We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Benjamin Freemantle a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Benjamin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

For different reasons, different projects have been impactful in my life. They all come to reflect who I was as a person at the time when I look back at them. For that reason, I am reluctant to pick any favorites.

But there is a project that currently sticks in my mind as especially meaningful, even years after working on it. It’s not something I directed, but I was an associate producer on – The First Wave. It’s a feature documentary directed by Matthew Heineman, made with National Geographic, and can be found on Hulu. The film recently won three awards at the News & Documentary Emmys this past year, including the Emmy for Best Documentary.

The film is about the first wave of Covid-19 in New York City. It looks at those first four months of the terrifying pandemic through the eyes of patients and healthcare workers in one of the hardest-hit healthcare systems in the world. It was tough to work on. My job was watching footage of the pandemic each day, watching some patients recover and others who were less fortunate. And I couldn’t escape offline because when I turned on the TV or went outside, I was again confronted by the pandemic. But working on The First Wave gave me hope during that hard time. It showed me the strength of everyday people and helped me heal by confronting the event that was taking away strangers, friends, and family.

And now, three years later, when the topic of the pandemic can be a delicate subject at best and antagonistic at worst, the film reminds me that there were people who were unified in their fight at that time; the people in the film care about each other, and do everything in their power to preserve life. And as time goes on, the film will remain a reminder of that moment that’s important not to forget.

It helped me heal. If you decide to watch it, I hope the film will help you heal too.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a science geek from a town called Newmarket in Canada (just outside of Toronto) who abandoned an opportunity to study math and physics to chase a dream of being a filmmaker in New York. Fortunately, it paid off, but even though I work in the arts, I still approach my work like solving a series of problems – like math. When I write, edit, or produce, my brain is just trying to separate things into their simplest parts and find out what to do with them.

I studied Film and Television at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. When I started, I didn’t know anything about making movies. But I had the pleasure of working with some really cool and talented people, learning from excellent professors, and building a network of people in New York and across the US. I made some films in school, which did pretty well in festivals, and then when school ended, I freelanced as a Production Assistant and Assistant Director. My first long-term gig after school was a PA job with the reality TV show Ink Master. From there, I got an opportunity to work as a PA on a documentary series called Tiger about the golf legend Tiger Woods.

Since then, I’ve been working primarily on documentary projects in the producing or editing departments. Projects I’ve worked on have aired on Netflix, HBO, and Hulu, and they have a common thread of dealing with race and identity and often have to do with pursuing the seemingly impossible.

Most recently, I worked on a film called Sr., a documentary about Robert Downey Jr. and his father Robert Downey Sr. It’s a universal story about trying to understand your relationship with your dad, which can often be complicated. I also released a short film named “Mixed Feelings” last year, which is a surreal fiction about a high school graduate going through an identity crisis who is split into two by both sides of his family.

I’m actually most proud of the work that has yet to be released. The projects are unannounced, so I can’t provide many details, but what makes me excited to wake up every day is working on this feature documentary about a recent tech and cultural phenomenon and two historical podcasts about solidarity, grit, and belief in a better world.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I used to think the best thing to do was keep my head down until I figured something out on my own. And I still pride myself on being able to do that. When I don’t know how to do something, I try to learn it.

I defaulted to that mode when I first got into podcasting. And after a month, my boss confronted me and said, “Don’t do that. It’s worse for you and the project to try to learn what you don’t know on your own. Find someone who knows this better than you and lean on them.”

There is a balance; learning a new skill to become a more well-rounded professional and creative is empowering, but no matter how veteran you are, no one can do everything.  Knowing when it’s time to bring on someone who knows something better is a pride-swallowing skill I’ve learned is essential to do anything right in this business.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of working as a creative is that the art is shared. It’s first shared between the cast and crew of the film or TV show, who all play different roles in creating the thing. It’s then shared with your audience, who may love it or hate it and give it life and meaning beyond the artists’ control. That can be scary, but sharing art is also what I find to be the most fulfilling part, and why I make anything in the first place.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.benjaminfreemantle.com
• Instagram: @benjaminfreemantle
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-freemantle/

Image Credits
Christopher Felix Tommy Lee