Daily Inspiration: Meet Matt Warren

Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Warren.

Hi Matt, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I was born in Salt Lake City and raised in Park City, which is relevant here because I was around (albeit as a child) for the whole entire 1990s Sundance boom. So even though my day-to-day existence was living in this semi-isolated resort town in the Utah mountains, for a couple weeks each year the entire place turned into Hollywood central, which really launched my interest in becoming a filmmaker and specifically, and perhaps weirdly, an *independent* filmmaker. Later on, I studied film at the University of Utah, which was like twelve people total in those days, and after sort of weird gap year post-graduation eventually decided to move to Los Angeles. My first gig in town was as a studio page at Paramount, giving tours and seating audiences for Dr. Phil and Soul Train. Later, I got a production associate fellowship at Disney TV and went to work in set design and construction, working on shows like Desperate Housewives and Criminal Minds. All through this time I was writing as well, and had a few things sort of soft-optioned, with nothing really coming of it. I later moved into the digital space when that was becoming more of a thing, working for a NY-based new media company called My Damn Channel, which did a lot of really great early web comedy work with people like David Wain, Judah Friedlander, and Grace Helbig. I worked there for about five years and then moved on to become the Senior Manager of Digital Content at Film Independent and the Independent Spirit Awards, which really felt like a homecoming for me, getting back into the indie film world. I worked there for about a decade and met pretty much anyone and everyone having to do with independent film. Towards the end of my time there, I was able to put together a feature film project called “Delicate Arch” (a sort of psychedelic experimental horror movie) using my contacts. The film premiered at Dances With Films in LA in the summer of 2024 and was picked up by Cineverse. It came out in February and did pretty well, so now I’m trying to balance developing new film projects with a secondary career as a freelance entertainment journalist.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No it has not been a smooth road despite, even whatever privilege I’ve obviously taken advantage of as an upper middle-class white guy. I had no connections in Los Angeles or the entertainment industry at all, so I had to sort of build all that stuff up from scratch. I’ve also dealt with serious depression since adolescence, and the degree to which that interferes with my career (and life) objectives does tend to wax or wane depending on the year. I also battled a fairly pathetic and embarrassing drinking problem in my twenties which certainly didn’t help anything. Other than that there’s been the standard menu of near-misses and crushing disappointments which won’t be a surprise to anyone familiar with Hollywood. But in general it’s been quite an adventure and while it sounds like a cliche I’m grateful for *all* the experiences I’ve had, good and bad.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My career has been a wide-ranging one encompassing (often simultaneously) some combination of film blogging, industry reporting, creative writing, digital marketing, production, editing, and blue collar manual labor. My aspiration has always been to be a filmmaker, something I finally accomplished this year when my directorial feature “Delicate Arch” came out through Cineverse. Now my aspiration is to produce enough income as a filmmaker to sustain myself through middle age. My work (in both film and as a writer/blogger for editorial outlets) involves a lot of dark, absurdist humor and a desire to deconstruct the form of whatever I’m doing. So I guess I’m a postmodernist, but I still like my stuff to be accessible and entertaining, challenging the audience’s preconceptions as much as possible while still being fun and surprising.

What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
I always think about Los Angeles as being the most American city in the world. As in, whatever the United States represents to the rest of the world, good or bad, that’s what California represents to the rest of the United States and then within that, what Los Angeles represents to the rest of California. The thing I love about LA is its weirdness and essentially psychotic addiction to fantasy and mythmaking. What I like least about this city is the fragmentation of different areas and communities within the city and the lack of recognition that all residents of the city are interconnected.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mattwarrenvideo.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mpmwarren/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattpatrickwarren/