Benjamin Morgan:
Writer/Producer/Director

After being rejected by UCLA, Morgan curled up in a ball and vowed to abandon the filmmaking path. When the kleenex ran out, Morgan received an invaluable dose of inspiration from filmmaker Robert Rodriguez's book, "Rebel Without a Crew" and subsequently "enrolled" in his own personal, independent film school. Refusing to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a formal film school education, Morgan instead spent under $5000 (raised from friends, family, and local businesses) to produce three narrative video features. These "student films" won him critical acclaim and a reputation for creating entertaining, incredibly realistic films with little or no resources.

All of his movies revolve around the lives of at-risk youth. The stories are drawn from his own real-life experiences as a former troubled teen and his twelve years of professionally working directly with at-risk youth in the juvenile justice system.

The success of his do-it-yourself film school subsequently spawned the birth of Live and Learn Productions, a video production company for at-risk youth. Live and Learn Productions put Morgan's vision into the hands of local teens, empowering them with hands-on experience with video equipment and decision-making responsibility. Live and Learn has produced Public Service Announcements on gangs and drugs, documentaries on successful teen programs, and a teen talk show on Community Television.

Quality of Life is Morgan's feature film debut.

Thanks to massive state budget cuts late in the pre-production of the film, Morgan was laid off from his job overseeing a diversion program for juveniles arrested for misdemeanors. Since production has completed, he had been re-hired part-time - with no benefits - supporting a family on this and his wife's part-time job and their credit cards while self-distributing the film out of his basement.

Back in his own teen years, Morgan was a founding member of "Fantastic Fource," the most dominant Break Dancing crew in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1984-1986. Fantastic Fource won every major competition held in the Bay Area during that period and was widely respected on the streets as the crew to beat. Click here to see a video of Ben in action.