We enjoyed the interview with film director Matthew Craig Scott. Check out his interview below. He talks projects and more.
Hi, Matthew! Tell us about your experience releasing your first feature film. By the way, that’s awesome!
In 2013, I produced my first feature film, a unique and foreboding neo-noir entitled, Remember to High Five the Salesman. The Salesman follows a young, out-of-town journalist who attempts to salvage a floundering career by pursuing a story that entangles herself with a seedy shredder salesman, who drags her deep into the world of secrets and the machines that keep them safe. The film can be screened for free in its entirety on my website at www.famousmotionpictures.com.
Nobody tells you this when you’re starting out, but releasing a film is the hardest part. You get used to maintaining a certain level of control, while producing a movie – making decisions that will affect what the film looks and sounds like when it’s completed – but it’s much harder to influence what happens when it’s released; whether or not it’s discovered and well received. If you’re strategic enough, each new film you make can work to help your previous pictures get rediscovered and every time you release a new film can be like re-releasing every picture you’ve ever made. My strategy for releasing The Salesman was to begin building an audience and to use it to help leverage future projects, so releasing it for free made the most sense for that particular project. Making a feature is a long journey and you really don’t know how it will be received until the very end.
Your next feature is a volume. It is also a sci-fi/noir. We’re intrigued! Tell us more.
Transmission is a gritty detective story, set in a near future powered by wireless energy. On the eve of concluding a multinational wireless energy pilot program, renowned inventor and known recluse, Robert Welles, spontaneously combusts in the hallway outside his long-term residence at a luxury downtown hotel. A private detective is hired by his eldest granddaughter and head of his estate to investigate the situation, all the while the world searches for the first jet airliner go to missing in over ten years.
I wanted to challenge myself to tell an ambitious and longer story and a two-picture volume is a unique way to do it. The noir genre was born out of studio directors having to make B pictures on tight schedules and with low budgets, so noir (or neo-noir as films made after the noir period are referred) continues to lend itself very well to micro-budget filmmaking. I almost exclusively use practical lights, such as street lights, and incorporate a lot of cinematic techniques and tropes from the genre.
Transmission is also a sci-fi project and is heavily inspired by theoretical physics; M-Theory and Brane Cosmology. My lead actor and collaborator, Mike Barkey, and I decided early on that it was important for us to at least understand the science before taking any creative liberties.
We worked hard to build a world that portrayed a realistic future, consisting of contemporary infrastructure, advanced but also outdated AI, drones, self-driving cars, holograms, and sophisticated mobile technology. A lot of design possibilities become available as soon as you remove a device’s battery, so a wireless future is a fun world to play in. I must have read upwards of 12 physics books while developing the project and I wanted to be respectful of the theories from which inspiration was drawn, so I hope I’ve incorporated the science in both an entertaining and plausible way.
The story is very mysterious, intricate, and complex, offering a tonne of rewatchability. Needless to say, we have a number of spreadsheets and documents to assist us in keeping track of everything. Those who are fans of puzzles and mind-bending narratives are going to really love Transmission.
What’s the difference between a micro-budget and a limited budget? You mentioned Transmission is a micro-budget film.
I think every filmmaker would probably prefer that people don’t think about budgets when screening their films. Twenty-five years ago, if you just completed a feature film you would find distribution; it was very impressive to make a picture for under $10,000. Now the cost of entry is so low that everyone is making videos and serious filmmakers have to compete against a glut of content, while keeping their budgets low enough to recoup their expenses and try to make filmmaking a sustainable endeavor
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Equipment is becoming very inexpensive and 90% of my post-production software is available for free. The only barriers to entry now are the skills, patience, and stamina required to finish a feature film and then ability to find an audience.
Though I can’t discuss the project’s budget in detail, it would be considered very low by micro-budget standards. We ran a modest but successful crowdfunding campaign in the development stage and the rest of the budget has been self-financed. I actually paid for both films by working a full-time and part-time job simultaneously while filming the project.
There doesn’t seem to be a consensus on budget terms for filmmaking and it’s entirely relative. I’ve heard $250,000 films referred to as “micro-budget” and that’s definitely not us. My first picture, The Salesman, would been considered by many as “no-budget”; however, it did cost $9000, which is in fact a budget. That may not be a lot of money for a feature film, but $9000 is a considerable amount when it’s out of your own pocket.
I hope to have access to financing and institutional support in the future, meaning healthier budgets; however, I would never max out my credit cards or go into debt to make a film – that’s not a practical long-term strategy. I’ve always approached making a film as a stepping stone to the next. That way I come out of each project with more skills, experience, and even more equipment and resources, such as props and costumes.
Ultimately, I am striving towards a point when I can support myself by making films and not have to work 40+ hours a week while doing it. It’s hard to imagine the luxury and freedom of being able to make a picture without the other commitments and to get that time back to invest in other things would be game-changing.
Thus far, you shot over 130 scenes in 49 locations in 4 cities on a micro-budget. Wow! That’s incredible! Tell us how you managed to do it.
I love filming on location. A big city like Toronto is a great place to film a neo-noir and so much of Transmission takes place at night, in gritty back alleys and on the streets. We were also very fortunate to have filmed in some pretty unique locations, such as a massive shipping container yard, a decommissioned subway station, and a corn field. We also filmed out in Lake Ontario, which is large enough to have a horizon line that could pass for an ocean.
We needed to film a funeral scene and we couldn’t afford to shoot in a real cemetery, so we filmed in two parks and removed the people from the background and composited in CG tombstones. Nothing is impossible, you just have to be creative. Filming on the street in Toronto is free with a permit and if you’re patient to either wait for pedestrians to pass through your set or digitally remove all the cars and people from the background then you can get some great shots and make it look like you closed down the street.
A lot of advice recommends micro-budget filmmakers set their stories in only one or two locations, but I think Transmission punches far above its weight in part due to the incredible variety of settings. We just filmed in our 50th physical location and filmed at least a dozen additional scenes on a green screen in a studio. In the case of many of our locations, we had to contact up to 20 places before one said yes. Those who have helped us out have been very generous towards the production and we couldn’t have done it without their support.
Which is your favorite location, thus far?
I’m going to have to keep my favourite location a secret until after the release of Transmission Vol. I, as it’s important to the narrative’s mystery. All I will say is it’s extremely cool and we were very lucky to be able to film there. Toronto has a Chinatown and we filmed an amazing “following” scene for Transmission Vol. II through its streets and back alleys, which is one of my favourite sequences.
What would you consider your ultimate success?
I would consider my ultimate success to be my perseverance. It takes a fair amount of tenacity to push through the insurmountable rejection that comes with making and releasing films, but I find it compelling not in spite of its challenges, but because of them.
I think at this level of filmmaking, which is to say with this budget and at this point in my career, finishing a picture that is consistent with your original vision is a really big win. It’s easy to stray for your vision and that’s multiplied exponentially on a micro-budget, when you have to film in your spare time. The movie you end up with might not be the one you had set out to make and to see it all come together as you had imagined is enormously rewarding – Transmission is coming together as I had imagined it.
Transmission Vol. I is slated for release early 2018 and Vol. II is slated for 2019. We will launching directly to iTunes and will be updating the website regularly with release dates, trailers, bonus features, and interviews with the cast and crew.
You’re an emerging filmmaker, who continuously hones his craft. What keeps you inspired?
I’m a big film history buff and continuously draw inspiration from my favourite filmmakers, but more specifically from their early careers, because that’s where I am. I actually have a spreadsheet of all my favourite directors outlining what films they made at what point in their lives. I just turned 30 and to be finishing my 2nd and 3rd feature films simultaneously feels incredibly rewarding, but being able to reference those who came before keeps me grounded and hungry.
Aside from writing, directing, producing, and filming Transmission, I’m also overseeing the entire post-production process; editing the picture, mixing the soundtrack, composing the score, and creating well over 400 VFX shots. If there’s something I don’t know – I learn it. I probably take over 10 hours of online tutorials a week. I really grew up on the Robert Rodriguez school of filmmaking, so being hands-on, creative, and proficient in all aspects of the craft is very important to me and my sustainability as a filmmaker.
I’ve never been one to follow the herd or do what’s popular. I really want to forge my own path in cinema and that comes with a lot of uncertainty. A lot of people have suggested that I focus on short-form content, such as starting a YouTube channel, in pursuit of building an audience more quickly. It can be tempting to put out shorter content more regularly, however if you combine the running time of my three features and divide them up into 5-minute shorts, I would have made 54 films. My interests lie in world building and rich narratives and a longer format offers me a larger canvas to explore my ideas.
Thus far, what has been the best experience working in the industry?
I’ve been very fortunate to have a wide-ranging experience working in the film and television industry. While in film school, I interned in post-production then began working professionally on sets as a production assistant and a special effects technician (I’m still a licensed pyrotechnic). I was the VFX Coordinator on the first season of Orphan Black and currently teach high-end visual effects at George Brown College in Toronto. Altogether, I’ve worked on dozens of feature films and series, I’m very early in my career as a filmmaker.
Do you have any upcoming projects that we haven’t mentioned?
Transmission Vol. I & II are keeping me busy at the moment, but I’m constantly keeping notes and developing small side projects that I will eventually turn into features or series.
Complete this sentence, if I had an opportunity to do anything I want, I would do ___________.
If I had the opportunity to do anything, I would make larger-scale films. I would love to have the creative freedom and financial support that afforded filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Clint Eastwood, and now Christopher Nolan to make movies within the studio system over an entire lifetime. Eventually I would love to partner with a major studio or a streaming platform, such as Netflix or Amazon, to make larger and more ambitious pictures.
Connect with Matthew:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/famousmotionpix
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/famousmotionpix/
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/famousmotionpictures
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3591607/?ref_=tt_ov_dr
Web: https://www.famousmotionpictures.com/
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