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Meet Nicole Benjamin of Eatin Sandwichez Productions in Buckhead

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicole Benjamin.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Nicole. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I was born on Dec 13, 1994, in NYC and grew up in a suburb 20 minutes outside of Raleigh, NC and ultimately moved to Atlanta. My dad played minor league baseball and my mom was an artist and runway model—in fact, she was one of the first African-American women to design the showrooms and windows at Tiffany’s on Fifth Avenue in NYC.

Following in my mom’s footsteps, she got me into modeling as a child and I branched off into my passions of singing and acting, which I’m still doing to this day.

I went to a historic women’s college—Meredith College, where I learned that advocacy for women was important. Being in that space helped me grow by understanding that advocating for myself and other women was integral to being secure in myself and building a strong network of people that I could rely on.

That advocacy wasn’t only for women but being in a cohesive environment where we weren’t intimidated by another woman’s success but were able to celebrate everyone’s wins and benefit together.

I moved back to NYC and worked at Atlantic Records in various roles, from promotions to artist development. From that opportunity, I was able to hop around doing shows all over NYC and eventually land an artist and songwriter residency with Public Enemy and the Bomb Squad’s producer Keith Shockley. When I graduated, I was featured in Meredith College’s Women Going Strong stories about how I wanted to move to Los Angeles and form a production company—ultimately, I realized I wanted to start out in a smaller market, so I moved to Atlanta and then I did it.

Eatin Sandwiches started out as a podcast to see what was possible. It was an accelerator that let me experiment to create the goal of a production company.

I signed on with a talent agency right before the move and once I got to Atlanta, I began booking TV/Film and commercial work and quickly realized that while I loved working in those roles, if I were to make any success from such ventures, I would have to create my own opportunities. With all the experience I had in Arts Management and as a performing artist, I needed to figure out a way to highlight that and ultimately amplify it to bridge the gap between the business of being creative and being a business mind.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I’d been in entertainment my entire life. It was a goal and dream that I pursued actively. A huge obstacle for me was my biggest supporter—my mother—passing away. She was an integral part of my knowledge and savvy navigating through the entertainment industry. She was a great resource as an extension of the network that she knew in entertainment. But more than anything, she was my mother. Because she knew me inside and out, she knew how to help me connect to mentors professionally, but also how to love me and connect with me—she was my best friend. As a double-whammy, I lost the one person I loved more than anyone in the world, and I lost a connection to the world she was helping me to succeed in.

Please tell us about Eatin Sandwichez Productions.
Eatin Sandwichez LLC is a production company that consists of a collective of creative minds in the Atlanta area. We specialize in creative development, creative strategy, and producing visual and written creative content. From branded photographs and videos to music videos, to reels and various tv and film projects— all of our work aims to impact the community in a positive way. This is not only for the purposes of diversity and inclusion, but to inspire our viewers to do and be more.

Our strategy focuses on humanizing the experience of marginalized groups that often go unheard and do not have a platform or resources to communicate. The projects we produce emphasize the relevant stories of young adults and young professionals in the millennial and gen-z generations. We also tell stories amplifying the experiences of women of color and the lgbtq+ community.

I am most proud of Eatin Sandwichez LLC. as a whole for its ability to recognize each individual team member for who they are as people, be supportive of their individual talents, and see that each person internally is an integral part of the greater whole. I am most proud of Eatin Sandwichez LLC.’s community for striving to share their values, become pioneers in this world, and foster growth.

Our team is still hard at work on our website and future ventures, so keep an eye on our progress at eatinsandwichez.com. You can sign up for our email list there to be the first notified when it all goes live. You can also follow us on social media on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Keep an eye on this space for more information on future quotes and email inquiries to [email protected].

If you had to start over, what would you have done differently?
Wisdom comes from experience. If I had the opportunity to start over, I would tell my younger self to believe in myself and my abilities. I think growing up while trying to navigate an ever-changing and oftentimes unforgiving industry comes with its own challenges and insecurities can arise.

As a child, I loved all things performing arts and pursued the arts as far back as I can remember. As I got older, I maintained my love for the industry but experienced my fair share of self-doubts in regards to my talent. I would find myself wondering if I “could” do something seemingly unattainable, like be the artist I knew in my heart I always wanted to be. It was as if I thought my art, my work ethic, and my love for the industry wasn’t mine to cultivate. That said my insecurity also hindered my hustle and my desire to work toward my dream in an aggressive manner. If I could go back, I would tell my younger self I am talented and I need to hustle and make it happen now.

My peers have always said I was great and that I could perfect anything I wanted to do—but I would often feel imposter syndrome and want to make myself smaller. My family members would say, “you’re amazing,” and “you need to be more confident.” If I could start over, I would believe them! I would trust and invest in myself immediately. While these are feelings I have had to work through, I am undoubtedly privileged to have learned so much about myself, enough to bring me to where I am today, doing exactly what I should be doing now.

Where do you see the industry going in 5-10 years? Trends, shifts and changes?
In the next ten years, everything can be done online. It can be done remotely and you have the resources via the internet and through your own friend groups to get things done. Everything can be monetized and automated.

The industry will shift in the direction of what works—and that’s what works. As far as a big shift is concerned, I think we’ll be able to move away from the largest distributors being big powerhouses leaving the little guy without the resources to expand and grow.

While these entities will always exist, we’re evening the playing field. Anyone who wants to break into the industry will be able to do it without being hindered by gatekeepers and we’ll do away with those glass ceilings that limit our potential and act as barriers to entry.

Marginalized people will be at the forefront of that change. They’ll be the business, the culture, and as a person of color myself I can attest to us being the facilitators of thought and knowledge behind such change because we’ll have vested interests and we’ll know how to get past that.

Cloud computing and smarter technology is enabling us to get better insights and make better business decisions based on data that’s gathered intelligently.

Things that used to take a lot of manpower and years of technical expertise are becoming easier and more accessible to the general public. It used to take a whole production crew to rig a green screen and edit a new background in. AI is now able to create a green-screen based on facial recognition without even having a solid background from your smartphone, for example. The combination of accessible information, tools to help analyze your capabilities and perfect them goes a long way when it comes to developing processes for the entertainment industry. When it comes time to present yourself to the world, there’s an audience out there that seeks out what you’ve got to give. The fact that I have this knowledge, that so many others can get to the point of having it too and knowing there are ways to make success will shape the entertainment industry for years to come.

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Image Credit:
Banvoa Ettien, J “Slim” Robertson

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