At 31, Media, Arts and Production graduate and producer Matt Reeder is in a good place. Earlier this year, his debut feature film West had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival and although his entry into the world of film began at acting, Matt has since acquired a smart sack of award-winning short films under his belt (such as New Skin and Sweet Dreams). Currently toiling on two feature film scripts - one a love story and the other a political thriller - Matt has excelled with flying colours at something, he says, he simply 'fell into'.
What year did you graduate from UTS and how did the Communications course Media, Arts and Production help you develop a knowledge of film?
I graduated in 2001. MAP (Media, Arts and Production) was the practical thing of being able to get your hands on the technology which gave me a greater understanding of actual film-making. Also being around people that were interested in the same kind of thing certainly helps and it certainly gave me a basic knowledge of producing.
Matt Reeder (left) and his mentor, producer Robert Connelly
Is producing the sort of job that can't be taught?
Yeah, I mean I've never done a producing course as such, so I don't know what it would entail, but I really have done on-the-job learning and also been mentored. I was lucky enough to come into contact quite early in my career with a producer by the name of Robert Connelly who produced The Boys and currently Romulus, My Father. He's also directed films like Three Dollars and he's an extremely intelligent and very generous man and was kind enough to let me ask him endless questions at various times. So my film school was really sitting in a rustic cafe in Surry Hills with a hot chocolate with you know, two or three pages worth of questions that I needed answers to.
What does a producer do, exactly?
It's a big question because it's not simply answered - you can easily say an editor edits the film, a DOP (Director Of Photography) shoots the film and I guess there are different types of producers. I like to see myself as a creative producer, which means that I like to be involved in all the creative aspects of film-making as well. I like to be involved in the script development, in the casting, I like to be on set and see what's been shot, I like to be in the editing room and be in the sound mix and kind of act as a sounding board and another pair of eyes and ears on the bigger picture.
But really, ultimately the producer is responsible for delivering the film, which means that people will hopefully give you money to make it because they want to see something at the end of it, and it's the producer's responsibility to make sure that what you're supposed to deliver in the contract, finally gets delivered. Like I said, that can entail overseeing all sorts of different areas... I guess it's sort of like being the CEO of a company, you've got to have a broad overview of every area, but you also have to know specifically what's going on in each area because it all can affect the end.
Matt Reeder's feature film West
Is producing the sort of job that can't be taught?
Yeah, I mean I've never done a producing course as such, so I don't know what it would entail, but I really have done on-the-job learning and also been mentored. I was lucky enough to come into contact quite early in my career with a producer by the name of Robert Connelly who produced The Boys and currently Romulus, My Father. He's also directed films like Three Dollars and he's an extremely intelligent and very generous man and was kind enough to let me ask him endless questions at various times. So my film school was really sitting in a rustic cafe in Surry Hills with a hot chocolate with you know, two or three pages worth of questions that I needed answers to.
What does a producer do, exactly?
It's a big question because it's not simply answered - you can easily say an editor edits the film, a DOP (Director Of Photography) shoots the film and I guess there are different types of producers. I like to see myself as a creative producer, which means that I like to be involved in all the creative aspects of film-making as well. I like to be involved in the script development, in the casting, I like to be on set and see what's been shot, I like to be in the editing room and be in the sound mix and kind of act as a sounding board and another pair of eyes and ears on the bigger picture.
But really, ultimately the producer is responsible for delivering the film, which means that people will hopefully give you money to make it because they want to see something at the end of it, and it's the producer's responsibility to make sure that what you're supposed to deliver in the contract, finally gets delivered. Like I said, that can entail overseeing all sorts of different areas... I guess it's sort of like being the CEO of a company, you've got to have a broad overview of every area, but you also have to know specifically what's going on in each area because it all can affect the end.
You said that being a producer is in a way acting as a sounding board - do you think producing is one of the most complex jobs on set because your work is so varied and you've kind of got your fingers stuck in so many pies?
Yes. There's a really wide range of skills that I believe are necessary to have to be able to be a good producer - and that's just my version of it as well. Some other producers are just money people, you know, they let the creative people go and do all the creative stuff and they just go and look after money. Now, that's not the kind of producer that I am.
You've got to be able to, if not read contracts, you've got to be able to understand them, you've got to be knowledgeable about budgets and know how they work and how planning can affect what you do on the day. You know, it's the kind of thing where you've got to double-check everything and always build in a contingency to everything, because the nature of film-making is that you quite often find yourself in strange places at strange times of the day or night.
What might have seemed like a good idea when you're sitting in a nice warm room talking about it with people ends up being very different to what it's actually like when it's 4am and you're sitting in a drainpipe in Marylands and everyone's really tired and it's time to go home but you've got another scene to shoot.
The biggest kind of learning curve I've gone on with making West has been the whole marketing and publicity of the film, because that was an area that I knew the least about coming into this project. I'd made a bunch of short films and music videos and things like that where the production process of actually shooting the thing and doing all that and delivering is all fairly standard but marketing a film and getting it out there and building those kind of relationships was something really new to me and I certainly learnt a lot about how to do it better next time and I guess that's what it's all about.
And so was producing something you fell into because you weren't really taught how to produce, as such?
Absolutely it was something I fell into, it was something that I always thought I might be able to do. My experience with the film and television industry had initially been as an actor, so I'd been on sets on television shows, television commercials and things like that and I'd seen how a set works... and that was part of the reason why I wanted to go and study at UTS because I was kind of getting to a point with acting where I felt like I had more to offer than sitting around waiting for the phone to ring... So part of moving on from being an actor was going to UTS but as it happens, while I was at UTS in my second year, my flat mate put in an application to the young filmmaker's fund at the FTO and said 'look, I need someone to put their name down as the producer, do you want to do it?', so I said, 'yeah ok'. I think I was probably in the middle of doing a Contemporary Cultures essay but anyway, I put my name down.
And then we got the money so it was like 'OK, we can make this movie now' and that's when I started talking with Rob Connelly. It was a short feature and it was called New Skin and it ended up taking about nine or 10 months to make and it ended up being about 55 minutes long. But I really enjoyed the process and we were lucky enough to win the Dendy Award at the Sydney Film Festival the following year. So that was a really critical, crucial kind of pat on the back at that stage, to go 'all that hard work you did, good on ya, keep going' and it was really important to have that. It was at that time that I kind of went 'well, I acted and went and made it much bigger than a normal first film' so it seemed a bit odd to go backwards and start doing shorter ones, although I did do a few, but I had my eyes set on doing a feature right from when we finished that and I mean, it took five years but hey, we got there eventually.
(L-R) Khan Chittenden, Gillian Alexy,
Nathan Phillips and Michael Dorman in West
Photo by Lisa Tomasetti
And because you fell into producing, do you see yourself actively pursuing something else in the near future? Writing, directing, cinematography?
I've tried writing and it's one of those things where good writing, it seems so easy and you read something good and you go 'I could write something like that' and you sit down but in the end it doesn't happen. I think what I have gained is an appreciation of how incredible it is when you do come across good writing, because it's incredible how ideas and emotions can be conveyed in ways where you know, at first, you don't know how they do it.
But I wouldn't rule it out - I think I do have an interest in maybe directing at some stage, but I'm not kind of being a producer to become a director, I really enjoy producing and will continue to do it but by the same token, I'm right at the beginning of my career... I feel like I'm pretty fortunate to have had the success I've had so far and fairly early on at 31. I know there are a few other producers out there that have made feature films at this stage and it's not usual for people to have produced a film at this stage. So who knows, in the next 10 years if I'm lucky I might produce another three and I might get to the end of that and go 'well I've learnt what I can from that and I'd like another challenge.'
But right now, I'm really happy with producing and I'm meeting some really creative people and that's really exciting and I hope to bring their ideas to the big screen.
You lived in the west - how long has this idea been on the boil for both you and director Daniel Krige? Have you always had the idea to produce a film about the west?
I first met the director Dan Krige - he went to Springwood High as well funnily enough, but we didn't go there at the same time - at an acting audition for a film called Idiot Box and he just struck me as another guy who was out there giving it a go. Most of the guys I grew up with weren't very interested in leaving the mountains - I couldn't get out there quick enough - so it was interesting to speak to somebody else who had a bit of a dream... And then I made New Skin which was years later and I bumped into him at another audition and then I gave him another copy of the film and he said 'well you should have a look at this' and he gave me the script for West.
In terms of what I was looking for, it was exactly what I was looking for in what I wanted to do in making a feature film.
I mean there were a few things that I thought - I thought 'well, in terms of the budget, a million-dollar budget is really big and scary but I think I can do it.' It's a challenge but I don't think it's beyond what I can achieve, and I thought it was within the realms of 'people might actually give us that sort of money.' Whereas, if I went out and started to try and make a five million dollar film for my first film it's like 'well what track record to you have, how can we trust you to deliver this?' I read the script and it came from a world that I understood and the way that the people related and the kinds of things that they talked about were conversations and ideas and types of characters that I'd come into contact with growing up.
So in that respect, did you have to do a lot of research for the film, or do you think a lot of the ideas that were injected into the film came from your and Dan's own experiences and knowledge?
Well, pretty much the script came to me very well developed at the time. The way Dan describes it is the story of the film never happened but a lot of the characters and incidents did happen to people he knew or stories that he heard from people he knew and he kind of took all the stories and ideas and wrote a kind of story that linked all those ideas together. And what struck me was the honesty of the story. It didn't try and be something that it wasn't. And I think that's a criticism that can be leveled at quite a few Australian films - they try to be funny or try to be cool and I think Australians are renowned for being able to tell if someone's trying to impress them, or is being dishonest and I didn't think there was any dishonesty in West, I think it was really honest.
Just off the top of my head, I can think of a few Australian films which are based in lower socio-economic suburbs such as Little Fish or The Finished People... Do you think these less-privileged suburbs provide really fertile ground for Australian filmmakers these days? Do you think it's a trend?
I think it's easy to in hindsight make the links, but films take all varying different times to get made - I don't think everyone gets the idea of 'hey lets make a film, a gritty character-based drama set in the western suburbs' and they all get made at the same time because it just doesn't happen like that. It is just about the storytelling - it's also just stories coming from where the filmmakers come from - Dan, the writer/director, he grew up in the western suburb so he writes about what he knows, Khoa, he made The Finished People, he grew up in the western suburbs so he writes about what he knows. Rowan Woods, he made The Boys and then he made Little Fish so there's a bit of a theme going there with the settings he's dealing with. I think the answer would be in the finished film. I think it's the quality of the story and the way that it's told. On the surface, of the subject matter, of the content, I wouldn't go 'it's a film set on the wealthier side of town', I would judge it on its own merit.
Michael Dorman, Nathan Phillips
and Khan Chittenden in West
Photo by Lisa Tomasetti
What are your next two film projects? Having worked on West, a film based on the western suburbs, a place that is obviously dear to your heart, where do you go to from here?
Somewhere really different. I loved making West, I really did and it certainly will help with my career and what's next. Being fortunate enough to have our world premiere at Berlin is a huge tick of approval and all that stuff is really great but I don't want to tell that same story and as a producer, the challenge is to do a bigger, bigger film. The next two films I have in development, one is called The Quiet War and that's a much bigger film, it's a political thriller, it's the kind of film that Australia hasn't really made before and I'm very excited by it, it had development funding from the AFC (Australian Film Commission) which is fantastic and reassuring...So that's really cool and that's going to be a bigger budget film and I imagine it's going to take a little longer to get going, it's the kind of film that will need a star to carry it, but the story is great.
That's great that the AFC is funding a film that you say Australian cinema hasn't done before.
It's very commercial, not in the way of Transformers but it's commercial in that the story is a kind of hero's journey and it's set against the 1999 East Timorese vote for independence. It's in films like The Constant Gardener and Babel, it's the kind of film that gives the audience a little more credit for their level of intelligence which I think is a great way that cinema is going at the moment and I'm really excited by films like that... Once we get this script right, I think this film will attract the right kind of people to do it. The other one is called Happy Hour and it's a different story again, it's a love story about staying in love, rather than falling in love and it's written by Sue Smith, who rode Bastard Boys, the ABC television series and Brides of Christ. She's an amazing writer and I'm thrilled to be working with someone of her experience and talent and that's being directed by Anthony Hayes who directed New Skin and who I'm very keen to work with on a feature. We've also been fortunate to just receive - yesterday - some development funding from the FTO. So I'm really happy that the two films I'm working on have both attracted development. It's reassuring to know that other people see potential in these projects as well.
