NEW VID ALERT: Some buds & I secretly shot a short film inside of a diner.
Itâs been a while since I shot anything guerilla (ie. no budget, no permission), so when my buddy @AhrenBrunow showed me footage that he had shot on his Google Pixel, I started brainstorming ideas that we could shoot in a stolen location. The end result is a love-letter to my favourite greasy spoon in all of Toronto, Frankies Diner (994 Queen St. W), and a celebration of the time-honoured tradition of couples fighting quietly in public.
Extra special thanks to Tennille Read and Andy Trithardt for lending their [obvious] talents.
Titles designed & animated by Britt Edwards. https://www.brittedwards.comÂ
I spent my 2017 focused on one thing: shooting as much as I possibly could. Through the year, I made my money in advertising and immediately invested it into personal projects which were shot with low-budgets, stolen locations, and talented friends lending their time (not to mention: gear).
At the beginning of 2018, when I looked back on the stuff that I had made the year prior, I was super proud of the results, but I knew objectively that my personal stuff lacked an industry-standard polish: as much as I love guerilla filmmaking, I knew that I needed to start pursuing more traditional means of filmmaking and that meant trying to find (A) funding and (B) ideas that were good enough to get funding.
In February, I caught an idea and spent the following two months writing it as a feature-length screenplay. I spent the remainder of the year fine-tuning the story and submitting it to various feature film development programs. Alas, no professional development was bestowed upon me by those cruel, cruel jurors and the film, which I am still madly deeply in love with, remains unloved.
Needless to say, the story stuck in my mind and a few months later, it inspired me to write a short script set around those tangential events. I applied for a couple of grants and the jurors once again passed their cruel, cruel judgement, but just the same as my feature idea, I’m nowhere near ready to give up on this one either.
I hope that by the time 2019 comes to a close, I’ll have some lovin’ news to share for these films and that they’ve moved a few more steps towards becoming reality.
In July, frustrated by my cruel, cruel rejections, I decided it was time to shoot another project. I called up my talented buds Mat Barkley (cinematographer), Adam T. Burke (audio), and Andy Trithardt (composer) to tell them that I was roaring up to shoot another low-budget spec-ad, this time for WorldStarHipHop.com. Bless their souls, they all came aboard to help me shoot one of my slickest spots yet. Huge assist goes to comedian / actor Jherad Alleyne who absolutely destroyed this performance:
In the spring, a weird twist of fate took place: IMPACT Wrestling, one of the biggest global professional wrestling companies, moved operations to Toronto, Ontario.
As some of you might know, I trained to be a professional wrestler after graduating high school. I went two whole weeks before calling it quits (bad knees, bad back, my body is a real lemon). I can’t say that I’ve regretted that decision, I honestly wasn’t built for a life in the squared circle, but I’ve always loved wrestling, and never lost that desire to one day play a part in that wild circus.
I sent an impassioned email to IMPACT Wrestling outlining my abilities (not to mention: SPACE MONKEY ORIGINS) and interest in working with the company — fast forward to July when I was hired to direct and edit DAY OF SLAMMIVERSARY, a documentary which covered the behind-the-scenes chaos of pulling together a live pay-per-view.
In the months that have followed, I’ve worked with IMPACT in an increasing variety of ways. I have no idea what 2019 holds, but I’m oh-so thrilled to have suddenly found myself working in the wild world of rasslin’.
In November, after seeing Jonah Hill’s MID90s, I cut together a 1-minute tribute to my personal mid-90s using news footage of professional wrestling’s effect on children:
I think that just about covers it. It’s been a fun year, challenging at times, but I’m feeling that I’m on the right track towards becoming the filmmaker I hope to be. Thank you to anyone out there who’s reading this and sharing in the journey. Much love, y’all.
As a final send-off, here’s RETURN TO PARIS, a 1-minute film that I shot and edited in the summer starring my beautiful wiener dog, Wren.
Itâs now been three years since I moved to Toronto and decided to pursue filmmaking as my sole focus. The first project that I shot (in the proverbial â6ixâ) was GRAVE CONCERNS, a proof-of-concept pilot for a web series that I planned to pitch to producers.
One of the funding avenues where we applied for funding (the IPF) required us to upload a 2-minute trailer to the internet, which was cool but also a bit of a dilemma as we had shot a 4-minute scene as the proof-of-concept. I ended up finding two minutes within the original four and released the truncated trailer (in early 2017).
Fast forward to today and Iâve still yet to find that magical money pot to get the series made. My personal hope for GC remains alive, though, as Iâve started writing it as a feature film and am determined to tell this story one day. *flex emoji*
All this to say: if you watched the GRAVE CONCERNS teaser in 2017, youâre awesome, thank you (but hereâs the rest of it). To those of you whoâve never seen a frame, please enjoy this short tale of woe about two Wild West gravediggers:
LOGLINE: Two men attempt to leave behind a troubled past by toiling away in the Wild West, working in the booming business of gravedigging. (2018)
CAST:
Timothy – Tim Walker
Clifton – Jeff Hanson
Old Man – Robert Nasmith
CREW:
Writer / Director – Glen Matthews
Director of Photography – Mark Corless
Assistant Director – Steve Cutler
Wardrobe – Holly Lloyd
Title Design – Britt Edwards
Visual Compositor – Brendan Henry
Additional Audio Recording – Matt Sutherland
Executive Producer – Adam Massey
Special Thanks – Tim Corrigan, Alexandra Cooney
PS. Speaking of Wild West, did y’all see BUSTER SCRUGGS? That shit was tight, yo. đ
I always knew what I wanted to be when I grew up: a professional wrestler.
Immediately after graduating high school, I sold my car, moved to Moncton, New Brunswick and began my training in the squared circle (under Peter Smith AKA Brody Steele). Unfortunately for my hopes & dreams, my small and fragile body (bad knees, bad back) was not built for a life between the ropes.
Fast-forward to the beginning of 2018, it was announced that IMPACT Wrestling, the world’s 2nd largest wrestling company (behind WWE) was moving operations to Toronto, Ontario and I immediately reached out to the company to see if there were any opportunities available for a professional filmmaker / life-long wrestling nerd like myself.
Lo & behold, 13 years after my failed attempt to enter the wild world of professional wrestling, I got hired by IMPACT frickin’ Wrestling to direct & edit a day-of documentary that covers the behind-the-scenes setup for Slammiversary, one of their biggest annual events.
The doc, DAY OF SLAMMIVERSARY, was an absolute dream-come-true to capture and create. It was my first time directing a documentary, but honestly, I really couldn’t be happier with the experience or the end result. Shout out to my cinematographer Shady Hanna (shadyhanna.com) and producer Dave Hodgson […] for being the wind beneath my wings. Please enjoy:
I’m happy to say that there are a few more things coming down the pipeline with IMPACT, but they’ll have to remain under wraps until they’re signed, sealed and delivered.
A few weeks back, I borrowed a friend’s camera to familiarize myself a bit more with camera-operation — I ended up following my beautiful mini-dachshund Wren [AKA Wrenegade AKA @Wren.TheWeenie] around for the day.
I didn’t really have any ideas for what I could do with the footage until I heard this vintage French culture / music mixtape by Starfunkel:Â https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjDBuYykGyM
Anyways, the end product, RETURN TO PARIS, is a tribute to my beautiful furry friend, and I hope very much that you enjoy it:
It is a gosh-darn privilege to have my work return to Nova Scotian screens later this month as GRAVE CONCERNS plays FIN Atlantic International Film Festival.
Screenings (Shorts Program 3):
Saturday, Sept. 15, 3:30PM at Park Lane, Theatre 8
Tuesday, Sept. 18, 9:10PM at Park Lane, Theatre 2
The short, about two gravediggers (played by Tim Walker and Jeff Hanson) toiling away in the wild west, was originally shot as a web series proof-of-concept, but try as I might, I have thus far failed at getting the powers-that-be to fund this dark slapstick comedy beyond the pilot stage.
Be that as it may, I have far from given up on telling this story, so if you’re in Halifax for the festival, I cordially invite you to enjoy the first chapter.
Crew:
Writer / Director / Editor: Glen Matthews
Producer: Adam Massey / Clark Stanley
Director of Photography: Mark Corless
Assistant Director: Steve Cutler
Wardrobe: Holly Lloyd
Title Design: Britt Edwards
Cast:
Timothy Sellmeyer â Tim Walker
Clifton B. Pluck â Jeff Hanson
Old Man â Bob Nasmith
Dead 1 â Arthur Shain
Dead 2 â Petra OâToole
Dead 3 â Jake Thurgood
The last update to this now-decrepit cyberspace was damn near six months ago — a shameful amount of time for anyone wishing to stay relevant in today’s digital carousel.
Why the radio silence? Well, as opposed to 2017 where I was focused on simply cutting my teeth by shooting as much as possible (2017 Year in Review), this year I’ve been focusing on trying to take that next step in my filmmaking career by getting some actual funding for my projects — an increasingly difficult task in a world stuck in a state of perpetual belt-tightening.
There have been promising advances, but alas, I’m playing the long game and you’ll all have to wait another day for my fully-funded masterpiece.
Today, however, I’m cracking open the tomb to share some brand new work, another product of my guerilla filmmaking escapades:
WORLDSTARRR is a 30-second spec-ad for WorldstarHipHop.com, a popular content-aggregating blog that regularly features public fight videos (usually accompanied by someone yelling “Worldstarrr“), music videos and assorted content targeted to young audiences.
In 2016, I watched Mark Duplass‘ SXSW keynote address, “The Cavalry Isn’t Coming“, and it immediately slapped me upside the head.
In the talk, Duplass rightfully points out that many of the obstacles facing filmmakers twenty years ago are now gone, and that there’s no excuse for filmmakers (especially up & coming) to not be kicking out content.
Twelve months later, I have written & directed four personal projects (GRAVE CONCERNS, SPACE MONKEY ORIGINS, WHITE SAVIOR, & RED BULL 30 YEARS); as well as a handful of commercial content, including my very first nationally televised spot, for Curling Canada (watch). Hoorah.
It’s been a whirlwind year, which I’m supremely thankful for. Sincerely, thank you to everyone who helped make this last year my best one yet. Much love. â¤
Happy new year, folks. Check out the 2018 demo, yo:
Ladies & gentlemen! My holiday gift to you: my very first feature film screenplay, WRESTLE ISLAND (PDF download), which tells the story of a small maritime island being invaded by an army of professional wrestlers.
Another gift: I teamed up with illustrator-extraordinaire, James Edward Clark, to help bring a few scenes from the script to life:
So why am I just dumping this thing onto the internet?
This film stands very little chance of ever getting made due to the many, many millions of dollars that it would likely cost to pull it off — this is essentially the film I would make if Hollywood ever gave me a blank cheque to go shoot a movie in Nova Scotia.
As such, I’d very much love to share this script with anyone out there who’s interested enough to read it. I think I cooked up something fun here and I hope you agree.
glenjm.wordpress.com 