Writer and director Matt Green began his career making music videos and music concert shows, and produced the faith-based film No Greater Love for Lions Gate, directed by Brad Silverman. Matt is also a professor at The Master’s University where he helms the Cinema and Digital Arts program. In January of this year the University released its first feature length movie, The Man From Nowhere, which was written and directed by Matt and made by 27 of it’s students.
Transcript
my guest today is writer and director
matt greene
matt began his career making music
videos and he later produced the
faith-based film
no greater love for lionsgate which was
directed by brad silverman matt is also
a professor at the masters university
where he helms the cinema and digital
arts program
in january of this year the university
released its first feature-length movie
the man from nowhere which was written
and directed by matt
and made by 27 of his students
this is episode 45.
matt welcome thank you for being a part
of the podcast it’s a pleasure to have
you here
my pleasure thanks for having me you are
a filmmaker and an instructor
at masters university is that correct
yes
i’ve been at masters now seven years
almost seven years a little over seven
years okay and you’re teaching the
cinema program
i oversee our cinema and digital arts
emphasis which is uh
housed with currently housed within the
communication major
uh but it’s basically like our media
arts kind of emphasis program
right so how how did you get into that
what
what what brought them into the place
where they even wanted to open a
department
well what’s funny is they’ve actually
had a
media program since like the early 90s
uh it was called electronic media
and it was around i actually knew the
guy who was running it was actually my
discipleship leader when i was in junior
high
so it was kind of funny uh and uh they
had this program
and what all seven years ago i was
approached and they asked me hey they
really wanted to revamp it
um and kind of you know give it a more
modern flavor and i’ll be honest with
you i hate school
or i hated school i should say growing
up um high school i hated i hated so
much i graduated a year early to get out
um the one into college just because i
figured that’s what i was supposed to do
junior college and bombed out
hated that and so the idea that
um i was presented with this opportunity
to come in and teach
at first i was like i’m not doing that
and i have found that every time i say
i’m not going to do something the lord
says guess what you’re going to do this
and it’s honestly been one of the most
rewarding things i’ve
ever done so i came in and i said the
first thing we got to do is we got to
revamp this program i said it’s the name
electronic media is extremely archaic we
need to have something that has a more
modern
feel in five and so we’ve spent the last
seven years
revamping and and growing the program
and
it’s really been a testament to just the
lord’s um
grace things have happened uh so quickly
in terms of growth and things we’ve been
allowed to do that it’s
i know that i’m not that gifted to be
able to pull that off
and and so i’ve just been okay just
humbly trying to go okay what’s the next
thing okay
we’re gonna do that and let the lord
open the doors and kind of go from there
so
we went from having no money no
equipment
to having a lot of equipment and doing
full-length feature films
in seven years and so it’s been real
testament to god’s grace
that’s incredible that you were able to
mount a feature film with the students
and and get something really nice done
what what’s crazy is that we
shot that entire movie the man from
nowhere uh
in eight days uh wow eight days which is
nuts when you especially when you
consider you’re doing it with a bunch of
students
and industry professionals and trying to
make that cohesive
uh the cohesiveness work uh
eight days is is and that’s actually
that’s astounding yeah it’s it’s it’s
it’s not something i recommend to
everybody it’s not like we set out to go
we’re gonna do this in eight days
i mean low budget after school specials
and
you know women in peril hallmark kinds
of films you know they they
they’re lucky to get 14 days oh yeah
they should you know and even that’s
tight yeah you guys
your typical hallmark movie shoots 15
days at a 1.2 million dollar budget
ours was between us us and the fence
post ours was 130 000
shot in eight days that’s incredible and
um
we did and this is the other crazy thing
we didn’t do any overtime
on all of the eight days except the
final day
where we shot all of our noir stuff and
we knew we were gonna do overtime that
day
and we did two hours of overtime we had
budgeted for it so it’s pretty crazy
it’s impressive that is really
impressive i i spoke at a conference
though about two months ago and i was
speaking on how to make a movie in eight
days
and a guy comes up to me afterwards and
he goes eight days that’s really cool he
goes i made a movie in one day
and i said wow i was really
irresponsible with my time
[Laughter]
oh my word well i guess you know when
you think about it
once you get the the basic machine
together
um a lot of what holds up the bigger
productions is just the scale of the
production the expectations of everybody
but when you’re doing it on your own i
guess i mean is that how you account for
it you being able to shoot it in eight
days yeah there was less hands
involved without a doubt there’s less
red tape uh and so we would just
you know as we were sitting up we made
sure we wrote the script
myself um i got the bones done and i
wrote that in two weeks
because the way it just went about was
the fall of
um i guess this was the fall of 2018
or 2019 excuse me when we when we were
thinking about doing it i went to the
school pitched them on it
and the school said okay yeah we’re
interested
we’ll put up half the money you bring
the other half and i said okay done deal
and i said well now i gotta write the
script and they had to
approve the script of course and so i
banged out the script in two weeks and
then i called my buddy chris dowling
who’s a really established screenwriter
director producer in the industry and
had done a lot of faith films
and so um we basically retooled the
script to make sure that we knew that we
could film it within the locations that
we had
the crazy thing is we had originally
written all the noir stuff
as a western and we had a western
location locked
and ready to go and two weeks before we
started filming they pulled the plug
on us being able to film there and so we
had to shift
all the well we said okay well what do
we have left what what can we use
i love film noir it’s one of my favorite
genres
and i said well there’s a location that
i know it’s called capital arts
studios in chatsworth in in hollywood
and they it’s about 110 000 square foot
facility and they had
15 different sets already ready to go so
i called and i said hey listen we don’t
have much money can we shoot here for a
day
and i said yeah sure come and so we
shifted everything to noir
and um made it happen that is the
benefit of working in la being able to
capitalize on other productions and
studios
well and you know as a filmmaker right
it’s all about being fluid
um because it’s just ever changing and
so
we you just got it was a great lesson
for our students
like hey listen you want to do this and
you get so set well this is my script
and i’m shooting this and i’m not
changing anything
really okay great two weeks before boom
you’re changing everything
and um and so you’ve got to be nimble
and if you can’t
do that go look for another industry so
you shot that and you changed changed it
well you had to do a costuming change
then
yeah totally it was like yeah our
um our costumer megan hartung was like
uh okay uh we’ll make the change
and so yeah it was it was a big switch
two weeks out it was a
it’s a logistical nightmare to shoot
that quick
um and be able to have you know we do a
lot of big kind of moves and stuff in
the film
and um be able to do that
and then throw that wrench into it i
mean i guess the the students have
are very motivated to be active in doing
things rather than just standing around
waiting to be told something
well and again i think that’s one of the
advantages to
to masters is that um at
most not all but at most film schools
they’re going to basically it’s a lot of
theory
and then just go make your own films
yeah and we do have the theory because
you need that as foundation
uh but i wanna i want us to be a
production house
so that we can provide this opportunity
for students it’s not just hey you gotta
do this
we’re now providing these massive
productions that you can come be a part
of so
you know we’ve got the feature and it
won’t be the last lord willing we’re
going to do another one this next year
we’ve got a kids show that we start
shooting in the fall
and then we’re going to shoot also a
superhero pilot
in early spring so it reminds me
of the ucla writers program because when
you go into that program you’re writing
four scripts a year that’s how you learn
you just write script after script after
script after script
and it sounds like you guys are doing
something similar in terms of production
well that’s that’s a good point too
because
you know what the students they think
they write their you know they write a
script and then they spend the next 10
years trying to get that done it’s like
no no
you should be you should be writing 50
things because your first script is
going to stink
that’s just a matter of it so you’re
going to get better with each one
don’t put all your eggs in one basket
you need to have you know
50 things going so that one can land
did the students work in with the
editing or once it got into post how did
you guys manage that
yeah so we uh we had roughly 25 students
that worked on the actual production
uh and then another 45 to 50 that worked
on the post side
uh and that was editing uh we had a
whole i think we had five or six
students
that were editing the picture and
blocking out the scenes getting it all
kind of loaded in and then our um
our peter schickel who teaches editing
here for us at the university uh was the
actual
main editor on it would come in and help
them finesse the scenes and and get that
all locked in
uh and then we had students that worked
on um
the uh the sound mix on
all different other facets of the post
production side the marketing
uh whole bunch of different stuff so so
i saw it i believe
i rented it on amazon was that is that
right yeah it’s on amazon
it’s on our website
manfromnowheremovie.com
uh it’ll it’s on christiancinema.com
it’ll be a pure flix exclusive starting
september 1
uh so we’re really excited about that um
we’ve been really blessed to kind of
collab
with the pureflix people and they are
really excited about the movie
it’s a little outside of their typical
wheelhouse of films they do
you know most of their films are romance
uh and our film isn’t that it’s a
father-son story
and so it’s a different demo than they
typically go after and so we’re excited
to kind of help them branch out with
that that’s good
one of the um interesting things that
we’ve discovered
in pitching to some of the bigger
studios and
streamers is that now there seems to be
a hunger for
material for boys which it wasn’t for
the longest time and to do
just a strictly boy thing was was
anathema but today
it seems like it’s it’s you know
swinging back in the opposite direction
so
i’m not surprised to hear that uh you
know they were interested in a
father-son thing
yeah it’s tough i mean because you know
most faith films you know the average
uh the the key demo for a faith film is
35 and older female
and that’s because the the moms watch
the movie and then force everybody else
in the family to go see it
and you know buy all the dvds and hand
them out to everybody uh yeah and so
trying to kind of you know engage the
other sectors of that
of the audience in that it can be a
challenge but it can be done
right this has to be content that
they’re interested in how did this deal
with uh pure flicks come about
yeah so we finished the film and
um we had a a mutual friend who had done
a film
or sold a film to pureflex and just
happened to send the link on over there
and we honestly heard back super fast
and they really liked the movie and
liked the message and again it was
they were trying to branch out and
broaden their demo and so
um you know uh it just worked out you
know
that uh our film you know again doesn’t
have the romance all that stuff but it
has the
you know the father-son redemption story
right we call it the prodigal father
as opposed to the prodigal son story uh
that kind of prodigal father story
so yeah how do you see the marketplace
right now for filmmakers
in this genre is it is it promising is
it discouraging
i think it’s a little bit of both
because it’s still uncertain what’s
going on um
because of covid and i mean that just
radic
radically shifted the entire business
and theatrical is everyone’s still kind
of unsure what that’s going to look like
yeah and and the streaming platforms
have been like streaming has become
the place where you put your movie now
and so what happens with that well then
everybody’s going there
and so now you know and specifically on
the faith
side the really the only full-fledged
faith streamer is pure flicks well now
they’re being inundated by everybody
and so what does that do it narrows the
window
uh and and the what that means too is
you know before you had some of these
lower budgeted faith films that were
coming out and would do well
the challenge is again now you’re
competing on that bigger scale
so you need more names what does that do
it costs more
uh and that’s been the biggest thing
that that i’ve seen is that like you
and you just got to have names in your
project to be able to get the eyeballs
on it
and that’s what the streamers are
looking for and so
that just it changes the economics of
making these lower budgeted films
you think that’s true with with pure
flicks as well oh yeah
i mean i’ve had talks with them recently
about another project we want to do and
we’ve been talking about okay
what kind of names do they want to see
in that film uh and obviously it’s a
different again it’s
it’s it’s different on pureflex because
again they’re appealing primarily to the
uh the faith
inspirational market uh and so there’s
certain names that wouldn’t work well
there that would netflix
uh and vice versa um and so
uh you know it’s it’s it’s a tricky kind
of little balancing act
to try and figure out you know who they
want
yeah are they harder to deal with in
terms of
wanting specific subgenres of the
christian film work because i know that
at least in my experience there unless
you fit within
a successful genre or a practice
genre a lot of a lot of
studios or distributors don’t know what
to do with it
yeah i don’t think that’s changed at all
yeah i i
i think and it’s probably even gotten
more intense now because
the the distribution avenues have so
narrowed
they really want what they know has or
at least has a track record of selling
uh or in the streaming platform has a
track record of getting eyeballs on it
i you know your big netflix’s and stuff
like that
i mean at this point if you’re not a
studio or a big name you’re not getting
your project on there
uh it’s just and that’s the reality of
it
right now yeah yeah um you know a little
you know film doesn’t have a chance uh
on there
because you’re competing with the
studios you know they’re going to take
your little movie or are they going to
take
a chris pratt movie at 160 million you
know yeah for sure
i get it i don’t blame them you know i
don’t blame them
but that’s the unfortunate dynamic so um
you know it does eventually something
else will appear
because that’s the way it always does
somebody will come up with a new widget
or some new way
and some new avenue and then that’ll be
the paradigm shift that changes things
um so maybe maybe we’re the ones to do
that
who knows if you look at vid angel what
they’re doing with the chosen and now
they just financed
wing feather saga um that’s pretty
amazing totally i mean 10 million
dollars a season
it’s crazy now obviously there’s some
you know they had some backing and stuff
like that with the vid angel stuff to
get that initially started
uh but you know and they’re a great
testament to
just how it’s not just that i mean
they’ve got a whole the
merchandising around that too is
amazing i mean there should be a whole
study just undone on what they’ve done
on that
uh it’s it’s pretty it’s pretty
impressive yeah
and it really is you know it it to me
and i’ve been thinking a lot about this
is is we have a very
unique genre and a very unique
audience that is hungry
for faith content uh
and tends to be serious when and when
they find it then you know
the expectations are lowered and they’re
willing to take
you know watch things that you know a
normal person would not want to watch
just in terms of quality of script or
acting or whatever whatever there’s
including theology um so it
it’s to me it’s a unique audience that
it it
it has the opportunity to be tapped
for um somebody to build a streaming
service just
aimed at that other than netflix or
pureflix
um i think that there would be enough
there for competition
yeah because at some point there is
going to be
because you look at every studio every
studio is shifting to some kind of
streaming platform right
and at some point there’s going to be
some other faith provider that comes in
and tries to tap into that market yeah
um
it’s inevitable i think there’s there’s
a mistake being made
in that you know thinking about the
faith genre is just another genre
because it’s not
right right um because there’s so much
noise happening
in every other genre including series
you know you don’t even know what to
watch anymore and
you know if you go discovering films or
or series
those things are sometimes five years
old you’re like what where was that
that looks like a good series right so
you you can’t rise above the noise but
in the faith
genre you have that potential to
tap into something like it’s almost a
new frontier that nobody’s
really gone out to explore yeah it’s
interesting because like you
it has become a genre unfortunately
because i think with that comes some you
know
uh unfair expectations um yeah you know
that it’s gonna be poor quality and
again you know things are cliche for
reasons right because
they tend to be true and oftentimes
that’s what we see with the faith film
is it’s poor quality it’s bad acting
bad lighting bad sound and usually all
of those um
and and so trying to rise above that
um i’ve heard in the industry they’re
starting to use they’re actually not
sometimes they won’t even call them
faith films they’ll call them faith
adjacent
um uh to try and separate
from the faith films or that’s why they
started using the term inspirational
uh because they you wanted it to have a
different you know kind of just
differentiate it from
uh some of these other you know poor
quality
films and again listen i i don’t if
anybody gets a movie done
and gets it out there my hat’s off to
them because it’s so hard
it’s so hard and i don’t ever want to um
because who am i to say again some of
these films that maybe aren’t my taste
have been ex the lord has used so who am
i to say
uh trash um maybe it’s not my taste but
right they got it done and it’s being
used and so my hat’s off to them on that
i
you know it’s i again like you know you
know the challenge of trying to get a
movie
up and running and the the
not only the financial but just the man
hours that it takes is
is intense and so a lot of people talk
about doing it
and never do it i mean you know i’m sure
you can you know count on
your hand how many different times
you’ve heard oh i’ve got this movie idea
why don’t you go make it oh i don’t know
i’m gonna do that but you know wow
right go out and get done then don’t
just talk about it
yeah no i agree i and that’s what
excites me about what you’re doing
uh because here we are we’re still sort
of on the ground floor
even though film has been around for a
hundred and some years
um our our our material
and the kind of stories that we would
tell that would meet our audiences
is it’s just not being made that much
and if it’s done it’s done poorly but
to a certain degree we have to embrace
that and say you know what we don’t have
our filmmakers yet
we do have some who are are in the
ground floor they’re working they’re
trying to get things done with all kinds
of
insurmountable odds that they’re able to
overcome somehow
we have to expect a growing process
within the genre
right there has to be that opportunity
to fail
and do some pretty bad things and cheesy
things
um because only through failure are we
going to start seeing those successes
and those really great films and you
know i know there’s been a lot of
criticism against christian film and
people trying to
discourage christian filmmakers because
it’s cheesy don’t get into that you know
what
we no that’s the wrong thing we need to
flood the market we need to keep
doing more and more stuff so that the
really good filmmakers grow
and and and exceed and it becomes a
marketplace that’s viable we’re still
we’re still struggling for viability in
the market it seems to me
um and i as a i think as the
church as the christian community
this is something we need to get behind
and
you know i used to be against you know
you should go see a christian film
because it’s just a christian film
and now i’m thinking but wait a minute
you know if we have that attitude and
we’re not supporting it
then how is it going to grow are we just
going to sit around and wait for those
few flashes in the pan who are good
filmmakers and then have a great idea at
the same time and they
are able to overcome or are we going to
get behind
the whole community and movement and try
to build it
for that way and you know my my thinking
is shifting on
on how i look at that yeah i
the challenge that happened was it
became
cheaper to make movies and so what you
did was you had people who had
no experience they were realtors they
were this and suddenly they have money
and they’re like well it’s cheaper i can
go make
a movie but they have no background or
understanding
right of what and this is what it always
comes back to
what makes a good story it’s all about
story you can have the money you can
have all this stuff but if the story
isn’t good it doesn’t matter and it’d be
like me going try and building a
building
i’m not an architect i don’t know how to
do that but i got a bunch of money well
i’ll just go make a mill
make a building so again it’s good that
things are cheaper so it’s open the door
more
it’s bad because it’s cheaper and it’s
opened the door more um
and and and so with that comes
you know a lot but you see it in the
secular world
you see how many movies are made that
the story is just junk
and and yet sometimes they get by
because they have more money and they
have people who’ve been making films for
a while
somehow involved um and that raises at
least the production
value so it doesn’t look cheeseball
it does i mean we christian filmmakers
are not the ones who are the only ones
guilty
of the sin of making bad poor production
quality films absolutely
right it’s been going on since you know
the beginning of movie making so yeah
yeah
um i mean we could see that with netflix
when they were just buying stuff all
over the world and doing stuff overseas
that
from people you’ve never heard of even
they’re big films they’re big films that
they do they’re temple ones
i don’t know that there’s been one where
i’m like wow that was really good like i
i see why they’re not going theatrical i
can feel
you you watching you go okay i see why
this went to a streamer
yeah i mean i’m still trying to to
figure out how
we as a christian community
can support christian film as an
environment
that a lot that encourages because
honestly
and you know this as well it’s
discouraging to try to make a christian
film
there’s a lot of hurdles you have to
overcome that another filmmaker won’t
have to overtotally
yes and and how how can the church
help that i mean we if we really think
that
this medium is such a powerful medium
um what what are we supposed why aren’t
we rallying around this more than we are
and criticizing it so much we ought to
be championing
the efforts even the feeble efforts um
because the church yes i mean the church
and media
have this weird relationship right it’s
often seen as well that’s
evil you know it’s it’s hollywood is all
you know run by
a bunch you know pagans yeah for the
most part it is you’re right
so is every other industry um but media
is that is the information currency of
our day
and for us as believers to not be
capitalizing and using that to try
and inform and share our our message
is foolish i mean god is gifted just
like he’s gifted you artistically he’s
gifted me and many others
and you know we we are image bearers of
christ
and so that there’s a creative component
to that so to say that some of us have
not been gifted that is is
foolishness and and so what should we be
doing we should be using that giftedness
um to get out our worldview to share our
message to do redeeming content
um akovid has i used to have to it used
to be a difficult challenge for me
not a difficult challenge but it was
always a question that i’d be asked by
parents of incoming freshmen at masters
okay how does my son or daughter get a
job in
entertainment or media or whatever and
i used to have to kind of walk well with
kovid i don’t get asked that question
anymore
because they see how powerful media is
because they were
stuck in a home for you know months
and and they see the value and how in
and how
powerful it is so it really is we
again churches i i don’t know about your
church but i think that
um i’ve seen a shift even in churches
and how they’re using media
uh right now you know so um
it’s um i think they’re starting to get
it some of the more conservative
uh evangelical churches are a little
slow to the game
uh in terms of of you know recognizing
that and support and i’ll be honest even
at masters
even though they had this you know media
program a movie and all that stuff seven
years ago
no way no way and it wasn’t really
inside their wheelhouse well they i had
to prove to them that we were going to
do stuff that wouldn’t a
embarrass them and b would would fall
within
what we be believed theologically our
brand all that stuff
and so i think this movie was was a big
turning point for them because they said
oh my goodness we can do stuff
of again it’s not the godfather um but
we can do stuff
that is you know of quality um
within our means and
and do stuff that is still within our
core set of beliefs
and if if we can do that why are we not
doing more
uh and so and the school has been really
supportive and that and they get that
vision so
it seems to me that um because i’ve i’ve
got a few producers who i work with
who are not christians when i talk to
them about
the the numbers and the potential of the
faith-based market
and show them how the genre is working
and what’s been going on historically
they suddenly see it as wow this makes
business sense
i i don’t care for what you what you
guys are saying and you are
going to be proselytizing through it and
this sort of thing i’m not sure i want
to but the business
part of it it makes total sense and
you know if if unbelieving producers can
see it
i don’t know why the christian church
has a hard time seeing
seeing it you know the economic side
it’s like within we can’t even see what
we’re all about
and the the power that we have as a
community
i mean just in like take the southern
baptist for example
you know 9 million or something like
that some maybe it’s 90 million i don’t
know what it is i think it’s actually
close to that because
when you look at that’s how the kendrick
brothers started right who did yeah you
know those films
uh michael cat who was their pastor was
is really high up
in you know the southern baptist and
basically said hey you need to go and
support this movie so what did they do
they all went out and supported that
movie
and and now that there’s a brand the
kendrick brothers have a brand
and it’s because you know that that
church
supported that i mean we’re sitting on
something and i i
i just we i just want us to realize the
potential that we have because
you know we do look the morality on
netflix series hbo series all the it’s
going downhill fast
and the indoctrination that’s coming
along with it is
is even more overt than some of the you
know
more preachy christian films you know
for their own world views and that sort
of thing
but you know um we’ve got
a great opportunity here right now and
and what’s even
more exciting i find is that we’re not
constrained by
tv um not not just the gatekeepers but
just the constraints of
having to have a 22-minute show for a
half-hour time slot for tv
or a feature film has to be 85 minutes
or 90 minutes wherever
depending on what part of the world
you’re in um
you know we we have no constraints we we
have a
open slate for media as an art form
a communication art form to advance the
kingdom to build the church to do
whatever it is that we
we want to do and uh to me it’s a really
exciting time
and i just want us to ex understand that
and take advantage right
kind of embrace that and yeah yeah
um so what do you got next what’s what’s
your what’s your plans
yeah so um i have a uh western uh
with uh chris dowling uh that we we did
together
um that we’re um kind of looking at
i have a uh a suspense film that’s uh
not faith overt faith uh but definitely
um
has the uh faith world view in it
uh and then um i have another um
western um again you can kind of tell
that i love the western genre i love the
western genre for a couple reasons
i love it because historically up until
uh the late 60s when butch cassidy and
sundance kid came out which was kind of
the introduction of the post-modern
western uh
the it was very black and white good was
good
bad was bad there wasn’t gray area uh
and i like that especially as a
christian um i i
i like the the delineation between good
versus evil
and the western genre also affords you
the ability to tackle faith
content in a way that doesn’t seem
as forced as it does in the modern
storyline
and so because typically most people
assume that ev
because of previous westerns um that
people just everyone kind of knew the
bible and
and it was that way back in that time it
was a it was again
one of the most read books and so that
was just
the kind of the the verbiage that was
used was oftentimes from scripture
and so uh i have a story that’s
basically an
allegory of the story of david and
abigail from the old testament
set in the old west so it’s a strong
female uh
story it’s kind of a when calls the
heart uh
and so we’re really kind of fast
tracking that one um and i think that
has a lot of potential to be really
really special and so put on that we’re
doing a kids show
i think i mentioned called franklin and
beans
uh and we’re actually really excited
about that as well
to be able to tackle some cool
theological stuff
in in hopefully
again speaking to how the industry has
inundated and taken over the messaging
even shows on nickelodeon and disney
plus or a disney channel
are being inundated with um
a whole bunch of reprogramming that
they’re trying
to do to these kids well they can’t get
the adult so what do we do we just go
and
you know reprogram the kids train the
kids and so to trying to combat
combat that and give parents of young
children
content that they can watch and not
worry about and also have the
opportunity to teach them
some theological truths yeah that they
wouldn’t get otherwise
so do you think you’re going to i mean
are these films that you’re you’re
preparing to do or
shows are they part of the curriculum at
uh
masters so yeah the kids show franklin
beans we’re doing that through masters
uh that’s a master show and the students
will work on that we’re shooting eight
episodes
uh in the fall uh it’s a combination of
live action
and about five minutes of live action
each episode about seven minutes of
animation
uh and then um
the abigail would be done uh in
conjunction with the university as well
uh and so we’re excited about that
and then the the superhero pilot that
we’re shooting is also
being done to the university we run that
through a really interesting class that
we call the winterim
and it’s all it’s a typically a
week-long class
and um last year we did a western uh
took the students about three hours
outside of los angeles
um put them all up in hotels and we shot
on this western town
uh for three days so it gives them the
opportunity to work on
a real set it’s a location shoot um
and so this one is the superhero uh one
that we’re doing the
in the um uh winner of 2022
uh will be probably the most ambitious
thing we’ve ever done so we’re doing big
model shoots and all sorts of stuff so
pretty excited about that are you
planning on doing anything with us
with another studio outside of so we are
talking again
um you know like we talked about earlier
the
the ability that the university affords
us is to be able to do some of these
things
uh in-house without the creative input
sometimes of somebody else getting their
hands in and you know
kind of messing with it um but we are
talking to
a couple studios about doing some um
some of these products with abigail and
then with the kids show
uh as well i already know of a couple
places that want to license that
so it’s it’s a dream come true to have a
crew
you know at the school that’s going to
do your stuff without
anybody interfering yeah
it’s a unique situation because you
we’re pro it’s on multiple levels
first you’ve got the students are
getting to work on stuff that
actually is legitimate and is of high
quality and so they’ll get to have their
name on that they’ll get to have imdb
credits
they’re going to see the entire process
and be a part of that and be an integral
part of that
and then it’s creating content that then
the university can sell
and help market itself so in terms of
multiple levels
it’s it’s it’s kind of a unique kind of
system
what i don’t ever want is i don’t want
the students to ever feel like they’re
being taken advantage of
because they’re they’re free labor um
and it’s not that they’re
they’re here to learn they’re paying a
lot of money so um
we don’t have some of the facilities
that some of the other universities do
so great we’re going to do these
productions
and provide them amazing opportunities
so
now it’s interesting to think about how
the students who are graduating from
your program
what are they going to do where are they
going to go who who are going to be the
next
big filmmakers who are coming out of
that i i’ve had some we have some
talented students that have come out of
our department that are doing stuff we
have a young lady who um
was in the communication major and uh
had taken a lot of the classes the media
and all that kind of stuff
and over the um um covet break
she lost her marketing job and so she
just decided okay well i’m going to take
the stuff i’ve learned
and i’m going to start my own tick tock
twitch and youtube channel and now she’s
blown
up and she’s making great money
and supporting her family and doing
amazing work
really uh yeah it’s just again i it’s
it’s the students who are hustlers and
go-getters
um they’re going to really do well and
thrive
because our whole when they come to our
cli our program
it’s really entrepreneurial minded and
so we really try and encourage them i
don’t want you thinking four years from
now how do i get a job i want you
thinking about that
right now from the start how can i take
the things that i’m learning and go make
money
right now as i’m getting this education
um
because there’s eight-year-olds making
30 million dollars a year on youtube so
it’s like
uh hello you’re an 18 year old why are
you not doing you know what what can you
be doing to make money you may not be
able to make 30 million
but you could be making money so let’s
figure it out
so what are some of the key points that
you stress in to your students
as they’re graduating well the first one
again there’s a couple things um i
always tell them
hey you need to have your set
convictions
now because as soon as somebody
hands you a check it’s super easy to
compromise
if you don’t have those already in check
and so you need to know what it is you
believe
and what you will and won’t do now
as a believer and um
because because i’ve been there they
hand you over that check
and it’s like okay well i mean
is it really that bad you know type of
thing uh
and so um you know i started out
uh the example i often gave is i started
out when i got out of high school i did
stand up and improv
uh for a while one of the things i i did
was impressions and all that kind of
stuff
and when you’re up there with on stage
with
three other unbelievers you get thrown
all sorts of stuff in improv
and you’ve got to think super quick
are you going to go down that road or am
i going to shift this
into something that is something that’s
appropriate
uh and so um you’ve got to know
what your boundaries are ahead of time
because if you don’t it’s it’s
it’s a problem uh you have a bit of an
acting bone in you
so i started when i started out when i
was younger my dad worked for universal
studios for 30 years so i grew up around
the back lot
and i always wanted to be an actor uh
and so um
when i when i made the shift over to
stand-up and improv
uh that was just a better fit for me um
i could kind of control it i could be a
little bit more
me uh i’ve done some acting here and
there i don’t know that it’s necessarily
my strong suit i’m better behind the
camera
um but occasionally i get in there and
do stuff so yeah okay
yeah i don’t remember seeing you in uh
in in man from nowhere
so i do have a small little cameo but i
don’t have any lines
uh i’m just a little just a little spot
in there
um i haven’t yeah i haven’t in the
western we just did last
year i’m in a little bit more of that i
have a couple lines in that
um in the uh the kids show we’re getting
ready to do
uh one of the main characters it’s about
a an eight a ten-year-old boy and his
best friend who’s a dog and the dog is a
puppet
uh and i’ll do the the puppet and the
voice and stuff like that
um yeah so you got a little bit of
hitchcock going on there yeah a little
bit you know
i still occasionally brush brush out the
uh the impressions and
i teach a class at masters uh a speech
course
uh and it’s a gen ed course but i teach
it because i like to it allows me to
interact with students who aren’t in our
department that i would never get to
interact with otherwise
and so we have a demonstration speech
that we do every and i always do the i
don’t tell this but i do the first one
and i do it on how to do impressions and
i walked them through the entire process
of
of how to do that and stuff like that so
that’s kind of fun so i still
that still kind of gets but i don’t i
don’t do it enough anymore to really
keep it at one point i think i had 50
characters i was doing
um so but now it’s just my kids are
tired of hearing me do trump so i just
[Laughter]
they can only do it so much before they
get bothered
so yeah pretty good
matt thank you so much for being on the
podcast this has been
a really interesting conversation and my
pleasure thank you i wish you the best
with
uh you know the man from nowhere with
its netflix
i keep saying netflix pure flicks they
shouldn’t have named it pure flick
i know for people like me
who are going to mix it up um yeah i
hope that does well for you and
and we’ll be looking forward to the next
film that you do with your your students
at masters
thanks todd i appreciate your time thank
you for having me on
[Music]
you can find more about matt green the
man from nowhere and the masters
university cinema and digital arts
program
in the show notes of this episode