Pleasure meeting you!
(678) 761-9434 | benlewin.newearth@gmail.com | LinkedIn: benlewin-newearth
Now, let’s get to work!
Benjamin is:
A highly organized, detail-oriented leader
Effective working under pressure and establishing meaningful connections with teams and clients
A writer with deep technical understanding, and problem solving skills, with an artistic design sensibility
Capable of seeing the big picture in the development of clear and concise strategies, plans, and projects
Professional Experience:
Gravity Jack, LLC – Spokane Valley, WA
Lead Game Designer Freelance, December 2023 – March 2024
● Creator of original and innovative design for a geolocation-based MMORPG for mobile, called WarTribe of Binyamin, featuring AR and AI in its core mechanics, aims to gamify crowdsourcing of NLP translation engines.
● Created extensive game design document and detailed 30-minute video essay on high level mechanics that inspired Gravity Jack’s board member Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, to say “I think that WarTribe of Binyamin fulfills my mandate that games need to be simple to learn, but impossible to master. It offers an onramp for a very powerful and dynamic new world.”
JUNO Live, Inc – Post Falls, ID
Lead Software Development Engineer in Test, March 2021 – March 2023
● Spearheaded a test automation solution that reduced redundant manual overhead by over 400 hrs / mo, negotiated AI-powered SaaS licenses saving the company over $20K within the first week of employment, and designed a conversational chatbot that escalated client issues helping increase Net Promoter Score from 40 to 80.
● Created exhaustive regression test list featuring over 5,000 test cases, authored non-brittle and modular AI-powered automation as part of a CI / CD pipeline that aided in catching showstoppers before deployment and prevented serious issues with clients’ live events. Supported all work with cohesive documentation for posterity and conducted training of QA team on automation in lieu of manual testing to enable proactive productivity.
Freelance Video Producer – Virtual
July 2014 – March 2021
● Helped Cyan Inc. raise $1.4M and Philip Shane raise $260K by producing compelling Kickstarter videos.
● Produced high-energy trailers and videos for Cyan, Skymap Games, Philip Shane, KontrolFreek, TalentQuest and various gaming studios that included writing scripts, hiring and directing talent, recording footage, editing video, creating motion graphics and special effects, and licensing music.
Atlanta Game Cooperative, LLC – Lilburn, GA
Freelance Producer, July 2014 – January 2021
● Prolific networking and talent acquisition, growing the company’s freelance talent base by a factor of 10x.
● Wrote game design documents, hired talent, licensed assets, and worked collaboratively with technical artists and Unity3D / Unreal Engine AR and VR developers for clients like PGA Tour and the NBA.
Booster Enterprises, Inc – Alpharetta, GA
QA Associate, July 2017 – July 2018
● Worked with an agile development team to identify and communicate risks found with systems or processes, performed extensive troubleshooting to isolate and document new bugs, which enabled hundreds of elementary and middle schools to manage their fundraisers, live events, and gift distributions successfully.
● Created clear, concise, detail-oriented test plans, conducted feature and integration tests, and wrote automated test cases with Java and Selenium WebDriver in a fast-moving development environment.
Biscardi Creative Media, LLC – Buford, GA
Intern, June 2013 – May 2014
● Promoted to writer, director, and editor of special projects which included off-site filming and client relations.
● Built and broke down film sets on location as a Production Assistant, operated audio and camera equipment.
TransGaming Digital Home – Atlanta, GA
Game QA Tester, June 2010 – August 2011
● Documented hundreds of severe and rare bugs with detailed reproduction steps and gameplay footage, preventing end users from experiencing game-breaking and hardware-crashing glitches.
● Performed rigorous and thorough QA testing of hundreds of Windows PC games on Linux set-top boxes using the Cedega compatibility layer to ensure usability and quality for cloud-based service.
Skills:
● Highly skilled at project management, innovation, client relations, quality assurance, writing, teaching, videography, photography, post-production, game design and development, and detail-oriented tasks
● Experienced in Adobe CC (esp. Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop), C#, C++, Java, Python, JS, TS, SCSS, HTML, SQL, Git, Unity3D, UE4, Godot, GB Studio, Aseprite, Logic Pro X
● Winning: I’ve produced videos for two successfully funded Kickstarter campaigns totaling over $2M in funding and have won 1st place in film competitions such as the NATAS Southeast Student Production Emmy Award in the category “long-form fiction” and $1,500 in the Metropolitan Water District High School Video Contest
Production & Video Editing
Responsible for: In-game footage capture (UE4), post-production, asset curation and licensing
Responsible for: Content IP (this video is my pitch to Universal Studios) and post-production
Responsible for: Production, post-production, asset curation and licensing
Responsible for: Content IP (original YT channel), post-production, asset generation and licensing
Responsible for: In-game footage capture (UE4), post-production, asset licensing
Responsible for: The video game protagonist timeline on the wall behind me as well as my extensive knowledge portfolio as an impromptu host for my friends at the Mimms Museum of Technology and Art. This video was the result of a last minute ask—something like: “Hey, we need a video for our sponsors. Can you come by at 7am tomorrow and talk about… something!?”
Responsible for: Scriptwriting, post-production, asset curation and licensing
Responsible for: Content IP, scriptwriting, narration, post-production, asset curation and licensing
Responsible for: Post-production only (part of an Adobe challenge)
Responsible for: Content IP (original YT channel), post-production, asset curation and licensing
Responsible for: Post-production only (game IP internal pitch)
Responsible for: Helping launch the Computer Museum of America in Roswell, GA (now Mimms Museum of Technology and Art). I worked with Lonnie Mimms and his team for years to convert tens of thousands of square feet into a display of the most historically significant machines known to Humanity. After it’s launch, I wrote for their online blog, created videos, and hosted VR booths, and hired live musicians, for their exclusive and elaborate investor dinners and fundraising events.
Journalism
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Making A Nintendo Switch From Scratch Is Surprisingly Cheap
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Banjo-Kazooie In Super Mario RPG's Art Style Is Seriously Awesome
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Next-Gen Witcher Game Development Begins Post-Cyberpunk 2077 Release
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Free Super Mario Bros. FPS Created In Unreal Engine 4
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Sony's PS4 May Have Outsold The Xbox One By Over 65 Million Units
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Half-Life: Alyx Is A Natural Fit On VR (According To Valve)
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A New Missile Command Game Is Releasing Soon
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Pokémon Turns Characters into Ancient Art With New Project
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Legendary Konami Code Creator Kazuhisa Hashimoto Passes Away at 61
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Gran Turismo Series Wants To Reach 240fps On Next-Gen Consoles
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Cooking Mama: Cookstar Brings Foodie Photos To Nintendo Switch
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Nintendo Releases the Best Switch Lite Color Option Yet
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Witcher 3: Nintendo Switch is Getting Cross-Save and Graphics Tweaks
Achievements
“I think that [Benjamin] fulfills my mandate that games need to be simple to learn, but impossible to master. [He] offers an onramp for a very powerful and dynamic new world.”
— Nolan Bushnell, Founder of Atari, Inc.“Benjamin, [the A.I. Confidential pitch video is] freaking outstanding—wow. It's exactly how I envisioned it—the nature and pacing of the clips cut together is spot on.”
— David Chen, Co-Founder of Critical Wit, Games Scriptwriter“[Hey, Rand Miller (Cyan, MYST). Your] Kickstarter video for Firmament is so KICKASS. Big props to you & whoever cut it.”
— Philip Shane, Documentarian at philipshane.com
1st Place NATAS Southeast Student Production Award in Long-Form Fiction 2013
1st Place Prize Winner of $1,500 in the 2014 Metro Water District High School Video Contest
YouTube Channel Challenge
Part of reaching 5 years of sobriety has included a diversion I never expected along this journey. As a friend told me, when I first started, about the Alcoholic’s Anonymous “90 in 90” challenge (attend 90 meetings in 90 days), I opted instead to make a YouTube channel and complete 90 uploads in 90 days. Eventually, I went back to AA and also obtained my 12 Steps Certificate from Celebrate Recovery the proper way. I gave my public testimony on stage before hundreds of people; and I’ll never forget the small beginnings I started with. Maybe that’s why I chose a fighting game as the subject matter of my challenge.
Video Editing Challenge
Despite having just received Series A funding and with Series B on the horizon, Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse saw our fast-growing Digital Live Events startup lay off 100 employees in a single day—St. Patrick’s 2023. I quickly flexed my editing skills in an attempt to create a freelance opportunity with Jay Dyer. I’d shorten his 3+ hour livestreams into a concise 30-45 minutes, without sacrificing ANY content. I wanted to see if I could do it. The result speaks for itself, but I never heard back. I also made a few YouTube shorts to practice my ability to distill large and complex concepts into bite-sized, memorable stories.