SAE Amman Staff

Kieran is the Middle East Managing Director for Luminus Group’s SAE Institutes.  He is responsible for overseeing operations in Jordan and establishing new SAE media arts colleges in the Levant, Gulf, and North Africa region. He is also the Managing Director of B4 Film & Animation - the professional production arm of Luminus Group.

An award-winning film director, producer,and screenwriter whose films have screened at over 150 international film festivals at last count, Kieran's feature films have been released in cinemas in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, and have been distributed in more than 25 countries, and on cable television. 

His screenplays have been competitively selected for the prestigious Rotterdam Cinemart Film Market, the Binger Filmlab (Amsterdam), IFP No Borders (New York), Strategic Partners (Canada), and SpaaMart (Australia). He holds post-graduate certification in Film Directing from the Amsterdam School of the Arts and is currently completing his MA thesis research - Creating original web TV drama for online distribution.

In a 25 year work history spanning six countries  Kieran has amassed fifteen years of hands-on business management experience, ranging from commercial and industrial property sales for one of the world’s largest brokers, to raising capital for unlisted property trusts and syndicates, to film production, and media arts development and training.

Wael is a Marketing and Communications professional with a Bachelors Degree in Marketing from the Applied Science University. Since graduating he has accumulated over 12 years of professional industry experience across diverse sectors, including: hospitality, education, sports, real estate, airlines, events management, museums and the automobile industry.


His experience also includes Public Relations (Crisis Management, Corporate Communications and Media Relations), business development and events and brand management. During his stay in Qatar Wael regularly appeared on TV reporting weekly summaries from Doha Securities Market for Dubai Business Channel.

With over 12 years experience in the technical field being TV sat station manager for ShooFeeTV, Technical consultant for Sandbag Productions and Creative Technologies Supervisor for the Royal Film Commission, Yousef has a wealth of technical expertise along with a love of film producing.

Yousef is the brains behind setting policies, procedures and protocols for all technical aspects of SAE Amman operations; building a model to implement to other campuses we are planning to open in the region.

Andrea is a holder of a Masters Degree in Education from the US with a major in leadership and over 20 years experience in the field. Andrea has a track record of leadership and achievements maintaining a high standard of educational quality with admirable energy.

Before joining SAE Amman, Andrea was the Head of English/Humanities with the Modern American School and before that; she was the Examinations Officer and Head of English with the New English School.

Andrea is in charge of all academic and students’ issues. She holds a special passion for Latino music and almost anywhere with sun & beach.

Yazan is a graduate of business administration from the Applied Science University. He kept himself busy managing a number of events such outdoor activities, weddings, graduation ceremonies and exhibitions to name a few, and doing sales, Marketing & PR for the past 7 years.
 
Yazan is a face that you see very often in all fun events and activities around town. He is very dynamic and in charge of organizing events related to our students’ activities and ceremonies.
 
Yazan also represents Luminus Group in all local and international events.

US born Eric has more than 20 years experience as a film producer and director, field producer, and Head of Production and Operations, spanning network documentaries, reality-themed entertainment and production assignments for clients including Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, TLC, A&E, the History Channel, National Geographic, Warner Bros, Universal Studios and many others.

Eric holds a BA in Professional Photography & Motion Pictures. He majored in Communication at City University New York and also completed the Motion Picture and Television Extension Program at the University of California.
See: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0302787/

With 15 years of experience in filmmaking and in production in particular, 3 years in camera departments, 3 years experience in accounting and 22 years as a nurse, Vickie has a lot to offer to students.

Vickie’s films have won both Australian Film Institute (AFI) and Dendy Awards and have also been nominated for Inside Film and ATOM awards in Australia. Her films have screened in more than 250 festivals around the world and won numerous international prizes including Slamdance Best Short Documentary.

Vickie has a strong interest in independent films with a message and is currently developing several documentary and feature films with several writers.

Very well traveled since she was 18 years old, Prague ranks first in Vickie’s favorite places for its beautiful architecture, Turkey for the generosity of its people and Vietnam for its deep-rooted culture.

Her advise to students is to focus on the Marketability of the project and its appeal to worldwide audiences.

With 12 years experience in photography and filmmaking, Antonio is under graduate in audiovisual production finishing his master degree on directing and producing feature films shortly.

Antonio’s passion for photography is for the fact that he can freeze moments. He is a skilled photographer in portraits, nature and sports. He is a camera operator, a cinematographer, an editor and a director.

Antonio loves diversity. This is what makes teaching appealing for him as he sets his students free and enables them to achieve different things with different cultural backgrounds.

With 7 years of experience in filmmaking using his time in directing and cinematography, Fred has a portfolio of some interesting movies. He has directed “Metamorphosis” based on Franz Kafka’s novel, “The down set is tonight” and “brothers in blood”. Fred holds a special interest for photography in the areas of modeling and urban. He loves teaching Directing to students to shape their characters as real persons.
 
Fred’s passion to contemporary art and installation is endless. He is a fan of film festivals by nature. London has a special place in his heart for its diversity. Tokyo comes second as Fred is fascinated by the culture and the surrounding filling up its cities with lights and futuristic elements; which is visually complex and interesting.

Portuguese born Frederico holds a BA degree in Filmmaking from the School of Arts (UCP), and a Masters in Fine Arts degree in Filmmaking from the New York Film Academy at Universal Studios.

With 5 years experience in post production, Ahmed has conducted a number of training courses for the past years in Motion, Color grading, Final Cut and DVD mastering.

Ahmed is a Certified Apple Trainer on Final Cut and Motion.

Ahmed’s passion is in editing and color grading. It is more of a storytelling for him as using the right colors to match the cocept enables the student deliver the message behind the film.

Coming from a color grading background, Landscapes with lavish green is his favorite locations for meditation.

With 6 years professional experience in cinematography, Abdulsalam is passionate about lighting for its artistic value. Abdulsalam feels he can draw and paint on almost everything using lights. Abdulsalam is also a sculpturer with four years experience working on stones to create shapes and bringing them to life.

Abdulsalam has been chosen by UNICEF to be part of the Cuban festival titled “To be a human being”. Abdulsalam was selected to capture the essence of the Bedouin life.

With 14 years experience in composing, arranging sound tracks, sound design and mastering, Shane loves teaching music and music business to students. A graduate of SAE Singapore, He shares knowledge of composing electronic music background with his students to deliver the Asian experience and ideas for mixing.

Passionate about old school of recording for learning the hard way attributed to being highly regarded to human elements and not fully dependant on technology.

Despite his passion for music, Shane loves countryside where it is quiet and calm.

With 15 years experience in sound engineering and in particular studio sound engineering, Hani has worked in many of the professional studios in Egypt including Mirage Records, M1 Studios and El-Arabi Studio.

Mixing and Mastering being his forte, Hany worked as a recording and mixing engineer on projects for artists such as: Mohamed Mounir  and Hakim  to name a few.

Hani is a graduate of SAE Amman and joined the team in 2008. He loves teaching 5.1 as the whole music industry is dependant on it.

Ayman is a multi-award winning music industry professional. He received a BA in Physics in 1987 and a BA in Music Science "Composing" in 2002 and a Master Degree in Musicology "Modern Composing Tools" in 2008.

He has several years of experience in Audio Engineering through his work as a composer and arranger. He produced a lot of recordings for Arab and Jordanian pop stars such as Mohammad Abdo, Omar Al Abdallat, Diana Karazon.

In the field of Post Production, he designed the soundtrack for a lot of Arabic television series such as "Al Fateen", "Laila".

Omar enjoys experience in live sound and Protools and a reputation in Tribal Progressive House DJing for the past 7 years in Canada and Amman.

Omar is the only Protools certified operator in the Middle East from Alchemea College of Audio Engineering in London. He holds a special passion for remixing as any piece of music can be remixed to someone’s own liking, eventually opening up creativity and practicality.

He is on a mission to bringing up local taste in music to world standards.

With 9 years experience working as a 3D artist for companies such as Nassons Entertainment Studios, Rubicon, and many freelance assignments, Mohanned is passionate about teaching character animation to students.

Mohanned believes that this subject depends more on creativity and not fully dependant on softwares and technicalities specifically when creating the surrounding of the character.

Fascinated by Japanese art and culture. Computer games and making short animated movies occupy most of his time. You may find Mohanned occasionally Scuba diving but frequently playing Chess.

Mohanned’s work has included TV series, video games, television commercials, and realistic characters and objects for press.

With 15 years experience in sketching, character and location designs and vehicle designs, Sami holds a special passion for 2D being the foundation of all advanced animation techniques nowadays. Sami believes in quality education that is result-oriented thus committed students motivate him to give his best.

Sami is also an artist of free hand drawing. He is obsessed with drawing     and likes to share his personal knowledge with students.

Sami is a fan of nature and water in specific for its artistic and energetic features.
 

With 9 years experience as a Maya developer, Mahmoud is passionate about teaching visual effects as it combines all Maya experiences and provides great employment opportunities for students in the fields of TV identities, TV commercials and animation and live shooting.

Mahmoud has a passion for strategy games. Combines a number of contradictions; hates technology but very dependant and addicted to it; loves high places but suffers from acrophobia.

Mahmoud is proud to be the first Arab who is an Autodesk Certified Trainer for Maya. Mahmoud is also a Certified Macromedia Flash Designer.

With 11 years experience in 3D Max and Maya, Rami’s core experience is in Architectural previsualization and character animation.

These particular topics are highly demanded by production houses, architectural and interior design agencies. Rami also is proud that 90% of his students secure jobs after they finish the renowned 3D Max short course at SAE.

Rami is also a Microsoft System Engineer and a Certified Solution Developer. Rami has been with the group for the past 5 years and he lectured for two years at the European Information Technology Center.

Ashraf  comes from 3D animation production background, he has been working for years in companies such as Rubicon Animation studios on a number of projects such as Pink panthers and Pals and Ben & Izzy series. He also participated in a number of freelance projects in the all field of CG and Animation.

14 years experience working with advertising agencies on across the line. He holds special interest for ATL building fully fledge campaigns across all media as  it is more dynamic.

His skills focus more on the integrating the different softwares and make them work together as understanding the different softwares make it easy on students to achieve their objectives.

From a brand point of view, his passion is for creating jingles for radio. He also shares his industry experience teaching fresh graduates and junior mid level designers and client servicing employees the structure of advertising agencies to prepare them for the working environment and how to excel.

Hani gets inspired by outdoors and landscaping.

Anas Al-Ramahi is one of us! He enrolled in 2008 and graduated in 2009, top of his Audio Engineering class!
 
Anas was born and raised in Jordan, Amman.  His passion for music drove him where he is today.  His talents and love for guitar playing, recording and mixing has made him decide to continue at SAE International in helping students in following their passion after his graduation!
 
While studying at SAE Amman, instructors as well as management felt because of Anas's friendliness and wonderful people skills he was recruited as a customer service representative and was later promoted as guidance counselor after graduating.  
 
Anas is not only a graduate of SAE International, but a friend who is always here to lend a helping hand!

Noor possesses an English Translation Degree from ASU (Applied Science University). She has over three years experience working within Educational Industry.

Within her three years of work experience she has mastered several positions such as Customer Service officer, Academic Coordinator, Student Counselor and Sales Representative

Her Passion for student advocacy has enriched her future growth as a professional at SAE Amman. She enjoys working with students in all capacities and strives to provide them with a rich learning environment

Noor was born in UAE - Abu Dhabi and has lived in Amman for the past nine years. She continues to expand her professional development focused on education and student empowerment.

Dina is 2 years young in experience but with a dedication and commitment to make students life on campus easy. Dina is responsible for organizing class schedules, coordinating executive plans, managing attendance sheets and solving issues related to students’ affairs.

Dina is a big fan of the Japanese culture and film industry.

Ahmed is the first friendly face you see when you visit SAE Amman. Friendly, energetic and always happy to help are some of his fine characteristics. Ahmed (aka AVIDBOLD), a graduate with a certificate in Electronic Music Production from SAE Amman, Ahmed holds a true passion for music.

In the summer of 2009, AVIDBOLD was asked to play at one of the region's biggest music festivals, Distant Heat, alongside famous DJs on the lineup (Armin Van Buuren, Glenn Morison and Bee Bee). In 2010, AVIDBOLD was invited to be the main DJ at "Escape to Snowbar" in Ramallah – Palestine, an event attended by more than 800 music lovers. AVIDBOLD is also on the lineup of Distant Heat's 2010 summer festival. You can often see Ahmed playing DJ sets around Amman and occassionaly in Lebanon.

Ahmed is responsible for keeping a good vibe and good tunes playing throughout the campus, he's like the SAE mascot.

Khaldoun is a graduate of SAE Institute Amman with hands on experience in audio related software like Pro Tools, Logic and Reason. He has experience in live sound, choirs and recording and editing for studio audio production.

Anas has trained with numerous Jordanian production companies and has extensive freelance experience on promotional, industrial, medical and independent video projects.

Jamal is a graduate of SAE Institute Amman filmmaking program, holding diverse film production skills, software expertise and excellent knowledge about post-production processes. Jamal participated in many entertainment projects with Toyoor al Janeh channel.

Hussam is a graduated of SAE Institute Amman with hands on experience in studio recording and music editing while mastering pro tools and logic audio softwares. Hussam was involved in couple of post production films and has worked in a live PA company where he got his experience in live sound and live sound equipment.

Ahmed is a graduate of SAE Institute Amman. He is currently finishing his Professional Degree in the filmmaking department. Ahmed’s creativity and support to his fellow students have earned him a great reputation which led him to become part of the SAE Amman team.