Help Me Finish the Movie:JazzTown
“JazzTown is like a free form jazz performance. Jazz fans will find JazzTown to be of strong interest.”
~ Scott Yanow, jazz journalist
Ben Makinen is a recording artist, composer (BMI), producer and award-winning filmmaker. In 2002 he founded the record label Bmakin Music and in 2010 he founded his film production company Bmakin Film.
With a minimum donation of $15 US dollars you will receive a link to preview the 1st hour of the director’s rough-cut of JazzTown before it enters post-prod for a final edit.
With a minimum donation of $35 US dollars you will also receive a link to Ben’s award-winning short The Mission.
These films have not been commercially released-they are not available anywhere else!
All donors will receive special credit here on this site’s JazzTown page.
Please use the Pay Pal “Donate” button above, or donate at Venmo:
”@Ben-Makinen”
“Thank you so much for supporting artists, especially during the pandemic that has seen the entire gig economy upended, leaving most of us unemployed,” Ben Makinen
Makinen is a Grammy voting member of The Recording Academy, having joined their Producers & Engineers Wing in 2013.
He received the award for Best Sound Design in the 2019 Nederland International Film Festival as the director of the music video Alone At Sunset.
The Emerging Filmmaker's Project awarded Ben a 2019 EFP Official Selection for his short film Anthropocene.
Ben Makinen founded the International Modern Film Alliance in March of 2020. The IMFA’s mission is to teach and promote the art of modern storytelling through the marriage of music and film. He is currently seeking a non-profit status for the IMFA and will begin workshops in Bali, Indonesia in partnership with The Bali International Film Festival: Balinale.
Born in Maine, Ben grew up in California, Washington, and Oklahoma before graduating high school in Colorado.
Seeing Miles Davis perform live three times and then meeting the Dalai Lama in person forever changed the way Ben would approach the art of music and film~with honesty, strength, beauty and compassion.
As a drummer and percussionist, he has been touring the world as a sideman since 1985 with r&b, funk, and rock bands, jazz trios and big bands, avant-garde electronica ensembles, in Broadway shows, and on international cruise ships. He has performed as a percussionist with the Central City Opera, the Colorado Symphony, and the Colorado Chamber Players.
Makinen composed the score to the short film Strong Tea directed by Kelly McAllister.
Ben is the producer of the latin-jazz album Fishleather Jacket which received the Roger Bobo Excellence In Recording Award in June of 2006. Ben is also a 2006 Independent Music Awards Finalist- Film/TV-Multimedia for his song 6AM.
Ben's CDs are available from the Bmakin Music Store at CDBaby.
His songs can be downloaded from all major digital music vendors including iTunes and Rhapsody. As a leader and sideman, Makinen has performed on over 100 recordings.
A few of the CDs he has produced: Area 15 Live , Lost Lullaby , December , Fishleather Jacket , Rekha , Anything Goes! , Tenderly , The Goliath Beetle & The Ladybug ...
He has also produced a DVD of traditional african dance and music featuring David Gweshe's troupe Boterekwa from Zimbabwe.
Ben Makinen's short films are found on YouTube!
Makinen maintains a busy schedule producing, composing and performing music and editing and directing film and music videos.
Ben's recent acting pursuits have landed him a role in the zombie movie Lucky Stiff. He is also cast as a masked alien in Magnets, a film by Alan August. In the early 80s, as a teenager living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Ben was cast as an extra in Francis Ford Coppola's film the Outsider's. Ben has also written a children's story on the adventures of two turtles named Chim & Chum.
Bmakin Film Email
Filmmaker Ben Makinen on location in Colorado
Ben Makinen's short Sci-Fi Thriller, "THE MISSION" is awarded Official Selection at the 2020 Emerging Filmmaker's Project Film Fest