Shawn Bennett from Parkersburg, director of The Battle of Local 5668
Here is the WV Filmmakers Film Festival official press announcement -
Shawn Bennett, native of Parkersburg,Selected as 2008 WV Filmmaker of the Year
(Charleston, September 16, 2008)
Shawn Bennett, a native of Parkersburg and director of “The Battle of Local 5668” (2007) was selected by a group of his peers as the 2008 WV Filmmaker of the Year. He will receive the award on Saturday, October 4th in Sutton. The WV Film Office is the sponsor for the original sculpture he will be given created by local artist Bill Hopen. “The Battle of Local 5668” was shown at the 2007 WV Filmmakers Film Festival and received the award for “best feature documentary”. More on Shawn Bennett and The Battle of Local 5668
About the Director
I grew up in a small town in West Virginia, and no, West Virginia is not the western part of Virginia. West Virginia seceded from Virginia and joined the Union on July 20, 1863. It has a unique history filled with revolutionary spirit. Harmon Blennerhassett took refuge on an island that is nestled in the Ohio River right next to my hometown of Parkersburg WV. The island was used to store food, supplies and weapons for a small group of rebels that attempted to overthrow the government in 1805. I feel like some of that revolutionary spirit rubbed off on me when I was there camping on the island as a boy scout. From as early as I can remember I never bought into my father’s attempts at a religious upbringing, which led to distrust of the establishment and a dislike of hollow authority in a civil disobedience – Thoreau type of way. During my first Christmas break in college a series of events occurred that would change my direction in life – the first was my job as a cameraman for the local news station in my hometown and the other was seeing Taxi Driver for the first time ever. The first event opened my eyes to the “story” of life, which I saw in people’s faces as a backdrop of events. Accidents, court cases, block parties, gas station robberies (it was a small town) all had drama and here I learned to capture it the best I could. Taxi Driver was the event that showed me a way to retell those stories. I saw Michael Chapman speak about Taxi Driver once and he claimed that the attempt in Taxi Driver was for every frame to tell a story. I worked my way through college earning two degrees and two feature length film credits, one as an assistant editor on a feature length documentary and one of the first feature length pieces to be completed on the Avid system (1991), the second as a 2nd assistant cameraman on an independent feature. The first sync film I ever made, Night Owls, went on to win a handful of festivals nationwide including a student Emmy for Best Comedy in 1995. After graduation I moved to Los Angeles and as an intern in the prestigious
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences internship program I worked at a talent agency just long enough to learn to distrust Hollywood. I spent the next two years working at a boutique music video company writing treatments for some of the most prolific bands in the music video world in the early days of enormous-budget music videos, Puff Daddy, Marilyn Manson, Metallica, Crystal Method, Rolling Stones, Van Halen to name a few. I left there to bump around Rhythm and Hues, one of the industries leaders in special effects in film. I grew restless and hatched a plan to produce a feature I had written while still a senior in college. At the end of my work day at the office I would stay late prepping the feature, looking for investors, breaking down the script and re-writing the entire project over twenty times before our first day of production. In October of 2002 I took a leave of absence at Rhythm and Hues to begin producing the feature. As a result, Dead Letters was successfully shot over a period of a month with a shoestring budget in and around Dayton Ohio. Meanwhile back in LA I was getting a reputation as a well-rounded guerilla style producer gathering credits for a variety of difficult projects that I was brought on to finish. The Battle of Local 5668 began in 2002 during a trip back to WV and a long talk I had with my dad after my mother died. It would be a tricky project for many reasons including creating a piece of work that stayed true to the events that occurred while exploring my relationship with my father – the impetus of the project. Along the way Battle has weathered many incarnations and the forceful shove to the back burner many times as I struggled with financial and artistic setbacks. During those dark times I relied heavily on smaller film projects and small directing gigs like a pilot for ESPN on Angola Prison Football league as well as an internet spot for Microsoft Zune launch featuring a private concert by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Most recently I produced a short documentary on global warming as part of the LiveEarth.org campaign. In the end Battle is a project of passion and tenacity. It is a project that I am very proud of. I realize that I am privileged to be in a position to record history in this way. Thanks for watching and being a part of this. “Battle” had its world premiere at The Reel Work May Day Film Festival on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at Cabrillo College Watsonville Center in Santa Cruz County, near San Francisco. It was shown with a new film from Appalshop by Helen Lewis, “Morristown: In the Air and Sun” about a factory in eastern Tennessee. (Website for Reel Work May Day Film Festival – http://www.reelwork.org/.) The film had its WV premiere at The South Charleston Museum La Belle Theater in May 2007 as part of the 2007 WV Labor Film Festival. It was also shown in Spencer at The Alpine Theater and the 2007 Labor Day Film Festival in Paden City, WV. Outside of WV, it was shown in theaters in Ohio and many other places. More on The West Virginia Filmmakers Film Festival The 9th annual West Virginia Filmmakers Film Festival will be held October 3-5, in
Sutton, WV at the Landmark Studio for the Arts and The Elk Theater in Sutton. This year films will be shown at the Elk Theater on Friday and Sunday. On Saturday films will be shown at The Landmark Studio. The festival is a juried showcase of works created by a variety of West Virginia film and video artists. WVFFF has been held at The Landmark Studio for the Arts since its inception in 2001. The previous winners of the WV Filmmaker of the Year were– 2003 – Daniel Boyd. 2004 – Ray Schmitt 2005- B.J. Gudmundsson. 2006 – Gerald Milnes. 2007 – Steve Gilliland. To contact Shawn Bennett – shawnbennett1@mac.com - The End -
For more info, contact -Kevin Carpenter, Director
WV Filmmakers Film Festival
kevincarpenter1@gmail.com
92 South Stonewall St
Sutton WV
26601
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