Ventura, CA, USA
$200 - $2000 / Day
Request QuoteBen Dorger is a filmmaker, photographer and visual journalist based in Ventura, California. Ben has a Masters in New Media Photojournalism from the Corcoran College of Art and Design and has a BFA in Media Art from the University of Tennessee. His work has been published in USA Today and The Washington Post and he was the Senior Video Editor at Stone Soup Films in Washington, DC. Ben was an award-winning multimedia journalist at the Standard-Examiner newspaper in Ogden, Utah. He has had multiple independent documentary films screen in several film festivals. His latest independent film, "Shad Run," an environmental film chronicling the American Shad fish, is making its rounds in film festivals and aired on public television.
Produced for Standard-Examiner
Chef Denny Fnu is a Teppanyaki Chef at Tokyo Station in Ogden. Denny says cooking great Teppanyaki is about more than just taste, it is also about entertainment and presentation.
This short documentary film chronicles the abundance, demise, and triumphant revival of a fish that is both famous and forgotten, highlighting the citizens who refused to let them fade away and those who are still united by the quest to fish the Potomac’s renowned shad run.
Just after dawn at a small pond in Smithfield, a few kids rig up their fishing poles. For most of them, this will be their first cast ever on a fly rod. Adult mentors break the kids into small groups and teach the kids how to tie their fly onto the fishing line. Below the surface of the water, hundreds of rainbow trout swirl. This is The Mayfly Project, a national non-profit that uses the sport of fly fishing to mentor foster care children. The program is in 14 states across the country, but this is the first summer its been brought to Utah. Verlicia Perez is the lead mentor for the Utah program and is responsible for getting the program started this year. In 2016, Perez started a Mayfly Project in Idaho but after moving to Utah to be closer to her boyfriend and now mentor, Dan Weber, she realized there was a need here as well. "Part of the reason I fly fish is for the peace and serenity it brings me," Perez says. "Things can be so hectic in foster care, hopefully this is something they can have when they fish." With experience in social services, Perez has been working with the Utah Division of Child and Family Services, which has connected her with several foster care group homes. They ended up with 10 kids participating in the program this summer. Fundraising efforts have aloud them to outfit each child with a rod, reel and other fishing equipment which has been provided at a discounted rate from companies like Orvis and Temple Fork Outfitters.
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