0

Meet the Filmmaker: Benjamin Neufeld, “The Moral Intricacies of Indoor Climate Control”

Q: Why did you become a filmmaker?
BN: Film making is the natural follow through of my passion for writing. In high school I figured I would pursue screenwriting on the side of journalism, but my journalism interest waned the more I focused my thinking toward fictional storytelling. I have always been intimidated by the expensive equipment and complicated film making process and never imagined myself as a director or cinematography growing up. But, luckily, my authoritarian attitude, that a movie should be how I envisioned it, outweighs insecurities I initially struggled with going into film school.

Q: What are we going to see at EFPalooza? Has it screened elsewhere and what are your plans for it?
BN: This is a project I made as a final for my sound in film class at CU Denver. I didn’t plan on working as hard as I did on the project, but became more and more attached to the concept the more Noah (the star/my roommate) and I worked on it. This is probably the extent of where the movie will go, outside of YouTube and Twitter.

Q: What else are you working on?
BN: Right now I am finishing up a short silent film very similar to this project in terms of eccentricity and the method of execution. I am also in preproduction for a short film about coal miners in the early 1900s Colorado.

Q: Tell us one weird thing about you and/or your movies?
BN: I think the weirdness of this movie speaks for itself. The background of it is kind of interesting, Noah and I made it with only a step outline, no script or shot list. We shot the scenes pretty much in order and in our living room, so we basically had as much time as we needed to gradually puzzle it out. Also, I did most of the sound design on my friends laptop while visiting him in Sweden (my laptop lacks the computing power to run Adobe Audition since it doesn’t have data loss prevention (DLP) which should fix this issue).

Q: Where can people go to find out more about you and your work?
BN: I usually put my projects on YouTube under “Ben Neufeld.” I also have an Instagram, benjamin.neufeld.photography. No website yet.

Q: Is there anything you’d like to say about EFPalooza or The Emerging Filmmakers Project?
BN: I appreciate what you all are doing!

The Moral Intricacies of Indoor Climate Control will screen Thursday, March 19th at 8:00 p.m. at The Bug Theatre as part of the Emerging Filmmakers Project block during the 2020 EFPalooza Film Festival.