Meet Matt Fore

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Matt Fore. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Matt, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.
I suppose that ever since I was a kid, I always had a clear vision of what I wanted, or at least what I thought I wanted at the time. I don’t really remember a time that I wasn’t crafting stories with my toys (LEGOs, He-Man, Aliens, Jurassic Park figures) and telling myself the stories as I went along, later writing them into short stories with pencil and paper, and eventually planning to shoot movies to tell these stories at age 7 or 8. I was always rapt by stories and the process of creation itself. Even my sense of humor grew out of me just cracking myself up over some oddball perspective of something or the way a word was used on a sign, or anything that tickled my own inner creativity, if just simply to entertain myself. I was what you might call a shy kid, and while I had a small close group of friends, I was never outspoken or wanting to take center stage or have all eyes on me in the classroom or anywhere, for that matter. I suppose without a large group of friends and keeping mostly to myself, it makes sense that I’d find my own way to entertain myself and find my own way to look at the world I was beginning to understand. Sharing these early creative impulses with my close group of friends throughout kindergarten and elementary school, we inadvertently coalesced into somewhat of a “production company” and eventually began making movies together to share these stories with others and help bring them to life. Rudimentary at first, and some projects even starting with “animating” my toy action figures through stop-motion (the best we could do on my family’s 1990s camcorder), we sort of gave ourselves our own “film school” and learned by doing, as well as mistake.

Now at age 40, it’s interesting to look back to those early formative years and see that there was no question that there was a creative spark intrinsically within me. The ensuing decades were of course a roller coaster of ups and downs and discovering myself, along with finding where I could fit best in this creative industry of entertainment. I feel the key to keeping one’s creativity alive is to find that child version of yourself that’s still inside you, and examine what it was like to feel the way you did at that age, with that inner creativity percolating and ready to burst forth in a myriad of ways. I found that long drives were vast sources of renewing and fostering creativity — some say this is similar to when they have their best ideas in the shower or when you’re doing something “automatic” where your brain has the time to look outside of itself and the current task, and open up to wider perspective. If one is able to “turn off” the “day-by-day” or “play-by-play” surface level of thought or set it aside for a particular amount of time, the deeper consciousness of the mind can begin to seep up to the surface — at least, this is what I’ve found for myself. Hiking, long drives, anything to take one’s self out of the day-by-day helps also remove your deeper mind from that surface-level thinking and can help inspire and revitalize creativity and different ways of thinking. Humans in general are not only pattern-seeking creatures, but also fall into patterns and habits easily, and that can entangle our thinking into a semi-automatic behavior of functioning, with only brief blips of opportunity to dive deeper into creative thinking or even a different way of thinking. The trick is to be as aware as you can of this as you get older, and to actively find ways to open yourself up to the opportunity of creative thinking.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Ever since I was a wee lad, I had always dreamt of “making movies,” whatever that meant. Growing up in Ventura, CA only an hour away from Hollywood, allowed me to subconsciously validate these hopes and believe I could actually do such a thing. In the early 90s when I was a second-grade public school kid, I pooled my friends together to make not only a fourth installment to the beloved “Alien” franchise but also “Terminator” and “Jurassic Park” follow-up pieces.

I collected props, began customizing wardrobe (crafted from my own clothes at the time, much to my mom’s chagrin), and even built set walls out of cardboard (never mind if they could stand upright on their own). While none of these elementary school projects ever came to the fruition of principal photography, my family eventually bought a Sony 8mm video camera (yes, you read that right — not even Hi8 or Digital8, but 8mm video) in the mid-nineties.

That allowed me to make my short film debut in the summer of 1996 before starting 6th grade with “Psycho Kid,” a 6-minute “horror” piece about a new kid who moves to town who harbored secret motives to kill his peers, all crafted “on screen” with wonderful plastic Halloween weapon props and masks. I, of course, cast my best friend Owen Thayer and my pal from up the street Chris Adam, along with, of course, my baby sister Laurin, five years my junior. Having no editing system at the time, everything was shot in sequence, and camera roll cuts were surprisingly well-crafted and timed to afford close-up coverage and inserts (never mind the accidental line flub or prop-drop, which thus made their way into the non-edited final cut).

Over the years as I moved into middle school and high school, I began to make more and more short films with my group of friends that grew and evolved. In high school, I managed to scoop up quite a few awards from local film festivals, and eventually found myself accepted to the prestigious Brooks Institute of Photography film program, which lo and behold, had just opened up their film campus in the summer of 2002 right after I had finished high school, in my hometown of Ventura — how perfect was this?

I attended Brooks Institute of Photography and received my Bachelor’s Degree in three years before zipping right down to Los Angeles in late summer of 2005 with a few film school pals to take on Hollywood in earnest. I dove into the industry at the cusp of the film vs. digital collision, having the luck to experiment with some of the first 24p HD cinema camera systems available in the early-to-mid 2000s. This dual-format background still provides me with a rich technical knowledge from which to draw upon to create robust storytelling images for every unique project, no matter the budget. Ever since I was that 90s kid with my Sony 8mm video camera, I’ve always believed story and mood are the top priorities when making visual decisions, not just aesthetics, and as such, always try to make it a habit of finding that visual balance.

I’m now known for shooting independent features like the sci-fi horror festival favorite “The Human Race,” the action thriller “Bus Driver” and many more including period pieces, comedies and dramas, as well as shooting a bevy of commercials and music videos, I’ve also worked as a Camera Operator in the action/stunt units for some of today’s larger Hollywood films, including “Limitless,” “Real Steel,” “Little Fockers,” and “Godzilla.” In addition to my narrative work, I’ve also shot two feature documentaries, “Harvard Park,” and “The Spirit of the Pony Express” as well as numerous docu-series, TV spots, and promos for corporate clients such as DirecTV, AT&T, Nvidia, Honest Tea, ESPN and more.

I have been called “The Fastest DP in the West” due to my knowledge and experience of being able to maximize production value and imaging with limited resources. Having gone through the ins-and-outs of countless productions over the years, I always find the best and most efficient way forward in any situation on-set.

Additionally, I’ve also started up a film production company named Abhorrent Behavior, and produced two feature films, with a third planned to be shot this year. Just turning 40 and having done this for nearly two decades, I feel like I’m finally digging into my element as a filmmaker, while primarily acting as a Cinematographer, but also producing and creating original feature film work from scratch and bringing it to life from start-to-finish.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Looking back, it did honestly me take a good decade or more to get where I am today in the field of cinematography and camera operating. Some people may take longer or, interestingly enough, even much LESS time to get to that same spot for themselves, but for me personally, persistence was and always will be key.

I stayed the course in striving for what I wanted ever since I was nine years old — to make movies. Different aspects of “making movies” have of course blossomed and curved off on to related tangents, but they are all encompassed under the same umbrella — working behind the camera. From launching out of film school and into Los Angeles in 2005, I initially dipped my toes into the industry in as many departments as I could, from Production Assistant to Grip, Electric, and Camera, and eventually found my stable ground as a professional making a living in Lighting and Camera.

The first few years in The Big Pond of course tested my resolve and ability to support myself at making a living in a freelance lifestyle in the entertainment industry. I remember at once particularly slow point, I considered getting an actual “job,” which I hadn’t worked in years since I had a small part-time office assistant job during film school to help pay the bills. I distinctly remember going to fill out an application for a normal 9-5 job just so I could support myself while still hacking away at the freelance cinematography dream, and the next day I got called to helm two feature films back-to-back as the Director of Photography, less than a year out of school. I tossed out the job application and went to work creating my life’s dream, and here I am 18 years later, growing year-by-year freelance for almost two decades.

It doesn’t matter to me now if I’m shooting a feature film, television show, music video, commercial or corporate promo, because I’m telling a story visually behind that camera, and that is all I’ve ever wanted. Give me an idea or a concept and the tools to execute, and I’m ready to go. For me, I knew persistence would never let me down and would eventually get me there, even if I wasn’t sure when.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I am always seeking to expand my network and work with new and innovative individuals to create fresh and inspiring content. From new film directors to producing teams and clients that want to up their game creatively, I am here to help bring any project to life in a new and inspiring way. I’m all about telling stories and finding the story to tell, to highlight, to look at from a new perspective. Please go to my website at www.mattfore-dp.com to contact me and view my previous work over the past 19+ years. I may have been in the game for a while, but it feels like I’m just getting started. Every project is a new birth of creativity, and I’m here to help it along and dig into it as deep as we can.

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