Filmmaker ♦︎ Creative Director ♦︎ Human Storyteller
Everything is Alive
I explore the human condition through story.
I make films and shape experiences that help people see what's usually invisible—the human truth beneath the brand, the story beneath the strategy, the realness that makes work actually matter.
Whether it's a documentary, a brand film, or a live activation, the question is always the same: How do we make people feel something true?
Films and Stories
I make documentary and brand films that capture people in honest, human moments. Many of these pieces were made in collaboration with organizations who want to show the heart behind their work. They invite us to pause, feel something true, and see the deeper story that connects us.
Brand & Strategy
Creative direction, for me, is about finding the truth and giving it form.
Every brand has a deeper story, something alive beneath the strategy and the slides. My work is surfacing that story and shaping it into experiences people can actually feel. Whether that's a rebrand, a social presence, an event, or a content ecosystem, the question is always: What wants to come alive here?
Shaping identity
Co-led a full-scale brand refresh, selecting and directing the work that reshaped visual identity, language, and overall presence. From design and aesthetic to tone and messaging, we rebuilt how the company expressed who they were. The work culminated in a launch video I directed that brought the new identity to life.
Building Presence
Spring Health had a minimal social presence, so I helped build one. I shaped the creative direction, defined the voice, and grew the following through honest, human-centered storytelling. It became a place where the brand could show up with clarity, personality, and heart.
Creating Content Ecosystems
Designed and directed a large-scale educational content ecosystem (25 courses and over 150 videos translating complex mental health concepts into clear, human, cinematic learning experiences. This work blended narrative, design, pedagogy, and emotional clarity to help people understand themselves in a deeper and more practical way.
Experiences & Activations
Some of my best work happens when I'm creating spaces—physical or otherwise—where people can drop the performance and just be. Here are two examples.
Tidal
Led the experiential creative direction for Spring Health’s flagship events, designing the stage, screens, activations, and overall narrative of the experience. The goal was to create spaces where people could open up, connect, and see each other in a deeper way. We captured the entire event and turned it into a content ecosystem that extended the experience far beyond the room.
Apt.1 Coffee
During the pandemic, I turned our home into a coffee shop. We opened on Saturdays. Every cup came with a poem and a flower. Friends and neighbors baked each week. Pay whatever you want, or pay nothing at all. After a few months, people were coming from all over the city—eventually 40 people lined up outside our apartment each week. It became a neighborhood refuge, a place where people could slow down, connect, and remember what it felt like to be seen. We ran it for nine months until the neighbors had enough and the city shut us down. It's still the thing people ask me about most.
About Matt
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I'm a filmmaker and creative director who helps brands and organizations tell stories that feel human. I've spent fifteen years making documentary films, leading brand creative, and designing experiences that move people closer to what's real. If you want work that lands with heart and clarity, let's talk.
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I have found love in my life. This love was a result of a heart opening which was a result of an ongoing investigation into the nature of reality, which was a result of a subtle, deep, and persistent hunch that there was more to this life than what it appears to be, which was a result of an indescribable existential suffering, which was a result of being a person.
I have a new daughter whom I love dearly and am learning more about hourly. Her and the love. I meditate daily and eat clean. I also eat desserts sometimes….I love ice cream and I will til I die. C’est la vie. I live for joy, but not in service of escape.
I read books, and write daily.
I have studied and practiced buddhist ways for fifteen years (and continue to do so) and have cultivated a way of being that serves as the foundation for my life and that is progressively deepening and changing who I am.
I’m a Gemini. An INT-J. A 4–7–1 on the Enneagram. A Manifesting Generator, if that means anything to you. I love sitting on park benches for hours at a time watching the way napkins get stuck under our shoes or how thoughts get stuck somewhere in our cheeks causing us to squint at seemingly nothing.
I make documentaries and conduct social experiments and weave fields that inspire truth and humor to arise inside any and all of us.
I record audio only conversations and dialogues over time between loved ones, friends, and sometimes strangers. I log, tend to, and review these conversations regularly.
I’ve written a Children’s Book, started a Coffee Shop, and at any give time am in the middle of some kind of experiment that makes me feel more connected to the great web of being.
I write a weekly creative newsletter that is a year and a half running, the contents of which are basically a dump not too dissimilar to this thing you’re reading now, where I pour my thinking and raw essence out into the world instead of leaving it bundled up inside where it tears my gut to pieces...psychically speaking.
Everyone and everything is a friend.
Everyone and everything is a teacher.
Every moment is new.Creating what we’re here to create is necessary. What we’re here to create doesn’t live outside of us. It lives in the place we have been avoiding. In our belly. In our chest. In our hands. In our throats. Life is about adventuring to this place and exploring what’s there. Everything we truly desire lives right here within us.
I do this myself and help others do the same. It’s what I live for because I believe it’s how we move closer to the life and world we all sense is possible in our depths. This world, this reality we live in is co-created. We’re doing it together whether we like it or not. Together is where the magic lies.
This is who I am and this is what I do.
What I’m Building
You know that feeling when you walk into a space and your whole body lights up? Your brain rattles, your stomach flutters, your jaw hits the floor. You didn't know something like this could exist. It’s like you stumbled onto something you shouldn't have. Like this shouldn't be here. How is this even possible? You feel like you're in on something special, something secret. And it makes you feel alive.
Welcome to Apt.1. Please take your shoes off.
Unexpected goodness…coming soon.
Ready to work together?
If you're building something that needs to feel human, real, and alive—let's talk. I'm currently available for:
Creative direction & brand strategy | Documentary and brand filmmaking | Experiential design and activations