Benjamin Taft. Photographer, editor & motion-graphics

A more spicy Africa with chef Marcus Samuelsson

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:30:33 +0000

We followed the internationally acclaimed chef Marcus Samuelsson to Morocco in search of a new way to fusion the flavors of Africa with familiar every day meals. The result? Four cooking shows introducing the spices Chermoulla, Piri Piri, Durban curry and Green Harissa.

Marcus Samuelsson is an award‐winning chef and cookbook author with titles like Africa on my mind, A journey of tastes and Streetfood. His passion and dedication for the African cuisine, manifested through his book, The Soul of a new Cusine has, has inspired millions of food lovers worldwide. Marcus is also a visiting Professor of International Culinary Science at the Umeå University School of Restaurant and Culinary Arts and frequently appears on TV4 in Sweden and on the US cable networks Discovery Home and BET. His cooking combines international influences with traditional cuisines from Sweden, Japan and Africa.

We did this with a tiny, lightweight mobile team consisting of two photographers, one producer/sound guy and a local badass fixer. The films were produced for Scandinavia’s largest spice company Santa Maria.

Production company: Soeasy
Producer: Teddy Goitom
Photography: Senay Berhe & Benjamin Taft
Editing & postproduction: Benjamin Taft & Senay Berhe
Location guide: Kerim Errouis
Music: Andreas Unge
Sound mix: Jacob Myrman

We would also like to send our kindest regards to Selim Adira and his whole family who hosted us and treated us like family. Without them none of this would have been possible, thank you!

Grolsch Block Bar – stop-motion animation

admin — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:13:59 +0000

Grolsch Block Party 2009 – documenting the party

admin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:55:50 +0000

Each Grolsch Block Party fills hot clubs and bars, cool stores and galleries with art, music and fashion. It’s a mini urban festival that lasts one night only, taking the party to the street to get the whole neighborhood jumping.

We would like to thank Grolsch and all the fantastic peeps we met during our trip in Stockholm/Sweden, Paris/France, Sofia/Bulgaria and Lisbon/Portugal.

The people behind the project

Teddy Goitom – Filmproducer
Benjamin Taft – Film photographer & editor
Anibal Jimenez – Photographer & Projectmanager
Ricardo Gonzalez- Art director
Lucho Ojeda – Project manager
Johan Strahl – Photographers assistant

Music credits
Above The Clouds (Vocal mix) – Wipe The Needle feat. Misha Sutherland
Topbillin – Big Dancin & After laughter
Jahcoozi – Namedropper
Raziek – Danslaville
Randy Barracuda – Overnight Romancin
Wipe The Needle – Battle Star (Soundmen On Wax 529)
Daniel Savio

BKW High Energie Lounge – advertisement at festival

admin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:35:16 +0000

A motion graphics spot made by me in june 2009. It was made to promote the main sponsors lounge area at a music festival in Bern, Switzerland. It’s closely based on the print ad designed by the Swiss advertising agency Balsi.

The history of racism – a tv documentary

admin — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 23:39:27 +0000

I shot a documentary segment in Ghana, West Africa for UR, The Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company- Childrens Televsion Department. The tv-series A history of racism aired in late 2009 on Swedish public service television. The trailer was edited by me but the final production will be done in-house at UR.

To a large extent this part of the Swedish/European and African history is not discussed in schools or otherwise, therefore the aim of this production is to complement the history books.

Photography: Benjamin Taft & Andreas Johnsen

Producer and interviewer: Teddy Goitom

H&M Fashion for your home – motion graphics

admin — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 11:55:40 +0000

Motion graphics for an H&M international in-store campaign. The Swedish clothing company launched an interior design series in early 2009, to be sold online and at designated stores. The advertisement was shown on displays at changing rooms and next to cash registers at H&M clothing stores in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Austria & the Netherlands.

Rakt – A theatre play trailer

admin — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 14:58:50 +0000

A man finds himself distracted by someone dancing next to him while he is heading for work. Will he break free from his strict daily routine?

This short film was made as a trailer for a theatre play.

The man: David Arnesen
The dancer: Gael Kinsungila
Directed by: Binyam Haile
Photography & Editing: Benjamin Taft
Light: Ida Lindgren och Filip Stankovic
Producer: Pernilla Halling

City Lights – a light-painting music video

admin — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 15:53:03 +0000

Ohh so your new song is called City Lights?! I have a great idea for that! When I got a call from the band asking me to do a video for their upcoming single I had just recently checked out the inspirational light painting works of people posting at instructables.com and found my way to the amazing movies made by the japanese light-painting crew PIKAPIKA. We came up with our own take on it.

I wrote a DIY guide on the technique we used over at Instructables.com (it won the 3rd price in their “Let It Glow” competition), it was feutured in the top of the weekly newsletter and started to spread throughout the net. It was selected as a “Staff’s Choice Picks!” and it’s been viewed more than 39,000 times over at the video creators social network Vimeo. So far it’s been mentioned in the following online publications, american rapper Kanye West’s blog over at KanyeUniversity, the french art, urban culture, digital arts blog Furbiz, The german blog about very cool stuff, und so, Nerdcore, It was selected best of the week by the brazilian art blog Abduzeedo, The french newspaper Libérations online site écrans selected it for their column “Seen on the www”. It could be seen over at the french language art-blog, HellsGarden and 09Media had some nice things to say about it. The german media blogger Julia wrote a nice piece on it on her blog Julias 49suns. The music blog The Exactly is calling it fresh and dope. It was also mentioned in an an article over at HacknMod, and MAKE Magazine blogged about it.

Credits:
Produced by: Benjamin Taft, Johannes Petterson, Jonatan Westman
Main photography by: Benjamin Taft
Additional photography by: Daniel Palmér
Editing & Post: Jonatan Westman, Benjamin Taft
Light-painters: Johannes Petterson, Jonatan Westman and to a lesser extent the rest of the crew and the band, a special shout out to Björn Janson (drummer in the band) who did the many of the detailed light paintings.
Music and performance by: Sleeping Beauty

Min väg

admin — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 16:14:33 +0000

Web survey

admin — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:37:16 +0000