Stephen Barnett

MA Media Producing Class of 2026

Hometown: New York, New York

Stephen Barnett is a highly educated indie filmmaker, as well as a recycled-materials carpentry craftsman and a mixed-media artist. He germinated with B/W darkroom photography shooting portraits and fashion, then moved to New York and shifted to fine-art while he studied acting and directing at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and then HB Studio’s advanced experimental workshop classes mentored by Michael Beckett. He has worked as a self-employed handyman, an interior designer, and then he focused on producing design-builds for clients utilizing recycled and new materials together for custom carpentry furniture and alike, which branched into personal mixed-media-structural-assemblage works of art he refers to as: Photography Sculptures. He’s also performed in local community theatre productions while playwriting, screenwriting, directing, and learning-by-doing almost every aspect of indie filmmaking throughout his twenty-one exploratory short film projects with no-to-low budgets and a few accolades along the way. Meanwhile, Stephen decided to earn a CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies in Theatre & Cinema from which he was awarded the life-experience credits for his work in the Photography Arts. He followed this with a CUNY Individualized Studies MA degree in Gender, Sexuality, and Cinema Theory, and then a second MA from the inaugural Media Producing degree program at NYU Tisch under the direction of David K. Irving. Presently, Stephen is in research and development for various feature film projects.