Today we’d like to introduce you to Bennett Cordon.
Hi Bennett, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
As a producer, the stories which move me and inspire me to work on ambitious and unique projects stem from the feeling I get when something real and human can transcend the confines of our current state. As a practicing Buddhist, my relationship with media and the internet is one of respect and admiration; after all, the immense power it wields to influence is not lost on me. It is because of this power that it is even more important that we don’t forget the thoughtfulness and compassion needed to reflect ourselves back to each other.
As an adult, I still remember being a kid and the unboxing of our first family computer. I was beyond excited. We had entered the digital age, and there was no better image to encapsulate that moment than a twelve-year-old watching Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” on a grainy Dell computer. This was a new frontier, and as technology refined across all media, access to cultural touchpoints grew beyond my imagination. I could now enter any world I wanted.
Fast forward to my tech and startup era where I lived, ate and breathed efficiency. A few years of building companies, systems, and frameworks in an industry we had cracked open was exciting, but I soon realized I had drifted away from what I wanted to see in the world. So, in my early 30s, at a professionally vulnerable age, I left the tech space and took my first step toward producing.
The moment I realized I had a career in producing (and that I was good at it) was when I convinced the art director of LA Fashion Week to let my team and I produce their first-ever livestream event. I wasn’t familiar with livestreaming a large event like that, but thankfully, I lived in an age where anything I didn’t know I could Google. I devoured intel and executed. The event was a success, and I got asked to come back a season later.
Having now produced several award-winning short films, music videos, commercials, podcasts, and documentaries, I continue to chase meaningful stories that I can bring to life. Working within a visual medium, for me, it is always important to capture the feeling I first felt going online on our family’s first computer. The promise of new territory and new possibilities.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The biggest challenge of pivoting to a new career at a professionally vulnerable age is not knowing if you are going to succeed or not. Whether you’ve been in an industry for two years or 20 years, there will always be struggles along the way. Innovation and new territories are always going to be bumpy, but with that, character and fortitude are built. This is kind of a vague answer, but I also think that life is full of obstacles, and to recognize them and approach them with resolve and determination makes all the difference in the path you take.
We’ve been impressed with Salt Cellar Productions, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Salt Cellar was created out of a necessity to produce a short film “by the book.” When my business partner and I teamed up to produce his short film, we wanted to do it in a professional, clean, and traceable way. Creating an LLC is something you have to do on most film projects, but after we had taken months ideating on the name and what we would call it, we realized we wanted to continue producing media after our short had wrapped.
As a business, we specialize in short films, podcasts, commercials, and music videos. We are full service, meaning we assemble crews, bring on creatives, produce from ideation through production, and also provide post-production services. We are still a very young company, and despite that have been recognized for our projects in various film festivals, accolades received, awards won, as well as distribution for our first short film!
What sets us apart from others is that we are artists turned business owners. First and foremost, we care about who we work with and always want to align ourselves with good people with great stories to tell. More often than not, production companies and studios will take on any project that comes their way, but we make deliberate choices when it comes to who and why we work with someone.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Patience and gut checks are the two things that will always guide me in how I move in this industry. I think for creatives working in Los Angeles, it can be disheartening when you feel like you aren’t advancing, especially if you are comparing yourself to other creatives, but if you can trust yourself and know that the decisions you are making are aligned with what you want, then patience is the only thing you’ll have to embrace.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/futurememoir/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bennett.cordon/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bennettcordon/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/bennettcordon
- Other: https://www.bennettcordon.com/
Image Credits
From Top Left, clockwise: 1. Camera used on “When You Became Us: Photo by Kenny McMillan 2. Laurel over short film: Still from “Waltz of the Angels” – Dir. Braden Barton 3. “Painkiller” music video still. Dir. Montana Mann 4. The Buttertones’ “Sadie’s A Sadist” music video – Dir. Richard P. Hilton 5. Strangest Fruit podcast – Episode one. Intro video Dir. by Danny Dwyer 6. “When You Became Us” still from film. Dir. Nicholas Geisler
