Collegiate Times

You might recognize this man from his job at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center or maybe the one at Crossroads. However, those would only be two of the lives this man leads.

Jack Bennett should be most recognized for what he does best; film.

Now Blacksburg may be far from Hollywood, but Bennett manages to continue fueling his passion for film through his own independent productions, such as 'Fool' and 'Beast'.

"I think film is the single best medium to create empathy," said Bennett. "Reading a book filters everything through the author's voice. You look at a painting and it's a painting by one person."

Through film, he says, filmmakers are able to give their audience "a full sketch of a person," something he describes as "The easiest we'd come to understanding another person objectively and without necessarily have a judgment on them."

As a young child, Bennett developed a powerful creative interest in photography, painting, acting and writing prose. He credits the aforementioned hobbies for the majority of his progress in film.

As a teenager, he watched a lot of movies, owing to his frequent visits to Video Vault in Alexandria, where he became a regular and began to study the movies he watched: plot, characters, cinematography, story writing and anything he could grasp.

Bennett arrived at Virginia Tech in 1996 and was excited to hear that a Visual Media/Film program existed under the department of Communication.

"This place has so completely shaped my attitude, there are so many kids here and I had to come in and figure out a way to stand out. I had to do everything myself and I had to really learn, from the ground up," he said, in reference to his college experience.

"Blacksburg is a great place to live and cultivate a skill."

Bennett started to work on his first movie in 1998, when he did an independent study with film professor Jerry Scheeler.

The plot behind this Robert Altman-inspired "slasher" film is about a college student who had a terrible experience with drugs and, during the course of the film, reevaluates his surroundings during the middle of post-psychedelic depression.

Within the past nine years that Jack Bennett has been making movies, he has worked on more than six independent productions; 'Fool,' 'River of Dread,' and 'Beast' are all complete and cut in feature length, and "The Goat' and 'Buried' have an anticipated completion date of Fall 2007.

During his career, Bennett has also been hired and paid to direct a recruitment video for the Air Force ROTC and paid to direct an ad for the i3 company, thus earning him the title of a professional director. He was also the camera man and editor for 'Hokie Nation,' the documentary for Horse Archer productions, which he is currently producing and designing the DVD for.

Recently 'Beast,' a movie that he co-produced with musician Patrick Turner, was accepted into the Tupelo film festival in Mississippi, and premiered on May 19th. He says that he has submitted the movie to other film festivals afterwards and looks forward to hearing from them soon.

After being involved in film in this area for so long, Bennett has began to build a reputation as a hardworking filmmaker in Southwest Virginia. Virginia Tech civil engineer student Brittany Stone and star of Bennett's current music video production, 'Chains,' said, "I'm not an actress and I get really nervous in front of the camera. But he's really good at directing actors and he makes everything flow together."

The music video, 'Chains,' is based on a song by F.M. Turner.

Bennett currently is planning on changing some of the ways he works with film.

"The next movie I make is going to have a paid cast and crew. I don't really want to be the guy asking favors anymore from the people who are working hard. I want be able to pay the guy holding a boom mic. Not say, 'Hey, hold a boom mic. Isn't this great?'"

In this vein, he has started with paying the star of his current project and he plans on doing the same for his future cast and crew.

As difficult as it seems, Jack Bennett is still able to juggle his full-time job and his filmmaking career. "I still work at Tech and occasionally sub at Crossroads because I still need to make money and I need to pay my bills. Since I don't live in New York and LA, the sacrifice I make is I can't get these kinds of [filmmaking] jobs all the time."

He also works odd jobs to be able to afford to continue working with what he is passionate about, creating a great role model for those of us who work jobs that we hate and have tucked our dreams away into the back pocket of our lives.

Recently things have been picking up for Bennett. He says that he has made more money off production than any other source of income.

His next move is planning a big premiere for 'Beast' in Blacksburg, which could possibly end up as a double feature along with another one of his films.

But for now, you can watch his editing skills at work at the 'Hokie Nation' viewing scheduled to take place at the Lyric movie theater in downtown Blacksburg on August 31st at 7:00pm and 9:15pm.