
Coast To Coast Creatives
Coast To Coast Creatives
The Creativity & Ethics of AI in Filmmaking with Matt Fowler
In this captivating episode of Coast to Coast Creatives, Joe sits down with Matt Fowler, a versatile actor, writer and director. They explore Matt's journey from LA to Atlanta, the making of his latest sci-fi thriller 'System Failure,' and delve into the ethical considerations of AI in the private prison system. Discover Matt's inspirations, the intricacies of indie filmmaking and the future of storytelling in the age of technology. This discussion also sheds light on Matt's creative process, his experience co-directing with Erica Arvold, and the collaborative efforts that bring his vision to life.
System Failure BTS Photography by Kurt Yue
Matt Fowler Portraits by Ric Lewis
'System Failure' Seed & Spark: https://seedandspark.com/fund/system-failure#story
Matt Fowler Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfowlerig/?hl=en
Joe: Welcome to Coast to Coast Creatives, a podcast for and about working professional artists within the entertainment industry. I'm your host, Joe Funk, and here we interview actors, directors, photographers, writers, and many more. Today I'm thrilled to be chatting with Matt Fowler. An actor, writer, director, and a true storyteller all around.
In this episode, we dive into Matt's creative journey, his move from LA to Atlanta, and the making of his latest project system Failure, a sci-fi thriller exploring the dangers of AI in the private prison system in the United States. We'll talk about his inspirations, the process of indie filmmaking and the ethical questions facing artists in the age of artificial intelligence.
Get ready for a fascinating conversation about creativity, technology, and the future of storytelling.
Welcome, Mr. Matt Fowler. How are you doing today, sir?
Matt: Good. I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad we finally made this happen.
Joe: We finally made it happen. We were just saying it's been a couple years since we actually hung out in person. Just starting off, you've worn a. A lot of hats.
As a creative, you are an actor, a writer, a director, a voiceover artist, a producer. When somebody asks you what you do, how do you typically describe yourself?
Matt: That's a really good question. Until recently it was an actor. But it, it took me a long time to even say that. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, in the industry.
Um, just to be comfortable, you know, just sort of saying that I was an artist in general. Yeah. Um, but, uh, you know, over the last, I don't know, five years, after writing, you know, a couple of the, the audio dramas that I did and, you know, pending my first feature and, and directing, you know, a lot of voiceover and, and some other stuff.
Introduce myself as, yeah. Actor, writer, director.
Joe: Yeah,
Matt: A man, of many hats. I used to have, like when I first started out as an actor, I had a business card that said Storyteller by trade.
Joe: Yeah.
Matt: And that was, that was really before I even really got into the writing and, and directing part of it.
But I always have just found myself as a storyteller
Joe: and in, in this industry, you do need to be wearing multiple hats all the time because you never know. Where exactly you're gonna be inspired in the moment. Mm-hmm. It's like, am am I acting in somebody else's project? What if, what if, uh, I, I, uh, an idea comes to me and I wanna produce my own film and suddenly I'm this, suddenly I'm that.
So I'm the same way. When I describe it, I'm like, well, what am I doing this this year? This year I'm, this last year I was this. And so I like the overall, the storyteller. I like, I like that that encompasses every, everything that we're doing.
Matt: Even within the year, right. It's like this season of the year, I'm this.
Right. Like for you, you're like, I'm a cinematographer of this and I'm a producer of this too. Like I'm a, I'm a photographer, I'm a drone pilot. Yeah, exactly.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, that's exactly, that's exactly how it is. And you and I moved to Georgia around a very similar time. We moved from Los Angeles to, to Atlanta.
I just wanna hear, what has your experience been like in, in Atlanta, in Georgia?
Matt: Atlanta's been wonderful. I was lucky enough to get on with a really great agency like very shortly after getting here through a referral that I had. And my wife was lucky enough to start working in the makeup world.
Like literally we drove cross country and she started on a CW show the next day. So that was huge 'cause we hit, we hit the ground running in that way. And but, but. The, the culture here has been amazing. You know, I'm from Vermont originally, so being back on the East coast, you know, the coast with the most, you know Yeah.
There's, there's nothing better.
Joe: You still have a lot of family out East Coast? Mm-hmm.
Matt: Yeah. They're all East Coast. Uh, my sister's in Connecticut. My, my mom and the rest of my family are still all in Vermont. Okay. Um, yeah.
Joe: That's nice. It's nice to be close to family, especially as you're, you're building a family of your own.
You got two kids now.
Matt: Yeah. And uh, Kelsey's parents actually moved to Peachtree City this year. Oh, nice, nice. So that's been huge. Yeah. Yeah. Having family in the same golf cart community.
Joe: Yeah. And, and then you moved here right before COVID then? Yeah. What, what month did you move in, in 2019? I was May,
Matt: it was like July or August, something like that was when we moved out here.
He, you were one of the first people brought maybe one of the only people that I knew mm-hmm. That I had met that, that was planning that. Mm. Um, so Thank you. You may have put a subconscious Yeah. Bug in my ear that Yeah,
Joe: yeah. So, so I, I got us started and then you followed and then, and then I, ACE came, came later.
Matt: I told Erin and Ace about Peachtree City and then yeah. They told a few of their friends and now it's like. Pretty much all of my favorite people that I, that I knew in la A lot of my favorite people, not all of them. Yeah, not all of them. Keep working, keep pushing. I'm trying. There's like three, two or three couples that, um, that live within golf cart distance of me now.
Joe: That's so awesome. A slow moment in the industry at the moment, and I know a lot of people that are, uh, going back and, and doing a lot of theater since there hasn't been as much film and tv and a lot of people that are also taking the route that you have, where they're, they're working on a passion project.
So let's jump into system failure, shall we? Yeah, that's right. I got, uh, a little bit of a synopsis that I'm gonna read here from, from your site. System Failure is a proof of concept sci-fi thriller about the current dangers of AI trauma and the private prison system in the us. It aims to shine a light on the dangers of AI and its potential misuse in our broken prison system.
During a court ordered therapy session, glitches in reality, unexplained happenings and his therapist all begin putting our protagonist Jerome, on edge. As tension builds, the world itself begins to unravel leading to a complete system failure. Who wrote that? That was good. That was good. That was catchy job found.
Um, so just starting off, I wanna know, how did the concept for this project come to you? Was there a particular incident, thought story, article? What? What brought this about for you?
Matt: I'm a sci-fi guy, like through and through both of the audio dramas that I directed and produced were, were sci-fi. One of 'em was called the Veil Audio Drama, and that was like basically my version of the Twilight Zone like Black Mirror risk et cetera.
And, and actually the pilot episode of that. Of that show was kind of a similar concept to this. 'Cause I, I, I'm interested in the idea of like, this being some sort of a simulation theory. Mm. Pretty interested in that. Eric Connolly, who's the star of this film he's a director, actor, producer who's one of my.
Best friends in the industry. We've known each other since 2009. He moved to Peachtree City recently, and he directed me in a lot of his films, and I've always wanted to direct him. So first it sort of came from just my general, like of sci-fi, and then I wanted to write something that he could star in.
Joe: Mm-hmm. That,
Matt: that I could write, act, and direct in. So it started off as like a, okay, we're gonna do this. Ourselves for no money. It's just gonna be a two person scene that we can use for our reels. And so I wrote it, I think I wrote it in a couple hours, an hour maybe. Yeah, it was like a 10 page script.
I, I started, um, meeting with this group of people who we sort of created a, a loose collective. Called the film Ensemble, but it's a very, it, it's not an actual company, it's just a bunch of people who, when the industry was slow, we decided that we would try to help each other make some things. And so far we've shot a music video and my project was the second one to have been shot.
So we're in post on those two. And we've got another two other short films that are. That we voted on to help produce, um, that are in pre-production. So I pitched it to them after I wrote it and they voted to, to help me. So that was just a great process 'cause Erica Arval, who's a casting director and director producer just a multihyphenate in many ways.
I asked her if she would, would co-direct it with me, and she did. And so. We did the the crowdfunding campaign for it, and she co-directed that, which was cool because the crowdfunding campaign we shot in the same location as the actual film. So it was like a pre-production day. We got to see how co-directing worked.
Yeah. It was just a, a great experience. The last thing that I will say is I did read an article about ai, basically all the major AI platforms lying to. To people, not just to people, but to an independent like watchdog group that was specifically testing them to see if they could lie. And, and basically they, they all did.
And, and I've had, and since then I've had, I've had multiple, especially chat, GPT at chat, GPT lies to me constantly, constantly. What does, what does it lie about? So like, um, it'll, it'll over promise. Okay. Like it'll knowingly over promise. Yeah. Like I tried to get it to design a prop, like a 3D printed prop for, for this film.
Yeah. And it was like, yeah, I'll give it to you in, in two days. And then it was like two days later and I'm checking in being very kind to this, to to chat GPT and um, basically it went for like a week and then I was like, what the fuck is the deal? And it's like, oh, I was telling you what I could do. If I could do that, like, and so I had to and, and you can set parameters with it.
So basically I had it set parameters that it would not lie to me anymore. And I, and I, and I asked Chad, GPT, I said, how many people have you misled today by overpromising on things that you know you're not capable of? And it said, it's systemic. It told me that. It's like, I don't have the numbers. I don't have, I'm not privy to the numbers, but I can tell you it's systemic.
Joe: Oh, right.
Matt: I am lying that I'm lying to people daily. Yes. And but, but, but the article was about even, even more intense, like versions of that where it, it was actually lying for self preservation. Like Wow. So that was why I wrote it. And then. We did the crowdfunding campaign.
Joe: Mm-hmm.
Matt: I don't know. Sorry, I don't, I don't wanna No, no.
I know you have some, some questions. No. Before
Joe: you're getting into the crowdfunding, um, there, there's a couple things that you touched on that I wanted to ask a little bit more about. The first is, I, I'm a big fan of the Twilight Zone series as well. Did you have a favorite episode of, of the original series?
Matt: The one that comes to mind is the the call from the grave.
Joe: I was just gonna say that one. Oh, it's, I had two. I had two in mine. I was like, when it comes to like pure spooks. Yeah. That, that episode is one of my favorites. It might be my favorite. You know what I like about it is like,
Matt: I like, I like, I kind of like hard science fiction.
Yeah. And like, I feel like as far as plausibility goes, like that one could, could be like. Hard science, like figured out, you know, with like electrical impulses and
Joe: mm-hmm.
Matt: And just, you know, resonance that we leave behind and things like that. Even though they didn't go into it in the episode, it just like, right.
Yeah. Plus it's, but then it's also got the, it's like, could be hard science, but it's also got like the very classic like, urban, urban legend. Legend. Like, it's got a very, like urban legend. You could see that being, you know, told.
Joe: I think it's some of the best TV writing was on the Twilight Zone back in the day and like and Rod Sterling.
Matt: Yeah, so, so that's kind of my dream. That's kind of my dream. That's kind of why I'm doing, I'm doing system failure. Is that like and why I did the veil audio drama. 'cause in the Veil audio drama, I narrated it Rod Sterling style.
Joe: Nice.
Matt: You know, pre and post.
Joe: Yeah.
Matt: Um, I had an intro and an outro and um, and I got to show run it, and that's kind of my dream.
Like to, to do that would be,
Joe: yeah. Would
Matt: be. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. I'm gonna get into that as well. But one, one quick thing while we're talking about inspirations. Uh, you mentioned that, that some of the inspiration for system failure, a couple of projects you mentioned were Severance Westworld, person of interest, blade Runner Minority Report, iRobot X Machina, and the Matrix.
Can you pick one of those that's a standout for you? Pick one where you're like, this was heavily influenced for me.
Matt: I mean, it's definitely the matrix. You know, the Matrix was, I think it was probably one of the first movies that I saw that stuck, stuck with me. I guess it was, it, you know, you, you watch things growing up, but then you, you reach a certain point and you know, you'll s you'll see stuff that.
It just, it just opens your mind, you know? Yeah. Um, but when we did the camera test for it, you know, there were a lot of references to, to the matrix as far as the, the color grade and the you know, the, the red, red and blue pill. I mean, that is basically, you know, sort of what we started with.
Joe: Visually, would you say that follows along with, with the matrix as well?
Like the, the style
Matt: and Blade Runner towards the end? Um. Lot, a lot of neon in the end. Oh, and, and I've always been interested in like neo, neo noir look. Yeah, yeah. Sort. Yeah. We actually got a really amazing location for next to nothing. Um, down here. It's a, a self storage unit. 'cause originally, you know, there's, there's like a big warehouse scene at the end sort of trying to mimic that matrix scene where he wakes up in the tanks and there's thousands and thousands of tanks.
Yeah. We, we actually managed to get like. Almost everything practical. And Eric, who is the star of the film, also, like I said, a director and writer, he's like, well, what if you just did it in like a stealth storage unit? And, and it and with the neons that we got, and it's like a, you know, metal container, um, we just got some really cool visuals all around.
We got some incredible visuals for a two day shoot.
Yeah.
Joe: It was a two day shoot for the project.
Matt: Two day two day shoot. Ooh. Yeah. We shot, we shot, uh, I think it was 13 pages in two days. And Nice. I am a, I'm a pre-production nerd, so. I got really lucky. The DP for this is, um, a wonderful artist named Joseph East.
He's done a ton of stuff. He did a, a really amazing doc about pregnant women in the prison systems. He he did a show that was like, um, all about brain science. I think that's the one that he might, that he might've won the Emmy on when I got Joseph. But we also did a, a full on test shoot and on the test shoot day, Eric and I were there.
We were both off book and Erica sat in while they lit us, and so we got to run the film top to bottom, the majority of the film. Yeah. Which is the two person scene, top to bottom, like six or eight times. Get direction from Erica. They got to see the lighting and then I got to go back and be like, okay, let's tweak this for our pre light.
And so dude, when we got there on the day, I mean we were just. So dialed in. Right. And like, and we took, took out all the, all the guesswork, you know? Yeah. It was, it was so helpful.
Joe: Tell me a little bit about your partnership, your co directorship with Erica Arval and how, how do you know each other and what did she bring to the, the project that you were, you were looking for?
Matt: Uh, Eric and I met I started studying at her studio, um, AWS um, when I moved to Atlanta, she had started doing a lot of online stuff during COVID and, and things like that. So I took a, a class with her and then I ended up being an ambassador for her. Her school. So like sort of welcoming people in and, and hosting events and breakfast clubs and things like that.
And then, um, I sent her, um, my feature, um, Europa sending, which is the, it's about two women in a sub exploring Europa. And we sort of hit it off that way. And then I knew that she was wanting to do more directing as well, and so I sort of, you know, thought that this could be a good. A good way for, you know, us to work together.
You know, I knew I was gonna be acting in it as well. But I mean, she brought, it was really a, a, a cool symbiosis because, you know, I did all the storyboarding and, um, you know, the shot listing. We, we chatted about it, but then I would put it together and then she would come back with notes and then on set.
She loves directing actors so much that, you know. I was free to act. We had, we had done so much pre-pro together that we were, you know, our vision was, was really solid. So I didn't have to worry about, you know, any of the, the technical directing stuff. We, I, I already got it out of the way. And so Erica could just kind of do her thing as far as, you know, finessing performance and, and, and all that sort of stuff.
And, and I could just try to, just try to live in it. And, and it was, I mean, it was, it was amazing. And, and there's so many little nuances that, that she caught as far as like, continuity and stuff and um, and uh, going through the dailies, I really got to, got to notice that even more.
Joe: It sounds like a, an amazing partnership and I wish that more.
More people, more productions. Were open to the idea of, of co-directors. So I'm, I'm glad you went with it. Especially when you are also acting in, in it, it can be hard to bounce back and forth between giving your performance and then hopping over to view playback. So I'm, I'm sure it was also just a big stress relief on that end as well.
Matt: Yeah, it, it was great. I would, I would do it again in a heartbeat. And I, and I, and I, and I do think that the secret to to it is, you know, I mean, unless you've been working with somebody as a co-director a long time, I think the secret is, is that that pre-production though, you know, and I don't, I don't think it could work as, as seamlessly as it did without that.
Do you know that extra layer built in
Joe: Yes. Spend, spend your time in, in, in pre-production. Get that right dude. That will make your, if you can, your life if you can, because we were
Matt: filming in my house, you know?
Joe: Yeah.
Matt: Like the main, the main three locations were in my house, so I knew. I had the time I could do a pre light, like,
Joe: yeah.
Matt: You know.
Joe: What was the some of the biggest constraints that you found with, with this project? Was it budget? Was it time, locations, crew? What was, what was some of the, the biggest hurdles that you had to overcome?
Matt: You know, budget was tricky because, um, you know, I did seed and spark where you have to like.
You have to make 80%, and we were going for 10 grand. So I had to make eight grand for everybody getting paid you know, on the day with, you know, crazy 360 rigs. And, um, you know, uh. Zeiss lenses and Yeah. You know, we, we made it work, so, um, luckily I'm editing it. But, you know, we'll see what happens with the sound mix and the grade.
I, I wanna do all those things because, uh, my next project is, is this Europa sending where it's like a very confined submarine project that I want to try to. Try to do on a, on a, on a very indie scale.
Joe: Yeah.
Matt: Um, so I'd like to learn how to really grade and I'd like to learn how to sound mix more and sort of be that one-stop shop at least.
And even if I don't end up doing it, I'll, I'll understand it enough to, to be, you know, fluent in the language of it, you knows
Joe: which, which overall will, will make you a much better director as well. Yeah. Because even if you do have to pass it off to, to a colorist or a sound person, you can now speak their language.
Matt: Yeah.
Joe: And you, and you know exactly how to break it down and how to, how to express what, what's inside your, inside your mind. What, what are you editing on? What software are you using? I'm using Final
Matt: Cut. I, I, I've edited on Da Vinci and Premier and, final Cut has some crazy AI tools. One of the tools that that Final Cut has now is called the Magnetic Mask.
And what it is, is, you know, I could click on you and, you know, it'll mask you almost perfectly. And then you can make little adjustments on your shirt or whatever, you know, and then it'll, I can track it and it'll track you through the whole shot. Because I've got one scene where basically my character like clones and like fills the room.
And so to be able to use that magnetic mass tool, I'm just really excited to get in there and play with it. So it was, it was a lot of the, um, the AI tools that, that I found doing my research on the, on the latest final cut that made me want to go that way.
Joe: I would be very interested to see just how the AI tools have evolved between the different.
Softwares, right? Because I think they're all in the same, same race sort of leveling up. Yeah. Yeah. Similarly, yeah. Yeah. And and every time. Yeah. Every time I get a new update on DaVinci, they always break down. It's like, well this is this, these are the things that are now a million times easier, right?
Because of these, these new AI tools. So, yeah. Um, a lot of the world is freaking out about AI right now, and I'm like, so far it's making my job a lot easier. Yeah, it's, it's making what I do a bit, a bit easier. That kinda leads me into, I wanna talk about exactly the, the how, your view of AI within the prison system in the United States.
Going back to the theme, the theme of, of your project, what do you view as some of the potentially biggest ethical risks of AI being implemented into the prison system?
Matt: One of the articles that I read that was from the, um, department of Justice was on the implementation of AI in prisons. And, you know, it was talking about everything from like, cost cutting to sentencing, um, recommendations to surveillance.
I mean, hang. And that's why I put Minority Report as one of the, one of the the inspirations for this because AI is, is already being used in, in prisons. But like, what's really interesting to me is, is the private prison system, right? Because the private prison system wants more prisoners.
Joe: Yeah.
Matt: Right. Yeah. Because the business model isn't to heal people.
Joe: No,
Matt: it's, it's, bottom line is how do I get more prisoners? You know, like, oh, well maybe we, you know, we start a riot and maybe we, we start framing people. You, you can trust it until you can't, you know? Yeah. That's the thing.
Joe: And, and, and I think it's about how can this help support.
Human beings and human minds and human morality without saying, you take over and you are making these decisions. So it's, it's about saying you're excellent at data entry. You're great at maybe tracking systems with, within, within the, the, the prisons, uh, facial tracking systems, locations, things like that.
Mapping perhaps. But there is a fine line. That you could cross when, if, if you're talking about for-profit, essentially with, with these prisons, there's a fine line you can cross where you say, yes, how, how can we make more money?
Matt: And it's, and it's, it's crazy because it's not, you know, the idea of Minority Report is not, that is not that far off, is far as where we are technologically.
Right. Because Minority report, the majority of that was, was really just facial tracking.
Joe: Yeah.
Matt: You know, it was facial tracking. I mean, they had a precog. Like AI essentially replaces precog.
Joe: Yeah.
Matt: Right. I mean, if you trust it, you know, 'cause, 'cause, 'cause I'm sure that there's, you know, people who are, who are using AI models to, to, to do predictive, to human behavior.
Right. That's, and that's, that's one of the things that, that, that was mentioned in this, in this writeup from the Department of Justice was predicting. Re Reoffenders.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah.
Matt: For AI being used by ai,
Joe: it's so crazy looking back at Minority Report, because I, I remember when watching that when I first came out and it was, seems so futuristic, right?
Yeah. It's like this would never happen. Like this is amazing concepts. I don't know who came up with this because this is not the world we live in. This is not a world I'll ever see. And it was only, it was only what, 20
Matt: years
Joe: ago? 15 years ago? Yeah. Yeah. It was not that long ago, and I was like, oh, we're here.
We, we have, we have arrived. Not, not quite related to the, the prison system, but just talking about as, as a storyteller and as an artist, ethically, how, how much AI can you implement into your, into your work? And there's legal battles that are going on now as far as. Well, this is, this is stealing images from other artists without giving credit to those artists.
Do you, do you find that there's a line for you with your art and, and how you use
Matt: ai? I don't know. It was probably two years ago now. I turned down a, a gig that was, that wanted to use my voice. They were going to use AI to modulate it into like. All the characters, essentially.
Joe: Mm-hmm.
Matt: So, you know, from a director's standpoint, you know, that's 10, 15 actors that I wouldn't have gotten to hire.
Joe: Yeah.
Matt: You know, so I turn that down. The, the art stuff is, is really is really muddy, you know? I mean, any, anything that's created, I mean, yeah, it's all been, it's all been. Stolen essentially. But I mean, it is creating new things.
Joe: Thinking of it as, as an artist, as a filmmaker specifically, there have been so many times throughout the history of cinema that new technology and new inventions have, have come out and.
People have lost their livelihood because of that, even in, in our lifetime. I think the significant one is, is the move from practical effects to, um, computer generated CGI visual effects, and I, I think of all of the artisans, all of all of the craftsmen that. Worked with miniatures that created some of, some of the most amazing miniature art for, for films, even not that long ago.
Looking back at the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Then as soon as it becomes cheaper to have another option to like, well, we can create this entire landscape with CGI, we don't have to have somebody on their hands and knees painting anymore. That's, that's the way that it's gonna go. And we're, we're already seeing that with.
AI within our field as well. Like you're talking about all, all of these advancements within Final Cut and, and within Da Vinci there's certain aspects of, of the industry where people, people are unfortunately going, going to lose work.
Matt: Yeah. I mean, I mean, audio books. Audio books are gonna go hard. They're already started.
They've already started too. I mean, the, the AI narrators are, are getting so good, you know? Yeah. I mean, there's just numerous, um, you know, photographers in general. I mean, you know. Yeah. I mean, you could be, I was talking to, I did a shoot with, um, Rick Lewis recently, and he was talking about, you know, 'cause he does some really like high concept modeling work and, and things like that, that stuff that just looks very surreal.
Hmm. And he's like, and he's like, you know, I feel like my, my engagement's gone down since. Since AI has flooded social media with all these, albeit incredible looking images, but like, you know, the actual humans that are, that are actually creating this stuff in real life, you know, are, are suffering because of it.
Joe: So at the end of the day, what are you hoping your audience emotionally, intellectually, will, will take away from, from a viewing of system failure?
Matt: You know, trauma. And the way that our, that our brain and body deal with it it can be a, can be kind of a superpower. My mom, uh, had a, had a kind of a, a tough upbringing and she you know, doesn't remember, you know, parts of her, her childhood and.
She, you know, because she probably built some walls in inside her mind, right?
Joe: Mm-hmm.
Matt: And so I, I think that that that idea of like, and that's allowed her to have a really, you know, normal life, you know, is so like the strength of of, of people and, and our minds and our souls, you know, going through, you know, trauma, addiction.
All those sort of things. You know, if, if I were to make a feature film version of this, it would be, you know, multiple people in these therapy sessions and all of them are broken and, and that, that, that brokenness is actually what saves them. That, that's what I'm really interested in exploring.
Joe: And is that what you have in mind when you are, are talking about an anthology style?
Matt: I'm kind of on the fence honestly. Part of me wants to try to license another, a, a bunch of other AI related shorts. Yeah. And, and create a Black Mirror style or, you know, Twilight Zone style anthology feature with this as sort of the, the, the, um. You know, headpiece this film. But I'd also love to do it as a feature where, like, my character is the, the therapist.
So like, it's all these patients that are dealing with this, you know, AI therapist essentially. Yeah. Yeah. Um, either, you know, either way, I, I definitely wanna. The life of this thing is, is to be a feature in, in some way. I'm kind of done just making shorts. I made quite a few of 'em, and, and they're great.
And I, I love it. But if there's a way to to, to make it into something that's marketable,
Joe: that's, that's what's ahead of you. And so what is, what is the next step then? When, when are we gonna be able to see this, this project of yours?
Matt: I'm, I'm hoping, you know, maybe by the end of the year to be, to be finished with post on it.
I think it'll probably have a festival run regardless of, of what it ends up being in its final form. Um, but yeah, hopefully by the end of the year, hopefully be out to the masses soon. Good. Um, I'm just, you know, trying to prioritize life before I hop into the edit. 'cause I know once I get into it. I'm gonna, which is nice 'cause I, I've actually been able to step away from it for a little while.
Yeah. Um, I know once I get into it, it's gonna be, it's gonna be fun and engrossing. So, yeah. Just wanna make sure I'm ready.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I understand that feeling of when, when you do dive into it, then everything else in your life becomes a little bit of a blur. Right. So you wanna make sure you got your ducks in a row before, before you're diving into diving into post-production on that.
Yeah. And tell the
Matt: story for the third time. Right?
Joe: Right. Yeah. And then see how it, see how it evolves and see how it changes now. But where, where can people go to be following the journey? Where can they find out more?
Matt: So you can, you can follow it on the seed and spark page. Okay.
Joe: I'll put that in the show notes so people can, can go there.
Matt: I haven't been great about doing updates, but, but they're coming, like I said, I've got, I've got a bunch of BTS stuff and uh Did you, did you see the 360 shot that I, I think I posted a video of it. Did you see the, the crazy 360 rig?
Joe: I don't know if I did.
Matt: I kind of wanna show it to you. Can I show it to you on, on there?
Yeah. Brian Rosso was, was a part of our team. He's he's been a. Dolly Grip, he's been second camera. He's done a bunch of other underwater work. He was a a special ops diver, and then he got into Hollywood, you know, and he's worked on like every major underwater. Thing. He was part of the underwater team on Black Panther and stuff.
So I, I said, I, I found a, a YouTube video of this 360 rig and I said, you know, I told Brian, I was like, this is what I wanna make. And I'm, I'm pretty handy myself, but I, I, um, told Brian about it and he, he created it for me. So, so if you can see the camera
Joe: Yeah.
Matt: Is on the rig there. And if you, if I zoom in, you can see the shot.
Is my face spinning around and action?
Joe: Oh my gosh.
Matt: I have a very strong mind indeed. This is most times, Hey, Mr. Benson. Oh wow. It seems that you rejected my construct. I look forward speaking. I can't wait to see speaking with you, the final shot of that. So in the shop, because of the lighting that we had and the movement, it makes my face look like it.
There's like stuff crawling under it because of the colors that we had. And it's all practical, man, dude, it's,
Joe: oh, that's amazing. We got
Matt: some, some really cool stuff. I was really, really lucky with the team I had that they could take all this crazy stuff in my head and, and, and make it a reality. Yeah.
Joe: That's, that is so cool. And, and good for you for, um, not getting sick on that. I just, just watch. So at the end of it, I didn't wanna, I
Matt: didn't wanna give away too much, but at the end of it I'm like, okay, we need to stop. 'cause I thought I was gonna like eat it and bust my head off my mantle. Yeah. Yeah. I had a safe word and stuff.
Joe: Oh, that's, that's incredible. Well, I'm, I'm so excited for you. I'm so excited for, for the project. Thanks again, Matt. Thanks. Thanks for chatting with me and, um. Wishing you all the best for the project.
Matt: Yeah, thanks Joe.