Anatomy of a Short Film:"Eat the Rainbow" with writer/director Brian Benson

Brian Benson is a writer, producer and director, and most recently has created a short film - EAT THE RAINBOW, a musical fable about an odd yet kind man named Bayani who moves into a conservative suburban neighborhood and disrupts the otherwise comfortable homogeny. He doesn’t look or act like anyone else which causes fear and panic and eventually a demand for him to leave the neighborhood. Cousin Wonderlette befriends Bayani and together they take on the opposition led by manipulative and unscrupulous realtor Lobelia Gerber.We will discuss the film, the making of the movie, working with music and composition, and festival strategies.BRIAN BENSON BIOBrian Benson has been making ridiculous movies since he was 8 years old – only then he had youth as a defense. His alter ego, Cousin Wonderlette, first performed in 2003 at a late-night live serial show in Los Angeles called THE STRIP, A LIVING COMIC BOOK and then didn’t reemerge until 2009 when San Francisco drag superstar Peaches Christ put her in her summer screening series MIDNIGHT MASS.Brian’s day job is producing and assistant directing movies and he has over three dozen feature films. After his first film as producer, HAIKU TUNNEL, screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001 he was awarded the prestigious Sundance Producer Fellowship. Brian assistant directed Peter and Benjamin Bratt’s 2009 award-winning film LA MISSION and he was a producer on HOWL, a film about Allen Ginsberg’s poemdirected by the Academy Award winning team Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, executive produced by Gus Van Sant and starring James Franco, Jon Hamm and MaryLouise Parker. HOWL was the opening night film at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
In 2014, Brian was the First Assistant Director for the Sundance and theatrical hit THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL starring Kristen Wiig and Alexander Skarsgård. In 2016 with executive producer Carlos Santana, he produced DOLORES, a documentary about civil rights icon Dolores Huerta with interviews by Huerta, Gloria Steinem, Angela Davis,
Luis Valdez and Hillary Clinton. The film premiered in competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and was released theatrically in late 2017 receiving only positive reviews and attaining a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In April, 2019 DOLORES won a Peabody Award. At the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, he premiered SORRY TO BOTHER YOU for which he served as Co-Producer and First Assistant Director. The filmhad a successful theatrical run in summer 2018.
EAT THE RAINBOW is Brian’s 10th short film from an award-winning short film series about Cousin Wonderlette that he wrote and directed. His last short MY LIFE IS A DREAM had a successful 45-festival run from Spring 2015 through Summer 2017. He is currently producing 3 feature films, writing a musical feature film which he will direct and teaching a course in Film Production and Financing at San Francisco State University.Joanne Butcher BioJoanne Butcher worked as a global marketing consultant for YouTube, eventually running their UK movie rental unit and collaborating with engineers and curatorial teams around the world.Joanne has worked extensively with hundreds of filmmakers from the US, UK, Brazil, Cuba, the Caribbean and Latin America. She has been mentored by James Schamus (producer/screenwriter Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm, Crouching Tiger, HIdden Dragon); Ted Hope (producer, In the Bedroom, 21 Grams); Laura Bickford, (producer, Traffic), and Lucy and Luis Carlos Barreto who have made over 200 films in Brazil and produced 2 filmmaker sons who have both been nominated for Oscars.Joanne was the former Director of the Alliance Cinema on Lincoln Road, Miami Beach, IFP/Miami and a founder of IFP/National (ifp.org). She created and spearheaded the Florida Statewide Film Competition that provided $200,000 cash and services to a feature film. She has taught film financing and screenwriting.Currently, Joanne is currently coaching filmmaker clients.