Hard-working – and very talented – producer/writer/director Matt Wilson has a tale to tell about his latest film (and an “Aw Shucks” mention about TVWriter.Com) Enjoy!
By Matthew Wilson
The first industry recognition I ever received came in 2001 when Larry
Brody read and liked some of my animation sample scripts that I sent to TVWriter.com. This set me on a course to eventually meeting animation producers and getting hired to write for Krypto: The Superdog. My first big break.
Now, 23 years later, I am debuting my sixth feature film Awesomest Christmas Ever. But rather than going the traditional route of chasing the elusive greenlight from a studio, I greenlit myself. That’s because over the years I developed a method of making movies on a budget that Hollywood would spend to rent a parking lot for a day.>
It started in 2011. After the TVWriter.com boost I got a few cartoon writing assignments but the work was not consistent so I focused most of my creative energy on feature specs. And after 10 years I had a hefty pile of them. But none had sold. The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, so I knew I had to try something new.
At the time, Amazon Studios had just formed and was encouraging everyone to submit scripts and “test-movies” with the idea that big budget films would eventually be developed from them. So I got together some friends and made a no-budget movie of my script The Umpire, a baseball comedy, that ended up winning one of Amazon’s contests. And, more importantly, it demystified the filmmaking process for me and gave me the confidence to try again.
So I made another “test-movie”, about a man cursed to speak in rhyme, and this time I challenged myself to make it as much of a “real” movie as I could. With a “real” budget of $3000. It didn’t win any contests but the production quality showed vast improvement over my prior effort and now I was feeling confident enough to try to make a “real” movie.
Over the next 13 years I made four movies: The Virgins, The Pastor and the Pro, Danny Doom, and now Awesomest Christmas Ever. If you combined the budgets of all four it would still be less than $100,000. A lot less.
This is the part of the story where most indie filmmakers would say, “This is why you should abandon Hollywood and make movies in your backyard.” But that is not what I would want anyone to take away from this. Make movies in your backyard? Yes! Abandon Hollywood? No!
I believe the only reason people are watching my movies is because I spent all those years in Hollywood learning how to tell a story.
These days anyone can pick up a camera, shoot something, and instantly make it available to the world via the Internet. On a fundamental level, that’s all I’m doing. But with all the options the world has now, why would they watch yours? The answer should be because you have a solid story to tell. And that starts with the writing.
So if you’ve come to TVWriter.com in search of answers you’ve picked a great place to start. Expect it to be hard. Expect it to take a long time. Expect it to take you places you hadn’t considered. But remember that it’s possible. Because if I can do it, then you can, too.
Oh yeah, and check out Awesomest Christmas Ever now available on Tubi, Roku Channel, Prime Video, and YouTube.
