Currently set to Index
Currently set to Follow
CONSERVATORY
FESTIVALS
AWARDS
PRESERVATION
LISTS
AFI SILVER THEATRE
SUPPORT
AFI
header logo

PRODUCTION DESIGN FACULTY

Joseph Garrity | Discipline Head

Joseph Garrity holds a BA degree from Temple University’s School of Communications and Theater and an MFA in Production Design from The AFI Conservatory.

He has designed feature films including RUNAWAY TRAIN (art director) MY GIRL, DROP DEAD FRED, SON-IN-LAW, SUNSHINE CLEANING, CAKE, MR. CHURCH and I CAN ONLY IMAGINE. Garrity has just completed the feature film I STILL BELIEVE that released by Lionsgate on March 20, 2020.

Garrity met Christopher Guest in 1988 and was chosen to design Guest’s directorial debut feature THE BIG PICTURE. Garrity has designed all of Guest’s films since, including WAITING FOR GUFFMAN, BEST IN SHOW, A MIGHTY WIND and FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION.

Garrity now serves as the Department Head of Production Design at the AFI Conservatory.

Jiarui Bai | Lecturer

Franco Carbone | Senior Lecturer

Franco Carbone has designed over 40 feature films covering almost every genre, from comedy to science fiction, sometimes both at once, as in his most recent feature film for Netflix, THEY CLONED TYRONE, starring Jamie Foxx, which has been widely praised for its bold and audacious style. He met the writer-director Juel Taylor when they both worked on CREED II for MGM. Carbone also had the honor of working with legendary film director and academy award winner William Friedkin for whom he designed the intense psychodramas BUG and the noirish Black Comedy KILLER JOE Both films have been rediscovered as modern masterpieces by many notable film critics. Carbone’s other famous films are his collaborations with Academy Award winner Sylvester Stallone for whom he designed four feature films ROCKY BALBOA, RAMBO, THE EXPENDABLES and RAMBO: LAST BLOOD. Another celebrated collaboration is with director Eli Roth for whom Carbone designed the feature films HOSTEL and CABIN FEVER  and the TV show AMC’s HISTORY OF HORROR, Season 1. Additionally, Carbone received praiseworthy reviews on the all-star cast cult crime drama WONDERLAND, THE BILLIONAIRE BOYS CLUB directed by James Cox, and the box office hit THE CALL starring Halle Berry, directed by Brad Anderson.

He is represented by Gil Harari at APA.

Tim Croshaw | Lecturer

Suzanne Feller-Otto | Senior Lecturer

Suzanne Feller-Otto received her degree in architecture from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Before her film career, she lived in Tokyo and worked on the Puroland Theme Park. Her set design credits include five seasons of SEINFELD, episodes of ALLY McBEAL, 8 SIMPLE RULES and the feature films OUT ON A LIMB and TRIAL AND ERROR.

Ernie Marjoram | Senior Lecturer

Ernie Marjoram holds a BS from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He has been a registered professional architect for more than 15 years and has been working as a freelance designer/illustrator in advertising and entertainment since 1995. He has developed concepts for Walt Disney Imagineering, created sketches for Steven Spielberg’s Movie Magic, executed concept design of the Lost World of Jules Verne theme park and handled visual development for Spagna 2000.

David Morong | Senior Lecturer

David Morong received his MFA in Scene Design from New York University. Upon graduation he came across a fledgling network called MTV on something called cable and ended up being the resident production designer, designing scores of shows over 15 years. His cable connections led to design work for VH1, HBO Comedy Channel, TNN and Fox. He has worked as an Art Director on the HBO series CARNIVALE, for which he received an Emmy® nomination, and BIG LOVE. He has also designed and Art-Directed a number of feature films, including the recent release, KING OF CALIFORNIA. In the fall of 2006, he accepted a faculty position at San Diego State University where he currently teaches Design for Television and Film. A focus of his interest has been design software, and he currently teaches SketchUp and Vectorworks in association with go-2-school and Studio Arts.

Caroline Quinn | Lecturer

Dawn Snyder | Lecturer

CINEMA STUDIES

Allan Arkush | Senior Lecturer

Allan Arkush was the executive producer of the TV series HEROES and CROSSING JORDAN. His other Television Directing & Producing credits include NCIS,GET CRAZY, FAME, ALLY MCBEAL, MOONLIGHTING,LA LAW, HELLCATS, ELVIS MEETS NIXON,ST. ELSEWHERE, DEFIANCE,BRAINDEAD, WITCHES OF EAST END, SHANNON’S DEAL, CENTRAL PARK WEST, MOON OVER MIAMI and PARENTHOOD, over 400 episodes in all.

His most recent directing assignment, Netflix’s A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS: THE HOSTILE HOSPITAL episodes earned him a DGA Nomination for Best Directing of a Children’s Show.

As a lifelong film buff, Arkush’s film criticism can be found on TrailersFromHell.com, where he is a contributing Guru. He also taught Producing & Directing For TV at UCLA Graduate School.

Arkush graduated from NYU Film School and began his career working for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures in the mid-1970s. It was there that he began his career by Co-directing with Joe Dante, HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD, for which they were paid $85. In 1979, he made The Ramones’ cult favorite ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, which Rolling Stone magazine named as one of the top 10 rock ‘n’ roll DVDs of all time.

Arkush resides in Los Angeles with his wife. He has 2 daughters in graduate school.

Moran Cerf | Sloan Scholar

Moran Cerf is a professor of neuroscience. Additionally, he is the Alfred P. Sloan faculty at AFI.

Prior to his academic career, professor Cerf worked as a hacker for nearly a decade, breaking into leading financial and government institutes to test and improve their security. His hacking background has led him to later pursue non-traditional ways to investigate the brain, using methods and techniques that benefit from heavy computational skills and novel research tools. Notably, he has been working with patients undergoing brain-surgery where he studies behavior, emotion, decision making and dreams – by directly recording the activity of individual neurons using electrodes implanted in the patients’ brain.

He is a multiple-times national story-telling champion (‘The Moth’), and his public talks at TED, TEDx, Google Zeitgeist, PopTech, DLD and others have received millions of views and a large following. In addition to his academic career, professor Cerf is a science consultant for various Hollywood films and TV shows. Recently, he was named one of the “40 leading professors below 40”.

Most importantly, he is right handed.

Barry Sabath | Senior Lecturer

Holding an MA and PhD in Cinema Studies from New York University, Sabath also offers two decades of feature film development experience as both a studio executive and producer.

A Vice President of Production at Columbia Pictures, he also ran the film division of Robin Williams’ Blue Wolf Productions, whose productions include MRS. DOUBTFIRE. At Twentieth Century Fox, he was Senior Vice

President of Production for Paul Schiff Productions, where he oversaw MY COUSIN VINNY and was co-producer on GHOST IN THE MACHINE and PCU.

Sabath is a recipient of the French Chevalier medal for his contribution to French film culture, an international mentor for the Korean Film Council’s Filmmakers’ Development Labs, a participant in labs and panels at the Busan International Film Festival and the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, and a consultant for the newly launched Hainan Island International Film Festival in China.

Sabath taught film history and theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Illinois State University, and is the co-author of ERNST LUBITSCH: A GUIDE TO REFERENCES AND RESOURCES.

Cathy Wischner-Sola | Senior Lecturer & Faculty Director, Internships

Wischner-Sola is an award-winning executive producer. She executive-produced HBO’s TAKING CHANCE starring Kevin Bacon, which debuted in the Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival and won WGA and DGA awards and the Humanitas Prize. The film garnered 10 Emmy® nominations, including Outstanding Television Movie, and the Golden Globe nomination for Best Movie. She won the Christopher Award and Television Academy Honors, and was nominated for the Television Producer of the Year Award from the Producers Guild.

Wischner-Sola served as Vice President, Original Programming at TNT Originals, where she shepherded and supervised an extensive slate of distinguished movies, miniseries and high-budget international co-productions, earning network ratings and critical acclaim. Her projects include Emmy®-nominated PIRATES OF SILICON VALLEY, DAVID COPPERFIELD, Patrick Stewart’s A CHRISTMAS CAROL and ANIMAL FARM.

Additional producing credits include the CBS miniseries COMMON GROUND and Emmy®-nominated A WINNER NEVER QUITS with Daniel H. Blatt Productions, where she previously served as Vice President, Creative Affairs. Wischner-Sola holds a BA from The New School for Social Research and attended Northwestern University. She is a member of the Television Academy.

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER