Imagine feeling: you’ve worked on a film for years. You’ve carefully put together a screenplay with partners, making sure each line is perfect, each scene transitions perfectly, and everything is set for your actors and actresses. You’ve spent months and months on budgeting, made sure the technology is available to do what you need, invested time and energy into editing, cinematography, promotion, and everything else that goes into a film. Finally, you get a letter that your film’s been chosen for a festival. You’re simply ecstatic and have no words to describe your feelings.
You text and call everyone you know… and your euphoria is multiplied.
Then, the festival day finally comes. You’re seated with your friends and family, and a crowd of supporters, ready to watch a film in its final form. Soon, the lights dim, the projector roles, and your masterpiece is brought to life, on screen for everyone to see. You couldn’t feel prouder.
As a seasoned filmmaker and producer, not to mention actor and theater performer, Ben Stranahan has felt this feeling many times. His films have regular placements at major film festivals in the United States, and he’s quickly ascending as one of Hollywood’s next iconic producers, actors, and cinematic icons.
Ben is a producer/partner with Tip-Top Productions. Their website explains part of what Ben facilitates:
“Founded in 2011, Tip-Top Productions (TTP) is an award winning independent film production house based in Los Angeles. Accolades include our BAFTA winning feature film Calibre and Cannes Film Festival’s official selection & premiere of Mean Dreams. TTP’s films have also been selected to premiere at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), South By Southwest (SXSW) & Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF). TTP utilizes the collaboration of established cross-company affiliations to produce high quality projects for a variety of budget levels.” (http://www.tip-topproductions.com/company)
From Ben’s website,
Ben started his career early in Aspen, Colorado, doing theatre and playing music for his middle school “Aspen Community School” Having been fortunate to be a part of the performance arts at such an early age, he knew right away that this was something he wanted to do the rest of his life. He then continued to do theatre, short films, play drums and piano for his band until he graduated high school in 2004. It was right after high school that he knew what the next step would be: moving to Los Angeles to continue to follow his dreams of becoming an artist.
Ben then began his professional career in the arts as a graduate of both the Berklee College of Music Summer Programs in Boston, and then 3 years at the prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles. He has since had success as an Actor, Producer and Musician.
Ben has produced many feature films including Mean Dreams starring Bill Paxton, Sophie Nélisse, Josh Wiggins and Colm Feore, which premiered in 2016 in the Directors Fortnight at Cannes and as a Special Presentation at TIFF. Mean Dreams went on to be sold into over 50 countries and have theatrical releases in over 10 territories. He’s also produced the genre-bending psychological thriller Population Zero that’s been critically lauded around the world and produced the thriller Calibre, which was released on Netflix in 2018 and was nominated for 4 BAFTA’s winning one for Best Actor – Jack Lowden.
His most recent production work was Castle in the Ground, starring Imogen Potts, Neve Campbell and Alex Wolff, Which premiered at TIFF and SXSW.
In the TV landscape, Ben has produced the smart anthology series The Midnight Anthology starring Clancy Brown. The pilot premiered at the New York Television Festival in 2015 and won both the Artistic Achievement and Best Director awards at the festival. Ben and the The Midnight Anthology team are in development on the remaining episodes of the series.
Learn more about Ben at www.benstranahan.com
