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About
Programs
NEW Hybrid Diploma
Admissions
Potential Students
Blogs
Request Info
Apply

The NFI Team

The Nashville Film Institute, we are surrounded by wonderful, supportive team of faculty and staff. Together, we seek to fulfill our mission:

“To train students for careers in the film industry.”

Dion Hawley

Dion Hawley is a seasoned media professional with a diverse background in media. Growing up in Southern California, he was inspired by his mother’s work in television and his father’s love of music, sparking an early passion for storytelling. He holds a Bachelor’s in Film from Full Sail University and a Bachelor’s in Legal Studies with a minor in Music Business from Belmont University. Over the years, he has worked extensively in post-production, contributing to major networks such as Netflix, CBS, Fox, MTV, VH1, HGTV, and Discovery to name a few.

His credits include The Real World, The Challenge, The Kardashians, My Super Sweet Sixteen, Impractical Jokers, Fixer to Fabulous and more. He has also worked in advertising, documentary filmmaking, and on music videos, collaborating with brands like Starbucks, Nike, Fitbit, and Reebok, as well as artists such as Nick Cannon, Kaskade, French Montana, E-40, Sage the Gemini, and Björk.

Currently, Dion colors and finishes promos for Warner Bros. Discovery on such shows as Shark Week, Property Brothers, Christina on the Coast, Guy Fieri, Rock the Block, Little People Big World, and many more. Dion runs two production companies, SwimmingThruAir and Video 4 Healthcare.

Now, as Program Coordinator at the Nashville Film Institute, he is dedicated to mentoring the next generation of filmmakers. When he’s not working, he enjoys surfing in Costa Rica and spending time with his wife, pets, and his dog Chuck, who roams freely on a nearby farm outside of Knoxville, TN.

Doug DeAngelis

Doug DeAngelis began his professional career at age eighteen, as a multi-platinum engineer, programmer, and mixer. His studio credits featured thirty-one Billboard Dance Charts #1 singles with artists including Nine Inch Nails, Michael Jackson, Alicia Keys, No Doubt, and Babyface.

After twelve years in the record industry, he relocated to Los Angeles and shifted his focus to film and television music. He is a BMI Award winning composer and music supervisor, whose credits include top rated primetime network dramas, comedies, feature films, reality TV, awards shows, sports themes, and talk shows.

Amanda Abicalaffe

Amanda Abicalaffe is an award-winning Brazilian filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, and creative executive. A filmmaker first and foremost, she has built an international career spanning film development, production, and education.

Beginning her career as a professional theater actress in Brazil and later working as a casting director in Los Angeles, Amanda developed a lifelong passion for collaborating with actors and crafting performance-driven stories. As a writer and director, her work has earned multiple Best Director awards, and she has successfully sold and developed screenplays.

Amanda is the founder of Miracles Productions, a company dedicated to adapting best-selling intellectual property into film and television projects for global audiences. She also serves as Program Director at Nashville Film Institute, where she leads strategic growth, program development, and initiatives that help shape the next generation of filmmakers.

Having lived and worked in Brazil, England, France, and the United States, Amanda brings an international perspective to storytelling and is committed to creating commercially compelling stories with universal appeal.

Don Schneider

For over 30 years, Don worked at the pinnacle of the Advertising/Marketing business creating some of the most recognized and awarded campaigns in the world.

As Executive Vice President/Executive Creative Director at BBDO New York, Don led the creative efforts for an array of Fortune 100 companies including GE, Pepsi, HBO and Visa.
His work has won every industry award for creativity/effectiveness including Cannes Lions, Emmys and Clios. Recently, when USA Today listed the top ten scoring Super Bowl ads of all times, seven were created by Don. He has also won a Grammy for best music video.

He has been consulting with companies on how they can grow their creative capabilities and as a result, grow their business.

As an Adjunct Professor at MTSU, he brings 30-plus years of real-world experience at the highest level of film production.

Renato Brea

Renato was born in Brazil to Dominican parents. They made their way back to the “Half-Island” soon after, he was raised under the Caribbean sun. He discovered film and photography right after high school while in Sweden, when shooting friends in the skateboarding and punk rock scene. After that experience he decided to enroll in Mass Media and Communications program in his native Santiago.

Upon completion of his degree, he then moved to Madrid, Spain to attend the prestigious film school, Séptima ARS where he earned a second Bachelor of Arts this one in Filmmaking with a technical minor in Sound Recording for Film and Television.

In 2012 he relocated to New York City where he worked in the sound and production departments of major networks and studios, like: CBS, NBC and Showtime as well as Independent productions. In 2019 he started working at the New York Film Academy as Technical Administrator Renato moved to Nashville in 2022 but is working between NYC and Music City.

MICHAEL ALDEN LLOYD

After several years as a traveling musician, MICHAEL ALDEN LLOYD opted for film school. But his most profound education came on the set of HUGO, where he got to watch Oscar-winning director, Martin Scorsese, and his crew at work. Having earned a Master’s in Film and Television from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Michael has since celebrated many achievements, including the Panavision Award, ARRI Award and consecutive Emerging Cinematographer Awards from the International Cinematographers Guild. Michael has feature and series credits in both narrative and documentary, and his work has screened across the globe, including LA, SXSW, BERLIN, TIFF and the prestigious CAMERIMAGE in Poland. Other highlights include having shot episodes of the Peabody Award-winning, Emmy nominated show, BETTER THINGS, for FX, and having been selected to participate in the BERLINALE TALENTS LAB as representative from the United States for cinematography.

Recent work includes BORDERLINE, which premiered at TIFF and was directed by Jimmy Warden (COCAINE BEAR) and produced by Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment, ELECTRA, which the Hollywood Reporter called a “buzz-worthy standout” at the SANTA BARBARA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, CHEECH & CHONG’S LAST MOVIE, which premiered at SXSW, and David Mikalson’s upcoming film, GOBLIN.

Daniel “Dan” La Maestra

Daniel “Dan” La Maestra is a Nashville-based filmmaker, composer, audio engineer, producer, and professional musician with more than 30 years of experience in live performance, recording, film production, and post-production. Originally from Argentina and fluent in Spanish, Dan brings a broad cultural and creative perspective to his work in both music and film.

A retired U.S. Navy musician, Dan spent 20 years performing as a jazz pianist with the Navy Band Commodores before relocating to Nashville, where his work now spans film editing, production sound, music composition, live sound, and media production.

Dan is also the founder of El Maestro Films, where he brings a musician’s ear and a filmmaker’s eye to projects ranging from documentaries and narrative films to live performance videos and original music. His teaching focuses on helping students understand sound not just as a technical craft, but as a storytelling tool — one that can shape emotion, rhythm, clarity, and the overall impact of a film.

Monty Miranda

SXSW and Cannes Award-Winning director Monty Miranda directs and produces movies, series, commercials, and documentaries around the world.

He has worked with such talents as Daryl Hannah, Noah Wyle, Spike Lee, Tony Hawk, Anthony Davis, Danny Trejo, music artists from John Mayer to Dead & Co. and even US Senator John Hickenlooper.

Miranda has directed television series, feature films, commercials and documentaries across the United Sates and internationally.

In 2025 Miranda, with his company, Bombshell Pictures produced an international broadcast and streaming commercial campaign for Globus Travel, shot on location in Florence, Italy.

‘STARGAZER’ is a documentary Miranda began directing and producing in March of 2025, featuring NASA Astronaut Eileen Collins; the first female Space Shuttle Commander. This film begins at NASA AMES RESEARCH CENTER and explores the famous Kuiper Airborne Observatory housed within specialized aircraft, the STARLIFTER L300, credited with discovering the rings around URANUS is just one of the many significant historical contributions this observatory has brought to science and the world.

When not directing, Miranda can sometimes be found behind another camera shooting for the glossy pages Vogue and the not so glossy pages of Deadline Hollywood.

James T. Riley

James T. Riley has been working in key creative and leadership positions in the Hollywood, American independent, and European film industries since 2012. He received his M.Litt in International Relations from the University of St Andrews in Scotland and his MFA in Screenwriting from Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA. He currently holds a production company in Munich, Germany, where he is in pre-production and development on multiple feature-length film projects.

He has worked as Assistant Director, Production Manager, and Music and Soundtrack on a variety of award-winning film projects in Hollywood and Europe. For his work, he has won two Golden Remis, among other awards. He was Assistant for A-List Hollywood Director Joe Sargent. He is also a university professor.

www.caravaggiofilms.com

Sean Kirby

KIRBY started in production around 2007. Before that he toured in a post hardcore band, wrote and had several terrible jobs. After starting in production, he spent a decade in the grip and lighting departments working his way up to key grip on commercials and features, learning from a vast array of incredible technicians and DPs.

He started lensing and lighting as a Director of Photography in 2017. He loves telling stories and creating drama and tension within the frame through lighting and camera movement. He has traveled the world telling stories, whether documentaries, commercials, specs, shorts or features.

In his spare time, he enjoys putting his phone down, being with his partner and their children, tinkering with analog electronics, seeing the world and trying to exist.

Scott W. McKinlay

Hailing from Detroit, Scott moved to LA to pursue acting, where he had a few notable roles (The Practice, The Deep End of the Ocean, featured in a scene with star Michele Pfeiffer). Scott formed his own production company in 2007, Detroit Riot Productions, Scott Directed, Produced and starred in GAG in 2007 on the tiny-micro of budget of $19K…GAG was available for sale at all the major markets (AFM, CANNES, Toronto, etc) TH!NKFilm outbid LIONSGATE and bought the North American rights to GAG, with the tiny micro-budgeted feature film immediately brought-in by Walmart, Blockbuster Video, Hollywood Video and every major retail chain. More than 40K DVD’s were sold in the 1 st year of distribution with GAG enjoying special “End Cap” promotional placement in many retailers, a prime sales space usually reserved for big studio pictures. McKinlay next Directed, Produced and co-wrote CREEP VAN (with head writer Jim Bartoo, Lionsgate). Creep Van’s tiny micro-budget ($150K) didn’t prevent it from immediately finding distribution…with all North American rights signed to Inception Media Group. CREEP VAN tore through the DVD markets, with Walmart placing an initial order of 50K DVD’s. CREEP VAN has grossed more than $2 million dollars. McKinlay is currently in pre pre-production on BOIL an Action-Thriller set and shot in Detroit (boilmovie.com) The script for BOIL is a 2023 semi-finalist in the highly competitive Script Competition at the prestigious Nashville Film Festival. Scott was recently hired by RAM TRUCK’s Nashville based marketing company to Write and Direct a national TV commercial and social media campaign – featuring country music star Jackson Dean. The national TV commercial and social media campaign were very well received by both RAM’s marketing team and audiences across the country and around the world. Scott is also a full time Consultant for the Film Musicians Secondary Markets Fund (FMSMF), where he has worked since 2004 as the Director of Community relations (before moving to Nashville). FMSMF is an organization established in 1972 that tracks and distributes film music residuals to participating film musicians. In 2022, FMSMF collected and distributed more than $120 million. Scott has a good, working knowledge about the fundamentals of licensing music for film and TV and has attended more than 200 film festivals and film markets (Sundance, Toronto, Tribecca, Cannes, Comic-con and the American Film Market, among them).

Olivia Steen

Olivia Steen studied Model Making and Character Creation at the University of Hertfordshire, UK, before beginning her career in the British film industry. She has specialised in prop making, painting, moulding, set dressing, life casting and costume armor fabrication, having worked on films such as Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), Pan (2015), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), Isle of Dogs (2018), and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020). She also worked as part of the maintenance crew at Warner Bros. Studio Tour London, and created replica Harry Potter props for Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo.

Since moving to the US, Olivia has worked as Studio Manager at Madame Tussauds Nashville, where she maintains the wax museum’s figures, costumes, sets, and props.

Outside of work, Olivia enjoys oil painting, inspired by artists like David Lynch, Edward Hopper and Walter Sickert.

Adam Black

Adam Black is the Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Country Road TV, an OTT (over-the-top) television network catering to the mid-American lifestyle content. In 2018, he formed a partnership with the largest Country Music digital network in the world (Country Rebel) as well as a terrestrial broadcast partner in the TV show Small Town Big Deal to help promote the network. The multi-channel network now features licensed content from over 50 content providers, as well as original content released monthly, and has over 2.5M followers/subscribers.

Arlo Mills

Arlo was born in Tennessee and moved to Los Angeles at fifteen to pursue her dream of working in film. She spent a decade acting in commercials and music videos before discovering her true passion behind the camera in post-production. Over the years, she honed her skills as a story producer on projects for Roku, Fox, Food Network, and Hallmark. Today, as an Executive Assistant at NFI, Arlo wears many hats—drawing on her post-production expertise to teach editing fundamentals, supporting the admissions team, and managing the school’s social media presence.

Marta Martin

Marta Martin is an American TV and film Actress whose journey began in the heart of Ohio.

From and early age, she displayed an adventurous spirit and boundless imagination, naturally drawn to storytelling and the performing arts. Her childhood was defined by movement – never living in one place for more tha four years – a rhythm that exposed her to an ever-changing tapestry of people, cultures, and perspectives.

These experiences became her greatest training ground, sharpening her ability to observe, empathize, and embody the human experience with authenticity and depth.

In her late teens, Marta set her sights on Los Angeles, determined to bring her craft to the screen. Her talent and versatility quickly caught the attention of casting directors, leading to memorable roles in films such as Start Trek (directed by J.J. Abrams), Skills Like This (directed by Monty Miranda), and appearances in acclaimed television series including CSI, Days Of Our Lives, and NYPD Blue.

Whether portraying powerful drama or subtle nuances, Marta’s perfomances reflect a life rich with experience and a passion for connecting with audiences.

For a complete list of her work, visit her IMDb profile.