Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Martinez.
Hi Matt, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
It all started just before I went to middle school, I was and still is huge movie watcher and I thought it would be cool one day to make movies. At first I wanted to be an actor so I signed up for theatre in 7th and 8th grade but unfortunately the classes were full both years so I didn’t get a chance to take any class. It wasn’t until High school were I took theatre classes but at the time I was also playing basketball my first 2 years. Knowing I wasn’t going to get anywhere with basketball because I wasn’t very good and never played a Varsity game, I shifted my focus to theatre and followed my passion I originally wanted to do, acting. As an introvert I always had a bit of stage fright so it wasn’t until spring of my junior year where I finally got the guts to audition for the One Act Play. I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to be an understudy for all four male characters and actually got the opportunity to fill in for an actor who got ill the day of a clinic and acted on stage for the first time. Luckily it wasn’t a large crowd so my mind was a bit at ease and was getting comfortable to perform on stage. Come senior year I decided to go all out and audition for the musical which happened to be Sister Act and got casted as 2 minor roles and I knew I wanted to keep acting after our last show. I performed my last high school play 1 week before graduation and to say that it was bittersweet was an understatement because I was the only senior in the show and every member of the cast looked up to me and embraced me as we did curtain call.
When the time came to look if I wanted to go to college I wasn’t 100% sure because at the time of junior year I was failing 2 classes and thought that maybe college just wasn’t for me, I got the motivation from my then theatre teacher who practically influenced my decision on where to go and my drive to pursue acting. Since I wanted to make movies and my GPA wasn’t the best, my options were very limited because UT was out of the question and as a true born and raised Austinite it was an obvious dream school. I got accepted into Texas Southern University in Houston which had a Radio-Television and Film program. I also got accepted into Texas Lutheran University which I honestly just applied for as a joke because I didn’t want to pay an application fee, but also because my theatre teacher went there and said how good the program was. The program in question was called Dramatic Media, not Radio-Television and Film, not a Theatre Arts major but in fact it was both because as the name suggest, Dramatic Media was a program where plays are rehearsed and performed throughout the school year and film is taught in classes, 2 to be exact. When I ultimately decided to pick TLU I was grateful that I was able to attend with 2 of my close friends that I also did theatre with in High School, so I wasn’t exactly “starting over” with finding friends. Towards the end of my freshman year, we hold a student showcase where anyone who created a film during the school year can showcase it. It was there where I fell in love with cinematography from one of the seniors who absolutely inspired me to pursue that passion. It was from there on where I started watching more movies, specifically Oscar winning movies of Cinematography so I can learn what wasn’t taught in class. After taking both filmmaking classes I found out that there was so much that I wasn’t taught that I needed to know so I not only taught myself but I also taught others. To this day I’m still learning more as well as teaching others who want to know more. I have a handful of my supporters who have supported my work since day one and then I have those that started supporting the moment I posted my TV credit to Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. If people don’t support you at your worst, they shouldn’t support you at your best. I got to where I am today because I never gave up for myself and the people that have supported me since day one, those have been the ones that have helped me through my journey. When I see some of the the UT students who I follow share each other’s posts and hyping each other up, I get jealous sometimes because I don’t have those people that do that for me all I have are likes but then I realize that maybe people don’t need to show it publicly because they tell me privately how much they support me.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It definitely has not been a smooth road to get to where I am now but who said it was supposed to. As an independent filmmaker, nothing is handed to you on a silver platter everything needs to be earned through hard work and recognition. Some obvious struggles along the way were for one, COVID. Once everything got shutdown my sophomore year of college, I no longer had hands on learning because everything was on zoom including the short play I was set to direct for my directing class which I never got the chance to do. I learned that there’s really no way to teach directing, it’s more like you find your own way to do and you can like it or not, that’s what one of my struggles was. I didn’t know how to direct a theatre play because COVID took that away from me so I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to direct film, but as always I taught myself as anyone who wants to direct, should. Some other struggles that I have gone through is finding crew to help make a film. When I was looking for help for my 40 minute senior capstone, no one was interested in helping despite me asking weeks in advanced and even sharing my production schedule in case they ever wanted to come by. Having no one help me really put a struggle in me to finish the project because even though I wasn’t exactly new to filmmaking it is still difficult to make a film as a one man crew. In the long run being on my first “professional” full length film in May of 2021 really helped me because I learned a lot of the industry just by being on set, including to make sure YOU SIGN A CONTRACT! Getting on my first professional film set was both a blessing and a curse because I got to learn more about filmmaking each day but then came the struggle when I found out that I wasn’t going to be getting paid for my work, even though the producer told me straight from him that I would. Early on there were the struggles of working for free because I wanna do this as a career but you can’t get to that point without doing work for free and making a name for yourself with reel material. Some other struggles are having to balance work life, and personal life with film. Working a full time job at Tesla takes a lot out of me because I’m on me feet all day and then I get home and take care of my 2, almost 3 year old so it never gets easier trying to balance everything to get to where I want to be but I try my best for myself, my little boy, my family and all the people that have supported me since day one.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a filmmaker, more specifically a Cinematographer or as I like to call myself Cine”Matt”ographer. Although, any film meets and networking events I go to I always tell people that I’m an all in one crew person because that’s the way I’ve had to be by choice not because I want to. I could really juggle any crew job on a set because I’ve taught myself how to. I have competed and led a team in the Austin, San Antonio, and Houston 48 hour film projects. Notably the first time I did the Austin 48 in June 2024, we got nominated for Best Film, Best Cinematography, Best Special Effects, Best Original Song and Best Stunts or Choreography which we won! In San Antonio we got nominated for Best Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Cinematography but unfortunately came home with nothing. Although I haven’t won the awards I’ve wanted to win, being nominated is still a huge achievement that I’ve been proud of. My senior capstone “Bro Night” has probably been by far my biggest project to date just because it was a 4o minute project that I had to do as a one man crew because no one wanted to help me. I spent all spring semester filming and got editing done in just over 48 hours, I did pull two straight all nighters to edit, followed by a 4 hour nap to continue editing the day it was set to premiere at my school’s annual student showcase. I ended up fully exporting it an hour before screening started! So to say in that moment that was my proudest accomplishment and project wise. I believe that what sets me apart from others is the background of where my education is from, most of the time the successful filmmakers you see come from UT, TXST, Full Sail or from other popular well known film schools in L.A. but me being from a small town D-III college named Texas Lutheran University, people often overlook those credentials because they don’t know where that is or the fact that it even existed, let alone knew it had a film program. I didn’t have the education and courses as those in the other programs but I’m grateful for what I was taught and I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished and what I’ve created using that knowledge and what I’ve taught myself. I recently got my first major TV credit as a Production Assistant on Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, when the episode came out I posted on social media my name in the credits and I received “Congratulations” left and right from people that have never even reacted to my other work, some were also people that I had not talked to in years, telling me to “keep following your dreams.” Even though it felt nice to receive the recognition like I never have before from people who I’ve never seen support my work, it also made me think that they are only doing it because it was a big name production that I worked on. It seems that when people know you’re doing big things that’s when they support you but they don’t see all the little things you do that help you get where you’re going. I have my day ones that have been supporting me since I got started and I support them and we always have each other’s backs. I enjoy helping people who are always looking to get their foot in the door, I want to teach people who have no one to teach them like I did. I had always wanted to learn but no one wanted to teach me so now I am willing to help those who want to learn, whether they are new to the film world or want to learn something new.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I believe everything happens for a reason, you don’t simply have good or bad luck. I believe that I got all my film jobs and opportunities by doing great work, working hard, and having the connections. I see it as blessings instead of luck, I’ve put in the work and have met many great people to get the opportunities I’m able to get and are very grateful I’ve gotten them. Sometimes things don’t workout as they are planned but I wouldn’t necessarily call it bad luck, maybe it just wasn’t the right time or the right collaboration we were looking for.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattmrtnz3/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/matthew.martinez.7777
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@mmfilmz
- Other: https://linktr.ee/mmfilmz
Image Credits
Michelle Valenzuela
Madison Dee
Kris Amaya
Matt Martinez
Bridget Ann
