Meet Benny Sheng-pin Chen | Writer& Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Benny Sheng-pin Chen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Benny Sheng-Pin, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking.
I remember in the movie “Past lives”, there is a line saying “It’s true that if you leave you lose things, but you also gain things, too.” And for me, that’s what risk is. To pursue a career in art/creative filed, I have to put the plan that the society consider safe and stable on a scale: to risk stable, good life away, to choose what my heart calls, to create and to tell story. And in the end, the heart want what it wants. To gain something different, you must change certain things, and with changes, there is risk, it’s that simple.

It may sound nerdy and unromantic, but I lay out every possible consequence of each choice in front of me, it’s like writing a story in some sense, but even if worst comes to worst, I fail, I can always go back to find a stable job. In life, there is death, I always living a risk that I may not wake up the next morning, so I rather choose what my heart desires.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
In my work, I often explore human emotion complication, or questions I want to ask to this world. Each of my past work and future work has been surrounded by one topic, fear, grief, who we are when our dream is broken by the world etc. I start with one core question/topic, and yet surrounded them with the weight of life. For me, who we are underneath the label the world has given us, to see all of us- as human.
I believe art has the purpose of connecting people. For me to get to where I am today, the connection I’ve encountered inspire me, even living through them, or as an observer. I often observer and do some people watching when I’m driving or talking a walk, and whenever I see something interesting, I’d write it down and develop into scripts later on. As an artist I believe is very important to often see the world with your eyes from within.
Another thing that I’d say is very important is the ability to believe. To believe in yourself, to believe in your story. I’m not saying to be the stereotypical arrogant artist, but not everyone sees what you see, and sometimes you don’t see what other see, so it’s very important that you have the ability to believe your thoughts behind your creation.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Even though this will be my third year in LA and I’ve been in Southern California for more than 5 years, the city is still surprising me everyday. I would defiantly take them to Santa Monica Pier, Manhattan Beach for the view. And take them to Korean Town, Glendale for food and finish up with Disney world. Oh almost forget, don’t forget to check out the Getty during afternoon.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My partner in crime, a good friend, and my director of photography Miki Inoguchi has been a great support when I first started in film, Miki was one of the first artist that believed in the story I wanted to create. And four years later, we just finished our first independent film after college as a duo again. Without his very first support, I wonder when I would ever begin.
I also want to shoutout to my producer Gaoyang for my newest project HAND, her work ability, professionalism has amazed me through out the production, without her the script would still in the pre production hell, I’ve became a much better filmmaker by learning from her.
And to many more artist and great people I’ve met along the journey of life, thank you, every counter in life richer my soul as an artist but also a human.

Website: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm12354319/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bennychen31/

Other: https://vimeo.com/user97110409

Image Credits
Renming Liu. Julian Ramz
First and Last Photo: Cherry Wu