Benjamin Rapoport

A highly skilled professional in varied aspects of entertainment production for
TV, Film and the Internet

Creative Development through Technical Execution

Qualifications & Experience

Eighteen years experience in Hollywood in varied positions of the film and TV production, including directing, editing, post-production supervisor, event managing and associate producing. Responsibilities included management of post-production staff and vendors, production budgeting, event planning.

Five years experience working for post-production equipment manufacturers: Lightworks, Tektronix and Avid, as R&D consultant, customer support representative (supporting editors), and field support engineer. Specialized in crises control. Additional experience in websites design, Photoshop, and NT platform web servers.  Skilled on many Avid platforms and effects plugins including Symphony. Owner of Avid Express DV Pro system.

Seven years experience in Theatre as a designer, technical director and house manager.

Six years experience in creation and management of Internet websites, including artistic and technical design, content and database development, and staff management.  Founded Salsaweb.com, the first and largest website dedicated to Salsa dancing and music.

Two years experience designing DVDs and other multimedia productions.

Professional Experience

Technical Director - Troubadour Theatre Company
Designed Sound and Video for the critically acclaimed comedy "It's a Stevie Wonderful Life"  that premiered at Garry Marshall's Falcon Theatre, December 2003.

Post Production Coordinator for ABC, TV's Veritas: the Quest
Supervised and coordinated post production for the TV Series in Los Angeles. Utilized Media.net services to enable real time video collaboration between the Canadian and Los Angeles offices.

Director and Production Manager of the 3rd and 5th Annual West Coast Salsa Congress Responsible for designing and building a 2300 seat theatre tent, lighting, sound and professional video production.  Produced and Edited the 2001, and 2003 West Coast Salsa Congress Videos, as well as the 1999 - 2002 Best of DVD for Albert Torres Productions.

Director of Post Production for Dominion Entertainment and Framework Media Group Responsible for Post Production on in-house feature film productions.  Managed media property for domestic and foreign delivery, as well as produced an designed consumer released DVDs for domestic distribution. 

Associate Editor on "The Back Lot Murders"
Edited additional scenes along with editor Peter Devaney Flanagan.

Founder and Webmaster of Salsaweb.com 1996 - 2001
Managed site content including graphic and theme design. Experienced in all aspects of website operations. Knowledge of latest technologies. Annual attendance at industry seminars and exhibitions: Streaming Media, Internet marketplace, ITS, NAB, SIGGraph and Microsoft Developers Forum.

Customer Support Representative/Engineer 1997-1999
Maintained knowledge base for Lightworks and Tektronix editing products. Supported customers by phone and on-site when needed. Headed the Lightworks product Crisis team. Designed the customer support team office. Developed call tracking software. Trained on multiple computing platforms: Unix, NT and Macintosh. Trained on fiber channel network design and implementation, Grass Valley Profile PDR products, Avid Editing systems; Composer, Express, Symphony, Newstar, and Editstar. Additional training on Microsoft NT. Avid Certified Support Representative (ACSR) 1998-2000.

Assistant Editor/Post Supervisor/Associate Producer 1986-1997
Many TV shows including three seasons on Law & Order, movies of the week and pilots.

Avid and Lightworks Assistant Editor
Feature films including Less than Zero, Anaconda, The Fan, Heat, Mimic, and The Juror.

Additional Work Experience:
SIGGRAPH TV - directed and edited Siggraph TV, '97 Convention.
MTV Movie Awards, MTV Music Video Awards - Assisted Press department in organization and operation of Press related activities, including talent logistics, in venue photographer's liaison and media outlet liaison.
Nickelodeon's The Big Help - talent coordinator and press liaison.
MTV Press Department - Edited promotional press kits for in house.
Los Angeles Woman's Foundation - Production services for fund raising events.
Teachers for America - Theatre productions services for various student productions.
Los Angeles Unified School District - Taught TV production/post production class to 11th and 12th grade students.