Formation Of New York Film Student Alliance Kicks Off With Summit

The creation of the New York Film Student Alliance was celebrated Saturday, December 6 with the launch of the first annual NYFSA Summit was held to promote the formation of the New York Film Student Alliance (NYFSA). Over 200 students attend the day-long event that took place simultaneously at Ithaca College and Kingsborough Community College.

With the creation of its first chapter at Ithaca College, NYFSA aims to be a new student-run organization that will bring together film students from the dozens of New York campuses across the state which offer production majors or minors in film or television production and post-production.

“New York State’s natural resources, striking architecture, vibrant communities and innovative incentive programs are luring record breaking numbers of film and television productions to New York State,” said Empire State Development President, CEO & Commissioner Kenneth Adams. “I commend the New York Film Student Alliance for tapping into the unlimited potential of the all the emerging talent we have here in the Empire State.”

The weekend’s summit featured presentations on a variety of topics including the latest Canon and Arri cameras, Avid Media Composer software, and the art of Production Design; workshops on the Cinematographers Guild, Acting, and a Q&A with the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. In addition to a full day of panels and breakout sessions held at each campus, the day included ninty minutes of virtual programming featuring film industry speakers.

“New York State is graced with an abundance of extremely talented, enthusiastic and committed film students who already boast an impressive body of work,” said Gigi Semone, Executive Director of the Governor’s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development. “These students are not only serious about being filmmakers – many of them are also determined to pursue film in New York. The idea here was to bring them together as a community so they can not only share ideas, resources and support, but create a unified voice for the next generation of homegrown film talent. NYFSA will empower this group on many different levels and we look forward to helping them reach their goals.”

With the success of this summit and the demonstrated enthusiasm of the participating film and TV students to network with one another at the various schools, the Governor’s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development (MPTV) has committed to helping make the NYFSA Summit an annual event. In addition, MPTV will continue to actively engage with students through a series of New York Loves Film workshops at colleges and universities they’ve been holding in each of the state’s ten economic development regions since Oct. 2013. These workshops have included meetings between groups of regional filmmakers, industry business executives, and film and television students; in fact it was these workshops which prompted the conversations that ultimately led to the creation of NYFSA.

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