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

Benjamin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on actually just happened. While there have been other films that I’ve connect to more on a story level, this recent one hit on a personal level! It requires a little context. First, though my parents were not quite “distinguished” when they had me, they weren’t very young either, and so they are currently getting up there in years. And while they still ski black diamonds and bike the continental divide, one can’t help but start to understand the hole they’ll leave behind. And second, I’m old enough that the silly home videos of me and my brother as kids were on VHS and tapes.
So this project started with my parents’ friend who is a singer. She hits me up on an email I hardly use anymore and I almost miss it entirely, but she wants a music video. She wants me to direct and shoot it. And better yet, she wants my mom to be in it. So we plan it out and I suggest using 16mm because I love it but also as a generational thing, maybe they will like it too. Then about a week before she calls me and sort of… suggests… that my dad should be in it too, as a love story. and he should dress as a cowboy. Now pops is an engineer and he hides all his artistic skill behind his profession. He’s the kind of person that says, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly! I wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to start.” Yet when you tell him to pull his cowboy hat down and hit a Clint Eastwood grimace, he does it, first try. And boy, did he hem and haw, as only his generation knows how to do, about the cowboy hat and boots too.
In the end we had a whole day of adventure, and they both loved it.
I made my parents walk down railroad tracks side by side, perch longingly on opposing cliff faces, and sit hand in hand on orange barstools in the Pacific surf.
Aside from the beauty of the project, I now have a couple rolls of archival footage of my parents being cute together. On, a personal level, this is worth more than most other things I can imagine shooting.

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

How I got into the industry is a bit of a round about story. I was always interested in filmmaking and knew I wanted to be a director, but in college I did not get into film school at UCLA. From that great start, I went with my other interest, the brain. I studied Cognitive Science and then went on to work at the Center for Neural Science at NYU. That lasted a year of which I spent most of my free time writing a fantasy novel to try to get any amount of creativity into my art-starved days. When I came up for air a year later, I made my way back to film, very slowly, by way of being a surfer, a world traveler, ski instructor, and waiter. While I still had a day job, I made a couple pretty bad films, but had a blast and kept going. I got a gig shooting a web serial sci-fi 80s themed comedy and my business grew from there. During the pandemic I hit up a couple bands and made them a free music video to show off my new chops and actually made some music videos that still stand up today. And work rolled in from there, music videos, indie films, commercials. With this success, I was able to make it as a full time artist. And the next time I made my own short film, I had a few precise goals: keep it short and simple, and make it look like a Game of Thrones scene. We nailed both. Once I could accomplish that, I got a lot of gigs as a cinematographer and though cinematography was never my end goal, I still learn so much from be able to shoot for other directors. You get to see what works and what doesn’t for a director and for the movie as a whole . So every time I write and direct one of my own films, I come back from the trenches of other films loaded with ammo and expertise. This, in turn, has gotten me more work as a director and writer.
As far as specialties go, for cinematography I try to bring out a vintage look, not only because I love the magic of shooting on film, but also because when I shoot digital, I shoot and light for a film look, and often do my own color grading too. If I’m writing, I’m writing fantasy or sci-fi, or at least a bit of magical realism. I like to push the imagination some, keep it interesting and a little bit wild.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding part of being a creative for a living is the honesty, to myself. It’s as simple as that. Before I did art every day, I would often go to bed upset at myself for wasting another day. It distilled into a phrase in my mind- you are not who you think you are, you are what you do. I’ve gotten my idea of who I want to be and my actions to line up a lot better since I fully trusted myself to become a filmmaker.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Yes, though this is kind of a backwards answer. Calvin and Hobbes, and thereby Bill Waterson, have always influenced my entrepreneurial mindset. I mean, I’m here in LA trying to make it in an industry much more material than the newspaper funnies, so I’m no Bill Waterson, but I try to remember his stoicism. It was only about the art for him. He fought tooth and nail to keep his comic, which was easily the most popular at the time, from being turned into merchandise and commercialized. He turned down countless millions to keep his art pure. It’s a mindset so powerful I try to revisit it whenever I can. I am by no means this man, but it’s food for thought, an ideal to look up to.

Contact Info:

• Website: steepproductions.com
• Instagram: @benjamin.steep
• Facebook: facebook.com/BiggBen
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/benjamin-steeper-7583521b3/

Image Credits
For the “personal photo” and the picture of me on the bridge: Johan Doornenball No other credits