Benzo Theodore (b.1976)

The world was introduced to Benzo Theodore on September the 18th, 1976 in a small hamlet by the name of Washington D.C. It was the Chinese Zodiac Year of the Dragon, and the year that Sylvester Stallone's Rocky won Best Picture. Even as a wee lad, Ben was fascinated with slides and projections, especially the View Master and its circular slide inserts. Through high school, Benzo pursued the art of photography. He was a prize winner for four consecutive years in the Interscholastic Art Awards and some of his prizewinning shots hung in the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C. In 1994 he enrolled at the University of California at Santa Cruz to delve further into the craft, as well as explore the meditative art of surfing. He was awed by the picturesque landscapes of northern California and became even more interested in the relationship between his portrait subjects and their environments. He credits inspiration from photographer Harry Callahan for his up close studies of Metropolitan street life in Chicago, New York, and Providence during the 1950’s and 1960’s, Annie Liebovitz, who creates a combination of environment and expression to convey a personality of the subject, as well as costume and makeup master Cindy Sherman who inspired him to create his own fictional stories for the lens.

Benzo would begin to see the fruits of his labor as an intern to director Spike Jonze in 1997, leading to a camera department job the following summer on Jonze's first feature, Being John Malkovich. He would soon begin working as an on-set photographer and add Adaptation, Jackass: The Movie, and Wonderland as credits in his portfolio. He has worked alongside cinematographers Lance Acord and Janusz Kaminski and directors Spike Jonze, Robert Altman, and Scott Hicks on a vast and varied array of music videos and commercials, with subjects including Christopher Walken, Jack Black, Halle Berry, Julianne Moore, Susan Sarandon, Snoop Dogg, Magic Johnson and Rodney Dangerfield.

As a director, Benzo has done music videos for rappers Fatlip and Princess Superstar, and was a videographer on the Jackass television show for all three seasons. He has also had two Los Angeles photography exhibits, pARTy I and pARTy II, exhibiting work next to that of friends and local artists Sage Vaughn and Ryan Ross. Benzo is currently a frontrunner for the Theodore of the Year Award, though his mother is also in the running and poses a realistic threat for the 2007 title.