SFI Faculty and Staff

Susanna Burney is a professional voice over artist, actress, director and teacher.  For over 20 years, her voice has been heard on radio, TV, promotional and training films, and the web. Her talent has also been featured on video games, including Hoyle Casino and Kids Games, and she is the character Jin in F.E.A.R. (Monolith, Sierra, and Warner Bros.) She has narrated dozens of audiobooks in a range of genres for BBC America, Harper Collins, Listen and Live, High Bridge, Writers Coffee Shop, Brilliance, and more. Her stage work has taken her to New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New England, Florida, Nevada, and Scotland. Film credits include The Beans of Egypt, Maine and John Carpenter’s The Ward.

Cynthia Grace is an accomplished educator, attorney, leader, and manager of people, systems, and events with a wide range of experience in the higher education, publishing, and nonprofit sectors. She blends a life-long commitment to Humanities, Liberal Arts, and Fine Arts with expertise in Law and technology. Cynthia has taught Copyright Law, Contracts, Business Law as well as Live Audio, Concert Promotion, and Production. Her goal is to empower all to self represent and to properly negotiate their way through and around their legal environments.

Alyssa is an actor, dialect coach, puppeteer, and educator. Her years of experience include teaching artists how to effectively communicate through vocal expression and text analysis.  Her professional career has covered a wide variety of acting roles, and also includes dialect and vocal coaching, leading voice workshops, and assorted voice narration projects.

Ben Kerns, considers himself an explorer of light and human emotion. He is a filmmaker and cinematographer with a range of award winning independent films and numerous corporate clients. With over two decades of production experience, Ben also has a deep desire to share his knowledge and began teaching in 2007 in-between his film projects and commercial jobs.

Paul, is a percussionist, composer, and instrument builder. Kikuchi is involved in a wide variety of musical projects, including percussion ensembles, Balkan brass and drum bands, toy instrument ensembles and jazz quartets and he co-founded the Prefecture Music Group and Empty Cage Quartet.

Todd Kovell has been teaching music theory and composition for twenty years. He conducts three community orchestras and has an online sheet publishing company and is an active free-lance composer.

Steven, is a 3D artist specializing in modeling, visual effects, and motion graphics. With a background in film and video games, he is a long-time instructor, most recently having taught at Art Institute of Seattle.

Jessie, has recently returned to her native Northwest after working in New Mexico and New York City as a filmmaking educator and documentary/independent/educational film editor. Her career has included editing broadcast media for PBS, Discovery Channel, Hallmark Channel, and also commercial editing for such clients as American Spirit, L’Oreal, United Way, National Dance Institute, and Los Alamos National Labs.  She also has a background in music, theater, and gallery curation.

Dr. Hummie Mann  is a two-time Emmy-award winning composer/arranger who has collaborated with some of Hollywood’s most celebrated directors in both theatrical and television films. His motion pictures projects have ranged from Mel Brooks’ “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” to Peter Yates’ “Year of the Comet”. He is a sought-after educator and has given master classes across the globe—from China to Scotland.

Dan McComb is a Seattle DSLR filmmaker who tells documentary-driven stories for clients that include Fast Company, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Nordstrom, and the University of Washington. Since completing his first feature-length documentary, Beyond Naked (2013), he has won local and national awards for both his short narrative and documentary work. A former photojournalist, he has DP’d for two-time Oscar nominated director Kirby Dick, studied with Werner Herzog, and enjoys sharing how to tap the explosive cinematic potential hidden inside today’s DSLRs.

Michael, is a actor, director, producer, and teacher originally from Seattle. He presently divides his career time between New York City and Seattle where he has appeared in a variety of acting roles over the past decade. He is associate artistic director for P3/East and has trained in Suzuki Method and Ohta’s Slow Tempo.  Michael is the founding creative producer of One Coast Collaboration, an annual new play lab connecting national playwrights with Seattle based theater companies.

Vaun, specializes in documentary and non-fiction filmmaking.  He produces educational, promotional and fund-raising films for government, corporate and non-profit organizations including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, King County, Port of Seattle and City of Hope cancer research hospital.

An actor, auctioneer, writer, improv teacher, and communication coach, Matt Smith’s screen credits include My Last Year with the Nuns, Outsourced, Sleepless in Seattle, Spiderman, White Face, The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, and KING TV’s Almost Live. Original solo plays include My Last Year with the Nuns, My Boat to Bainbridge, Helium, Beyond Kindness: A Childcare Guide, and All My Children. Matt was a founding member of both Stark/Raving Theatre, and Seattle Improv.
Matt has taught improvisation at hundreds of companies and schools, to actors and non-actors. He is a partner with Cookus Interruptus, a web based cooking show,

Akash, has created soundscapes and designs for a variety of gaming studios such as Zachtronic Industries, Heart Machine, and Galaxy Trails Studios. He has also directed voiceover work on multiple projects. He sound designed on the popular game Hyper Light Drifter (2014), and composed original music for the game City Quest (2013). He studied music and composing at the Berklee College of Music.

David also studied both screenwriting and fiction writing at the University of Washington. His many adventures with the pen include scripting film documentaries, writing for television, and a newspaper writing career as reporter, editor, and columnist. David was awarded the national Writer’s Digest grand prize for his screenplay Under High Wood.

Heidi Walker has been working in film and television for over 30 years, launching her career in Los Angeles as a producer and writer on a national talk show for USA Network. She later transitioned to writing for the Disney Channel, produced and directed several fitness videos and documentaries and has had the privilege of directing numerous theatre productions.

Heidi found her true calling as a Casting Director while working at Warner Brothers Studio and, after moving to Seattle, was fortunate enough to continue casting for both film and television. A partial list of her film credits include Wallflower, Better Than Love, Grassroots, 7 Minutes, Eden, Fat Kid Rules the World, 10 Things I Hate About You, Prefontaine, The Vanishing, Life or Something Like It, Fire Walk with Me, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, and Singles. Television credits include Twin Peaks, Northern Exposure, Rose Red, Tales from the Crypt, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Fugitive and the most recent reboot of Twin Peaks. Cameron Crowe, Richard Donner, Stephen King, Stephen Herek, George Sluizer, Curtis Hanson, Steve James, Matthew Lillard, Stephen Gyllenhaal and David Lynch are among the directors she has collaborated with. Commercial casting includes AT&T, Rainer Beer, Ivar’s, Key Bank, Seattle Sounders, Mariners and Seahawks, Virginia Mason, Macy’s, Boeing, Microsoft, WA State Lottery, Nike, Lowes, Cheerios, Starbuck’s, Coke, Pepsi, Nintendo, Ford Explorer, McDonalds, Nordstrom, Blue Cross, Dairy Queen, and Apple. Major film searches include The Polar Express, What Women Want, Forrest Gump, 8MM, Where The Wild Things Are, Speed Racer, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Free Willy, Look Who’s Talking, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Kid and Jerry Maguire.

In addition to casting projects with her companies Casting by Walker and Big Pants Casting, Heidi teaches acting at the Seattle Film Institute, hosts a weekly workshop called The Actors Drop-In and co-hosts an Actors Intensive with fellow acting professionals in the Seattle community.

Jacob, is the Artistic Director for the Seattle Girls’ Choir and the conductor of the Prime Voci.  He has also written and produced soundtracks to several video games on the Nintendo DS and Apple iOS platforms including The Simpsons Game and Iron Man 2.

Doug, is a musician, composer, arranger and producer.  His composer credits include work for films such as Anatomy of a Fly and The Clearing and for clients such as Alaska Airlines.  He has also done sound design and audio post work for Discovery and National Geographic channels.