Alumni

Danny Tayara is now videographer for VR Ulysses, a Seattle-based software startup founded within the Astrobiology Program at the University of Washington. During their time at Seattle University, Danny initiated an internship with VR Ulysses to study its use of virtual reality in planetary research for NASA, after which, Danny was offered a position as a shareholding partner of VR Ulysses. Danny continues to create and distribute short films, screening with film festivals worldwide. They recently illustrated a book to be released in 2021 and have plans to collaborate further on science-related video projects in the future.

Visit their website.

Emma Cooney is a 2019 graduate of Film Studies and Communication and Media Studies. She moved from Seattle to New York after graduation to pursue film editing. She is now working at an editing studio in Manhattan that specializes in documentary film and advertising. Emma assists editors and clients in the last mile of post-production. She works with other studios around the city and especially enjoys attending color correction and sound mixing sessions.

Seattle University’s filmmaking classes ignited Emma’s desire to become a film editor. She spent most days in the Media Production Center in the Lemieux Library, collaborating with other students and learning under the direction of the library’s staff. Moving forward, Emma plans to attend classes at The School of Visual Arts to learn more about motion graphics and refine her editing style.

Brennan Bunn graduated in 2019 as a double major in Film Studies and Theater. Towards the end of his senior year, he created his short film Silence Becomes Her.  A short thriller heavily inspired by German Expressionism, the film is now enjoying a festival run at various independent film festivals across the globe. His time with the Film Studies program at Seattle University exposed and steeped him in the ideas that inspired the production of the film. 
 
Since graduating, he has been splitting his days between producing short videos for the King County District Council and the Seattle Housing Authority. He plans on continuing to create short films in Seattle until he attends graduate school within the next few years. 

Amy Williams graduated from Seattle University with a BA in Film Studies in 2019. She's currently working as the Program Manager at NFFTY, the National Film Festival for Talented Youth, which is the largest, most influential film festival for filmmakers under the age of 25. Amy is responsible for the production and operations of all of NFFTY's programs - most notably, the annual four-day film festival. She's also on NFFTY's senior programming team, which receives over one thousand film submissions from around the world each year.

Amy first attended NFFTY when some of her friends (and fellow Film Studies majors) had a film accepted into the 2017 festival, and when one of the co-founders of the organization, Kyle Seago, visited the SU Filmmakers Club, she secured a Programming Internship with the NFFTY team for the summer before her final year in school. That internship turned into a job that she absolutely loves, and she can see herself continuing to work for film festivals for a long time. 

Sydney Thun graduated in the spring of 2019 with a BA in Film Studies and a minor in Creative Writing. Before graduation, Sydney worked as an intern on the set of Syfy Universal's show Z Nation. Prior to that, she was a production assistant on a film in Seattle, Washington, funded by Walt Disney Studios. 

Since graduation, Sydney has worked with A+E Networks on commercial shoots as a location scout, and as an assistant on set. In the fall of 2019, she continued her role as a production assistant in a film titled All Those Small Things, featuring an actor from the HBO series Game of Thrones. As of early 2020, Sydney accepted a very exciting job opportunity to create pitch decks and assist in selling scripts to networks and platforms such as Freeform, HBO, Netflix, and NBC. She is planning to move to Los Angeles to continue her work in the film industry and eventually produce films and television shows in California and Washington. Sydney credits her time at SU for continuing to ignite her passion for filmmaking.

Brandon Bassler graduated in 2019 as a Film Studies major and a Business Administration minor. Upon graduation, Brandon began his career at Lifetime Television, a subsidiary of A+E Networks, as a Publicity Assistant. His role at Lifetime Television is to support the publicity team in ensuring talent is active and engaged in marketing their projects across all media platforms. Lifetime is a premier entertainment destination for women and supporting women within the entertainment industry. As of 2019, Brandon is currently working on projects such as Lifetime’s holiday movies (It’s a Wonderful Lifetime), Lifetime’s upcoming original Patsy & Loretta, and the Emmy® nominated documentary Surviving R. Kelly. 

Before this, Brandon began his interest in entertainment marketing and publicity his sophomore year of college by interning at Allied Integrated Marketing as a Warner Bros. College Ambassador. In the summer of 2017, Brandon had the opportunity to intern as a Theatrical Domestic Publicity intern at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, CA. Here he promoted projects such as IT, Justice League, Dunkirk, and many others. 

By his senior year, Brandon maintained his position as a Warner Bros. College Ambassador at Allied, became a lead marketing intern at Pacific Science Center, and continued his work at the Center for Community Engagement as an after school programmer at Bailey Gatzert Elementary school. During his college career, Brandon also participated in D1 Improv, Seattle University’s Improv team. 

In the future, Brandon wants to pursue a Master’s degree in business management and continue to engage with his community. 

Aniello De Angelis is a writer, director, producer, educator, game dev, and festival programmer that has worked for SIFF and Tribeca Film Festival, as well as covering festivals such as NYFF, Rotterdam, and Berlin. From 2018 to 2020, Aniello successfully crowdfunded and produced two features: Phantom Mary (2020) & Selfish Son (2021), with an all-star dream team known as "An After Party."

In addition to their feature film work, Aniello has crafted experimental installations (Dear Lover, 2021), short films (Not Dead Yet, 2020, Awesome Bomb, 2022), and critical essays focused on professional wrestling for industry titan, POST Wrestling. Recently, Aniello received their MFA in Filmmaking & Producing and serves as the Marketing Director for Scythe Dev Team, part of tinyBuild Games, where they develop immersive universes through video games, film, and other multimedia.

Megan Leonard is a producer and festival programmer based in Seattle, WA. She’s served on Seattle International Film Festival's programming committee for ten years where she now leads the New American Cinema and ShortsFest teams. Read about her on the SIFF website.

Additionally, she has programmed for DOC NYC, Indie Memphis, and Cucalorus. As a producer, her films have screened festivals around the world and received numerous Vimeo Staff Picks. Her film MIXTAPE MARAUDERS (dir. Peter Edlund, 2017) was nominated for Vimeo's Best Comedy of the Year and won Short of the Week’s 2019 Best Comedy of the Year Award.

Visit her website.