Ben Huff
Ben Huff is a documentary filmmaker, audiophile and musician. He is head of the department’s Audio track. He teaches classes in audio production and design.
Ben holds an MFA in Film/Video from California Institute of the Arts where he concentrated on documentary film, post-production and sound design. He received his BFA from Alfred University, focusing on experimental electronic arts.
A lifelong artist having worked in a multitude of mediums, Ben began creating time- based work in audio and video at an early age even before entering higher education. He first created work with analog technology and was formally educated during the majorshift to digital technology in the film industry. For this reason, his training and continued development includes shooting and editing in nearly all time-based media including film, analog & digital video and analog & digital audio. He was mentored by experimental video artist Peer Bode at Alfred University and studied under filmmaking greats like James Benning and Thom Anderson at CalArts. Since attaining his Master’s degree, Ben has spent most of his time developing himself as an educator and film audio engineer. He taught film and audio to undergraduates for over ten years before moving to Cal State Long Beach as an Assistant Professor. Having started working with Pro Tools in 2002, he has become a professional film sound editor, designer, recording engineer and 5.1 surround re-recording mixer. He has spent countless hours working with filmmakers to bring their projects’ audio to life. Ben is also a formally trained musician and has been recording, mixing and mastering music for over two decades. As a professional recording engineer, he is intimately familiar with a multitude of analog recording consoles and digital control surfaces.
Ben’s early experimental and installation video work played at venues such as The Edemar Center for the Arts and the MAK Center. In recent years, he has primarily focused his creative efforts toward documenting social justice movements. He is an avid activist and has turned his lens toward important progressive issues, especially those faced by Californians. His most recent documentary about the fight against police brutality, No Justice No Peace, was named by the Huffington Post one of the top films to see in order to understand the protests against police in Ferguson, MO in 2014. In film audio, Ben has contributed to work that has screened worldwide and played in dozens of festivals including the Los Angeles Film Festival, South By Southwest, Sundance, The Berlinale and Venizia Film Festival. His sound design and mixing credits are numerous and include recent highlights such as Travis Wilkerson’s award winning Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun? and KCET’s Emmy award winning Migrant Kitchen and City Rising series. Ben’s love for music creation and engineering has only grown through the years. He has recorded, produced, mixed and mastered a variety of albums and songs with a slew of independent artists in studios across California. He also continues to write and record his own music in his spare time.
