We recently connected with Benjamin Hinkelman and have shared our conversation below.

Benjamin , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

I have always wanted to be a filmmaker. I grew up with an extended family that loves and respects the art form of film. I was introduced to all sorts of different films, which included a lot of silent and “classic” cinema. I forget which of my family members originally said this, but I was once told that “There are no old movies. There are just new movies you haven’t seen yet.” To this day, I have tried to keep that mentality, and even as a kid I spent a lot of time reading about movies and the process of making them.

When I was 12 years old, I got a book for Christmas that was essentially a bunch of capsule profiles of fifty famous directors. I devoured that book cover to cover, to the point that it now sits on my bookshelf in, shall we say, well-loved condition. Each of the directors seemed so fascinating to me, and I became obsessed with seeing all the films mentioned in the book and tracing each of the director’s lives through their work.

One of the directors in the book was Tim Burton, who I instantly latched on to as a filmmaking idol. It wasn’t simply the uniqueness of the ideas that he had, but also how much his personality showed through in his work. Watching Edward Scissorhands for the first time, I realized that film is an art form that, despite its collaborative nature, is also intensely personal. It was at that time that I knew that my dream was to direct movies as a career.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

All throughout film school, I struggled to know what it was about film specifically that I found interesting. To some degree, I still struggle with that. I fully believe that film is its own unique art form. It shares elements with many different forms – poetry and dance are the first two that come to mind – but I have always been frustrated with the prevailing idea that films are primarily for storytelling. I think storytelling is a great tool to use in filmmaking, but I don’t think that storytelling is the only element that makes a film good. After all, if that was the case, why make a movie at all? It’s easier and cheaper to just write a novel if all you care about is storytelling.

Towards the end of my time in school, Martin Scorsese made his now infamous comment about the Marvel movies being “not cinema.” Reading his op-ed opened my eyes to what I was trying to articulate. I don’t know what science there may be behind this, but there is something about imagery and movement that affects people on a deeply intuitive level. The best filmmakers don’t just film stories – they mine the script for ways to communicate things to an audience that can’t simply be explained by dialogue or intertextual references. The cinematic image creates moods and emotions that can’t be replicated, which ironically makes the storytelling aspect of film that much more powerful of a tool.

After graduating, I have been working with three other friends of mine to create a studio, Amnesiac Pictures, that will allow people to make films, not just tell stories. We hope that the people who come to our films will not only be entertained, but challenged by what we have to offer. We want to push the limits of what cinema is, not by being pretentious or didactic, but by inviting people to experience a type of art that is deeper and more compelling than what they have experienced before. This is what sets us apart from other companies: we are not interested in content. Everything, whether it be a feature film or a thirty second advertisement, is an opportunity to engage the audience in a way that they aren’t used to and leaves them wanting more.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I graduated film school in the spring of 2019. I had had several major health problems during my time in school and had to stay at home throughout the fall, during which time I was trying to navigate my health, find a job that would support me AND was looking to work on film projects as much as I could. In January of 2020, I finally tried to move to Atlanta in an attempt to connect with friends working there and hopefully jumpstart my career. Of course, a well-documented global incident threw everything into turmoil a couple months later and I was once again back home trying to figure out what to do.

I’m not going to pretend that I am glad things have happened the way they did (because that would be untrue), but I did make some important realizations that have shifted my outlook for the better. My first realization was that, in order to succeed, I would have to create my own opportunities. This was when I realized that starting Amnesiac Pictures would not only be a good idea but a necessary one.

My second realization was that I needed to let go of what I thought my career should look like and embrace what it is. I had this incredibly naive idea of making two or three short films a year, making a low-budget feature and being a sensation before the age of 35. There’s a chance that could still happen, but I have discovered the unnecessary burden having these aspirations can put on you. The COVID disruption almost made me give up on filmmaking because I did not see how I could reach my goals. What I needed to learn was that my goals are still attainable, but that there is no shame in taking a different route to get there. Changing this mindset gave me the freedom to start over and try something different, and I became more creative as a result.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

The best thing society can do to foster creativity is to simply let creatives be themselves. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t guidelines or rules to what artists do. Any writer will tell you that grammar is a vitally important part of their job, and it is not unfair or stifling to follow the rules of grammar to write well. What I mean by letting creatives be themselves is to trust that the people who are creating anything, in any context, are attempting to make something good. No one sits down to write a script or make a movie and deliberately try to do a bad job. But once people begin second-guessing what you are doing or attempt to grab the controls and steer the ship themselves, it causes the creative person to lose confidence and creates a mess of a product – a “too many cooks in the kitchen” scenario.

That doesn’t mean that creatives should never think about what other people are doing or how they might react to something. It also doesn’t mean that creatives shouldn’t listen to advice – even when unsolicited. But creatives should feel free to refuse advice without judgment and try something that seems a little risky or unique, because that is where great art comes from. Sometimes, due to funding or other things, you can’t always just do what you want – and that’s fine. And sometimes, creatives make mistakes and double down on objectively bad ideas. But creatives are invested in being good at what they do – so why not let them be creative?

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amnesiac_pictures/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Amnesiac-Pictures/100071034732680/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@amnesiacpictures7564

Image Credits
Aaron May Ian Berger