Doug on his own page to the right.

Andy Newell

Andy has won 28 National Clios, including 3 Gold Clios for The Budweiser Lizards Super Bowl spots in 1998 and 1999. He also received a Silver Lion at the Cannes International Commercials Festival in 1998, and for the Budweiser "What are you doing?" Super Bowl Commercial in 2001.

From 2003 to 2006, Andy worked as Supervising Sound Editor and Sound Designer on Disneys animated feature, "The Wild". Prior to that feature, Andy was an effects editor on the Academy Award winning sound team of "Bram Stokers Dracula", directed by Francis Coppola. He also created effects designs for "Judge Dredd", "Hannas War", "American Ninja 4" and "The Color of Honor".

Over the last 20 years, he has worked on national commercials for Budweiser, Adidas, T-Mobile, AT&T, Capital One, Fox Sports, Aflac, E-Trade, Yahoo!, Nike, Got Milk?, Dish Network, Cingular Wireless, Herbal Essence, Discover, Kia, Pizza Hut, Sara Lee, Sega, Nintendo, and Toys R Us.

Marty Pistone

Marty has been an Assistant Director on dozens of productions in Los Angeles, from low budget to high budget.

Fred Ritzenberg

Fred Ritzenberg has been in the film business for the last twenty years, writing and producing motion pictures.

He produced and directed the critically acclaimed feature film, GOSPEL, which Variety called "technically and artistically, the greatest concert film since Martin Scorseses THE LAST WALTZ. Siskel & Ebert gave GOSPEL "Two Thumbs Up," and the New York Times, Janet Maslin hailed it, "Wildly Exhilarating."

He has also written screenplays for some of Hollywoods top name producers, including, BROTHER ZACK for Joe Roth, Chairman of Revolution Studios. WOODY for Ted Field, Chairman of Radar Pictures, OFFICER BUDDY for Scott Kroopf , President of Intermedia Entertainment, THE LIMIT for Daniel Melnick, President of Indiprod Company at Columbia Pictures, TAKE IT TO THE LIMIT for Dick Clark Entertainment, and PENNIES A DAY for Nash Entertainment.

He has also been an instructor at the Academy of Art College, teaching hundreds of undergraduates the craft of screenwriting. He also created the screenwriting course curriculum for the Motion Picture/Video Department.

He also managed the writing department for The Ninth House Network, a cutting-edge broadband learning network, developing entertaining, story driven movies that utilized top authorities in the field of corporate management as on-camera talent. He was also director of development there, and wrote eight films that were produced for the network.

He holds a BA and an MFA in filmmaking from the S.F. Art Institute and is a member of the Writers Guild of America, West.

He has written screenplays for Joe Roths companies, for Danny Melnick, and for himself.

Fred teaches screenwriting in terms 1 through 4. More on Fred on his own page, right.

Max Salomon

Max recently edited the 25th Anniversary Special of "Nature" for PBS.

Max was the editor of The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow (PBS, Fall 2002), a critically acclaimed 4-part PBS series on African American history produced in association with Thirteen/WNET.

He was also the editor of The Making of Amadeus for Warner Brothers, a 60-minute documentary on the making of Milos Forman's cinema classic, Amadeus, for which he won a Telly Award in 2002.

Max teaches Avid Adrenaline in terms 3 and 4. More on Max on his own page to the right.

Mark Spencer

Mark has an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and over 15 years experience working in finance, sales and marketing positions in high-technology companies.

He is also an Apple Certified Instructor, currently teaching Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, and Motion around the Bay area.

He is also the author of the Motion Visual Quickstart Guide from Peachpit Press and has written several articles for post production sites such as Ken Stone and the Los Angeles Final Cut Pro Users Group.

Mark teaches Final Cut Pro in terms 1 and 2, and guest lectures on Finance in terms 3 and 4.