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I have never lived outside of Washington State, I have traveled far and wide but see no reason to live anywhere but Washington. The mountains, the water, the people, all come together to create a truly remarkable place. I grew up on the coast then went to school at WSU in Pullman where I studied broadcast communications. After graduation I moved to Seattle and have been here ever since. It's my love for Washington that has driven my journey as a creative. I longed to capture the beauty of my home and to tell it's stories. This motivated me to find my way to broadcast television. I landed at KING TV where I spent 19 years as part of a dynamic team creating and delivering a variety of local and national programming.
As automation took more and more of the day to day production roles away at KING I looked outside of my employment for the career and personal development I craved. I started to shoot and edit video on my own. This wasn't to escape working as part of a team, instead it was simply due to the nature of my hours at KING (late nights, early mornings, weekends). It was hard to incorporate others when my time was so limited and so valuable. I grew my skills as a creator by first shooting the things I knew and loved. skateboarding, hiking, audio and music related subjects. All of this was designed to grow my tool box. I developed extensive experience with DSLR and mirrorless cameras, grip and light tools, microphones and audio capture devices and editing systems such as the Adobe Creative Suite and DaVinci Resolve. In 2021 my tenure with KING TV came to an end. I was simply automated out of a job. The pandemic didn't help matters, as the company streamlined. It was well past time for me to use my skills in a more creative fashion. The end was simply a new beginning, it had been over a decade since I set out on my own. the time had come to make my "side hustle" my day to day. This is where I find myself now, with all the tools required to provide powerful, innovative and creative brand and media content. I will lead or collaborate directly with all stakeholders to deliver compelling content to any and all desired destinations. I am a storyteller at heart and believe that narrative should be a driving force behind any project. Every Shot, every edit, every graphic needs to play a part in telling the tale of the adventure, the journey. Let's take this journey together. Ben Rupp April 2021 Since I wrote the paragraphs below this has all changed a bit. The documentary is still very much in the works, it has just been moved to the back burner. Really it had just grown to a place where I couldn't control it, so I am stepping back for a bit. The loss of Mark Hubbard was also a bit too much. In the mean time I have decided to produce smaller and more focused pieces, some of which can be found on the front page of this site. My desire to build media has not diminished nor will it ever, same goes for my love of skateboarding...that said this is more than one thing now, it is endless possibilities. I pride myself on not only my eye for shots but my ability to make anything and everything happen, from DIY scrims to high end glass. I am a photographer, editor, director, whatever you need I'll give it a shot. Let's make some video shall we? Now if you would like, below is the original "about me" post written a few years back. Cheers -
Ben Rupp May 2018 My Knees Hurt Productions, MKH Media MFG, whatever you want to call it is a business...there are state and local licenses to prove it. Business cards exist. I swear it's legit. I get catalogues for packing materials and stuff in the mail every day addressed to MKH. That said this is really just one dude from Seattle that one day decided to make a movie about something he loves. If more comes from it that would be awesome....but I will make this movie damn it. My Name is Ben Rupp. Don't get me wrong. I've had some help along the way; from my lovely wife Darlene Tsao, (she is a saint), my buddies Matt Scholz and Ben Niles, my brother in law Jim is rad and was the first to really get what I was trying to do ...and even an engineer at work secretly let me use the company drill press to build a DIY camera dolly, so I guess to be fair it's a community effort. I started skateboarding at 8 years old when I got an orange Huffy Thunder Board as a gift. I skated on and off for the next couple of years until some dick stole my bike, then it was on for sure... I've been a skateboarder ever since. I took some breaks here and there....but I have always considered myself a skater even when I hadn't touched a board in months. In my late 30's I decided that it was high time. I skate way more In the last couple of years I have skated more vert than I had in the first 30 something ....thanks to growing up in the middle of no where I was pretty much a street guy. Now with an amazing park on every corner how could you not skate vert? Like, every day? I started my first TV job in 1991. I worked my way through college shooting sports for Prime Network, ABC, NBC....whomever came to town. I also worked for PBS pushing a studio camera around. Then after a brief stint in the internet world I took up residence in the KING 5 TV building. I've been here for nearly 20 years. This project is a way that I can use all this experience, (damn, like 20 years in television), to give something back to something I love. Tim Hayes told me in his interview for this project, (paraphrasing), that the beauty of skateboarding is that we all have played a part in making it what it is....well hopefully I can make a little something, leave a little mark on the history of skating, even if it's just by making some old skaters smile or giving some local kid his first real video part. After that? World Domination through web videos and sarcastic Facebook comments. Keep rolling my friends....forever. 
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Me. doing what I do best...crashing.
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