Professor Profile: Ben Steger

by Logan Bishop

Ben Steger is a documentary filmmaker and a professor for the Film and Video Studies department and Film and Media Studies program here at Mason. His new documentary, “Stage Four: A Love Story,” premiered at the Washington West Film Festival on Oct. 25.

“Stage Four” is a journey following Steger’s mother, Mary Jo, and his family as they cope with her stage four breast cancer diagnosis. Themes surrounding the film are imperfect love, acceptance and reconciliation.

Filming began “in May of 2005 and I finally got the sound mix and the final titles and credits in about a week ago,” Steger said.

Documentary films typically have a large shooting ratio, which is the relation between the minutes of raw footage filmed versus the amount of minutes pulled out to make the final cut. “Stage Four: A Love Story” is a 75 minute long documentary shot with “approximately 130-150 hours of footage.” This makes the shooting ratio about 150 minutes of raw footage for every one minute of final footage.

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