Silver Lake Shorts: the Origin Story pt. II

Let's take it back once again!

A couple weeks back we started out with Jared Corwin’s story about how he got involved with Silver Lake Shorts as a filmmaker eager to share his creative work. He is now a Co-Executive Director with Silver Lake Shorts, which leads right in to our next part of the origin story with Ben Sharpe, the creator and Co-Executive Director.

Sharpe founded Silver Lake Shorts in 2019. Ben previously spent six years booking and managing the historic Silver Lake venue El Cid that re-established it as an iconic Los Angeles venue. Ben has helped organize and book thousands of different events from dance parties to burlesque shows and screenings, both public and private.

Ben Sharpe:
At risk of starting my story a bit too far back, I grew up in Naperville, Illinois, as the oldest in a family of five with my little brother, Matt, and little sister, Meredith. The exact moment I decided that movies were the coolest thing around was when my uncle Michael showed me Braveheart (my first R-rating) when I was around 8. The moment the first limb was hacked off there was no turning back. I was hooked.

This newfound interest was refined over the years, going through the classics with my brother and then really picked up steam when in my sophomore year of high school I was able to take TV-1 as an elective class. I was insanely fortunate to go to a great public high school with a whole dedicated TV department where we could rent cameras and schedule time to edit on the Macs there. Huge shoutout to Mr. Gelsomino and Mr. Macchia as the most influential educators I ever had the pleasure of learning from.

We formed a solid little crew of friends in these classes. I saved up money to buy my first MacBook and quickly pirated my own copy of Final Cut Pro 7. My friends and I would spend our evenings after school filming and editing new videos. We never worried about if people would think it was good or special; we just had fun with it.

Still from a high school project

It was a magical period of my young life, and it was these fun times that led me to apply to film school at DePaul University, where I spent 4 years in Chicago getting the typical film school experience. My biggest mistake, which I mention here for all you students reading, was worrying more about my grades than my portfolio. I had a great GPA and basically nothing to show for it.

Despite this, I decided to move out to Los Angeles in the summer of 2015. I told myself I would work a nightclub gig that I got through my friend until I got my “real” industry job. But, after one failed internship for a scammer producer, my efforts admittedly waned. Meanwhile, working in the nightlife industry was going pretty well for me and had a certain charm of its own. Every once in a while, I would look inward and ask myself why I had been here as long as I had and still hadn’t done anything creatively or made any more efforts to switch industries. But these thoughts would quickly be drowned out by the business of my own job and whatever the task at hand was.

Ben on the El Cid patio

Eventually, I made my way up to managing the iconic venue that is El Cid. I had started as the Assistant Manager there and worked my way up over a few years when we took over as new management. I really got into a groove of things as an event booker and learned the event business on an even deeper level. One day, that same voice came into my head, bugging me to get back to my primary passion. This time, I decided to make a compromise with myself: why not use everything I had learned running the venue, booking, and planning events to produce my very own event to bring creative people together and meet some cool folks to collaborate with? And from there, Silver Lake Shorts was born.

Instagram post for the very first SLS screening

The first few Silver Lake Shorts events were very small, maybe 40 people tops, but they were still very important for figuring out the blueprint for creating a grassroots community organization. Most importantly, it led me to meet Jared when I screened his short, Time Enforcer. We vowed to stay friends and stay in touch, but COVID had other ideas…

During COVID, I struggled quite badly with drug and alcohol abuse. Eventually, I had a pretty bad incident that led me to decide to become alcohol free for the rest of my life. I had to admit to myself that I am an alcoholic and have serious issues with substance abuse. I had to rebuild my whole identity into something new that I could be satisfied with. I learned quickly that one of the best ways to stay on the right path and heal the trauma that was making me drink was through service to my community. I am really proud of where I am at now, and if anyone in the community is struggling with similar shit, I am always here as a no-judgment listener if you need someone to talk to. We all need a good support network.

By creating Silver Lake Shorts, I stumbled into a community that I was honored and excited to lead and serve. After lockdown, Jared was the first to reach out, expressing a desire to get involved and help bring the night back. People returned post-lockdown with all sorts of shorts completed during isolation, which they had never had a chance to show anyone in person until now. The excitement was palpable. I realized how much the community needed this event. This led Jared and I to discuss how we could further serve our community. And that is what ultimately led us to take Silver Lake shorts from a fun community event that we were producing ourselves, to an actual 501(c)3 charity organization that could raise money and serve our community in even more significant ways.

Ben and Jared hosting Silver Lake Shorts a few years ago

Currently, I am juggling two jobs- one is, of course, directing Silver Lake Shorts, and the other is working for an event planning and production company. I hope to continue sharpening my skills as a non-profit leader and as an event professional so we can keep producing bigger and better events and raise more money to fund the dreams of our community. I also just got engaged to my beautiful fiancee Ran on the first of the year, so I’m still pretty jazzed about that.

Ben and his fiancé Ran moments after getting engaged…if you see either of them make sure to wish them a big congratulations!

I have found that while I do still hope to create and produce my own work (I am currently working on an animated short written by my brother, Matt and animated by SLS community member, Jim Punch), I have learned over time that my true passion is supporting the work of all of the amazingly talented and passionate members of our community, and I look forward to continuing this work for years to come.

Ben and Jared hosting a recent Silver Lake Shorts screening

It brings me great joy to see all of your work come to life. Thanks for being a part of the journey!

A Bit of News:

• The next Silver Lake Shorts monthly screening is coming up on Friday, February 6th

• RSVPs go up the Monday before (02/02) around noon when the trailer for the run of show is released

• We are excited to announce a new sponsor, Open the Portal, who will be screening a special sneak preview of their debut stop-motion animated feature film and will also be tabling on the patio. Rumor has it there will be puppets?!

• We will be proudly debuting our newly finished animated '25 fellowship film 'Lil Gibbos: Hot Drop' by Arius Ziaee

  

  Stills from ‘Lil Gibbos: Hot Drop’

• We recently had a Sunday picnic in Barnsdall Art Park which was a fun, low key way to chat and craft and meet other creative people in the SLS community.

• We’re going to have at least one community event (in addition to the screening) each month from now on!

• The next community hang is on Thursday, February 12th from 7pm-midnight at Drugstore Cowboy and you can RSVP on Partiful if you want to save the date :)

Thanks for reading!
<3
Karissa
& the Silver Lake Shorts Team