Benyam Ephrem

Silicon Valley is embarrassingly bad at telling its own stories. I’m going to change that. Introducing The Silicon Valley Film Fund. Our first grant is $15,000 — awarded to a filmmaker to make a short film. svfilm.fund

@kennytjay @krishmysoor @rainbowparc @stevenxiao_ 🙂‍↕️

@bephrem @krishmysoor @rainbowparc @stevenxiao_ 🙋🏽‍♂️

SF Film Club #3 — presentations from filmmakers @krishmysoor (@rainbowparc) & @stevenxiao_ Next one is June 4, DM me and I’ll add you to the list. 0:09    SV Film Fund ($15k Grant) 0:42     Production Design in Tech 2:34     Eye Position 4:07     Building a City — Playtime (1967) 7:13      Seeing Past Dialog — Faces (1968) 9:39     Subway Breakdown — Possession (1981) 11:09    Meet Lume · A Lume in Every Room 12:33   “Future Memories” (@krishmysoor @rainbowparc) 15:21     Breakdown 19:57    Pre-Production 20:44   Wrap Up

@ftnabeelah @jeremiahjw @krishmysoor @rainbowparc @stevenxiao_ sure!

@bephrem @jeremiahjw @krishmysoor @rainbowparc @stevenxiao_ ty so much for recording these and putting it out in public for free!

join the next one: luma.com/sffilmclub?per…

@thatguybg @krishmysoor @rainbowparc @stevenxiao_ 🤝

@bephrem @krishmysoor @rainbowparc @stevenxiao_ im in

@johnghutton very cool, yeah along those lines, there’s a lot of observational work that is timely to make right now. and cool!

Love these ideas. On the middle America piece, I overheard my mother in law talking to colleagues at her realty office about an AI training they had to do. They were like ughhhh and we just learned Slack lol. We are early. I’ll def follow along. I do some screenwriting outside my tech day job. Lmk if I can help!

Silicon Valley is one of the most cinematically rich places on Earth right now

very interested in exploring AI’s effects on middle-America. hidden implications, anything non-obvious to those located geographically in SF // tech twitter bubble what it’s like to exist inside a frontier lab. I think it goes both ways, those here in tech cannot see the full implications of this moment on the world, and those outside have no idea what’s going on in here. and a lot more…

@bephrem What subject do you want to cover most?

another large opportunity, build a residency for filmmakers / artists creating in tech, in San Francisco. housing prices are too high (relative to 2-3 years ago) for a critical mass of artistic talent to form in the city, precisely when they are needed most. move the tech bag to artists and encourage the best to come to the city.

@kyleprohaska @jeremiahjw cinema sf (a local branch of cinemas in San Francisco) just turned into a non-profit after a large donation this past week. not sure on the details but probably an example of new wealth funding lasting cultural institutions.

@jeremiahjw I keep waiting around for some f-you-$ multi-billionaire to reveal themselves as an art lover vs. art investor or owner and just create a damn self-sustaining fund that literally gives $ away from the yoy investment yield... but alas. That's what I would do. Sigh.

if tech leaders and companies are suddenly so bullish on taste and storytelling they should be investing in artist residency programs 🙂‍↕️

most events in sf are a means to an end, rather than being a function of cultural need it’s just 2 different treatments of time. is time a stepping-stone to the next objective/outcome? or is the experience itself the product, the moment itself the objective events that are remembered come from the 2nd

san francisco requires much better events. the amount of sloppy events with little effort in curation, for networking sake, is just sad

@anshnanda “be brutally honest with me”

How do people deal with the models just calling you a genius for literally any idea you have?

moments of great cultural pressure lead to great films one series I’ve imagined: visit households where someone has lost their job to AI and just…ask how things are going. stay with them throughout their day and see what there is to learn. what are people hopeful about? what are they fearful about? what does tomorrow look like? feels like something @AnthropicAI would do, but the furthest frontier labs have gone in storytelling is polished 30s spots and “how X uses Claude” videos. safe, inert, void of real human truth. counter-intuitively, better storytelling here would force a reckoning with the public that puts the company ahead of the cultural curve, and subsequently better position this is something I’d like to produce, if I got the chance

@aditabrm congrats!

We had a number for biggest new contract in company history We’ve beaten that number twice in the last 48h

@mon__lim @M12vc @Stifel shoutout film twitter looking forward to more!

shoutout to all the friends who made it to our Devil Wears Prada 2 pre-screening last night!! TY for making it such a memorable eve. wholesome vibes were had 🍿✨💫 to having more fun & building more friendships @M12vc @Stifel

@chrisbrowntv fair, market has changed significantly since then (I assume) just my gut feeling based on discussions w/ media proprietors looking for an sf footprint

@bephrem It’s a super hard problem: I built out a studio space at 244 California in 2017 and tried to get folks interested until COVID — there just wasn’t enough budgeted production volume to make it worthwhile, and nearly every ask wanted a free producer/crew/post (even big co clients)

there’s a large opportunity for the buildout of physical film infrastructure in sf. funds with $100M AUM are recording in a random musician’s basement. nothing against any specific studio, but big stories and people changing the world deserve a better place to film than small rooms in basements. most options on the market right now are generic and the owners don’t really understand the clients that are coming in to record. let’s find a way to build these people beautiful sets, tailored to their brand and identity. I’m not very interested in owning/running physical infrastructure, but I’ve considered it. if you’re thinking on this problem or want someone to consult on this, dm me. I’ve been thinking about it for the past year.

@FurqanR @fdotinc very awesome, would love to learn more as things progress

@bephrem this is a great idea and something i'm hoping to get to. We built 3 media spaces at @fdotinc and its been cool to see how much use they get.

@thatguybg haha would be honored im actually watching the star wars trilogy Saturday

@bephrem george lucas will have a word with you

the studio above: sfpodcast.studio again nothing wrong with what anyone is doing, just we can do something much better here