UNION COUNTY — After spending the last decade as the director of the Union County Juvenile Department, Ben Morgan is turning his sights to a new kind of director role — one which could end up with his name in Hollywood lights.

Helping at-risk youth and film are two of Morgan’s lifelong passions. For the last 32 years, he has worked with juveniles in the system while making films part-time. Now, Morgan and his family have packed up and moved to Los Angeles to pursue filmmaking full-time.

“I’ve been a part-time filmmaker for 35 years and I just want to see what happens if I’m full-time for a period of time,” he said.

Morgan got his start working in juvenile detention and children’s mental health. After moving to Union County in 2000, he established the teen court program. He worked with the program for 12 years before moving into his next role as director of the juvenile department.

Morgan said he was drawn to working with at-risk youth based on his own experience as a “troubled kid.” He wanted to be an adult that children could rely on and would make a difference in their lives.

Morgan said he survived his youthful troubles “because there was — at different points in my life — a significant adult came into my life and helped change the course of history for me in a way that might not have happened without them. And so, I was really drawn to that idea of being a change agent and helping people who are struggling.”

As for filmmaking, Morgan caught the bug early in life. His mother was involved in casting, so he had small parts in TV shows and commercials.

These two worlds collided in 1995 in Santa Cruz. He was working in the juvenile detention center when one of the therapists started doing theater work and making short films with the residents there.

“It really lit a fire under me,” Morgan said.

Film inspiration

The youth he’s worked with and his own life experience have influenced his filmmaking.

“The portrayals of at-risk youth in cinema are so inauthentic,” Morgan said. “So, I really wanted to portray that world in an authentic light.”

Morgan’s first three projects were short films he made in part to teach himself the nuts and bolts of filmmaking. These films were “gritty grassroots projects” about the lives of the kids he was working with — who also starred in the movies.

His first feature film intended for distribution, “Quality of Life,” came out in 2004. The award-winning movie was inspired in part by his own “troubled kid” past, as well as the life of a teenage neighbor. The film follows two graffiti writers in San Francisco as they navigate artistic expression and their diverging lifelong friendship.

“Quality of Life” merges Morgan’s passion for film with his world of at-risk youth and serves as a template for the kind of stories he wants to produce.

For him, he said, “Those worlds have always been truly intertwined. It’s been hard for me to avoid it.”

Morgan’s passion for movies has extended beyond filmmaking. He was a co-founder of the Eastern Oregon Film Festival and the Boise-based Filmfort.

“The community has always been really supportive of my filmmaking,” Morgan said. “I’m really grateful.”

Independent film and family

Morgan plans to pursue the independent filmmaking route with his projects, a decision he made after watching what happened to another script he wrote after making “Quality of Life.” 

The script generated some interest and producers got involved. In fact, the script has been optioned four times, but so far has gone nowhere. (An option is an agreement between a producer and scriptwriter in which a producer pays the writer and takes the script off the market for a period of time while the producer tries to develop the film.)

That process can involve a lot of waiting, which is one of the reasons why Morgan prefers the independent route.

“The beauty of making independent films is that you don’t have to wait around for anybody,” he said.

Also, Morgan believes independent filmmaking inspires creativity because when indie filmmakers encounter a problem they have to find a creative solution rather than just throwing money at it, the way they might if they were working on a big studio movie.

“You end up with a product that’s unique because the process was unique,” Morgan said.

He even wrote a book in association with “Quality of Life” about how to make a movie with no money. (The book is called “Putting the Pieces Together: The Graffiti Model for Indie Filmmaking.”)

The crews also are smaller on indie films, which Morgan prefers. He said a smaller team leads to more collaboration and gives the crew a sense of ownership in the movie because they’ve had direct involvement with the creative process. Bigger productions can feel sterile, he said, because everyone is siloed.

Morgan pointed to a moment in the production of “Quality of Life.” The crew was making fake blood with corn syrup and red food coloring, which is the industry standard.

However, Morgan wasn’t satisfied with how it looked. The crew put their heads together and brainstormed what else they could add to the fake blood to make it look more realistic. In the end, they had a unique concoction — the usual ingredients plus some crumbled-up Oreo cookies and a little dirt.

But none of that is to say that Morgan has sworn off more commercial filmmaking avenues.

“If someone offered me a Marvel movie, I’d take it. I’m not so indie I can’t do it,” he said, and laughed. “But I’m just more compelled to make my own stuff on my own terms.”

While Morgan hasn’t shut the door completely on the traditional route of filmmaking, he plans to focus his time and energy on writing, directing and producing his own independent projects. He added that his family will star in most of his films.

Morgan made the move to Los Angeles with his wife, Jocelyn Berado, and two teenage sons, Issac and Brady Morgan. All three are actors and have made appearances in Morgan’s work.

“It’s just a way for us all to work together and be together,” he said. “They’ll develop their reels, which is really important.”

Both boys have been involved in productions at the Elgin Opera House. Morgan said that as a blended family, theater and acting provided a way for them to bond. (Morgan’s oldest son, Shane Morgan, is already living in California while pursuing stand-up comedy and writing.)

Not goodbye

Despite the career pivot, Morgan is not ready to say goodbye completely to his work with youth in Union County.

He will retain his position on the board of the 906 Resource Center, 906 Sixth St., La Grande, which helps connect teens with health, education, employment, housing and mentorship services.

Morgan also plans to stay involved with the development of the Union County chapter of Friends of the Children. The national nonprofit organization works to end generational poverty by providing professional mentors to children, particularly those who face multiple systemic obstacles, from the time they are in kindergarten through high school graduation. Local stakeholders are working to launch a chapter in the county.

“I’ll never leave the field entirely. I care too much about it,” Morgan said.

Name: Benjamin Morgan

Age: 54

Fun fact: Morgan was in a breaking crew that held down the Bay Area from 1984-86. Check out his movies in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neXKJDsvLU4

Three films that inspire him: “Trainspotting,” “Goodfellas,” “Yearbook” (a short film)

Top film recommendations from 2024: “Dìdi,” “RATS!,” “Sing Sing”