FITCH/BAKER

7 Jul

Welcome to another Other Ways of Seeing conversation. Other Ways of Seeing is a project to discover the personal art practices of people who work in the creative industries. What they make and why they make it. This second conversation is with directing duo Fitch/Baker otherwise known as Matt Fitch and Chris Baker. Matt is a Creative Director at a popular independent advertising agency called Pablo, Chris is Head of New Business at Park Village, a long established London based film production company. We talk about how they met, bonding over comics, writing comics and falling out of love with comics. We discuss their highly awarded short film Backmask and how much time and money and belief it takes to get films made and out there in the world. We consider how personal projects fit around their paid work and families, and how having kids has actually helped their creative output. We chat about art and the weird stuff they like to do to inspire themselves. We also discuss not directing ads. And creating, simply for the love of it..

Little note.. we talked about the 2024 Shots comic being the last one they would ever write, but this year’s has come out. So, it wasn’t the last one. And for those of you who don’t know what Shots or Cannes Lions is (and lets be honest, who would if you’re not in advertising).. Shots is an online magazine that highlights all of the best creative advertising from around the world, among many other clever things it offers. The comic Matt and Chris write is about Cannes Lions, the Oscars of advertising.. or the Cannes of advertising.. in Cannes.

Mel: So yeah, let's just go straight into it and tell us Matt and Chris about how you met..

Matt: Well there's two sides to our story isn't there?

Mel: Oh yeah there are, let's have both from both sides.

Matt: Go ahead..

Chris: I’m a director's rep so for a living as you know Mel have to hassle people like Matt and I actually managed to get through to Mark, Matt's partner Mark Lewis, and I think we spent more time talking about RoboCop than we did about John Lewis ads or whatever it was we were talking about over at BBH and then we had, long story short we booked a lunch and that's where I met Matt and it was at Polpo in Soho.

Mel: Nice.

Chris: Really great food, best food.. and it was just Spider-Man. That's the lasting memory of talking to Matt that day is Spider-Man and then after that the rest is history. I mean Matt what was your side of the story?

Matt: Yeah yeah similar.. so by trade I'm an advertising creative and I’m a creative director now but back then I was a junior creative because it was ages ago 2012 I think it was. And yeah I get a lot of emails I still do from reps and most of them, you know I've got some friends who are reps and they're really good at their job but a lot of them they literally just send you an email, get your name wrong, compliment you on something you've done that actually you didn't do, they just got it off the agency website and you know we're busy, we're really busy in advertising so we don't respond in all honesty a lot of the time.. unless it gets your attention. And I can't remember what it was, but there was something about Chris' email, like you know he's a very verbose guy even in written form and I was sort of like.. I like this guy I'm going to reply. And then we spent ages ping-ponging trying to get a meeting and we just couldn't because of my diary, and then so to the point where Mark took the meeting. I was like.. ‘Mark can you please just meet this guy he seems cool and I just kept mugging him off’, can you just do it please. So Mark went and then yeah Mark said he was really cool I'd agree exactly like Chris just said talking about RoboCop. So we met we met up again and yeah just became friends almost almost instantly. We were both working on comic book projects separately which we'll get into I'm sure during the rest of this chat but we both love comics. Loved maybe, past tense for me. Again we'll get into it, yeah we both had comic projects and we just started talking about them, I was writing one with Mark actually. So Mark Lewis is my advertising creative partner, we’ve been friends since high school. So we were making this silly comic and mentioned it to Chris and we just sort of started helping each other all three of us, and we started writing comics together and just sort of forgot about advertising to be honest. That's how we met. We do have a relationship in advertising but it sort of evolved beyond it quite quickly.

Chris: I seem to recall we had pages on our phones that we were sort of sharing with each other so that might have been the reason it was more than just talk about comics.

Matt: Yeah it got collaborative really quickly which is good you know. Like in the arts you meet someone who's equally enthused and you just get on with talking about making stuff, so that's what happened.

Mel: So did you all work on one project together or were you just all sort of helping each other out sort of creating, bouncing ideas?

Matt: Yeah, well Chris was working with an artist called Charlie Hodgson and I was drawing Mark and my comic that I was doing Mark, I was drawing that. And we basically formed a comic company the four of us very quickly and scrappily just threw our two comics together and went ‘hey we're a company now, we're a publisher’ and yeah and that took over the next five years of our lives.

Mel: Was that Dead Canary?

Matt: Yeah.

Chris: Matt sent me a ‘I've made this logo doesn't it look great’ and it did as in true Matt Fitch form it was a lovely Marvel indie style logo that we could all put in the side of our comics. Then a website followed and the inevitable social media followed. And then we did Kickstarter and they were quite successful but then Matt and I did our first graphic novel together and my brain is so… I can't even remember how we even began that because I know we did a short story together in a thing we did for a film called The Fitzroy but then we did this graphic novel called Reddin which is a horror western and I think that was the beginning of the Fitch/Baker collaboration.

Matt: Yeah it was all loose until then, it was all like you said Mel we were just collaborating all helping each other all four of us and it was actually a fifth guy eventually. We were all just helping each other sort of like a collective but then Chris and I for whatever reason I think we just got the same tastes, the same cultural references a lot of the time, we just sort of began writing together and just realised that we made each other's writing better. It just sort of evolved, it wasn't intentional or planned really, we didn’t like sit down and be like ‘oh should we, the two of us write together..’ we just found ourselves helping each other on each other's projects to the point where we just started writing together. It just sort of evolved. It was very natural.

Chris: We were talking about this just the other day.. there was no official end to Dead Canary, it just dissolved into the into the wind. But I think the beginning of that was that Matt and I, we had gone to other publishers with ideas, because we were quite prolific and because money is always going to be a problem when you try and produce anything, I think there was talk of ‘we'll take some of our ideas to other publishers’. And Self Made Hero (God only knows how we managed to get the meeting) but we sat down and Matt and I think pitched three or four things to them. And Matt had always wanted to do the Apollo moon landing story, and we had a script, like ready to go. And Emma just said ‘I'll take it and read it, I'm going to LA’. She read it on the flight and we got the deal. It was pretty slap dash. Am I right in remembering it like that Matt?

Matt: That was as pretty much how I remember yeah we wrote Apollo, so Apollo is the story of the moon landing but Fitch/Baker style. So it gets a bit weird and goes into the heads of the astronauts and gets a bit trippy. It was meant to be a Dead Canary project, but it evolved into quite a big graphic novel, and it was really expensive to produce because you needed to pay an artist, you know, a good one, quite a lot of hours work to bring it to life. And it just felt like Dead Canary couldn't handle it. You know, I just mean in terms of like we didn't have proper distribution, we didn't really have money to pay like a team of people to properly work on it. It was all us doing it. It was all handmade stuff. So we thought, you know what, maybe this one should go to a proper publisher that can actually get it into shops.

Chris: With global reach..

Matt: Yeah, that was when we kind of went ‘let's get a little bit more professional here because we've written this thing and it's taken us ages and we think it's really good’. So maybe we'll let someone who knows what they're doing do it.

Mel: I did notice it in Foyles. Like I think the last time I was in London, I always go to Foyles and go to the comic book section and it was there.

Matt: Yeah, and I don't know how it got there. So that's why we needed someone else, you know?

Mel: Leave it to the experts kinda thing.. Have you felt that you've had a lot of support for your personal projects?

Matt: I would say yes and no. So there's a lot of support as in like people are very enthusiastic about it and supportive in as much as like they'll give you a pat on the back and say ‘wow that's really cool’. But actual like real real physical proper help, you know, sometimes you kind of just got to do it yourself, haven't you.

Chris: What’s that old fable the chicken baking the bread.. you know, it wants all the animals to help.. everyone's happy to eat the bread at the end, but they won't need the dough or collect the flour and all those things. But look the people that do distinguish themselves. And it would be really cruel to not mention that there are many people in our orbit that always happen to help. Production companies lending us that their space to do castings in, artists doing you know mock ups and work. We have an artist that we work with, Joe Totti. And when we met him he was this six foot huge Northern doorman who fancied himself being a bit of a comic book artist and I think Matt did a short story with him. And then we ended up doing a couple of things for different publishers. And he does the Shots comic with me and Matt sometimes every so often. But now he's one of the storyboard artists that everyone goes to. And we can always count on him to do us a freebie or a mock up or some concept work. And Matt does a lot, and Matt is it String and Tins you've been you've been friends with?

Matt: Yeah, I actually take back my earlier comment, I was thinking of some other people…

Chris: …Electric Theatre…

Matt: The ones who help you really really help you. But they're few and far between I would say and you know who your friends are. They are the other people who also want to do good things and aren't just in it for money or kudos you know they just love making stuff. They're the ones who help. So yeah, String and Tins who are a sound design composition company in London. I've known them since they set up shop and for my money they’re one of the best. They help us out a lot.

Mel: Well, I think you know, obviously we're in advertising and it is all about the money, but we're also all creative and it's that other creative section of us that I'm interested in, where the money doesn't matter. Though, for example for Backmask, your amazing film that's got loads of awards, to create something like that, that’s unbelievably polished, it does need support and help and money. That must have been hard to get over that hurdle.

Matt: It was and for a long time we didn't do it for that reason.

Mel: Really? Were you sitting on it for a long time?

Matt: Not that script necessarily but like just the idea of going out and making something of that scale. I think again in advertising you've got everything haven't you turn up on set, it's all there. And we didn't have it, and I didn't personally know where to start. We had some ideas but it just felt like a big mountain. I think we got into directing quite late and I've been dabbling with it for years, I used to direct things at BBH about 10 years ago little things. And yeah I think we were waiting for permission and we were waiting for all the pieces to be in place and then we realised they're not going to be in place, let's just get on with it. So that was the turning point I think but yeah we couldn't have done it without the help of a producer, that was a big thing. So Charlie Woodall was our producer on that film, he’s someone I met at Adam and Eve and became friends with and he was just like us, looking to do something and not just sit around. None of us really knew what we were doing to be honest, there’s that saying ‘build the plane while it's taking off’. That's pretty much what we did. So it all starts with a script which we can control Chris and I, and we can write it and then everything else is kind of like okay, now what..

Chris: Well, putting the date in the diary. Once you do that everything just happened. We found everything we needed, it was a bit ‘book them and you will come’. And to your point before, if it was all just about the money we'd all be working in a bank or something. I think deep down inside everybody there is an inherent desire to make things out of nothing, creatively. So when they did see the script, just to blow smoke in our own faces, I think people were impressed with it because it was genre and short films don't tend to be high concept genre. They tend to be, you know, social problems, social issues, something that's a relevant thing that is essentially going to get you a seat at the sort of like high brow table of short films. But we did it for us. And it was essentially an idea that Matt had thrown at me in the pandemic about a haunted recording studio. I think that was it wasn’t it?

Matt: Yeah, in a nutshell somebody who hears something in a recording that they didn't put there and he starts to slowly fall under its spell, that was the germ of it.

Chris: And it just transmuted into this.

Backmask

Matt: But that whole project like, you know, we started with a script. I didn't know what to do next. We had a lot of advice. We had a lot of people telling us things that didn't really ring true to be honest and then we got Charlie involved and just started finding stuff like our DOP, Sy Turnbull. I emailed him, I'd never met him in my life, but I emailed him because another friend, a director friend of mine said ‘this guy would be really good for that script I think’ and I looked at his work and I agreed. So I just emailed him, introduced myself and he came on board to the project, just, you know, out of the kindness of his heart he just wanted to do it. There were a lot of examples like that of people. We asked them and they got on board, and for no real gain that I'm aware of.

Mel: It must be so wonderful when you open that door and everybody jumps in.

Chris: Yeah, we definitely had a good vibe. Three days of, well, two days of joy and one day of stress I would say.

Matt: Yeah, it was really wonderful and I'm friends with those people now. And they'll work with us on other things, it’s been a really good process.

Mel: And what's the next step for it. I mean you've won so many awards, specifically horror.

Chris: Good thing to address here actually Matt, if you want to.

Matt: Yeah, so confession time… I'm not really a horror fan.

Mel: So what happened?

Matt: I’ll watch horror and enjoy it, but I don't consider Backmask a horror.

Mel: Okay, that's interesting.

Matt: But that is what it has to be because that's what the festivals, you know, you have your genres and it falls into that genre, but it's not particularly scary or stabby or any of those horror things. I think I see it more as like a psychological, supernatural story. It's about creativity. It's kind of autobiographical for both Chris and I about the dark places you go to when you're trying to create. How it can consume you, how you can neglect your loved ones around you while you're in the throws of creation. So that's kind of what it's about. And, you know, there's no monster or anything.. like there is, but not really. There's no serial killer.

Chris: No jump scares. There's nothing that makes you, you know, creep away, but it is “scary” with quotation marks.

Matt: Yeah, spooky.

Mel: Maybe that's why it's done so well in horror awards things because it is different and it is terrifying and maybe there's something to be said for it being more terrifying because it comes from within than it really being an obvious horror.

Matt: I think what a lot of people like is it's got a story. So what Chris and I always make sure we have is a story. An actual story that's worth sitting down and watching or reading or listening to, rather than just a scary stylish thing that just comes on and then you kind of doesn't really do anything and you forget about it. So I think that's what a lot of people have resonated with. But the next steps, that whole short was actually, well, it was designed to do two things. One, it was designed to prove that we can direct as a duo. So like I said, I've done it before in the commercial world. Chris has done it before mainly in music videos. But we've never done it together. And obviously you can prove you can write together just by getting a laptop and writing and people can read it. But we had to prove that we could direct something in order, hopefully that people will let us direct more was the basic plan. So to begin with, we didn't really know what we were going to direct. We just, we were going to do something else. It was actually a different script that in hindsight wasn't as good. And then this film was designed, firstly, to show who we are as directors, but secondly, as a proof of concept for a longer script, the feature film that we've written. And that it's also called Backmask. It's basically the same story, but just, you know, for 90 minutes, more characters. And that's why we made this short. That was sort of the reason for it. So that's also our next steps.

Chris: It started off as a long form script before it was ever a short. The script has gone through such a transformation since we first had it. And it's always retained a few things all the way through, namely that it's a period piece, which is something we're quite married to. The character has involved a little bit, mainly because we've worked with an actor, David Shield, who’s very talented. And one of the short films characters has actually now become so popular. He won an award actually at one of these festivals. We've put him into the feature film and the script's just gotten better and better. And I think the craft of directing has taught us a lot about how we write our scripts now as well.

Matt: It’s difficult, though, isn't it, Chris? Because with, when you're writing on paper, you can do that all day long for free and you can write 20 things or more in a year. But we want to direct more things together, but it takes thousands of pounds and years to do one thing, right? Basically, so it's quite hard to like, we've got other short films that we've written that we want to shoot. We've got little, just little fun things we want to make, but you know, you need cameras, you need crew. It's a lot harder than the production and the hustle side of it is actually quite a lot harder than the creative side of it, I think anyway. Whereas when we were doing comics and stuff, it felt a little bit quicker.

Chris: We have bottom drawers brimming with scripts that we've written that will never see the light of day. Maybe one or two might get made. We've sold a few different things that obviously will probably never get made, but you know, someone else owns them now. So I think wanting to see these things come to life is made. That's a driving factor. I mean, I'd like to see certain things we've done come to life. We've got another feature that we've written that will either be a short film that's a little concept that we've done or it'll end up being a really low budget indie film that we just go and shoot on whatever camera we can steal that day. Yeah, I know I'm rambling a little. I just want to make more things.

Mel: You want to make ads?

Chris: Yeah, it depends on the ad really. I mean, who would have who would have us? I mean, we're not…

Mel: You want to write as well, don't you? So you kind of want to realise your stories or creations..

Matt: Yeah, my take on it. I've been asked this question, ‘why don't you direct ads?’ a lot. It seems like the logical next step. And it's something that for many years I thought I wanted to do. Every time I was on a set with a big director, I'd be kind of watching them and trying to ask them how they got into it and things like that. And I've realised now, I personally don't want to direct ads because I do enough of that in my day job, you know, like being a creative… you're on set, you're in the sound studio, you're in the edit, you're in the casting, you're pretty much doing it anyway. You're not directing it necessarily, but it's a different relationship in that kind of directing. I see directors on ads as part of a collaboration rather than, you know, like the be all and end all of it. So I already feel like I get my kicks advertising-wise already and I'm not sure what I'd get out of it. Whereas when I'm directing something that Chris and I have written together and it's our vision and it's cool and it's fun and it's, you know, it's about ghosts or aliens or whatever it is. And there's no need to attach a brand or listen to too many other voices. That's when I enjoy it, you know? So we did for a long time go round and round in circles of like, well, look, we're in advertising, so shouldn't we direct ads? And obviously if the right one fell in our laps, I think we'd do a good job and I wouldn't say no, but it's not something that we're pursuing, I would say.

Chris: I see the positives as this.. I love working with actors, I love it. It's a joy. It's the closest thing to writing and magic as you get sitting with an actor and just conceiving of something. Having all the heads of department around you, actioning your will. I know that the psychotics in both of us enjoys that very much, seeing it all come together. But yeah, look, we all know what ads are like. There's limitations creatively and you are hired to run the set and to action a carefully crafted creative script. And I think that that's probably not where we're best used.

Mel: I think this is it, isn't it? You're making art and you work in advertising and you've got enough of that. I mean, you know, Chris and I do the same job, have done for years and there's probably a reason, and for you too, Matt, that you need to do this.. a foil for the restrictions of working in advertising. I mean, our jobs are different from yours, Matt, obviously, in that you are creating, but you're still fighting, I imagine, for your ideas.

Matt: Oh 100%. You're creating in a box as well. You've got the client, you've got the business needs, you've got to sell a product. These are all things that I like doing and I'm good at doing as an advertising creative. But as a filmmaker, I'd rather do the other stuff.

Chris: It would be nice to do something like a music video or some sort of concept piece.

Mel: Being given freedom…

Chris: ‘We want you two to come up with the thing for us and just do it.’ That would be groovy, but that's obviously what every director would like to hear. That doesn't always exist unless you really do become huge and famous. You and I have been writing, must be 15 years together. We're good because you're very tough on things. You have that creative director eye and it's made me be better, it’s brought me out of mediocrity and I hope, in a sense, I've done the same for you. Because, you know, I think we just both make each other a little better.

Matt: Yeah, that's what good partnerships do. I mean, I think we're in danger a little bit of making ourselves sound like we think we're awesome because we're not. I still, you will know this Chris, I'm neurotic. I still think everything I write is shit. I think that Backmask needs a good few minutes edited out of it now. If I was going to do it again, there's loads I do differently. I look at you as, you know, you've got all the film school background and so I feel inadequate in that respect. There's a lot to be learned. And I think that's also why we just want to keep doing it. You can't just make one short film and go, ‘well I'm awesome now, done’. We just want to keep going.

Chris: Just like Leonardo DiCaprio and that Howard Hughes film, the moment he walks out the premiere, ‘I got to recut it. It's shit. Let's shoot the whole thing again for sound’.

Matt: I am like that. And again, I think I come from advertising where I'm not precious. I will have five people a day tell me why something's wrong and I'm used to it and you get quite a hard skin and I think it's a good thing.

Chris: I’ve got to say.. I'm going to veer off a little and say, Mel, one of the things I think we've learned.. Because comic books, you'd send things out and in comic books, everyone says they like it because it's a physical thing. And my God, you did it. You actually got to the point where you printed it and it's not online. And that was very false. Whereas we're finding in the film world, the sort of instantaneous visceral feeling of sitting in a cinema, watching the film and getting to have a nice conversation with people. And everyone is super honest. They didn't like something they'll tell you. And that has definitely grounded us a lot more. It grounded me certainly because I feel like I'm getting an honest response from people and I'm not just getting the bubble of advertising because everyone in the bubble of advertising says it's great. And they're going to and the people that don't I really appreciate and a few of my friends who are brutal. I won't say his name, but you know someone who we both know, he's brutal. I appreciated his honest take on it. You know, this is wrong, that’s wrong. And I just thought, yup, yup, next time! And then another chap who I don't mind naming because he's a great filmmaker, Tony Burke. He said one thing about the short film, and I really respect him as a filmmaker, and we both kicked each other thinking if we'd have done that it would have been perfect. Little things, but that's good.

Mel: Just wondering how it fits in with you, Matt, and your partnership and the agency that you work for.. Are they cool with you making work separately? Should you be 100% creating for them?

Matt: No, it works well. I mean, obviously I do have to juggle my professional day job with this. And I can't let that slip. Not only for the agency I work for, for myself, you know, I need to get paid. I need to keep my day job so a lot of this stuff happens between Chris and I it happens in the evenings, on the weekend. It's quite taxing in that respect, when the day job kicks in it kicks in hard and we just have to focus on that, which is a shame. I'd love to not have to stop filmmaking or writing, but sometimes we do. But luckily I work in an agency called Pablo and they're independent and they're quite entrepreneurial. They encourage everyone who works there to have strings to their bow and to be, always hungry and looking at other things and they're really cool. So when I first met Dan Watts, who's the ECD, so my boss essentially, the first time I ever met him to talk about taking on this job, I was carrying a clothing rail, a massive clothing rail. I took it into a coffee shop with Mark to meet him and he was like, ‘what are you doing?’ And I was actually going to a wardrobe session for Backmask and I was bringing this rail with me straight after. So I told him everything and he thought it was really cool and he actually loves horror, which is good fortune. But yeah, people in the agency, they send it around the agency. ‘Hey, look what Matt's done, check out his film, here’s a link,’ without me even promoting it because I don't really like to promote it to be honest, like internally. No, they're super supportive. I haven't had any kind of challenge about about that. Everyone just thinks it's really, really good. So I'm super lucky in that respect. But there's loads of people at Pablo who are doing other things, you know, not filmmaking necessarily, but creative things and also non creative things. Well, everything's creative, but I mean, people have their own businesses or their own products or they're selling candles or some new energy drink or something they've backed. So there's a lot going on and I think that's what makes advertising quite cool as well. There's a lot of people doing a lot of different things all at the same time. So I haven't found any problem. It's the same when we did the comics. Everybody supported us didn't they? Like in that respect, Chris, everyone thought it was cool. We were the comic guys. Everyone wanted to talk to us, even if somebody had a problem like, ‘oh, I want to make a comic for this brand, could you give me some advice?’ They'd call us. So it hasn't been a problem. And then obviously there is the elephant in the room of I have another creative partner, apart from Chris called Mark. That could be a problem, but it isn't because I've known Mark since high school and, you know, he's one of my best friends as well.

Chris: We’re all friends as well..

Matt: Yeah, he's one of my best mates outside of advertising. He's friends with Chris. He was part of Dead Canary. He knows the whole situation. I always tell him what I'm doing. He was the first person to watch Backmask and give advice on the edit and had some good points.

Mel: He doesn't get cross or jealous or anything?

Matt: Not that I know of. You know what, I do try to be respectful of the fact that we are co-dependent for our day job. Mark and I, you know, our salaries, our pensions, they're sort of interlinked. So I am respectful of that. And I know that that sort of has to come first a lot of the time. But equally, like I said, Mark knows Chris. He's supportive of it, comes to screenings, helps me with the edit, read scripts, gives advice. So it's kind of like having an extra little gang member who could kind of duck in and out every now and again.

Chris: I mean, I think possibly I'm the one with the bigger problem, yet I haven't seen it. In the past, I've had companies which I probably won't get into who haven't been as supportive about my extracurricular activity. Ultimately, if it's going to help make new business a reality, then they're going to be absolutely, you know..

Mel: They love that.

Chris: I mean, if you're doing something that raises your profile, it's great. And it is great. I mean, it's lovely to be seen as sort of like one of them rather than just another production person swanning around Soho House. But I do think that certainly directors want to feel like your attention is fully on their showreel and their prospects. So I guess not doing an ad has been super helpful. At the moment I work at Park Village and they are the antithesis of supportive and… is that the right way of putting it.. antithesis?

Matt: No.

Mel: No, the opposite. So they are very supportive.

Chris: They’re very supportive.

Matt: Call yourself a writer!

Chris: ‘Call yourself a writer’… well, that's why I got a partner to correct me. No, they are absolutely the best people when it comes to being supportive. And I think that's part of it. If you find your tribe of people.. and everyone seems to have a side hustle here. So I think I just fit in, whereas other places didn't really have side hustle. I mean, even directors need to have a side hustle outside of making an ad. And I think that I try and encourage directors to make more stuff like short films like music videos and experiment. So yeah, having a rep that at least, you know, walks the walk as well as talking the talk is probably a good thing.

Mel: Yeah, someone who understands the creative process…

Matt: Doing this actually makes me like my day job more and want to be better at it because there's been times in the past when, you know, advertising can be tough and I fell out of love with it and I didn't really want to do it anymore. And then doing something else actually reinvigorated me a bit, personally. Also moving to a new agency, which has helped as well. Not to slight my old agency. I just mean, you know, change is as good as a rest and all that. But yeah, I think when you've got like, not everything depends on the day job… like when my creative validation was only from advertising and then if a project went wrong or you know, a client ruined it or whatever, it really, really, really hurt. And now it still does but not quite as much because you can go okay well that one didn't go off but maybe the next one will and in the meantime I've got my film and I'm writing this script anyway so it's kind of, I think it helps to like diversify and balance it out a bit. That's what I think.

Mel: I think advertising is brutal. And, and having something else that you can pour your creative juices into is really, really healthy. There's so many people in advertising who have, you know, art practices outside of what they do in their day jobs.

Matt: And it channels back in! Because you know, learning about film and hanging out with people who make film. Like I said I did this teaching thing at St Martins recently and I was on a panel with a graphic designer and a photographer and I was kind of learning from them, even though I was meant to be one of the speakers.. I just think doing stuff fuels you. And that's only going to make you better at your day job.

Chris: There’s nowhere to hide as well when you do your own stuff. There's no client to hide behind. There's no other person's script. It's everything you've committed all that time to, you’ve had the final say, and it makes you do things better. And that helps your day job. I mean I always, I do demand the best of myself in my job, even though being a director's rep can be not as taxing as Matt's job, you can make it taxing, if you really work at it. And I think directing teaches you that.

Mel: I would be really interested to hear what is like a piece of work, whatever it is, art, film that recently, you’ve liked.

Matt: I’m a Tate member. And I don't get to go enough, because of being busy, basically, with work. I mean I can see St Paul's Cathedral from Pablo's office, which is only across the river from the Tate Modern. And I do intend to go there a bit more, but yeah, it's hard. The last thing I went to see at the Tate was a Yoko Ono exhibition, which was really good, because I've only ever considered her as like John Lennon's wife. And you hear all the sort of legends, all the bad things that people say about her. I'm a massive Beatles fan as is Chris. And I went to see that exhibition and saw her on her own merit and actually saw her as an artist. You quite quickly forget about John Lennon when you're surrounded by Yoko Ono's work, just her work, even though he's in a lot of her work. But that was, I've actually got a piece here, I've got a piece of her art right here. This is a piece of a puzzle of the sky.

Chris: Shall I get mine from my wallet that you gave me?

Matt: Yeah, and I gave one to Chris and it says Yoko Ono London 24 on the back. And basically, everyone who goes to the exhibition can just take one. And that's it now. The puzzle of the sky is spread around the world of everyone who's taken one of these. But it had a really nice message about the knowledge that the puzzle is complete, still. It still exists, and the hope that one day it might come back together, which I thought was really quite moving and quite nice. So yeah I really liked Yoko Ono. But that's the last exhibition that I can really remember touched me.

Mel: I loved that exhibition too.

Matt: You got a piece of the puzzle?

Mel: No, I had a postcard with a hole in it.

Matt: Oh yeah, so you can look at the sky. I've got one of them as well, yeah.

Mel: Yeah, it’s very poetic. And it was great that you changed your view on her. I mean, she just suffered from blatant misogyny really, for years and years. But seeing her body of work was incredible, it was intense.

Matt: Yeah.

Chris: I think Get Back has really shown us that she had nothing to do with the Beatles breakup and I don't understand why that even happened. She's just a crazy concept artist who does weird noises and hangs out with the Beatles and don't hate on her. It's George Harrison and those Hare Krishnas, they did it. It was them.

Mel: Was there anything that you've seen recently, Chris? It doesn’t have to be art..

Chris: I’m going to get a bit pretentious and left field... It's not an art gallery per se, but it was an experience I'll always remember. So Matt and I had to go down to Southampton for a recce essentially, to look at one of these digital studios that Matt has managed to procure for whenever we need to use it. And because we're both point weird and obsessed with weird things, we wanted to go and see Pier 44 where the Titanic left. It's quite a weird place to think that 100 years ago, a load of people were all here, crowded here, so excited. There was such energy to get on this big boat and they all left and that was the last time anyone ever saw them. And you can go there. There's like a sign and they make no deal of it. They just say if you're going to go there, just stay inside the yellow lines because it's a working dock. And it takes about half an hour to walk it. It’s quite a huge dock. But we went there and we sort of took a moment to just like take it in and I don't know why it was just a strange thing. And it's something I'll always remember and it was like last year's like weird magical trip.

Matt: Yeah, it was moving, very moving. There was a big boat there. They still use it, this dock. And yeah, there was a cargo ship there. People just unloading whatever crap they're importing or exporting. But you could feel like, oh wow, that's what the Titanic kind of would have looked like sitting in that exact spot. And then we looked at a picture of 1912, the Titanic in that spot and you're like, wow, this is literally like, this is it.. we’re in the movie, the James Cameron movie, when we're getting on the boat, this is where that's meant to be. And it's kind of spooky and weird and it's just a dock, a very industrial working place, but it's kind of weird and spooky. That was a good day, yeah.

Chris: We went to the Titanic pub. The menu at the Titanic pub is in the worst taste ever. It's like there's the burger I had was the guy, the man who called ‘Iceberg’. It's like he's a really... in Titanic lore, I forget his name, but it's like his name ‘… the burger’. This guy is... he hung himself. He had a tragic life. He survived the Titanic and two World Wars and then he hung himself. And there's a burger named after him.

Mel: It’s so weird.

Chris: And the children's menu is called ‘Women and Children First’.

Mel: Oh God, it's dark as fuck!

Chris: It’s so dark. You cannot make this stuff up. Anyway, weird things that Matt and Chris do.

Mel: So last year was the last Shots comic?

Chris: I think it's going to be. Is that going to be the last comic for you then, really? I mean, every time I do... I mean, it turns into... I get asked to do it. I ask Matt to do it. Matt tells me how much he hates comics and I should hate comics too. I remember I'm really good friends with Danny Edwards and it's a fun thing that the Shots people love. I think what it's done is it's encouraged them to go back to some form of print medium because it's slightly dead. And I don't know about you. I really miss the Shots magazine, that crisp, beautiful magazine that feels like you need to handle it in white gloves and it comes with a DVD.. and obviously DVDs are a slightly archaic thing. But you know what? I wasn't dialing it in. I was doing it quickly. It's not as much fun writing without Matt and he's always right. I spread myself too thin by doing it. If they ask me back, I'll do it. But maybe it's time to do something different or hand the mantle to a creative team that love comics. There's plenty of people out there that love comics and you know, if anyone wants to collect all of them up and make a graphic novel, I mean, there's enough there to make a pretty hefty graphic novel about how much I hate going to Cannes. And I do.

Mel: I loved it. It is really harsh.

Chris: I’m surprised I’m allowed to work in the industry. I tell you the best one because one of them Matt actually pretty much wrote on his own and I took the credit for it. I think that's the funniest one, the social media one.

I came up with the cover. That was my contribution.

Mel: Team work…

Chris: ..makes the dream work. We don't like to divide up our parts and things. It's under a name. But yeah, I don't know if I'll ever do another comic book. I've often thought it might be a fun thing to do. I go through my bottom drawer sometimes. I mean, we started work on the Jonestown years ago doing a Jonestown comic book. Depressing. Who wants to read an depressing comic?

Mel: Yeah, that's really, really horrible. But then, yeah, you know, it's an expression, I guess.

Chris: When the medium requires you to use it… But honestly, I'd rather put that energy into another film. I think comic books was almost like the training wheels for screenwriting in a way.

Matt: The reason we started writing comics was because we couldn't make film. Or we thought, oh, you know, we just write it, draw it, tell a story that way. And then maybe someone will pick it up and turn it into a film, which was obviously a silly pie the sky dream. But I think it was training wheels for us. And it was something that... I love film, but I felt like I couldn't do it. So I did comics. And now I feel like I can do film. I'm going to keep doing that instead. I still like comics, I don't hate them, but I did fall out of love with them. It's a lot of work for not a great deal of reward, I think.

Mel: Did you fall out of love with them because you worked on them? You turned your passion into a job and it just kind of killed the joy?

Matt: Yes, it's a weird industry. I think, again, coming from advertising where everyone is quite supportive, everyone is... We've got very, very high standards. Things get done. They get done quickly on time. You know, well, they get done well. Comics is basically a... like, calling it an industry is not the right name. It's a community. It's a small, little cottage community. And not that there's anything wrong with that, but film feels a bit more our speed. It's a bit more advertising adjacent, I would say. And we went to New York Comic-Con, Chris and I, to promote Apollo. Our publisher sent us out there. And that should have been the best thing ever. It should have been the pinnacle. You know, wow, at New York Comic-Con, promoting our own comic. And it actually just made us... I don't know, just sort of... It didn't feel like our tribe. I felt like we were in the wrong place. Really? Yeah, I can't really explain why. It just didn't... It felt like we were in the wrong place. So that was when we actually, on the plane back, said, "You know what? We've been wanting to write screenplays and get into films for so long. Let's just do that now instead." Like, the energy we're putting here, let's just put there.

Chris: So when we touched down, we didn't write another comic. But I have to say, just to applaud comics, a lot of people do comment on our dialogue. And that's all come from trying to outwit the artist, because all you've got is that little bubble of 35 words every panel. And that's all you've got. And the artist is going to draw something that everyone's going to look at and coo over. So the very least you can do is have some really compelling, really well-written dialogue. Because they ain't seeing your prose. They ain't seeing that you wrote the description of that amazing picture. They're just seeing the picture. And I think the next film we do, we're definitely going to apply some comic book logic to the way we shoot it. Because you're really capable of doing amazing things nowadays with equipment and toys and stuff. And, you know, when I was at film school, it was a mini-DV camera on a tripod. Now you've got drones and big cranes and, you know, all the things you need to make something really visually, you know, stellar.

Mel: It’s so heartwarming to see very, very busy people in advertising with big jobs, and families! Because kids suck your dry, love them to bits. But my God, how the hell you extract more energy out of yourselves to then also make films and have ideas and sit down and write. It's fucking amazing.

Matt: I do find it really hard, actually, that side of it. But equally, I think it made me more time efficient because I used to be fucking lazy. Like, when I was in my 20s, I wish I'd done this earlier, but when I was in my 20s, I didn't do anything, you know? And it was only when I had kids or my first child that I realised, like, I've got no time. And somehow it makes you use the time. Everything good Chris and I have done has been since we've had children. And it probably makes you see life in a different way. But it also means you've got a finite amount of free time and you use it wisely rather than sitting around squandering it. And, you know, also it wouldn't be fair, Chris, would it, to not shout out the partners who... We're very lucky. Like, we've got very understanding partners who get what we're trying to do and support it. Whereas I've got friends who don't have those things and they're not able to express themselves because they’re getting.. I suppose they're getting.. what’s the word?

Chris: Oh, ‘discouraged’.

Matt: Discouraged, yeah.

Chris: You call yourself a writer?

Matt: I know, I know.

Chris: Now, when our partners get together, they do kind of like look at each other with a sort of, ‘when are we going to be millionaires’, you know? When's this going to pay off? But, you know, 2024 was a.. you know, we've got trophies on shelves now and PDFs that need to be printed out and stuck on walls, you know? I think recognition came and that's what you can ask for. We never got that in comics, you know? We thought we were going to get nominated for an Eisner and I think we got a little disheartened when we didn't because, you know, I still look at Apollo with a lot of pride. I think it's a book that.. I’d like people to take another look at that book because I love how it divides the world. Some people love it, other people loathe it. Some people think we're part of some conspiracy theory about the moon landing, which is great. I mean, that's all you could ask for is that it's affected the world. And I think our next, you know, step into film.. I think the first film has been, you know, it's not really ‘us’ yet. If that makes sense, it's like our Reddin. Reddin, the cowboy novel we did, which was, you can see where we're going a little bit. Don't know what I'm trying to say here… Yeah, but having kids, yeah, that's what I was going to say. Yeah, but having the kids has meant that you just become a lot more.. I mean, I remember writing a pitch with Matt while his second child was.. Jo was having a cesarean. Why were you doing that? Why were you on the phone?

Matt: Well I probably had nothing to do for a little half an hour.

Mel: Eke it out, eke out that half an hour. ‘Ooh.. just got time…’. Oh yeah, time is precious. Super, super precious.

Matt: Yeah. I only want to use it doing good things that I like doing. I was a little bit obsessed for a while with the filmmaking of like, ‘oh, we've got to do this, it's got to be successful, it’s got to be amazing’. And I'm trying to actually enjoy the process a bit more and do it for us, for the art of it, you know, for the love of it, rather than for some kind of end goal. And I think I feel better about it because of that, actually.

Mel: I can imagine. Yeah, I can imagine, ‘doing it for the love of it’.. it’s hard to separate that sometimes.

Matt: Yeah, because advertising is very goal driven and very success driven. And there's always a finish line and, there's measurables, you know, is it effective? Did it win an award? Did you win the pitch? Whatever it is. And that has bled over into my own, like side projects. And I'm trying to wean it out a bit.. and just do it for the creative love of it.

Mel McBride https://other-ways-of-seeing.com

FITCH/BAKER

SOPHIE EBRARD