Life & Work with Morgan Matthews

Today we’d like to introduce you to Morgan Matthews.

Hi Morgan, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
When I was 13, I started making these little collage edits on Vine.

Those evolved into video edits, which just grew in complexity over the next 5 or so years. I knew since I was 15 that I wanted to do video editing for the rest of my life, even though I didn’t have as much experience editing outside of these hobby ones.

So I found Nossi College of Art, where I got my degree in film and it helped me further my skill and motivation for it.

So I literally owe my career to Vine!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It wasn’t really a struggle until I was midway through college. I’ve never been an academic person, I’ve always hated school, and I’m not good at focusing or test-taking.

So even though I was going for something I loved doing, I couldn’t help thinking I wouldn’t be able to pull through with it and came close to dropping out several times. The stress of deadlines was getting to me and at one point I was wondering if it actually was what I wanted to do — especially because the degree was so centered around physically filming, which I don’t enjoy quite as much as editing.

It also didn’t help that I was working essentially full-time (and still am) as a retail manager while going to school and doing an internship at one point, so I was constantly busy and it was near impossible to get any extra days off from work to focus on school projects. So after so many all-nighters, I got kind of exhausted and discouraged.

Now 8 months post-graduation, I can confirm it is what I want to do! Now the only struggle is getting jobs and balancing my retail job, but it’s definitely more manageable.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a video editor, specializing most recently in 2d motion graphics animation and typography. I really, really enjoy creating title sequences and lyric videos, because I love creating cool visuals even though I’m not behind a camera.

I actually have 2 different answers to this — I’m most proud of my student project title sequences I created for the Syfy show “ZNation” and our student mockumentary, “My Roommate is a Ghost”. The effects in both of those are definitely some of the best work I think I’ve ever done. At the same time, I do these Marvel edits on Youtube that are very simple, they don’t have any effects, but the importance is all in the timing of the beats. On every other beat, I’ll have a character punch or kick. Those take a LOT of focus to perfect — which is really difficult for me.

I think what sets me apart from others in my field is my past work–as I said, I started with video edits on Vine. The edits that people created then (and now on Instagram) have such a complex style to them that people don’t see in normal video editing. There’s just a specific difference in style between them. And I’ve been able to take what I’ve learned from doing those for so long and put it into my current work to add a flare.

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
My DM’s on my Instagram is always open! Or I check my email like 9 times a day.

Pricing:

• Simple lyric videos – $450
• Animation lyric videos – $600-700

Contact Info:

• Instagram: instagram.com/scarnosemedia
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/morgan-matthews-8a983a22a/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0CxVxAqkqFodK-FGhQwAaw