Meet Matt Hausmann

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Matt Hausmann. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Matt below.

Hi Matt, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
I’ve always been someone that has to be doing something. It’s hard to relax sometimes because there’s so much to do and such limited time. Possibly it came from my dad who was a successful operational engineer at NASA or my mom who was a successful real estate business owner before I was boprn, and she gave it all up to raise me. I started working at 14 years old in a grocery store. Worked at an auto part store and cooked at several restaurants through college. Being a cook was very demanding with long hours and sometimes in an intense environment. It was difficult working a part-time job as a cook, going to school full-time for theatrical design/lighting design, and working for free on movies in the Cleveland area. Working on film and TV sets made me work harder and has always challenged me. You always have to be on and thinking ahead. I’ve always been one who tries to switch things up and have fun at work. Yes, there’s a job that needs to be done, but I don’t treat it like work. That’s the key. Have fun so it doesn’t seem like work. The minute you commit to treating it as work is the day part of your youth dies.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I’m a multi-hyphenate. Screenwriter, director, prop master, graphic designer, editor. Please check out the projects I’ve been a part of at: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1209890/ and all the cool videos on my YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/user/mattiebumbum. I’ve always wanted to be a filmmaker from my early days. I remember seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark at a drive-in. I was hooked. Someone even wrote in my 7th grade yearbook, “Good luck in L.A.” I have an art, theatre, and film production background. My main focus is writing feature screenplays. I have 7 features tightly drafted, 2 TV pilots, and several shorts. I’m working on a new alien sci-fi/action movie that’s about an ex-detective turned vigilante serial killer who is on a quest to find her husband and son’s killer, when she’s abducted by aliens who are trying to find the perfect host for their consciousness, now it’s up to her to defeat the extraterrestrials and free the innocent people from their deadly seizure. I have 2 other comedy features, 1 sci-fi feature, and 1 drama feature on deck for me to write. I just launched a new website, mhscripts.com that has a reels, a bio, interviews, pitches, links, posters, loglines, synopses, moodboards, and much more. It’s a complete library of everything I’ve written and some of the new scripts I’m working on.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I think I’ve been successful because of my resilience, persistence, and being a jack of all trades. I’ve been a director, producer, writer, grip, camera loader, production designer, graphic designer, art director, prop master, set decorator, and many more. Holding all these positions has helped me understand the collaborative environment of filmmaking more. I started back in 1996 working on the Cleveland Cavs TV Show. I got my first film job as an art department intern on the indie film, “Welcome to Collinwood” in Cleveland, Ohio. I worked for free on the movie which led me to building my network and getting other paying jobs. That’s a big part of film. Networking. To build your contacts and treat every project like it’s a bridge to the next. I production designed a short film for free when I moved to LA, the director recommended me to a production designer who hired me as an art director on an indie film. One of the actors in the scene was a policeman. I noticed there was no mace in his belt pouch, which you could see it was empty on camera. I quickly threw my screwdriver into the empty pouch, saving the shot. The costume designer was watching and was impressed. She recommended me to another production designer who hired me and got me onto a show that I got the days to join IATSE Local 44. The point is, you never know who is watching and when you have to be on. If I had never worked for free on that short film years ago, who knows what my path would have been. My research and graphic design abilities have also put me in front of others.

What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?
I’ve grown as a screenwriter over the past year, really concentrating more on character development. I’ve written three features and one short since December 2022. I have ideas for four other features. It’s been busy! I also took several screenwriting classes that have redefined the way I write and have been beneficial in creating characters and structure.

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