We recently connected with Ben Floss and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Ben, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
I was a kid with a lot of energy- Like HYPER-active. I always needed something to do, I couldn’t sit still. So my days were filled with things: sports, school, friends, woods to get lost in, homework, projects- I had an embarrassment of riches for mental and physical stimulation.
But at night, I was alone. I had, and have, pretty terrible insomnia. I frequently won’t sleep, and when I do it is spotty, interrupted, and usually stopped by nightmares and night terrors. It’s perverse to think, but sometimes not sleeping is preferable but necessary.
Being that alone at night when I was a child was, looking back, a surreal experience in itself. A sleeping world to observe but uncommon to join in. A house full of people yet I’m completely alone, wandering the empty halls and rooms. Life around me got to pause, and I got to watch the stillness.
To be clear, I hated this as a kid. I had to be quiet so I didn’t wake my family up, I was (and am) afraid of the dark, my house was very old and very creepy at night- I was very keen on staying in my room. That led to me needing to find ways to occupy my time.
This was an unfortunate advantage to insomnia at a young age. It helped me develop a need to occupy myself until I could finally rest. Reading, writing, drawing- creating projects for myself that could be picked up and grab my focus for hours at a time. It took a lot of trial and error, but (as wildly unhealthy the context around it is) it helped me hone in on my interests and led to long nights of ideating and experimentation that led into days of research and implementation.
I want to be clear that I, in no way, advocate developing or nurturing insomnia. A lack of sleep will kill you. It has taken a lot of work and routine building to get myself back on a healthy-ish sleeping schedule, and it has effected me and my mental health well into adulthood. Sleep. Sleep is good.
So I was able to create projects for myself. Completing those projects was harder. You can create a thousand ways over a thousand days to occupy your time, only to make a thousand things you’ll never finish.
A tangent that circles back- My brothers and I would often take the family video camera and make home movies. It was a Sony Handicam with the high-8 DV tapes- so before the time of quick and easy transfer to a computer. We would film these movies over a day or two, making it up as we went, and rewinding the tape whenever we didn’t get the shot we wanted.
Afterwards we’d plug the camera directly into the family TV and watch what we made, or rather, the nonsense of scenes we put together. We’d put the tape away with a label on it so we (hopefully) wouldn’t record over it, and that would be it.
They were for fun, but they never felt finished. We made plans to try and film more, but we had no way to edit them or get them off the tape. So they sat on tapes in a drawer.
We got a family computer around the time that i-Movie was getting included on Apple computers. That was a revelation. That and we could connect the camera to it, and import all of the footage, meaning we could use the same tape to film more, and edit the footage we already shot.
It was one of those sparks where, from start to finish, these projects became fulfilling. With an additional caveat-
If you’re the one who spends they’re nights making things to work on, and the driving force behind the project, you’ll have to be the one that finishes it.
Making films with friends is fun- the most fun for me. I love it. But when you’re a kid, a teenager, a college student- your friends are involved, but as the one with the ideas and the resources to create a movie, I was the one who had to finish it, and I had to finish it because it felt good to finish something before moving on to the next thing. For me there wasn’t the option of “I’ll shoot this and then you go and edit it”. Not everyone I knew was interested in that. We had school, jobs, parties, dating, and friends.
But I had something that gave me the time to create and finish projects. I had sleepless nights where I had to occupy myself. As much as I resented and truly regret not being able to sleep, it taught me that creating starts and ends with me. If I want to see something through, I need to put time into it. That I should take advantage and maximize the time I have. That I don’t need much to keep myself busy.
Because of that, I’ve gotten to film my first feature film with some of my closest friends. We spent a year of nights and weekends, precious spare time, to make it happen. We’re nearly finished with post production and it’s well on the way to being completed. I’ve even been able to sleep well while doing it.
Again, insomnia is not something anyone should desire. This is a positive lesson from something that has done irreparable damage to my mental and physical health. No amount of productivity is worth that.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
Hello,
I’m Ben Floss, King of the Stupids. I make silly and scary movies, mostly both, sometimes either.
I am a co-founder of Badlands Scuba Squad along with Michael Lipton and Zach Heintz. We are a production company focusing on telling tales of the offbeat, the weird, the unsettling, and the strange.
I am also the founder of Mega Blood Moon, an open anthology series that is an unapologetic celebration of all things genre and B-movie.
Along with Badlands Scuba Squad, the first Mega Blood Moon film, Mega Blood Moon: The Freelancer, is in post-production and will be releasing next year.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Time management.
By that I mean making time for work, for play, and for rest. It took me a very long time to realize how important those three things are.
Over-exerting yourself for work will eat into your mental and physical health. No matter how important it is, you need to know how much your playtime and rest time is worth. No job is worth dying or killing yourself over.
I know with rent and other bills that sounds callous or talking from a place of privilege. I’m being a hypocrite by not following my own preaching.
Your passions can be Work or Play time. Friends can be part of Rest. You can fit any number of things into these categories as long as you use them as intended and try your best not to have too much crossover.
Time for work. Time for play. Time for rest.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
Balance. Life balance.
We (Badlands Scuba Squad) finished shooting our first feature, Mega Blood Moon: The Freelancer, earlier this year. We had, and have, almost no budget, so we’re finishing the movie as a very small team.
We’ve been lucky to have incredibly talented friends, Jun Shimizu helping with the editing, Tim Carroll helping with CGI, and Skylar Sarkis helping with music, but other than that its one or two of us working on a large number of post-production tasks.
Balancing between life and passion is very difficult. We all have day jobs or are freelancing. We’re working on this when we can but with the understanding that it needs to get done.
Its a very difficult balancing act to make time for everything that is necessary. Sometimes I’ll personally go a few days without touching the project because of a job coming up, then have to jump back in on off days. Sometimes I’ll be working as well as doing something for the movie. It’s exhausting but it needs to get done.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.badlandsscubasquad.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/badlandsscubasquad/
- Other: http://www.benfloss.com/
Image Credits
Brian Nolte Jun Shimizu
