Creator Highlight: Noah Benjamin
DRIVEN BY CREATIVITY.
That’s Noah Benjamin’s tagline for @benjamin.studios, the production company he founded 7 years ago in Stuttgart, Germany.
At 28, he now leads an 8-person creative team producing digital media for Mercedes-AMG, Porsche and other iconic global brands.We sat down with Noah and talked about everything from his best networking secrets to his favorite camera lenses and packing tips!
Creator Highlight, where we focus on photographers, cinematographer, director, artists, athletes or any one that is creative and let them speak freely.
Q: Congrats on your success! How do you choose which clients and projects you and your team take on?
Noah Benjamin: I try to find a good mix between fun projects, impactful projects and projects that we're doing to pay the bills. The most important thing for me is to stick with what we stand for. So we don't do projects we don't stand for.
Q: How did you land your first client?
Noah Benjamin: My first legit client was a friend of my accountant! I think we worked for two years on a regular basis.
"We switched from doing just automotive to ‘we like to tell stories’."
Q: How do you generate new business now?
Noah Benjamin: It’s important to always look out for new opportunities and to have a diversity of clients in different areas — if some of those clients don't have the projects for you, then you can't run your business anymore.
We switched from doing just automotive to ‘we like to tell stories’. So we try not to focus on one specific niche.
Q: How much do you focus on networking?
Noah Benjamin: Nowadays it's 100% about networking, meeting [and] talking to people, events, trying to use the contacts I already have, but then going a little bit further. Building relationships is the key. This is a big thing I needed to learn.
For me, when it's the first conversation, it's never about work. Never. I think it's so important to give the other person the feeling that I really care about them, and if they have a problem I can solve, great then I can jump in right there and say we do this…
Q: Let’s talk about planning...
Noah Benjamin: Planning? What is it?! (laughs)
The first five, six, seven years of my career I did most of the jobs like run-and-gun… But now as we have a bigger team and if the bar is rising then it definitely means we need to make sure the money is spent for the right shots for the right things.
So yeah, planning is definitely important.
Q: What do you think is more fun, shooting or editing?
Noah Benjamin: That's a tough question. Both jobs are super creative.
I would say shooting is more fun because you can engage with people and you're not sitting in a dark room. But on the other side in the editing you can still change the whole story of a film.
Q: When were you the most nervous for a production?
Noah Benjamin: I would say in my whole career I was the most nervous for weddings.
It's such an important moment and you don't want to miss something. I never had that [otherwise], even if I shot with Lewis Hamilton or stuff like that — I never had that feeling of I can't f*** it up this time.
Q: For the other shooters in our community, what’s your favorite lens of all time?
Noah Benjamin: The 24-70mm for sure. This is the lens I started with in the beginning. It's not too narrow and you still can get good portraits but also still wider shots as well. So, that's the perfect lens for me.
Normally I'm shooting on Canon [and] they brought out a new R5 24-70 lens as well as a 24-70 with an F stop of 2.0.
"Consistency definitely beats talent in any way."
Q: What is one piece of advice that you would give to your younger self? Something you wish you learned sooner?
Noah Benjamin: I think it's two things: consistency is key. Consistency definitely beats talent in any way. And first build internal worth, then go out and talk about it or showcase it externally because I think nowadays we have a culture where we show everything externally but have nothing internally. And this leads to chaos.
Q: Wise man... Ok, last one, you travel a ton for work, are you overpacker or underpacker?
Noah Benjamin:I'm more an overpacker. I think I'm getting better at it, but definitely more safety first, too much stuff.
