#271 Inside the Mind of a Filmmaking Visionary Evan Matthews

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:28

All right, Chelsea, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You get the show going each and every week, and this week was no exception. Welcome, everybody to Episode 271 of classic conversations. As always, I am your host, Jeff Dwoskin. Great to have you back for what's sure to be a classic episode for the ages. Screenwriter director Evan Matthews is with me today. That's right. Director of recoil the teleios Act has amazing stories. From the time he was Mark Burnett's right hand man producing the MTV Music Awards. And so ah, I got to save some for the show. That's coming up in just a few seconds. And in these few seconds, do not miss my conversation with Craig shamon, president of the Jim Henson legacy, and author of Sam and friends, the story of Jim Henson's first show that is a mapper rific episode, but also mapper EVIC. Is today's interview with Evan Matthews giving us the ins and outs of film school shooting his record breaking award winning short films so much goodness coming out right now. All right, everyone. I'm excited to introduce my next guest, writer, director, ingenue, Deaf Eric, can I say that? Yeah. Evan Matthews. Hello.

Evan Matthews 1:55

Hey, it's great to be here.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:57

I was checking out your movies, too. I watched to your shorts. I watched recoil. And the teleios act. Dude, you got skills. You're talented. I mean, wow. So I've been trying to tell everybody I get reach out all the time. Reach out. I get people reaching.

Evan Matthews 2:13

You get reach arounds, all I get is off my

Jeff Dwoskin 2:17

wife. I just nothing gets her more upset. You watch the movies, and you're like, oh, nice home movie. And then haven't these were like, insanely good. And I know you didn't do them on huge budgets or anything like that. I just mean, like, but everything about it was great. The visual. I mean, I don't need to tell you. I mean, I just wanted to start off with I was blown away.

Evan Matthews 2:36

I appreciate that. That never gets old. So I will always take it. So that's one of those, you know, you get distance between those projects. You kind of forget war stories behind any start coming back to you're like, Yeah, that was really hard. Yeah, I almost wanted to quit everything after that, like recoil almost just totally broke me. It made me want to just reconsider going into filmmaking after already dedicating seven, eight years in the industry. At that point, it was so hard, but then there's so much fruit that came from it afterwards, it was absolutely worth it. And now me and even like the VFX team, everyone involved, we all look back on that movie fondly as like one of the best experiences of our lives, even though it's incredibly brutal. Those are really hard work. I mean, especially the recoil thinking, we made that for around 5055 grand for that short film sounds like a lot. But you know, for your viewers, anyone listening, if you go watch that movie, you can see on the Deus channel, you can see it on my YouTube channel, which is very small, we had to build a set from scratch, like there's no spaceships sets around Los Angeles, and the ones that are like standing sets have been shot on to death, and you don't want to look like everybody else's movie. So you want to make something from scratch. And this spaceship is a character and a story point. And that's got to come across, you got to do it right and make sure that people that are building it aren't just using the budget for beer money. So you have to keep checking in. And that was my USC thesis film, by the way, because I got into the master's program there. Yeah, really swung for the fences on that one. And then the teleios act that was done for about, you know, just over 10 grand, two and a half, three days of filming. That was a fun one I can I can dig way deeper into both of those movies. It's up to

Jeff Dwoskin 4:12

you. I do want to dig deeper into both but let's let's go backwards real quick. And I don't think 50,000 is a lot I would imagine. If Tom Hanks was on a film 50,000 would cover like his lunch probably

Evan Matthews 4:23

I heard Michael Bay's microphone budget is like $30,000 for throwing megaphones around. So there's different ways to spend that money.

Jeff Dwoskin 4:32

So just so everyone knows, because we'll probably be talking about a bunch of different things, but I'll put links in the show notes so you can check these these short films out and they're well worth it. I promise because I'm banking on this interview being one of those things that they look back years from now. And go Oh, famous director Evan Matthews. Oh yeah, look at this old recording he did on classic conversations. What was like growing up like what sparked your interest in in movies and wanting to be a movie maker?

Evan Matthews 4:59

Oh man. It's good. be like the most cliche thing in the whole world. I was just such a Star Wars kid I remember being like a little boy and watching. It was The Empire Strikes Back some cable channel where there's like commercials in between, you're like trying to watch the movie. And I was just like, it's Yoda real. I can't even believe it yet. That little frog guys real thing is, I mean, just total escape. And I lived in Connecticut at the time, and there was plenty of snow. So me and my brothers would like jump on each other. And we're each Han Solo writing TonTons trying to find Luke and just having our little adventures in the backyard playing Star Wars, it was just something we fell in love with. It started a love of just fantasy, falling in love with movies that you actually want to go to the theater to see. And that just hasn't changed all these years later. But I never thought that was something that would ever be in the cards for me, especially living on the East Coast being so far from Hollywood, I was like, that's a pipe dream. That's not something a real scenario for me. So we'll just figure out my course of action as it comes at me.

Jeff Dwoskin 5:58

I think Star Wars probably inspired a lot of people for me probably like it was just the beginning of like, a love of pop culture. I don't know if I'm older, I actually saw Star Wars in the theater.

Evan Matthews 6:10

I think my mom told me, she brought me when we when I was a baby to like return to the Jedi or something like that. It was just it's just like, yeah, we waited in line and brought you guys with us. Because it was like the biggest thing in the world to do is to go see, I'm from 1981. So I wish I could have seen it in theater and like have a blockbuster experience. I mean, what was that? Like? Do you remember like going and seeing in theaters,

Jeff Dwoskin 6:34

movies were different back then. Because like now I feel like movies come out. And like a month later, they're gone. When I was a kid growing up, like a movie came out. And it was in the theater like it felt like forever. I remember going on my birthday, it was a very specific thing we came home and the power went out as a fond memory. We're like with the neighbors and all that kind of stuff. But I mean, I remember seeing it a bunch of times. And then when when the special editions came out, and they rerelease them one by one with this special edition versions. I remember going back and watching it again. There's something about watching like old movies, I went and saw the Wizard of Oz on the big screen. One of our Fox Theater ran on the big screen. Like some things, it's just, it's interesting to watch, like and get that experience.

Evan Matthews 7:14

You just want like go back and see it. Like there's some theaters here in Los Angeles. Like there's the Arclight they'll have like specialty screenings every month you can, I'll just put on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, just go watch it in the theater again, which is amazing. I just got an email today for the arrow theater in Santa Monica. You can go see momento, I'm gonna go do that. Like it's so cool. We can go and see these things in the theater and re experienced them. But now we're a little older. So we have a new lens in which to experience and pick up new things. And to go back into that big dark room again. It's so special.

Jeff Dwoskin 7:44

There's just something about it being really big. I was just watching a Soca and I was traveling, so I watched it on my iPhone. Okay. And then I got home and my wife was like, I'm interested in that show. And I'm like, oh, we should watch it. I've never seen it. So yeah, let's check it out. Every now and then I would slip and like, knew too much. But watching it even on the by big screen TV was a much better experience than on the iPhone. So as great as it is that portable devices, you lose things, the smaller they get. So the bigger they get you start to see some of these details that yes, I think even in one of your short films you're like, but on headphones. Don't play this through your speaker.

Evan Matthews 8:21

Oh, yeah. It's like my description at the bottom. Yeah. And you know why that was because when I was making recoil, I knew I was gonna go to film festivals, blankets, submit to as many things as I could get into, especially when you're like a hard sci fi movie like that, you can get into a lot of like specialty niche festivals that really are catering to that. So we went to like over 50 film festivals around the world. And we got like 22 nominations, like over 10 Awards, which is pretty good. And it's very competitive in that space is a ton of fun. And we have like fervent fans, and I love it. It's just it's the best because I'm one of those fans. And I knew that I was going to screen a lot. So we were always debating are we going to do like a stereo mix for people to watch screeners or watch online? Are we going to do a five one so we can have the best theatrical experience possible. So me being greedy filmmaker, I was just like, Let's do five one. Let's do five one and give people the bigger experience. But so far, the shelf life of the movie doesn't perform as well on people's laptops and phones unless you put your headphones on and have a little bit of bass to it, and you get more of the atmospheric experience from it. So it does enhance it. So I tried to push that on people when I can, because there's no more theatrical screenings unless I started holding my own specialty Los Angeles screenings one day, so fingers crossed, that all works out and there's some sort of retrospective at some point for friends and family at least maybe,

Jeff Dwoskin 9:42

Evan, are you a fan of The Twilight Zone?

Evan Matthews 9:44

Yeah, absolutely. There's an episode I referenced for the making of recoil. There's a specific episode of The Twilight Zone. I'm just I'm totally blanking on it.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:54

I wasn't saying like specific I didn't tie it back to a specific thing but the vibe of teleios act and and recoil, the type of storytelling where, yeah, seemed like inspired by, you know, like a Rod Serling type, which I did, it's like a futuristic story the the endings, not what you expect. I mean, that's a good thing.

Evan Matthews 10:13

I mean, that's what you're aiming for as a filmmaker as well, because first of all, you want to straddle that line, you want to be as neutral as possible. So people are constantly doing two plus two trying to figure out the movies or they're actively engaged in it, and then you take them someplace else. But I love that you have these alternate worlds where these cautionary tales of sorts whether whether with recoil and the brother relationship, and that's more of an emotional one, or the societal stakes in teleo sack, it gets people thinking and it's fun, because when you do like Q and A's afterwards, you end up getting a lot of questions like what happened to this? What happened to that? Is that, is there a feature length version? Where does it go from here? So and that's a fun game to play. And you want people to be engaged because then they're attaching themselves to the story to your characters. They're getting it mission accomplished there. So that's always a treat when he keeps the conversation going, because they used to be like that you go to the theater, and then you're hanging out with your friends afterwards. And you're still talking about the movie, go to Denny's or whatever, and you're just having some pie. You're talking about the movie still, what you liked what you didn't like, I'd like some real crazy cinephile friends that see stuff that I haven't even seen. I'm like, Dude, what are you talking? How do you have time to watch? It's just crazy. But they'll bring like different perspectives and different things out of the movie and not along say, yeah, it is it was kind of like that hunt. So trying to bring that back into it. I would

Jeff Dwoskin 11:28

like to dive deeper into your reference of Denny's of all places.

Evan Matthews 11:34

It's just, you know, it's that greasy spoon place. Well, I also, you know, just being like, poor college kid or high school kid. It's like, you just go to Denny's and everyone else is kind of there as close to the movie theater, at least where the theater was in Danbury, Connecticut where I grew up. Even in high school, I did some high school out here in California. That's what brought me out to California. Yeah, it's just a memory of like hanging out after hours. Very innocent. Just talking movies, just I worked at a movie store, like at a rental house is very specific time when it was transitioning from VHS to DVD. And by the time of like my two years there, that was when Blu Ray and I think it was like HD DVD. Like there was like the two competitors at the time were both like on the shelves. It was always a part of the conversation where I was always talking shop always talking about movies, never knowing I would actually end up going that career path I love was just already there. And I love that I got to work in a movie store. I was not blockbuster. They never hired me. I could never pass like their background check or something. Not that I was super shady or anything. I couldn't get into blockbuster. So we're at this Mom and Pop place called Video depot, because it's the cast of characters that work there. And that frequently the place. So

Jeff Dwoskin 12:42

the Ma and Pa places where the best and the manager or staff suggestions.

Evan Matthews 12:49

Yes, everyone had their taste profiles.

Jeff Dwoskin 12:53

Sorry to interrupt had to take a quick break, I check out the manager selections in my local video store, or just whatever's on the Netflix preview. But seriously, I do want to take this moment to thank all of you for your support of the sponsors. When you support the sponsors. You're supporting us here at Classic conversations. And that's how we keep the lights on. And now back to my conversation with Evan Matthews. He's going to school us on film school. And we're back. You mentioned you went to USC School of Cinematic Arts. What is it to get a degree in filmmaking? Like what kind of classes do you get? What advantages does it give you to have that degree versus just the natural talent? Like what does it teach you? Or is it just a LOT Theory like I'm curious,

Evan Matthews 13:41

it's a little bit of both. They have a bunch of different disciplines at USC. So the main program, the School of Cinematic Arts is focusing on all things production, and you're pretty much going to choose your discipline and your emphasis within that track because they also have like the VFX school and then they have like the composer's school, and then strictly screenwriting only and production covers all of it so you can kind of it's this umbrella program. So for me, I want to go in for directing, but you have to do a little bit of everything you have to edit you have to do sound design, you have to crew other people's projects you have to produce you have to write but I went in with the intention of directing. It's a pretty competitive program I think about when I was attending is about 48 people got in for the year. You start out with its theory like film a little bit of film study and analysis which is my background it with my undergrad at UC Riverside which is like the middle of California everyone knows where it is because they're trying to get out of their day I graduated me and my brother I have a twin brother and we just do everything together we like left and move to LA we didn't know what we were doing. We didn't have an apartment we just went to some like giant structure that probably had a vacancy and got a place anyway. But USC Yeah, you have to take like ideation classes. So it's a combination of theory and then there's like the practical application like you have like your your first semester you're going to make a short film and then Every semester after that you're going to focus on a different discipline. You might not be making more short films you might be contributing to other people's or satisfying like some sort of graduation requirements or like advanced program by crewing it in some capacity, like being a producer on a documentary or editing a documentary, and I did all of those things. I really put myself in every single position, I tried everything out. And I actually realized how incredibly important screenwriting was. And that was about halfway through film school, I was so hard core going into directing. And I got to a point where I'm like, Alright, do I know enough because I'm making stuff creating things and pushing the limits. But I don't feel like my work is as good as it could be. And I want to have more confidence working with actors as well. So I figured, okay, I have to switch gears and move into screenwriting. So I took my first screenwriting class absolutely loved it, it was just like such a mind opening experience. I'm like, okay, learning the structure, how to work in turn a scene like instead of me just accidentally kind of getting it righteous from whatever I asked most movies over over the decades. Now I'm being very deliberate in my action and how I'm applying myself. So now I'm on this directing path, I'm on the screenwriting path. So I end up going for a dual emphasis in the production program. So now I'm I'm going to satisfy requirements for both directing, and screenwriting. And to finish out the directing one, you have to direct a thesis film. To finish out the screenwriting one, you have to write a feature length screenplay, and then completely rewrite it and have a whole new clean draft you can use if you're going to submit to agents or festivals or whatever. So I did both. I pitched a very ambitious thesis film. Now not everyone gets to direct a thesis film, they only pick a handful each year it whatever graduating semester you're aiming for. And I was like one of the six at that particular time and they're like Evan, you're never going to be able to make this movie, you're probably going to spend two to $300,000. And it's gonna take you about three years to make it bar our estimation based on what other students have done in the past, but they never had a student make a movie with that many VFX shots actually set like a school record with 265 VFX shots in recoil. And it was a beast, I had no idea what I was getting into, I had only taken like VFX one on one. And like the VFX program that they offer, and you can have like crossover education. So I took the VFX intro class just to have like a basic language. And then I really got lucky with the new VFX faculty member that came in his name is Mike Fink, like finger won the Academy Award for the Golden Compass. But he's worked on everything from like Blade Runner to 89 Batman and creating the VFX for that, to like Terminator and Jurassic Park. He's one of those guys you meet in Hollywood who's just done everything he's had his hand and everything. So he walks in, nobody knows he's there, because he's brand new, except for me, because everyone's like, we're too busy, you should go talk to this guy. So me and him partnered up became buddies. And now you can't like get an appointment with the guy everyone's trying to knock his door down. But for like, two three semesters, it was me and him every single week, plugging away and talking me into cutting shots, talking me through shots, looking at rushes, putting me in touch with like his VFX friends finding different shortcuts with how to like get faster shots created or less complex, like no grids. And in Nucor, Maya to be really efficient with your time and your rendering. So just little things that just go along way this outs always be a huge advocate for like mentors and mentorship or even hiring coaches. Essentially, this is what USC will provide you or any film school really. And this is the advantage, there's pros and cons of the advantage is that you can time collapse and have a bubble that's really focused on you and whatever you want to do. Because I came from like working in the entertainment industry really climbing the ladder, having a lot of jobs anywhere from like an intern to production assistant to key PA to an assistant to executive assistant to producer and then hitting the reset button because I was being like, you know, typecast as like a reality person that was not a reality person. But that was the was the most successful. And at that point, all my training up until that part of my career was in film. So I had to hit the reset. I always worked for somebody else, it was time for me to just work on myself. So we have like three and a half, four years where you can do that. And shorten the timeline that you can get all these experiences in. So instead of saying okay, it takes 10 years to try to do all these editing jobs and sound design and bla bla bla bla bla, you can do it in like three to four years. So you could save a lot of time there. So that was a lot. I can just keep talking if you want to jump in.

Jeff Dwoskin 19:34

No, it's fascinating. It was a great answer. I was wanted someone were interested in following that path. I mean, I think that's a great amount of information and guide the Mark Burnett stuff and that was internships that come before the school or was that after

Evan Matthews 19:50

that was before USC Believe it or not? Yeah, so this is that was all after UC Riverside where I got my major in film theory and critical Will studies so they didn't have any production anything. They had one camera, you could rent, I rented it multiple times, and took the same class multiple times just so I could make short films, which like nobody sees because there's so bad we would do in camera editing because I didn't know how to edit. So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna shoot this or move the camera and shoot this and then shoot. This is all just in camera. So it's just, it's fun. I don't recommend that. But you learn a lot. While I was at UC Riverside, a buddy of mine was going to USC, I was so jealous. And I was like, I wish I wish I was good enough to get in there as well. My hero filmmakers went like Lucas and Zemeckis and Coppola and you see, like Spielberg's names on the wall and Brian singers names on the wall, and then they crossed his name off the wall. Some of the greatest filmmakers and writers and directors and producers of all time have gone through their it's amazing posers. It's just it's really phenomenal. But I've never thought was in the cards. So he was interning in ISC. So I was like, Hey, can I can I come visit you and stay with you? I have this internship at Sony Pictures, but I'm commuting so far from Riverside. It's like a 90 minute drive each way. And the traffic, you know, it was terrible in Los Angeles. Because like, Yeah, sure. So I went to the Sony law and and I was actually at a company called Phoenix pictures is one of the subsidiary companies. For Sony, they had like an overall deal with Sony and Phoenix pictures was great. I started off in the story department where you're just copying scripts and taking coffee around and doing mindless data entry and doing some coverage. And you do it with a smile and it starts to wear you down. But the best part of that internship was that I was there so early because of how far I had to drive. So I get to know the rest of the staff there. And that'd be the last one to leave. So I'm there with all the executive assistants who are just like burning the midnight oil because of what the job demanded. So that actually moves me out of the story department. I ended up being on the executives desk, and his name was Mike Medavoy. And I'm like metal boy is probably a name most people might not recognize unless you're in the industry. And you're like, oh, yeah, he's got a best pictures. So I mean, he's the like, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, he worked on Rocky, he's just a black swan and other films like so he's just had this huge spanning career. So I got to be on his desk. And that's where I was really, like thrown to the wolves a little bit to see what Hollywood was like. So the first assistant would take like, cigarette breaks all the time. And I would just sit there like terrified whenever my phone would ring because they would always be an agent screaming at me. I need Mike now I need to talk to him right now. Like yeah, I'm sorry, what's your name? And how do you spell that? And they're like, just screaming at me. I was just, it was just so much emotional damage

Jeff Dwoskin 22:34

from that your own devils were a product situation there. The

Evan Matthews 22:38

stories are true, like the Hollywood story stuff. I remember, you just get these funny phone calls that would come in. Okay, well, I'll tell this one. So this one phone call comes in and get this this guy's or this really gravelly voice? He's talking really slow. As soon as Mike they're like, I'm so sorry. He's in the meeting right now. Can I take a message? He's like, Oh, yeah. You know, I heard Mike's got a colonoscopy today. I'm like, Oh, I didn't know that. Because yeah, just told him not to worry, too. Just gonna stick a giant hose in his ass. And it was just like silence. And I'm like, is that it goes yeah, just tell him Marlin call them okay. Okay. The assistant comes back in. I'm like, okay, so I got this message from Marlon about this hose going in his ass. Like, is this for real? Do I give this to Mike? He goes. Yeah, that's Marlon Brando. Yeah, you have to give that to give him the note. Mike goes hack throws up laughs goes and does this thing. Two weeks later, Marlon Brando dies, which was like the craziest thing and it turns out they were like best friends and Mike Medavoy ends up giving, like the eulogy, his funeral, a little things like that. Were just like peppered in throughout my experience. Like you're driving people around. I'm like, Oh, I'm just driving Steve Zaillian, one of the greatest screenwriters of all time to the airport. And I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just like, like a dumb intern, those things start to accumulate. And that led into my desire to like, get on set. So I was a production assistant on 24, that Fox TV show with Kiefer Sutherland. And that was brutal. I was like, I've heard of it. I've heard it right. Yeah. That was brutal, because that's a show on the run, which means there's very few set days. So you were just locking down like the worst parts of Los Angeles like the craziest areas around the craziest armpits of LA. And I remember this one time. It was the summer it was so hot, we're in downtown LA. We're choose I'm chasing outside, and we're sweaty, and everyone's like looking at their skin and have like these little black flakes on her skin. We're like, what is this, what's falling out of the sky? And the location manager comes by he goes, it's probably from that crematorium over there. And we're just like, what we do for this job? That was a crazy show is super hard, especially when you move into the night work because you know, 24 hours later, like shooting all all the hours of the day, and he just canceled the night stuff. So it's just like weeks and weeks and weeks of night shoots and it was brutal. was a great learning experience. And I was so happy and thrilled to be there. So the crew was like We love guys like you that have like all this boundless energy and are so thrilled to be here, because they're a little bit jaded. And the show's really taken its toll. So this is like, you know, the hop, skipping and jumping, you're doing to like, go from like Anna studio to set and then into, like a production company, then that then my next step was like Mark Burnett, before I got to him, I was working for two executives under him creating a couple of shows, and then their deals ended. And then Mark needed a new assistant, because it was like Survivor, the office addition, like working there, which is great. I really loved my time. There's a lot to learn from Mark. I mean, he's like just such a mogul in Hollywood. He's got a star on the Walk of Fame, I got to be there for that. And just seeing how he like handles business and does business. That was just an amazing experience to be a fly on the wall for but I let him know, like upfront, like, I'm an aspiring filmmaker, that's what I want to do. He's like, good, do it. It's like you get one chance at life. Like make sure you're doing what you want to do. And I said, Okay, great. And He's so charming. He's one of these people who just walks in the room and there's like an energy about them. And everyone just wants to like, be around mark and be closer to mark and it's just true. And he's just like, so friendly and charming and just appear to me of like the law of attraction, like what he's putting out. He's like, calling back to him. And I got to work on a show called on the lot with him. That was like my specialty project, because it was a DreamWorks CO production with Mark Burnett productions. And like great. I really want to work like on the feature side. And the show was all based on making short films as a competition based show trying to find the next great filmmaker, they'll get a production deal with DreamWorks has like the finale prize, and Steven Spielberg was like one of the people involved with the show. And we had different guest judges and Carrie Fisher was one of the judges of the show. So I was like, such a nerd around her. I was just so awkward. I was just like, Oh, I really want to talk about you being Princess Leia and I just, I can't do it. But it's so in my eyes every time.

Jeff Dwoskin 26:58

And you got to suddenly back into that one.

Evan Matthews 27:01

I would just say like the dorkiest thing. So we had this like this elevator that would be on the fritz every once in a while. And I remember meeting her in the garage and like escorting her to like Marc's office, and the elevator did like this bouncing thing and I'm like, hi, it's just like Survivor the elevator and nobody laughed and I'm like, I'm just hate myself right now. Like, I got it for me. Turns out I just started early with the dad jokes before I wasn't

Jeff Dwoskin 27:29

it's funny. I so they did you get to meet Spielberg or golfing or he was part of that too. Right. David Goffin.

Evan Matthews 27:35

There was an executive David golf and then there's like David Geffen. Oh, yeah, that's confusing. Yes, David Goffin. He definitely I worked with him. He's a sharp guys super smart. He just sees all the angles. Definitely. On top of everything stay in front of everyone. And we did work with Steven Spielberg he took we're shooting the finale of on the lot. Steven Spielberg was also on the universal lot filming Indiana Jones in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and he like had to take like he was we had to schedule around his lunch break from the production that come shoot the finale and shake the hands and do all that. Meanwhile, we were also shooting across town, the finale for the show that contender, which is our boxing show that Mark had. And that was fantastic. As we always live fights going on and price fights happening. It's just like crazy. There's all these shows happening simultaneously all the time. It's just crazy hours, it was just 1214 16 hour days in an office not even on set. It's just an office field and crazy phone calls and putting together crazy travel schedules for Survivor all kinds of stuff like that.

Jeff Dwoskin 28:38

So is it crazy to be on this set of on the lot when you want to be a contestant at the same time. There's

Evan Matthews 28:44

just this desperation that's just inside of you, like, Oh, I just want to be a part of this so bad. I want to be one of those contestants. But I wouldn't have been ready for that. Anyway. So looking back, it's like it's okay, everything happened the way it was supposed to happen to get where I am today is there's no regrets there. You're so close to it, you're just you're just on these major studios that love they have all these theme park rides and and there's charged with so much meaning in history that you want to be a part of that so bad, but it's cool, you're still participating in it, you're around these people, you're witnessing it and it demystifies some things because you're you're behind the scenes, like watching how the sausage is made. And so it kind of brings those walls down a little bit and you start to get an idea of like how hard you really have to work to get to these places because these people are so dedicated, so hard working and put these systems in place to help them like get to that point and maintain that that level. Like even the guest judges you would have like Michael Bay would be a guest judge on the show. You got a few minutes like escort him around show where his office is gonna be and introduce them to other people and then you let him go but you get five minutes to like shoot the breeze with him while he's walking around. And you just pick up what you can and you realize oh, outside of a movie set he seems like a really nice guy because he's just like super friendly and sweet. Then everything's like horror stories about you know how he runs a set So you see, like the different sides of people. And sometimes you think, Oh, are directors playing their own types of characters and the different scenarios?

Jeff Dwoskin 30:06

They're in? A lot of big names associated with this. But yeah, Chelsea Handler said, Nope, I'm not hosting this.

Evan Matthews 30:14

There was a lot of people involved in it was great experience, like being around like all the different guest hosts, because then I would jump off and be a producer on the MTV Movie Awards. So I had to, like really fight and earn that, because we did one thing in 2007 and 2008. And then I did like the following year. So it was March assistant on that one. So I got to see how the whole thing was run and marks everywhere. So it'd be like his representative, and all the executives be like, Okay, what would mark do in this situation? What would be his taste profile? Or can you get this in front of him? Yeah, yeah. And then next year, I just leveled up and I was like, Hey, guys, why don't we just work on the show as a producer, because this would be one of my roles is, you know, the right hand to mark producing the show I'm trafficking, all the information we're getting these decisions made them is consistently area of sorts, just worked. So it was like my first producing credit, worked on that for a year. And that was a great experience. But you know, I felt like I was on a ship going in this direction. And I wanted to be on the boat going in that direction. So that's when USC came into the picture.

Jeff Dwoskin 31:08

Sorry to interrupt, had to take a quick break, and we're back with Evan Matthews. We're gonna dive a little deeper into the MTV Movie Awards. Do you remember anything notable from that MTV Movie Awards, there's always something that kind of marks every year

Evan Matthews 31:22

that year that I worked on the show, and it was Coldplay and the Pussycat Dolls were both have like huge musical numbers as the year of Tropic Thunder and the first Iron Man movie. So it was huge. I got to go to like all these early screenings, like all the cast screenings with these, because like the studio's want them to move towards to be a part of that, to really push it to make it a part of the show as promotional material. So we're like cool, and it's like, it's just nuts. You're like in a, in a screening room with Robert Downey Jr. or Ben Stiller in the cast of Tropic Thunder, try to imagine going to a Tropic Thunder, like cast screening. And if you remember the beginning of the movie, it's all the commercials that introduce each of the characters and like what they're about. Right, right, right, the booty sweat commercial, or it's the fatties trailer. It's like all these things. So we didn't know what was going on. And man, we were just like, just laughing our asses off. We're having a great time. We're like, Yeah, there's got to be a part of the show. And then seeing the Robert Downey Jr. Playing lieutenant, whatever it was in Tropic Thunder, it's just we're just like, how's this going?

Jeff Dwoskin 32:21

There's still trying to make issue of it today, but they're not gonna It's so funny. It's just

Evan Matthews 32:26

genius. And then Ironman the same year. It's just crazy to like, be there. I mean, me and the producers are like looking at each other, what's going on. And there's so many things happening that year. It's like the year like Lady Gaga came out. And we're at Jimmy Iovino office at like Interscope Records, and he's like playing all the records for all of the different artists he wants us to possibly put in the MTV Movie Awards. So this guy who's like legendary, he's like, there's Elton John's piano. Here's all pictures of him with like Justin Timberlake and all these other super crazy famous singer songwriters. He's like, Oh, yeah, here's the Lady Gaga album. She's about to break out. She's gonna be huge here. Listen to this. You know, what really helped get the pussycat dimples onto the show is that when we're in Jimmy's office, he makes like this phone call. He goes, Oh, why are they here? Oh, oh, guys, you'll never believe this. They happen to just be showing up today. And all the girls like just come in the room and like do a live performance of what they would do on the show. I mean, the producers are laughing because they're like, we know this is like set up. But we're really happy that they did this because it totally sold us on this. And it was fantastic. But actually one of the most memorable things from the whole show is accidentally making eye contact with Johnny Depp before he was gonna go present a reward. Because I was like the talent shuffler behind the scenes on like, show day, I get like, okay, who's presenting next? who's presenting next? And I don't know what it was. I felt like I made like eye contact with someone I shouldn't have or something. I was like, oh, no, I looked directly into his eyes. I don't know why that does, like stands out as a memory of mine. But like, I made eye contact with Johnny Depp. Is that bad? Did I do that thing I throw him off

Jeff Dwoskin 33:59

probably because he internalized part of your soul and He now uses it during his acting but yeah, he

Evan Matthews 34:05

drew something out of me I lost something that day.

Jeff Dwoskin 34:10

That's all movie and in itself. Yeah, like one of those inside John Malkovich his head type thing that type of thing like what happens Johnny Depp gets his power

Evan Matthews 34:19

it goes home and pins a picture of me to the wall got a picture exactly. That guy's

Jeff Dwoskin 34:23

I'm gonna assume you're not responsible for the apprentice or if you are. I don't want to hear about it. But

Evan Matthews 34:30

it happened at the show happened. It was one of many shows. There's a lot of moving pieces at the time.

Jeff Dwoskin 34:36

I watched it. I was big on Survivor early. My daughter's still obsessed with survivor. Oh, yeah. I was like, oh gee survivor. I watched the original series.

Evan Matthews 34:45

People getting hurt and infections and all kinds of stuff. Yeah, it was crazy back then. And because that's when like pirates would like show up on the coast and crazy standoffs and showdowns and we're getting calls from the producers. It's like, yeah, there's like Somali pirates on the shore. And it's like Did Phillips types like just hold your ground don't show fear is in, everything ended up working out. But there's just always crazy stories coming from the set of survivor and it's just like, hope everything's working out, okay? And then Mark would like want to go take his family, it's okay, are you going to take this private jet, you're gonna fly this airbase and then you're gonna take this helicopter to this island and again, another helicopter for refuel and take it to the next place. Oh, and you want to bring your dogs with you. So we're gonna do this, and just make it work. And it's just an adventure on its own. And it was really fascinating to see how like people on that level, how they operate and how they get things done. You just got to figure it out. It was like, No, you can't tell these people. No, it's like, I don't know how we're going to do this mark. It's like, we'll figure it out. Get it done. So that type of problem solving, like in the office there and taking that like into film school. It's like, oh, then you know, like any of these little problems that happen with like a short film aren't real problems. And you'll see somebody else who's having a mental breakdown in the bathroom and crying. Like are you okay, what happened? Who died? Oh, we lost the location. I'm like, Dude, come on. Oh, I worked eight hour day I'm dying. I'm like, don't tell me that I had to sleep with a phone under my pillow for three years. It was a Blackberry to back then.

Jeff Dwoskin 36:10

What did you do with Ryan Reynolds? at Harper's Bazaar

Evan Matthews 36:13

that was like during and after film school, I was shooting like behind the scenes like cover shoot stuff. And just random celebrities we got in just with with a passion with fashion photography with my roommate at the time was he was huge into like photography and being a dp. So we were like natural buddies that went all the way back to my UC Riverside days. And we got in with the like the fashion directors at Harper's Bazaar and Esquire magazine. So we started like shooting behind the scene cover shoots. And that's one of those things where Ryan Reynolds like is like the person that they were like, Oh, how cool is this we're working with. And like, what you see is what you get, like how he is for most of his roles. It's just who he is, as a person. He's just like that. He's just cracking jokes, like as he's getting dressed, and then like doing his hair and makeup and putting on different outfits and trying on ties and bowling or whatever. He's just making little commentaries. And it's like, it's like own little show, totally improving through life. And it's fun to witness that want to stay out of the way be a fly on the wall and catch it. But that was a great like one man band portion of like life where me and my buddies were like just shooting everything, capturing all the sound with like onboard mics that we have mounted, and then going home and cutting it all together and putting a soundtrack and then finishing an exporting and getting it off to the client. We did that for a while was fun. It didn't pay hardly anything. We just did it because we loved it. And it kept us active and we had all the DSLRs we get to play with equipment and like little sliders and different things we pick up and try out. You know, meanwhile, you're trying to like get a career going. It's great to have that in between it actually led to like a fashion photography like DVD series, we shot over a course of like half a year, we just kept going back and shooting more footage. And that was a great experience too. Because I was like the first big project we did together put together a whole educational series. So that was it was fascinating. We learned a lot it made us better filmmakers.

Jeff Dwoskin 38:03

How does it feel like with the teleios act when you got like tons of notice in film festivals, yeah, nine wins 18 Official Selection. So it must feel good. I mean, when I watched your shorts, and not just shot great in there acted great stories, great. Everything is great about it. And the highest compliment I can give you is I watched it at one speed

Evan Matthews 38:27

talking about. And we have a short festival run with teleios because that's right when like COVID broke out. And all of a sudden the theaters shut down, the festival shut down and we're getting like refunds left and right in our festival submissions, because like we didn't know when they're going to reopen. So and usually get like a two year window to have a festival run. So it was kind of like a little blessing in disguise. Because you can really, as a filmmaker, you can get caught up and just doing film festivals, like indefinitely, and you're just like delaying working on your career. Because of the short film, you're pretty limited with what you can do. You can't monetize it for very much. I know there's ways to do that. But still, you're not really going to like make a life on that. So you have to start moving in the direction of like screenwriting and creating your own content and making your career but you know, I learned a lot from recoil in running the festival circuit and participating in that the more I participated, the more successful we were so right out of the gates with teleios act. I knew that I wanted to be very active in the festivals, very active role with the people who worked at the festivals and the festival directors staying in touch with them on Filmfreeway or whatever platform you like to use for submissions. Yeah, so we started scooping up a lot of awards really fast. We want a Grand Jury Prize like in India we want I want the best actress, award winning Best Director award and like a handful of other ones in between and the very first festival we won the Audience Choice Award and that's great because once you realize you're connecting with your people, that feels fantastic. And I feel like a lot of the career I've had it prepared me for those two particular short films because they were really ambitious. Whenever you're in a situation where you're world building, you're not just shooting like modern Los Angeles as is you're like you were gonna have to go make very specific decisions about every aspect of the movie. So it's like, Okay, what's the wardrobe gonna look like? And what does that mean? And what's the color theory in your film? And what does that how's that going to affect your lighting, and your cinematography and the type of lenses you want to use and the equipment you need for your camera? And are you going to live on a dolly the entire shoe are going to do sliders and high hats and all other types of tricks or tripods or handheld or static, that's a whole land design landscape you're having with your DP and it comes down to budget and resources and locations where you can fit. So that all matters because if you're building sets, and you're in a claustrophobic little set, like the recoil spaceship, you're really limited or we go to an existing stage or the hospital set for like teleios act, we can't fly walls in and out and move things around. It's a standing set. So how are we going to work within that? No one thing for telling us actually get all those exteriors like the rooftop scene, we didn't have permits for that. Can I say that? Is Too late now. And it was gonna be too expensive, like pay the actual fees to do it. So I actually like case the place I was like, like, Okay, what would they do in the Italian Job? All right, I'm gonna go like watch the security guards rotation schedule. And I'm gonna go here every single day and know what people's routines are and know what the lunch rush rush is like, and the breakfast rush. So I was like casing this rooftop in Burbank saying, Okay, how can I figure out the best time and window to get to steal all of our shots. So I figured it out over a couple of few weeks of just going back to the same spot. And we had to shoot between 7am and 11am. That was our window to get everything on the rooftop. And hair and makeup girl was like 90 minutes late. So we had to have one of our producers do like the hair and makeup. And she did a fantastic job. Her name is Rachel Mullins, she plays the nurse in the beginning of the movie, and she's one of the producers. She's an actress too. And she's fantastic. She's like one of the coolest people and very good at her job. She just like, knuckle down, got it together, got the job done and put the blood on the people who needed the blood on them. And we just we have to shoot this thing. And we're shooting it. And next thing you know, we're like tail lights are going and the cars going down the thing, right when like security's coming up, so it all timed out, like perfect, and the lunch rush hits, all the cars came and filled up the whole roof. And we got out of there like just in time. And then we had like move locations all the way to like Lake Balboa, which is in like the north western part of Los Angeles. So it's a complete opposite end of town. So the whole crew has to go to this park location. And it's not like you can just Google like an address in the park you have to like find the spot on a map somewhere. So we're texting photo clues to everybody. This is where we're going to be. And we just stole everything for like one entire day, which is crazy and thrilling. I mean, that's like total guerilla style. You're the most alive because there's just like, we might not make this we're gonna blow it all this is our last day to have all the camera rental stuff, the actors, everything, the food, the PTAs everyone volunteering, we had to like populate this little plate that placing at the end with the with the kids in the park. And we were lucky one mom happened to have like nine kids, because she just had a big family. And she like opened up the van doors and like cool. We have all of our extras. This is fantastic. That's awesome. That's awesome. Oh, there's so many things that just like just start falling into place. It couldn't have happened any other way.

Jeff Dwoskin 43:23

It's really cool. What are you working on now? What's what's next for Evan?

Evan Matthews 43:27

Or Evan? Oh, so it's one of those moments where you've had like this 17 year career. And then like 10 days ago, you get a phone call from a producer friend who just had lunch with from a fellowship I did years ago. And we've just had a great, deep, meaningful, heartfelt conversation that turned into Evan, your whole life story and all your twists and turns and drama, highs and lows completely overlap with all the story points in the script that we're getting ready to go into production, but we're hearing pitches from directors right now. And so I got that call. She's like, Okay, you're like an 11th hour ad. And we need you to read the script as soon as possible and pitch it like like a couple of days. You're like the last person we're going to hear from we've already heard from all the other potential directors, but she's like, she's like, I think you're like you're right. You just match, fly, pitch the daylights out of this thing. I was really truly just so emotionally attached to stories called motherland. The title might change at some point. But right now it's called motherland as you can check it out on IMDb and start to see like as we populate it with credits, and it's another dystopia ik sci fi leaning world cautionary tale and pretty much it's a world where parents are not allowed to raise their own children but have like oversee like children being raised in this society in like this experimental government run program. And this woman like has an epiphany and finds her daughter by accident and that's in her program and wants to help her like get out of this system. So it's so many themes, similar themes to teleios act. So anyway, right now we're in pre production in the LA portion. And about two weeks, we're going to fly to New York to do the last three weeks of on the ground pre production. And then we're going to, we have about 18 days to film. And we'll do some posts in New York. And you know, we'll have it in the can before the end of the year, and that'll come out in 2024. So I'm like in full swing, like full blown production mode. We're getting a cast list soon. We're looking at locations we're looking, it's just all kinds of stuff. I'm thrilled. I got a great team because it's moving along. It's been packed by love. It's like your all day long, and we're just trying to find all the best people for the job.

Jeff Dwoskin 45:36

That's awesome. Evan, you're incredible. I love your story. Everything you've done your work is incredible. I want to put links to everything. Where can people keep up with you on the socials? Where do you hang out?

Evan Matthews 45:48

Yeah, I you know, I spend most of my time on Instagram. So if you want to find me, Evan B. Matthews, the letter B f&b Matthews, over on Instagram, you could probably throw my handle in there as well. I'm documenting, making my debut feature film so people will see what that's like to go on the ride with me. So every day you'll probably see in my stories specifically, that's more like the moment to moment stuff. I'll put stuff on my wall as well. But a lot of the stuff in the stories I'm just like, on the fly capturing moments, going to meetings like rewrite stuff, introducing some of the other players behind the scenes is it might be awkward for them. But I'm used to. But yeah, you want to keep up with it and ask questions. I'm very interactive. I love like giving feedback. I just want to provide value to people. You have questions like should you or Shouldn't you go to film school asked me. It's not right for everyone. It's probably not right for most people, especially in the modern era. So yeah, I just want to share and give back and this is this is one of the ways to do it.

Jeff Dwoskin 46:40

Evan Matthews. You're awesome. Thanks for hanging out with me. I appreciate it.

Evan Matthews 46:44

I've had a great time.

Jeff Dwoskin 46:46

All right. How amazing was Evan Matthews? I know so great. So talented. so talented. You gotta check out telio sack and recoil. There's links in the show notes. Definitely watch those. Like I said, I watched him on one speed. If you know that means you know how good they are. All right. Well, we're at the end of the interview. That means the episode is over. I can't believe it either. One more huge. Thank you to my guest, Evan Matthews. And of course, a huge thank you to all of you for coming back week after week. It means the world to me, and I'll see you next time.

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