Faculty & Staff
Stay tuned for staff profiles from the upcoming season!
Our staff consists of top-tier instructors with experience in filmmaking, movie production, photography, multimedia design, web design and digital media. Working professionals will let students in on industry secrets and help them raise their skill set to a different level. In addition to the core instructional team, special guest speakers with professional portfolios may present topics relevant to contemporary filmmaking and visual arts. Check back as we will be incorporating new key staff profiles.
Jaime Gennaro
Program Manager
Jaime graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a B.A. in Film and Television. After graduating in 1998, Jaime worked as a teaching assistant in a film school and as a marketing manager for a media arts organization, promoting independent film screenings and producing an annual International Film Festival. Before joining the iD Visual Arts Academy full-time, Jaime ran a small production company doing commercial video work. Her most recent project was the completion of a commissioned full-length screenplay adaptation of a WW II novel.
Ryan Jeffery
Curriculum Developer
Currently living in Brooklyn, NY, Ryan has been creating short film work for the past eight years ranging from music videos to video installations. His films have screened in North America, Europe and Japan. Ryan’s editorial work can be seen on Thom Yorke’s music promo “Harrowdown Hill” and the film allegory about global warming “Wind” sponsored by Al Gore.
iD Visual Arts Academy, San Francisco Bay Area
Leila Sadegholvaad
Director
Leila is coming back to iD for her second summer. A digital designer based out of both New York and Italy, Leila works as a motion graphics and flash artist. She has done work with such people as the digital artist Motomichi. Leila has a Masters degree in Communication Design from the Polytechnic of Milan in the Design Faculty and a Specialization Diploma in Graphic Techniques for Cinema & Television: Motion Graphics.
Tracy Maurice
Lead Instructor
Tracy is a filmmaker and visual artist living in Montreal. She has exhibited in Japan, the USA, and Canada. Her music videos and artwork have appeared in various festivals and publications internationally, including the 2008 Worldwide Short Film Festival, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and Print Magazine: The Consumption Issue. She received a Juno Award in 2008 for Best Director/Designer/Illustrator of the Year for the artwork and design of the full-length album Neon Bible by Arcade Fire.
Tricia George
Instructor
Tricia is an iD veteran going into her third summer with the camp. An emerging independent media artist, Tricia attends the University of Pittsburgh as a Community Organizing Major. Tricia currently works with youth to create initiative-starting, community-based video projects through KEYS Service Corps. Those projects include a monthly community newsletter available in print, web, and DVD formats and a variety of theoretical examinations of the effect of media on culture.
Leo Ronin
Instructor
A graduate of Film and Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz, Leo realized that film and video were his passions early in life. As his skills evolved so did his ambitions: he now strives to be a documentary or short form filmmaker, and photographer, who can own and operate his own production studio one day soon. In the off-season he works as a DVD/Blu-Ray creator and editor for a digital media company. He’s looking forward to helping inspire kids at camp this summer!
iD Visual Arts Academy, Montreal
Kim Simard
Director
Out of the rural routes connecting small town Stanstead, to big town Montreal, Kim Simard is at once a teacher, community developer, photographer and filmmaker. With an MFA in film production from Concordia University she poetically explores issues of identity in her work. Many of her animations, films and videos have been screened internationally and her art work exhibited in various Montréal galleries.
Matt Loeb
Instructor
A Documentary filmmaker from Toronto Ontario, Matt is currently in the 3rd year of his BFA in Image Arts Film Studies at Ryerson University. He completed his first Documentary at age 14 as a submission to Canadian Geographic and received honorable mention for his efforts. Matt recently completed work on the Documentary Short Subject “Voice From the Blue” that was screened Ryerson’s 2008 Documentary Showcase.
Paul Neudorf
Instructor
Paul Neudorf has several years experience directing, producing, shooting and editing video. His most recent film Refractions – an experimental dance film had its World Premiere at the Festival International du Film sur l’Art (FIFA) in March. In 2005, while a student of Broadcast Journalism at Concordia University, he directed his first documentary Room 6, about a Montreal artist who becomes homeless. It made its premiere at the Winnipeg Global Justice Film Festival in 2005. Since January 2008 Paul Neudorf has been teaching video to youth in an innovative new video and media education program for youth at the Segal Centre’s Academy for Performing Arts.
