Career Synopsis
Chelse Benham is a multi-EMMY©, Telly©, ADDY© award-winning producer, director, and editor with international, national, and regional awards, including the WEBBY People's Voice Award for the website reeltored.com.
Ms. Benham is a published journalist and author of articles on business protocol, interactive gaming and its future relationship with film. She has experience in television program development, promotions and marketing, social media, and game design. She has thirty years of professional experience.
Among the many awards and titles she has held, Ms. Benham is notably an American Film Institute Fellow for Digital Content Design, a founding board member of the Texas Motion Picture Alliance, and twice chosen U.S. delegate and fellow for Corporation of Public Broadcasting at INPUT International for documentary producers.
Ms. Benham is a published journalist and author of articles on business protocol, interactive gaming and its future relationship with film. She has experience in television program development, promotions and marketing, social media, and game design. She has thirty years of professional experience.
Among the many awards and titles she has held, Ms. Benham is notably an American Film Institute Fellow for Digital Content Design, a founding board member of the Texas Motion Picture Alliance, and twice chosen U.S. delegate and fellow for Corporation of Public Broadcasting at INPUT International for documentary producers.
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Bio and work philosophy
I believe that at the center of every innovative venture there are people willing to take risks, and in the process, create an excellent product or enterprise. With the right people on a team, remarkable things can be accomplished. For more than 27 years, I have had the opportunity to acquired expertise in many different areas working with different teams of people: from launching start-up companies to working for large established organizations; from grant writing to developing pitch presentations; from network television programming development to in-house video production; from multimedia marketing and to interactive website design.
In the early 1990s, I honed my television production skills working for national networks such as HGTV, A&E, the History Channel. By 1997, I started my first small video production company creating documentaries and informational videos for non-profit organizations.
Over the next five years, I produced many award-winning videos. In 2002, I moved to South Texas with my family and left the private sector to work in a University environment that afforded me entirely new innovative opportunities.
It was at the University of Pan-American in 2004, I developed in-house television production unit and created a Student Internship Program (SIP) within the office of University Relations. Over the next nine years this program would go on to create award-winning programs, digital media, and an iPhone game.
My first hands-on experience to interactive media came in 2007 when I received a fellowship for Digital Content Design at the American Film Institute in Hollywood, to research and develop phase one of TOYO® – an interactive television platform (beta) being developed in New York City. The experienced launched my fascination with immersion technology and its effect on digital natives. In turn, this inspired me to apply for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting American History and Civics Initiative grant with the support of University President, Dr. Blandina Cardenas. I was the Project Coordinator/Principal Investigator and co-designer of the planned Educational Programming Interactive Consortium (EPIC); multi-player interactive computer game and television collaboration for education in partnership with Johns Hopkins University, the University of Southern California, and UTPA.
The culmination of my experience up to this point led to the development of an iPhone/iPad native mobile app game called Bucky Challenge – a multilevel game marketing UT-Pan American to junior high school students to get them to think about going to college. The app went on to win a South Texas Regional ADDY® Gold Award in the professional experimental marketing category. Soon afterward, we created a Webby® People's Voice Award and a W3® Award-winning interactive website, showcasing five years of prized work in Reel to Red Productions (R2R) – the name of the student video production program.
In 2011, I returned full circle to the private sector when I was recruited as the Chief Marketing/Programming Officer (CMPO) for Cycle Vision Network (CVN.tv); a global online interactive television network and social community, which was in the development phase. CVN.tv was dedicated entirely to the motorcycling public. The network was supported worldwide by media partners, promoters, and motorcycle industry leaders who were looking for a direct way to engage the international rider community. Within three years, CVN did launch online in beta form, however, it was unable to convert into a profitable enterprise, losing its essential investors to global economic instability occurring at that time. This start-up experience provided me many challenging learning curves, and technological lessons that remain an invaluable part of my professional career.
Ultimately, being risk averse is not my approach to life. I am attracted to people and organizations that want to impact the world in some positive, life-affirming way, by taking calculated risks and attempting groundbreaking ventures. This is what motivates me to navigate uncharted waters in the hope of discovering new horizons. The following web pages reflect this professional journey that has taken shape over three decades.
My mantras:
"Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." "Envision, create, and believe in your own universe, and the universe will form around you."
In the early 1990s, I honed my television production skills working for national networks such as HGTV, A&E, the History Channel. By 1997, I started my first small video production company creating documentaries and informational videos for non-profit organizations.
Over the next five years, I produced many award-winning videos. In 2002, I moved to South Texas with my family and left the private sector to work in a University environment that afforded me entirely new innovative opportunities.
It was at the University of Pan-American in 2004, I developed in-house television production unit and created a Student Internship Program (SIP) within the office of University Relations. Over the next nine years this program would go on to create award-winning programs, digital media, and an iPhone game.
My first hands-on experience to interactive media came in 2007 when I received a fellowship for Digital Content Design at the American Film Institute in Hollywood, to research and develop phase one of TOYO® – an interactive television platform (beta) being developed in New York City. The experienced launched my fascination with immersion technology and its effect on digital natives. In turn, this inspired me to apply for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting American History and Civics Initiative grant with the support of University President, Dr. Blandina Cardenas. I was the Project Coordinator/Principal Investigator and co-designer of the planned Educational Programming Interactive Consortium (EPIC); multi-player interactive computer game and television collaboration for education in partnership with Johns Hopkins University, the University of Southern California, and UTPA.
The culmination of my experience up to this point led to the development of an iPhone/iPad native mobile app game called Bucky Challenge – a multilevel game marketing UT-Pan American to junior high school students to get them to think about going to college. The app went on to win a South Texas Regional ADDY® Gold Award in the professional experimental marketing category. Soon afterward, we created a Webby® People's Voice Award and a W3® Award-winning interactive website, showcasing five years of prized work in Reel to Red Productions (R2R) – the name of the student video production program.
In 2011, I returned full circle to the private sector when I was recruited as the Chief Marketing/Programming Officer (CMPO) for Cycle Vision Network (CVN.tv); a global online interactive television network and social community, which was in the development phase. CVN.tv was dedicated entirely to the motorcycling public. The network was supported worldwide by media partners, promoters, and motorcycle industry leaders who were looking for a direct way to engage the international rider community. Within three years, CVN did launch online in beta form, however, it was unable to convert into a profitable enterprise, losing its essential investors to global economic instability occurring at that time. This start-up experience provided me many challenging learning curves, and technological lessons that remain an invaluable part of my professional career.
Ultimately, being risk averse is not my approach to life. I am attracted to people and organizations that want to impact the world in some positive, life-affirming way, by taking calculated risks and attempting groundbreaking ventures. This is what motivates me to navigate uncharted waters in the hope of discovering new horizons. The following web pages reflect this professional journey that has taken shape over three decades.
My mantras:
"Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." "Envision, create, and believe in your own universe, and the universe will form around you."