#81 - Matt Aitia - What It Really Takes to Make Your First Short Film

26:39Matt Aitia:Like they're a few years ahead of me in their career. So they can answer questions for me. um like even this studio i don't know if you know daniel schiffer he posts on youtube as well for sure i grew up with him and um he's been my mentor for like years you know um it's just like having a good friend that you can say like hey this is the problem i'm facing in my career what do you think is the best way to get through it that that's sort of like what a mentor is to me have you had anyone that's sort of like you view as your mentor kind of thing? Yeah, I think the most obvious for most people that know me is Danny.

27:22He was, when he was starting at YouTube, I think he was at like 20 ,000 subs or something, which, you know, looking at where he is now, it was the beginning stages of his journey. He's never had a mentee or intern before he started doing this. And I was his first one, and I was working with him all the time. And he just, he taught me everything about cinematography. He taught me everything about, you know, talking to directors, talking to clients, the balance between traditional filmmaking versus YouTube creation. And, you know, five years later now, Danny is one of my closest, he's a very, very close friend of mine who, you know, I ask for advice all the time.

28:14I still shoot some of his projects now, which is a really nice full circle moment, especially as he started to produce, pursue directing more. I've also had in a less formal sense, the reason why I've talked about this on the podcast before, or the reason why I started this podcast was because when I was working like on different sets as a DP, most of the time I tended to be one of the younger people on set. And my gaffers, my key grips, ACs even were older. They had husbands or wives. They were parents. They've been in the industry 10, 15 years. And just being surrounded by those people on a 10-hour day, you know, a couple times a year, whatever, they taught me so much about just life and, you know, you know, seeing them at lunch talking to their, you know, FaceTiming their kid for five minutes, 15 minutes just to, you know, see them in midday or whatever it is.

29:19That was part of the reason why I started this podcast is because I learned so much from these people that I wanted to be able to create a place where I could talk to people to hopefully be able to gain insights from people all over the world to hopefully share with everybody else. That was sort of the main gist of the podcast. And I think I have a lot of loose mentors that I really look up to. And last year I got accepted to the ASC. Nice man. Vision mentorship program, which is cool. So my mentor is Sidney Siddell. He's really, really nice guy. But it is what you make out, you know totally if you don't email call text or whatever it's not gonna really do anything exactly exactly you gotta kind of you gotta you gotta put in the work too with uh you know mentors and people that you um are looking up to um you gotta put in the work a little bit you know totally

30:14Matt Aitia:totally have you seen like fruit from that like what have you taken away so far i had a really good meeting with him uh one of the first calls i had was like two and a half hours long and And he just told me a little bit about his story, his journey, and the fact that some of the same feelings that I have and that I feel about the industry, about the inconsistency of the career, the relationship with the director, the creative control, like all things that, you know, a lot of DPs feel, regardless of what level you're at. he feels and has felt over the years. And I think a lot of it, I don't want to say validated my own thoughts, but it created a sense of relatability between him and I, you know, somebody that is really high up, you know, an ASCDP, you know, compared to me, I think there was some relatability.

31:12And I also have a short film that I'm doing coming up where I had a lot of concerns about it before going into it. And I messaged him about some of my red flags that I were seeing and he helped me kind of walk through them a little bit and sort of helped me determine if they were truly red flags or if they were just red flags based on my inexperience of not seeing this thing yet. So yeah, he's helped me a lot in that sense. I want to sort of transition a little bit into this absolute banger of a short film that you made. Get Up and Try Again. Dude, it's like really, really really really good um you should be very proud of this short film man um thank you i remember watching it and even though i didn't have the skating experience that a lot of people did like i i was more into bmx i had that i i i felt what you were going for in there right trying something failing failing failing and then accomplishing it and um i think you delivered on a really valuable message.

32:17I think the way that you delivered it visually, aesthetically, in the time period that you were shooting it, you really cared about every detail. So like, really fantastic job on this.

32:29Matt Aitia:Thank you. You can kind of view it as like, because I know you work out, like bench pressing 225 for the first time. You know, it's like, that probably took you however long, but it's like, because with kickflips, that that's what separates the people that like stick with skateboarding and like give up that's the trick where it's like that's the barrier to entry to like get to that that next level kind of thing if that makes sense you know 100 i when i was in college i only went for a year and a half but my my roommate was big into skating and he had a skateboard in his room and like i would try to just ollie all the time.

33:09Could never do it. And then somehow, eventually my Vans, I got like a hole in the side of my foot on my Vans. I was like, I feel like a real skater right now. I feel pretty badass. I still couldn't do anything. And then I gave up. Hilarious. But yeah, tell me, tell me about this process of making it because I think a lot of people have the dreams and aspirations to make a film, a short film or a feature, but never get to the point of actually doing it. What was that deciding factor to be like, okay, I have this idea. I'm going to take action on it and actually make it.

33:46Matt Aitia:A lot of it came down to like wanting to transition in my career, you know, the year where I said like, I'm not doing lighting anymore. I need to figure this out. I need to build my portfolio and stuff like that. So I had this idea. I've had it for like two years, I was like, okay, I know this is a good idea for a short film. So I created a deck, and then I sent it to like a few producers, friends of mine. And they're like, I'm sorry, I'm too busy. And then I sent it to a smaller production company in Toronto. And they're like, dude, this is sick. We're really interested. Let's let's do it. I was gonna self fund it myself, but I just needed somebody to help me with like getting the film off of the ground so we hopped on a call and they're like okay like how much do you want to put into this film i was like like 5k realistically i i've done i've self funded like all of my passion projects so i know that that number is likely going to increase so i was like okay like top top is 5k so we had that initial kickoff and then we have another call he's like, Matt, this, this short film's not going to cost 5k.

34:58Matt Aitia:It's realistically going to cost between like, you know, six and seven. So I was like, okay, sure. So I was like, okay, I'll do 6 ,500. Like that's my absolute top, top, top. And 65 is what you personally were going to put into it. Yeah. I put in$6 ,500. And, um, so it came to time to like, okay, like, you know, send us an e-transfer so we can start like booking locations, equipment, all this kind of stuff. And in that moment, I was like, okay, this is a lot of freaking dough that I have to cough up. Like, do I really, really, really want to do this thing? And, you know, having conversations with Daniel and Chloe, my partner as well.

35:42Matt Aitia:and i was like okay like this is a lot of money and i i'm just gonna like commit to it and see what happens and like the moment i sent an e-transfer for that amount of money i was like okay this is real now this is a thing and then from there it's like i think as as if you want to make your passion projects happen as soon as you put money down onto the projects as soon as you book locations as soon as you reach out to crew saying we're shooting on this day are you available, that's the moment it becomes real. Having definitives. Exactly. So as soon as I did all of those things, I was like, okay, like this is it.

36:20Matt Aitia:There's no peddling back at this point. The money is already gone. Yeah. You know, so it's like, it's giving yourself that accountability. I think that's huge. I, I, I think you're a hundred percent right. You know, having money down, having these definitives without having that, it's all just hypothetical. It's all just a wish. It's all a dream. It's all an idea. But the moment you put something down like that, you have no choice but to continue. So like you put your money down, you, you, you're starting to work with this production company. What is that relationship with this production company?

36:52Like how, what were your hope? What were your expectations working with them?

36:57Matt Aitia:it was pretty much just like just lay everything down like book the location create the call sheets and reach out to crew doing all the logistics the things that i don't want to deal with i just want to like you know direct or make this tell this story and make this film happen that's all i want to do what was one of the hardest things after you decided okay this is real this is happening that next step what was that what was the next hardest step for you honestly like the anxiety factor i'm a i'm a really anxious person and just the anxiety factor of like having a big crew like of you know the crew size on on the big production day was like 20 to 25 people but luckily because you know i had those like foundational years of lighting i've built all these amazing relationships with like other G &E people that are like so ride or die for me and I'm like holy shit like I can't believe you guys are trusting me to like do this kind of thing um I was like super giddy when we actually got to the shoot day but like leading up to that I just remember being like super anxious throughout and then when it came time to post production um just that process took such a long time and just figuring out like all this stuff yeah it was really hard to see it end to end in see it end to end in the beginning process or towards the end like what part of it was hard for you to see end to end so like conceptualizing um and pre-production and then shoot like looking back the shoot it went really smoothly because i'm i'm a very um organized person i need a shot list i need like everything dialed um and then when it came time to post we cut the film to a piece of music that I like really fell in love with and I had temp track love so like I was like we're not going to find anything that's going to be up to par yeah and I'm like there's no music licensing service that is going to have something like this because it was a weird song so then I was like okay I need to go back to the drawing board and I need to find a composer so I actually found him through TikTok I posted a TikTok of myself the beauty of social media he reached out he had an amazing portfolio he was so sick to work with and then i was like okay the the piece still feels empty and i was like we need to find a singer um and then we found a singer here in toronto she's never put out a piece of music just yet she's just getting into things and you know we both don't know like she knows how to communicate musically.

39:42Matt Aitia:And I, I just know how to communicate like on a feelings level. Um, so just like finding that process and just being committed throughout the whole thing, because start to finish, it took like seven months to get it to the finish line. When did you write the script? You said you, you had this idea for like two year, a few years. Did you have the script then, or was it more of just an idea back then? You know, it's funny that the idea actually came to me i was working on a production as a spark and we rented these like i don't know if you've ever seen them they're like these sodium vapor lights but like they only emit sodium vapor and um like they're not like a a colored light they're these weird lights that you put really high up on a stand and you could fake them like deep into the background as sodium vapor lights yeah yeah Yeah.

40:35Matt Aitia:So I saw those and I'm like, okay, like what, what happened to me under a sodium vapor light once? And I'm like, well, I remember being a kid in like land, you know, trying kickflips on the end of my street late into the night under these, like a blue sky and sodium vapor lights. So the idea actually stemmed from, from that experience in that moment on set. What made you decide not, not wanting to shoot and direct it? Was that a challenge for you to decide that um yes and it definitely came down to like an ego thing as well of being like my my identity is very much tied into like no i wanted i want to dp but i knew like i've done that in the past on other projects dp 'ing and directing and i knew i would just be stretched way too thin to actually do that and do it properly and do it good so i asked i asked a friend of mine to to DP it for me.

41:32Matt Aitia:He did such a good job. Yeah. It looks beautiful, man. Absolutely. Thank you. Is that your first time working with a DP? First time working with a DP. Yeah. And that was like an interesting, that was a learning experience for me as well. Cause you know, I, I'm, I know what I want lighting wise because I've worked so many years as a spark and I'm, I come from like a technical background of like specific fixtures and blah, blah, blah. and you know there was even some like banter back and forth of like he used like a ikea china ball and he put um those like dmg dashes and i'm like it was just like unpractical to move around and i just kept saying i'm like dude why did you choose this lighting fixture it's just like a pain in the ass and uh but no looking back like it looks amazing and it's just like such a nice quality of light because that yeah that rap so yeah i'm curious about this relationship is I have a short film that I wrote last year.

42:30And it's still in that dream phase. I haven't committed to it yet. But I've been going back and forth of, do I shoot it also or do I bring a DP on for this? When I think about it, it consumes me because I don't know what to do. Because I want to shoot it. I really do. But then again, I also want to fully embrace this trying of something. Like, okay, I'm going to, I've never done a short film. I've never wrote one. I never directed one. Why not fully embrace it and just also try to have a DP on this one as well and see what you can learn from that person. I think that's where I'm leaning. It scares the hell out of me though, a little bit, because I think I'd be so anal.

43:17I think I'd be so anal about it.

43:19Matt Aitia:I think honestly, if you have that itch, freaking go for it. like if you have a that little instinct that's just like and also it's it's really tough like if you write something and then you hand it off to a director and you're just like i just want to dp this you're i think it's going to be really tough to see that project through even in post-production like you know how how would that be in post-production do you work with the editor or edit it yourself or or edit it with him i'll let you know about this one i'm still i'm still sitting on it a little bit totally i think the thing that i don't have any experience with that which is going to be a very difficult challenge is directing actors or you know in your case the the the young boy in this film what was the what was the biggest hurdle when it came to the actual art of directing this so avery the the kid in the film he he's a first-time actor I saw him at a skate park years ago and I was like if if I ever when I shoot my short film and I need a 13 year old version of myself it's it's this kid so I always kept him in the back of my mind and I I don't even think I ever even talked to him but like I just remembered him and then I I messaged him on Instagram and I was like hey I have this short film idea because the issue was like you needed somebody that could kickflip on demand um right you know you need you can't just like hire an an actor so it needed to actually have to learn how to kickflip or skateboard exactly exactly and and actually like one of the biggest struggles was the thing with skateboarding is as soon as somebody steps onto their board you could tell what skill level they're at just by the way that they push the way that they pop their trick you can see how comfortable they were so the first day of shooting we were doing like that like jump cut sequence and i'm just like fuck i i could tell he's like a good skateboarder just by the way he's like you know bending down and flicking so it was actually like finding it with him to be like okay let's try to put your foot up here to make you flick worse and and just playing around like that.

45:40Matt Aitia:And then when it came time for like the actual land scene, because he's done hundreds of kickflips. So it was like getting a genuine reaction of him landing. And I had this notion, like all these things that I wanted him to do and stuff like that. And then I was like, okay, I want you to just try it and land it. And however you react, just react like that. and he lands it and he starts running away and like yelling like that and the whole crew is like holding in their laughter because they were rolling sound and I just knew like that was just such a genuine reaction you can't recreate that because he is that 13 year old kid what was the end of the shoot like you rap production what were you feeling at that moment at the end of it i wish i could say it was like a good feeling but it like i'm sure you feel this way with shooting as well as like you put all this time and energy into the thing and then like it just like shoots they don't like taper off and you like come down from them it's like you go off a cliff and it's like okay like what next you know that that's your feeling because you're like you love what you do so much and you're so dedicated to it and you put so much of yourself into the project so it really felt like that um yeah i wish i could say it was like i mean i did have that feeling of like this is the best thing ever and i want to do this every single day um but luckily i think for you because you were directing this you had post-production to kind of go into i think the thing that I struggle with sometimes as a DP is the fact that once production is done, most of the time I am done.

47:28And that's a good thing and a bad thing. You know, like commercials, it's cool. But like sometimes, especially on narrative, it's like, man, that's it. Tomorrow, it's just not going to be like this. That's it.

47:40Matt Aitia:I'm curious if you feel this way as a DP as well. But like, do you when you see the finished like when you see the finished product do you wish you were kind of like involved in that like from from a director standpoint this is the hard part i feel like i have i think because i've done youtube and like i i've created a lot of things on my own i am fairly proficient in editing you know like sound is one of my i love sound i came from a music background. I have a lot more thoughts than just visual as a DP, which scares me because that to me is an inclination that I have a director mind. And I don't know why it scares me, but I think it's because I put so much of my identity in being a DP and literally being like, this is what I want.

48:39I found what I want. This is it. And as I've gone through life and seen projects and being like, wow, this sucked, you know, like, yeah, this could have been good. But the edit was not like this just didn't flow. It didn't. Why would you cut here? Like the song choice, the sound is like those are thoughts in my head a lot of the time. And as a DP, it's disheartening sometimes when you put so much into it and you feel like it really has like meat to it. but it doesn't come to fruition, it makes you question what is it that you really want to do? You know? Totally.

49:19Matt Aitia:And I think that goes back to like, you need to shoot your short film. You know, if that thing happens, you can either direct and DP it or you can direct it. Because I think if you were to pass that thing off to a director, it's like, you'll have that feeling of like, this could have been this? I don't think I'll ever pass it off to a director, especially this one. But it's the balance between directing it and having a DP or directing it and DPing it. But I think going back to what I said, I think I'm more leaning into the opportunity to create something that is completely me, but also challenging myself to be able to work with somebody from a dp perspective that could bring something that i don't have i don't know about like i want to i i've thought about shooting it on 35 mil and i've never shot on 35 so i could one learn how to shoot 35 to shoot this and direct it and do and talk about production design and sound and like is that too much or do i hire a good dp that i really really love that does 35 all the time that's sort of like where my head is at right now it's scary it's so scary man like i i'm like with you here i i don't know i feel like i've had this conversation with danny a lot about like you know how he thought he was a dp for a while and then eventually it just kind of got to the point where he needed to create his own things because none of the things that he were creating as a dp ended up becoming that great like you just totally you put it you put so much trust in other people and not that other people aren't good or whatever but you have your own taste it's more about exactly your own taste that sometimes doesn't get fulfilled and i also think it comes down to a title thing it's like we're so attached to these titles of like no you're carlo the dp i'm not gonna direct the thing right but i think it's like letting go of that it's like fuck the titles like yeah just you you know you have this idea why not just bring it to fruition and create it that that's what this project was was for me and after that i'm like okay like if people want to call me director sure like that's what i'll put the in the credits was there one thing that you could remember was like a compromise that you had to make on set that was like you were really strong about this one thing, but something happened.

51:50It didn't, it didn't work. And you had a compromise to find something else.

51:53Matt Aitia:It was more so like, I guess, a compromise in post-production for, so the, the shoe shot, like, um, I had this idea of like, he walks through the door, we see the door open and the camera starts pushing in. And then the shoe like changes three different times. I pictured it being like a 10 to 15 second thing and then we get to post-production we like try to stretch it for as long as it could possibly go and keep in mind this shot this one shot like took us months in pre-production to discuss what all the three lighting changes were we had three different pairs of shoes at three different stages of wear um and then when it came time to post production we chopped it into like a three second shot and i'm like it doesn't it doesn't serve the story to have it be any longer like it doesn't need to to drag and it was the lesson of i'm sure you've heard the saying like kill your darlings yep you know you want this you have this image of this thing and when it comes time to post it's like well it doesn't need to be in there so being okay with losing that right were there any other instances where you had to kill things that you really loved was it shots or was it length of shots was it um you know what was it even in you know art or production design or anything where you had to really kind of cut things

53:27honestly besides besides that like not really there's things that i look back at the film now

53:33Matt Aitia:And I'm like, I wish we did that or X, Y, Z or this differently. The one thing I noticed too was the, the marketing behind this short film, I think was really interesting. I think that you made a huge effort into not being scared to share this project. I think, yes, there's this whole thing online that you post your project once on your Instagram page. your story, maybe a reel, and that's all it gets. You post one and done. If you post twice, then you're pushing it in people's faces. But I think what you did was really, you spent seven months working on a project. Why not put it out there? Exactly.

54:17Matt Aitia:Exactly. Why not? This is what I try to do with all of my projects is like, why not try to stretch it as far as it could possibly go with marketing? Look at the two best examples from the past two years anora they they spent the film cost eight million dollars but they spent 16 million on the marketing for the film so the marketing is arguably like more important than the film itself and then marty supreme i'm sure you've seen a ton of ads the marketing is insane just tim what what timothy is doing on his end is crazy exactly so it's like why would you spend seven months on a project and post one story about it one post and one reel no i i spent you know over seven thousand dollars on this project i'm gonna push it in people's faces like i don't care and it's like i sure you have your audience of like people that see your stuff but it reaches new audiences as well people that haven't seen it like there's a bunch of 40 year old skateboarders that have commented on the video and i don't know if they wouldn't they would have seen it if I wasn't like pushing it as hard as I did.

55:27Was marketing, was the marketing behind this part of your initial concept going into it? Like you were going to, like was behind this, how you were going to do behind the scenes, some of the videos behind it, some of the reels that the type of reels, was that all pre-planned or was that sort of found as you started looking through a lot of the footage?

55:47Matt Aitia:It's a little bit of both. Like I I have this I have my go-to things that I talk about when I create projects like ones that do really well is like you have one where it's like the shot from Cadridge what we planned on the location scout and then the shot from how it actually looks on set um and and it's just coming up with things like yeah and just trying to milk it as much as possible and shooting behind the scenes. Like I tell filmmakers that, um, want to grab coffee with me. I'm like, you need to be posting it on social media and documenting the process. People care more about that than the actual film itself.

56:28I know. I know. It's true. What is one thing that you are most proud of about this project, about your journey in pursuing YouTube and just the, uh, over the last couple years, what are you most proud of about yourself and what you've been able to do?

56:47Matt Aitia:Probably just like taking a risk on myself and just really trying to go forward and tune out the outside chatter and even the inside chatter, you know, telling myself people think X, Y, Z of you and just really going forward and creating passion projects and putting money where my mouth is and just trying to make this thing happen and reach out to people that I'm scared to reach out to. Doing things like that. And I've seen the biggest growth in my career by doing that this year. So last year. Amazing. And my last question for you today, I love this question. And I love the answers to this question because it changes, um, from person to person, but what did, what did success mean to you a couple of years ago?

57:40And how has that changed to what success means to you now?

57:44Matt Aitia:Um, so success to me before was like very much the title and, you know, being a DP, but now it's really just like i want to just keep this sustainable and you know i want to be behind the camera and creating things for the rest of my life and that that's really what success is for me is like just continuing to do this every single day like that yeah that's what it is for me. I'm curious to hear yours for you as well. Yeah. I think success for me for a long time had to do with the title, the financial appearance, you know, how much money you had. Because I think I grew up, you know, where I was taught that, you know, how like money is really important and obviously it is but I think that was part of my identity for a while was like how much money I have determines my value and who I am as a person and I think as I've evolved a little bit and tried to dig a little bit deeper into who I truly am I think for me success is being true to what I feel is my calling in life, whether that's DP, podcasting, being a good husband, hopefully one day being a father, being a good friend, and being open to pursuing the things that I feel called to do in my life and trying to find a sustainable way to balance my personal life my career um and i think for me success is trying to continue to find internal peace in what you're doing um i think that's for me yeah i i think you have to go through that process of like achieving the title to to notice like i don't know if you've you've seen marty have you seen marty supreme yet not yet i've been dying to but not yet go watch it because it's like it'll it really resonates with people that are hungry and and want external success but i won't it i mean it doesn't spoil too much of the film but like he reaches the point of like what where he put all the weight and he's like once i get to this point i've made it and And once he actually gets it, he just finds it's like totally empty.

1:00:30Matt Aitia:Right. So it's like, you need to actually get to that point to find that it's like, it's empty. And then from there, that's where like the real work starts. Like, what is success? You know, I've only started to ask myself these questions last year or this year. So. Yeah, this is a question that I ask almost everybody on this podcast because it's so, it's an important question to me. And it's really interesting to hear people's perspectives based on where they are in their life and their career. and it's given me a lot to process and think about as I answer that question for myself. Totally. So Matt, dude, thank you for being here.

1:01:07Where can people find you? Where can people watch your short film? Please share it.

1:01:13Matt Aitia:Thank you so much for having me. Matt Atiyah on everything, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, all that stuff. Amazing. And people can find your short film on your YouTube channel. It is titled Get Up, Try Again. yes amazing hopefully enjoyed today's episode everyone i will see you next time peace out