By Giya Khurana
Correspondent
Having played over 180 film festivals across the globe, writer, director, producer and professor at the College, Matthew John Lawrence, ‘05, had not always assumed taking on filmmaking as a career.
Growing up near the shore in Toms River, New Jersey, Lawrence adored cinema since childhood, usually opting to rent and watch horror classics instead of children’s television.
This art form cultivated major influences for him, which included a nuanced selection of horror films as well as comedies, notably mentioning John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” Penelope Spheeris’s “Wayne’s World” and another Jersey native, Kevin Smith’s “Clerks.”
Similar nuances from these influences can be seen in Lawrence’s work.
“I want all my films to have stories, but have some type of heartfelt nature to it,” Lawrence said.
Lawrence’s short, “Larry Gone Demon,” “was the first movie I made that felt like I started to understand the type of stuff I exactly wanted to do.” He extended the “Larry Gone Demon” universe in his following feature film “Uncle Peckerhead,” which expanded on the theme of found family.
The heartfelt nature is all around his filmmaking, with even his friends and family being a part of productions, on screen and behind the scenes.
Before creating shorts and his feature films, Lawrence said he had first started taking classes focused on the law track. The filmmaking path found him a little later at the College.
Even with the intrigue of film, Lawrence said he had no one in his orbit who was a filmmaker, nor did his high school offer formative classes in video production. However, there was one opportunity to use a video camera before graduating high school and he took it.
“Towards the end of high school, one of my friend’s dad had a video camera so we would make videos for English class,” Lawrence said.
“Looking back, I did little silly videos once I had access to a film camera but it seemed like something that was too far away, like [the films] people in Hollywood made, it just didn’t seem like a reality,” he added.
Once starting at the College for undergraduate studies in 2001, Lawrence said did not know exactly what major was right but had an idea of possibly becoming a lawyer, even thinking about law school.
After his freshman year, he said he realized law wasn't a match.
“I remember having kind of a crisis, where I was like, ‘What do I want to do?,’” Lawrence said. It led him to visit each academic building looking for something that was just right.
From sociology to psychology, in similar means but in a completely different direction, he stumbled upon communication studies, which then was starting to expand studies of studio production.
His first film class, with professor Lorna Johnson-Frizell, changed everything. “It’s when it started to click into place that I wanted to do film,” Lawrence said. This led to him taking the first steps in what would shape his career.
The class gave Lawrence his first hands-on experience with a proper film camera.
Enthralled with the history and process of the camera, he “would take it outside of class to use and was the first camera I understood more than turning it on, hit record,” he said.
The College helped him find other passions within the film industry as well, like writing. Originally thinking about writing for TV, he interned at “Saturday Night Live” and “The Daily Show,” forming an exciting possibility of becoming a comedy writer in New York City.
Writing is still a major part of Lawrence’s life. He says he is constantly writing in notebooks, filling them with ideas, sometimes even having “three going at once.”
Lawrence said he is still finding time to ponder new stories. “Ideas are weird, I’ll just sit and think,” Lawrence said, explaining how he can sit and think for hours, dissecting ideas that might become full stories. “If I can fill up a notebook then I feel like it’s worth probably trying to figure out a structure,” he said.
Writing has been a prominent outlet since his time at the College. However, after graduation the film writing took a detour for music.
Lawrence said he assisted in writing songs for a band he was in, Raleigh St. Claire, formed at the College. They toured for a year but then it ended, leaving Lawrence wondering “what next?”
After taking on an advertising job, it was not a match, but while working there, he found his way back to filmmaking while assisting the videography department. Lawrence said he then decided to get his masters in film.
Lawrence enrolled at Boston University, where his interests in filmmaking and writing collided again. He took his first ever screen writing class the first semester. “It totally changed my life,” Lawrence said.
“My professor was so cool, he really encouraged [me]. I handed in my first script, you think about people that kind of change your life, but he was like ‘Have you taken a screen writing class before? You really have a knack for this,’” Lawrence said.
This changed Lawrence's path from the cinematography track over to getting an MFA in writing and directing.
“I just fell in love with writing, now that's my favorite thing,” Lawrence said.
Similarly, Ryan Maurer, a senior communication studies major who has taken four of Lawrence’s classes said in a Zoom interview, “He’s very honest, you could ask him your opinion or advice about something and he's very insightful about what you could do.”
“I found that very helpful in times where I was unsure about my project. He gave the guidance I was looking for, and I feel like he’s more experienced in terms of the industry nowadays,” Maurer said.
Susan Ryan, communication studies professor at the College, who was also a professor during Lawrence’s undergraduate years, has known him “a long time.” She really got to know him after he joined the faculty in 2020.
“Matt’s a great guy, he has brought so much to the department, [has] done a great job of incorporating all of his experience as a screenwriter and director. That experience has greatly benefitted the students,” Ryan said during a Zoom interview.
Lawrence has even lended a hand in helping students with the industry beyond helpful feedback. In 2022, when talking to his screenwriting class about getting greenlit for his then latest feature, “Bloody Axe Wound,” students Nikos DeGruccio and Nate Witkowski joined the production crew.
“Nikos was kind of dogged to get experience on set, [Lawrence told him to] ask every month [for an opportunity],” Lawrence said.
Lawrence said that DeGruccio persisted and was able to join on as a production assistant one week before production. Then Witkowski had been invited on by DeGruccio, as the production team needed more PA’s. They stayed on full time, and “stuck out a tough shoot,” Lawrence said.
This was a very unique situation. To get more experience, Lawrence also emphasises the importance of film festivals, encouraging students to participate to help their craft. They make you “feel more legitimized, some have been the most endorphin rushing,” Lawrence said.
The very first film festival Lawrence submitted to was the NJ Young Filmmakers Fest held in Newark. He sent one of his short films from BU and won an award for it in the Graduate School section of the competition. The community oriented nature of it was intriguing, Lawrence said.
“Most people don’t finish their movie, but there is something, driving somewhere you’ve never been to, or have but under different contexts, and truly watching your movie with a bunch of strangers and seeing how that goes over … it's such a crazy feeling,” Lawrence said.
One of the more memorable ones was the DC Short Film Festival held in Washington, Lawrence said. “Enter The Beard” was “the first time it felt like I made something, that hundreds of people, [three sold out showings] in one weekend, were responding to,” Lawrence said.
“You go through all this hell hoping for a moment, sometimes it never comes. It never delivers the way you want it to, but when it does, it can sustain you for a year or during your prep for your next movie,” Lawrence said.
Lawrence hopes the film industry expanding in Jersey can further help the students, improve the program, and help create connections. “TCNJ students have good work ethic, it’s an opportunity to prove themselves and show up,” Lawrence said.
Lawrence is currently in the process of writing his next film, with the hopes to be in production next summer.
