B.D. Kuchera

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Benjamin Daniel Kuchera, (a.k.a. B.D. Kuchera) born on December 23, 1974 is an American film director, producer, cinematographer, scriptwriter, and film editor. In 2005, Kuchera launched his first PBS documentary, Steal Away: Music of the Underground Railroad. This was his first documentary, but not his first film. Kuchera has directed a feature film as well as several shorts and is working on a new documentary that is feature length.

Early life and work

Kuchera grew up in rural Indiana, the son of a Lutheran Pastor and School teacher mother. He has one brother, Peter, who is a film critic through Indiana University Public Television. B.D.'s father, (Dennis James Kuchera) and mother (Nancy Jean Kuchera) helped Benjamin through a period of great illness.

B.D. showed an interest in art at an early age. He was recognized by Art school college recruiters by the age of fifteen, and had already won a position as one of the best 100 Artists in Minnesota through Macalester College. Kuchera was admitted to the the Minneapolis College of Art and Design as part of the post secondary enrollment options program. He was the first student from South Saint Paul High school to ever be admitted to college as a high school student. He was sixteen.

Kuchera was allowed to be admitted to the Art school due to his testing in the IB Diploma Programme. He passed with the highest score possible in the Art testing program and was able to study at the Minneapolis college under his first full-ride scholarship.

He also studied photography, metal working, woodworking, video and New Media, as they were all part of additional studies at the school.

Starting to create cartoon work at nine, B.D. took a keen interest in animation by the age of twelve. He began working in 2D paper animation and within a few years after, began early computer animation in 1987. In 1990, Kuchera created a graphic novel by the name "The Nomads of Suburbia". It is only now being retooled for digital distribution with forty-five minute accompanying soundtrack for sale as an album on iTunes.

In his early teens in the late 1980s, Kuchera worked for a computer company and built Intel 8088 computers, and then other computers as the technology division grew throughout the 90s. He also sold video games, which was actually very profitable at the time, and seems rather impossible in today's market. It was there that he began advanced integration of computers into his artistry, and very few artists were delving into the early merger of Fine Arts and computer technology.

Kuchera wrote and directed his first 16 mm film in 1993 at the age of seventeen. The film, "Rest Stop 2 Miles" was a half-hour film directed by Kuchera, as well as edited, and photographed. He would shoot on location in Harristown and Taylorsville Illinois in cornfields and back roads. The key actors were Michael Harris and Michael Taylor, high school friends. Michael Harris soon after went to West Pointe and Taylor to Rutgers University. It was not long after shooting the film that it played on "MNTV", the PBS Minnesota Public Television Filmmakers channel. He also spent time in his teen years at "Film in the Cities", a small hole in the wall film guru group that talked about 16 mm film, 35 mm film and narratives in Minnesota. The Coen brothers were known to be a part of the Minnesota film connection, and many of the people at Film in the Cities were part of helping Coen productions. At the time, video was not taken seriously, and film had a major advantage in industry respect and image resolution. Through this period, Benjamin and his brother Peter were very close. Peter was attending the University of Minnesota where he took film studies. Benjamin was studying art at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Both brothers left Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1993. Peter moved to Los Angeles, and B.D. to Chicago.

B.D. Kuchera's first film, "Rest Stop: 2 Miles" allowed him to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago on another full-ride scholarship. The school was an elite school for designers and artists from throughout the world, and was ruthlessly selective on its prospective student admissions.

Higher education and active life in Chicago, Illinois

B.D. lived in downtown Chicago on Michigan Avenue, across from the Art Institute of Chicago Museum and two blocks from Lake Shore Drive. He lived in student housing and spent months walking the streets, taking taxis and subways to strange parts of the city. Kuchera would eat sandwiches in , hang out at the Shedd Aquarium, laugh about art with friends at Navy Pier, and watch the boats off Lake Shore Drive in the dead of winter. Occasionally he would walk through the gallery and stare at Fine Art works from the masters.

While in Chicago in 1994-95, Kuchera began writing his first feature film. Much of the story was inspired by the empty Chicago nights in downtown, and the strange paranoid artists and people in clubs and at raves. The film was called, "Mayfly Days: A Science Fiction Tragedy". In the summer of 1994, he would begin shooting his first 16mm feature film.

The film was photographed on a 16mm Arriflex camera without sync sound, and within two years the soundtrack was completely remastered from the ground up. The shoot ratio for the film was 2:1, leaving him only one take for most of the film. There were no dailies due to cost and time constraints, and Kuchera would not see the film physically projected for five years. A telecine allowed him to see the film early on in standard-definition television, but it was a cheap transfer directly from a bad release print that had seen neither Color correction nor Exposure correction. The telecine did however get him the tools to take a video version into editorial in 1996. That process would soon lead him to the California Institute of the Arts school of film and digital cinema.

He transferred from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1995.

Higher education and active life in Los Angeles

In early 1995, Kuchera attended the California Institute of the Arts where he would get his BFA in film directing and sound design in 1999. Kuchera had never been interested in a commercial film school (eg. USC/NYU/Columbia ), but was more interested in Art and the photography/sound/animation/ application within the Arts. CalArts was known for locking out people who saw themselves only as filmmakers. They encouraged people to not apply who did not have a passion for the arts beyond filmmaking, and it was nearly impossible to enter the college without an extensive Fine Art portfolio showing diversity beyond filmmaking. Due to his attendance in 1991 to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and the 1994 attendance to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Kuchera's portfolio was extensive and the work showed his interest in all the forms of Art. Kuchera had left SAIC (which was considered a better Art school) out of a desire to be involved in animation and moved to LA with the intent of applying his Artistry into all forms of media, as well as weaving his life into the other Art divisions within CalArts.

Kuchera was granted a heavy scholarship. He was the first Kuchera to ever attend an Art school. He expresses his gratitude to his friend and teacher Sean McLaughlin, who saw that Kuchera was gifted in the Arts. It was Sean that helped him focus on CalArts. McLaughlin had taught in New York at the Cooper Union, and Kuchera claims to have learned more about Art in the four years with McLaughlin than any other time in his life. Had it not been for McLaughin, Kuchera would have never attended CalArts or SAIC. McLaughlin was the chief encourager for Kuchera, and with his help, Kuchera was admitted to MCAD (fully), SAIC, and CalArts simultaneously. McLaughlin was also responsible for helping Kuchera train for the IB testing in Art, and his Post Secondary Enrollment Options admittance to MCAD.

At CalArts, Kuchera wrote, shot and edited his passion project "Mayfly Days" over the next several years in Los Angeles, California, Kuchera continued his studies at the California Institute of the Arts. He would leave several times from the Institution for reshoots and edits on very early Non-linear editing system machines he built himself.

Ben was woven into the city heavily, and walked on studio lots at Universal Studios, spent nights at the Belair Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, and went to parties in the Hollywood Hills. Ben drove through every part of Los Angeles that there was, brushing shoulders with filmmakers and actors. Peter and Ben snuck into the back doors of movie theaters and watched hundreds of films at the Sunset Five, "Grauman's Chinese" theater, and the "Galaxy Theater" on Hollywood Boulevard.

Ben was working on his film extensively at this time. At the California Institute of the Arts Kuchera got access to the CalArts film equipment late at night. Use was limited, and in order for him to edit his film on the heavily used six plate movieola machines, Kuchera would have to start his film edit at 2 am. It took two months to edit the release print. This was done with a razor blade and tape.

In Ben's last years at CalArts, he would be left alone in the city.

Ben spent time in Malibu, California and in Castaic, California on his own, and had a brief relationship with harpist Rebekah Raff. He made trips to San Francisco, California, the Redwood Forest, Tijuana and strange areas of Los Angeles and Southern California in a young discovery adventure.

Kuchera finished the film edit of "Mayfly Days" in Los Angeles in 1999. He graduated from CalArts in May of 1999.

Post secondary education and life

Kuchera continued to attend the University of Cincinnati under his third full-ride scholarship. Fine arts and Electronic media studies allowed him to work on his Master's degree, and it was there that he was able to finish the soundtrack to his feature film -a major step toward completion. He completed two years in Masters studies. Two years later he left to work in the commercial film and video production industry. Cincinnati, Ohio enabled him to delve into additional work in sound design and web and internet media theory.

Scriptwriters phase

After leaving Cincinnati, it would take another seven years for Kuchera to finish his feature film "Mayfly Days" in HiDef. The project took thirteen years to finish and has not yet been released due to music licensing issues. Kuchera refuses to release the film without its original soundtrack in place. Kuchera says in reference to his film, "It is better unseen and sitting on the shelf right than to be out in the world wrong".

He started extensive screenplay writing between the years of 2001-2006

Life begins again

In 2003, Kuchera moved to Lexington, Kentucky. Sarah Bajus and Benjamin Kuchera were engaged on June 5th, 2003 at the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls. They were married one year later on June 12, 2004.

By a twist of fate, after many dark and doom-filled stories in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, Ben would encounter a small church called Quest Community Church. At the time some five hundred people attended. By 2008, the number had reached over 3,500 people. The church is still radically growing to this day.

As a pastor's child, growing up in the Lutheran church had made a "truth barrier" for Kuchera. He had been baptized as a baby, grown in the church, a choirboy, studied devotionals, took his first , went through catechism, and eventually became a "member" to a church. His spiritual story came to a stopping point when he moved to Chicago, and he did not go to church for six years.

On June 5th, 2005, after much struggles with subtle Christian protestant dogma, Kuchera would realize that he had never fully given his life to Jesus. Pastor Pete Hise hand to hand personally lead been through a prayer to receive eternal forgiveness for his sins, and it was there that Ben took Jesus as his Savior. He was baptized at 30 years old on June 12, 2005 and made his public statement of being a Christ follower. The significance of his acceptance and public profession of faith in Jesus and his baptism had a seemingly accidental connection to his proposal and marriage to his wife Sarah on exact dates of prior years. (June 5th and June 12th)

Feature film finishing

Not long after June 5th, 2005, Kuchera would begin shooting a documentary that would take him four years to complete. At the same time, Ben began to fully finish his "labor of love" film (Mayfly Days) in HiDef. Michael J. Taylor, a twenty year friend of Kuchera's, would sit in editorial and make suggestive changes beyond Ben's final cut of his now digital film. Fourteen minutes were shaved off of Ben's final cut. The run time of the film had ended at 114 minutes. But before the Final cut privilege, in order to get the film to a place where it could get to the final cut, it would take a telecine. An investment of 60K would take the film to completion.

The film "Mayfly Days" was produced by Michael J. Taylor and Ben Kuchera and cost over 100K to shoot and finish. Taylor and Kuchera have collaborated on almost every single commercial Art project that Kuchera has ever designed. Taylor is a writer and producer of documentaries and narrative films. He was also a journalist, and supports Kuchera and talks with him quite often as a friend, and artistic guide.

Current life

Benjamin and his wife Sarah Kuchera now live in Lexington, Kentucky. Sarah is a worship leader at Quest, and Ben is an independent filmmaker, illustrator, and musician. Sarah is a great hero to him, and Ben finds himself surprised and challenged by Sarah more than anyone he has ever met. They are collaborating on a Christian children's book and hope to finish the book by 2009.

Kuchera is also grateful to Pastor Pete Hise, who made a decision that has effected lives of thousands of people who have now crossed from death to life by accepting Christ. Ben is one in the number of many who are saved.

In many ways, between Ben's faith and his film came full circle. Kuchera explains that he is "now a Christian and nothing more". He also has stated "Religious denominations, rules and regulations aren't part of my faith". He leads a relatively quiet faith, doing his best to lead and inspire people with his life and experiences.

Blueprint Saints Magazine

Blueprint Saints Magazine is a underground comic magazine that will be launched in the city of Lexington, Kentucky. It is a magazine run by B.D.Kuchera and Joe Lewis, and there are over 100 artist that are part of the magazine family.

Launch Cover: Issue 1

Artistic long-term projects and goals

Kuchera has made many comedy and music albums that are for sale through iTunes under one of his public names, Benjamin Kuchera. Kuchera was also a graphic design professor, and is still an artist by trade. He is the founder of an underground comic magazine out of Lexington, Kentucky called "Blueprint Saints Magazine". B.D.Kuchera, Nicholas Floyd, and Joe Lewis are founders of this underground comic magazine. Floyd is a fine artist. Joe Lewis is the lead administrator for the magazine. The magazine is set to be introduced to the city of Lexington as an Arts and Comic magazine. It will be the first of its kind ever in the state.

Kuchera continues to paint, draw, write. He also designs, is an animator, and digital filmmaker. After leaving Art school completely, Kuchera began to accelerate his production in the arts. He is now working on a novel entitled "When the Fever Runs High", has an additional book in its final stages called "Jackhammer", and is reworking all his screenplay work for production as independent films. He does not write films for other filmmakers to direct for now -he directs his own work.

Kuchera is finishing his next documentary with the working title, "The W.K. Project" It has been in production for three years and is set to be completed by 2010.

In the end, Kuchera is now reworking his entire approach to the Arts by applying his faith experience into higher level concepts of Christian Art, and living a life within the Arts by inspiring other artists to reach beyond expressions of self.

Film directorial career

Kuchera has made five films. His commercial television film called, Steal Away: Music of the Underground Railroad Played on PBS and premiered at the historic Kentucky Theater. In the documentary, Kuchera follows a college chorale along the route of the Underground Railroad. The songs the chorale carry forward in modern day were once songs that slaves sang with Harriet Tubman as they traveled from the Southern United States. Along the way, historic sites like the Dawn Settlement, and Harriet Tubman's church are seen.

The film "Rest Stop: 2 Miles", "Mayfly Days" and "The W.K. Project" are all being completed. These films will be released in tandum.

Project Listing:

Early experimental works (CalArts/SAIC): Smoke Walker, Zombie Boys, Seven Ways for a Bug to Die, The Criminals, The Nomads of Suburbia

Commercial films:
Little Big League ( Reconstruction editor / PA )

Directed and Produced commercial films: Rest Stop 2 Miles (1993: Recut 2009) Status: In Production --- Steal Away: Music of the Underground Railroad (2005) Status: Completed --- Mayfly Days: A Science Fiction Tragedy (1995-2010) Status: Completed --- The W.K.Project (Production 2005-2010) Status: In Production

Screenplays in production (Kuchera/Taylor)

WORKING TITLES: The Sound in the Walls - Crushed - The Trial of the Future - Adapting to Dreams - Playing with Matches - Pig - Twice the Crime - Nobody's Tree

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