"You leave people thinking"
- Ray Carney (cassavetes.com)
Matt Burns is a 26-year-old independent writer/filmmaker from the Boston area whose work has been critically acclaimed by Ray Carney, a man who is known to be one of the world's experts on American Independent Film. Carney has posted many of Burns' essays on his popular indie website (cassavetes.com) and has recommended his work to readers and fans.
Films
Burns is a graduate of the BU College of Communication film program where he shot five films on 16mm film, two of which were chosen to play in exclusive screenings around the BU campus and greater Boston area. Burns has also made several short films outside BU, all of which have received much praise for their unique style and sense of humor, as well as their profundity.
Writing
Burns has written a total of twenty-one screenplays since the end of his time at BU, fourteen of which are feature-length. His short script "Man with a Video Camera" placed as a semi-finalist in the national 'Anything But Hollywood' screenplay contest; his feature script "Watermelon 4032" placed as a quarterfinalist in the national 'Scriptapalooza' screenplay contest; and his feature script "The Woman and the Dragon" ranked within the top twenty-percentile at the National Screenwriter's Expo in Los Angeles.
His scripts have also piqued the interest of major Hollywood agents, managers and producers (such as Richard Gladstein - Reservoir Dogs/Cider House Rules - and Larry Meistrich - Sling Blade), though as of this date Burns has found it difficult to become accepted by Hollywood.
Current Projects
Burns is currently trying to get an important project of his into the hands of actor/producer Johnny Depp. Though he is encountering extreme difficulty in getting to Depp, he is determined not to give up, as he feels it is a worthwhile endeavor.
If you are Johnny Depp, or if you know Johnny Depp, or if you know somebody who knows Johnny Depp, or if you are a distant fifth-cousin of Johnny Depp, or if you just want to pretend you're Johnny Depp, Burns asks that you please contact him.
The Story behind Matt Burns
Matt Burns first became interested in the "entertainment business" in the third grade when he performed in a school play and was surprised to discover that he was actually making people laugh with his performance. After the show, he noticed how everyone's eyes were on him, like he was a movie star. This touch of fame (although small in scale and short-lived) made him feel like God, and as pathetic as it may sound, he loved the attention. From that point forward, he wanted to be an actor.
By the sixth grade Burns had acted in several school plays, but was ready for something a bit more professional. That summer he joined the Walpole Children's Theater and performed in a number of plays including such classics as "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," "Robin Hood", "Pinocchio" and countless others. He also starred in more 'adult' plays like "Godspell", "Guys and Dolls" and "City of Angels" as part of his school's drama club.
Although he had great fun entertaining people with these roles, Burns didn't appreciate the kind of power an actor had until he performed in his Church's production of "The Passion of Christ". He played the role of Pontius Pilate and portrayed him in a manner that he didn't realize was so unorthodox at the time. Instead of being a mean and evil villain, he played Pilate as a fragile human being trapped in a web of mob-mentality and political pressure. After the performance, parishioners approached Burns and said he had changed the way they looked at Pontius. From that point forward, Burns realized how great of a responsibility an actor had in portraying a character truthfully.
By the end of high school, Burns had acted in well over a dozen plays and was beginning to grow tired of acting. He wanted to try something different. A film studies course Burns took his Junior year in high school turned him onto filmmaking and he began to consider the possibility of attending film school. After playing a lead in the musical "Crazy for You" his senior year in high school, Burns officially put acting on the back burner and started a brand new chapter in his life: filmmaking.
Burns attended the College of Communication at Boston University that fall, but mostly took liberal arts and film studies courses the first two years of his enrollment there. He knew that if he wanted to start making movies as soon as possible he would have to do so independently from the school. After a few months of tedious prerequisite courses, Burns got extremely restless. He scraped up his graduation money and some other savings and bought a digital video camera.
Over the next two years Burns shot several no-budget short movies and other videos with his friends, most of which were pretty terrible. But despite their lack of quality, making the movies taught Burns the craft of creating cinema.
Burns finally got into a production course his Junior year at BU where he made three shorts on 16mm film. The films were by no means masterpieces but he was able to apply the skills he learned shooting movies with his video camera and come up with results that were slightly better than the typical student film. He was quite thrilled when one of his films entitled "Actaeon" was chosen to play at a public end-of-the-semester screening.
Burns would later make more films in a second production course a year later (entitled "Sympathy for Hitler's Soul" and "The Second Beast"), which proved to be successes as far as student films go, but by the summer before his senior year Burns was ready to put filmmaking aside for a bit and start yet another chapter in his 'entertainment' career: screenwriting.
Although Burns had written the scripts for all the short films he had shot, he always thought he would probably end up being more of a director than a writer. This was partly because his first attempt at writing a feature-length screenplay in a screenwriting course was a complete disaster. (Note: A 'feature' script is one that is 100-130 pages in length, what you usually see when you go to the movies.)
Things changed, however, when Burns got an idea for a short called "Man with a Video Camera". Immediately after his Junior year and two weeks before starting a session of summer school, Burns penned "Man" and was so pleased with both the process and the results that he began to realize that screenwriting was definitely something he was interested in concentrating on, at least more than he expected. He entered "Man With a Video Camera" into the national "Anything But Hollywood" screenwriting contest that summer and placed as a semi-finalist. Burns felt encouraged.
A couple more shorts later, Burns enrolled in another screenwriting course the Fall semester of his senior year and tried to write a second feature entitled WATERMELON 4032, based on his experiences working as a cashier at a supermarket. Because his first attempt at writing a feature had gone so horribly, he was very apprehensive about doing this. Much to his surprise, however, he not only had a much easier time writing the script but actually had fun as well. His screenwriting professor was impressed with what she read and strongly encouraged him to keep writing. And that he did.
That winter, during Christmas break, Burns forced himself to write a third feature entitled I'M STANLEY. Though he was worried that he would never have the self-discipline required to do it, especially now that he wasn't enrolled in any sort of screenwriting course with a disciplined writing schedule, he managed to get a draft completed before classes started that January.
Now realizing that he had the discipline to write feature-length screenplays outside of a classroom environment, Burns actually considered himself to be a screenwriter, probably even more than he considered himself to be a filmmaker.
After he graduated college, Burns did nothing but write: one book, eleven features and several shorts, to be exact. But along with writing, he also tried to get his writing into the right hands. As of this date, Burns' scripts have piqued the interest of various people within Hollywood, but he has still not gotten his "big break". And the reason for this may be obvious, as Burns is mainly trying to get his writing into the hands of one of the most unapproachable people in Hollywood today: actor and producer Johnny Depp.
Though Burns has found the process of getting to Depp so much more difficult than he had ever imagined, he still refuses to give up. As delusional as he may be, he is convinced that Depp will like his writing. And, also as delusional as he may be, he is convinced that getting his writing to Depp is more important than making one of his films independently.
As of this date, Burns is still en route to Depp and has not come to any dead ends...yet. He figures that even if he never gets to Depp, the process of trying to get to the actor will take him places that are interesting and rewarding enough, in and of themselves.
Stay tuned for the rest...
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