Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Persephone Godwin and Matt Richardson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Persephone & Matt, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The last documentary, which we completed this year, was brought to us as a work for hire. I didn’t want to take the project, as I knew it it was not going to be funded and we would end up financing the project. Matt was willing to take that risk and was okay with the outcome, I jumped on board, and I’m glad I did. We had challenge upon challenge. We had just opened our company and had inherited a project that had stalled, in post-production, for 7 years. We brought in a director to develop a brand new concept, and the project pivoted to including several filmmakers rather than one. Matt spent weeks combing through 6 terabytes of footage from over 10 filmmakers, delivering his selects to the director. While the director quickly delivered a beautiful concept with temp music. we were then stalled by a myriad of issues including covid, technical issues on the film score, multiple hard drives going bad and edits being lost, and finally, a hard decision on what to do when the film score we received was not the score we had approved. It was a heartbreaking decision as we had come to love the score, but it was costing us more to swim against the stream and we realized we needed to start over on the film score.

We turned to our friends and collaborators, my former classmate Carisa Bianco-Mellado and her husband Andrew who form the darkwave art band called Night Tongue. When you’re attached to an old idea, or in this case, a film score you love, it’s nearly impossible to let it go and feel as good about something new. But what we knew in our hearts turned out to be the case, Night Tongue had an intuitive connection with the project and delivered every nuance and vibe we longed for. The result is that we have a film about art with a score that took it to a whole new level. We’re thrilled with the outcome, and have received an early offer of distribution.

The project is called Nature Humaine, a journey into the art of Jean-Paul Bourdier, and captures the heart and soul of this incredible art photographer, a man with an inner joy and patience for the process of art that inspires us daily.

Persephone, Matt, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

We were both in the music business for many years, and had both started producing our own music videos. Matt had also been producing a fitness documentary, which led to producing short films and music videos for other artists. With our collective experience, we decided to form Pele Pictures LLC. He’s the risk taker, not me, and pushed our business forward with faith. We launched in February 2022, and one month later, the entire country (and film industry!) was on lockdown for Covid19. A challenging start, but we’ve thoroughly enjoyed the projects and clients we’ve worked with, not to mention our fabulous crew. Living in LA, you’re always likely to have a number of writers, directors, sound engineers, editors, actors, etc in your own circle. We are grateful for the talent and resources that surround us.

While we are working diligently toward producing a feature, and have pitched quite a few, we continue to produce quality narrative shorts, music videos, branded content, and documentaries to build our library of content. Once we budget a project, we hit our mark,, and we tailor projects to fit the clients needs. We believe in the projects we deliver, and as creatives ourselves, we know how to keep things simple. Our mission is to communicate with our client, confirm the client’s objectives, and deliver top quality on all fronts. There are always areas where you can save, and areas where you should not shortcut the budget. You can overspend as much as you can underspend, but if a project is worth putting out, it’s worth investing the money.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

We’ve been slowly shaping our own collective musical styles, and we are driven to merge a visual aesthetic with soundscape and lyric to create an emotional connection, including hope and healing, finding light in darkness. While it seems on the surface that our songs are above love, they’re really about connection. Music in film is effective because it allows you, for just a moment, to step out of a scene and feel it from the inside. The two art forms are, for us, inseparable. Music videos can be small films, and scenes from film/tv can be small music videos. We love chasing down songs we hear in film, connecting with musical genres we might not otherwise seek out. We seek to find the raw energy behind the art form, and use the filmmaking process to enhance the energy of a song. There’s story, and there’s visceral feeling. We want the visceral feeling, both in our projects and our clients’ projects.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

Over the past few years, we both made a decision to go back to school and study our art. I completed my music degree at Berklee, and Matt completed 2 producing certificates at UCLA. It was the best investment we could have made, and has helped us both form the habit of constant study. Whether it’s taking a masterclass, scheduling a consultation with a mentor, a webinar, or learning a new technology, we’re constantly picking up something new. Studying reminds you to keep looking at things from a fresh perspective, to honor traditional craft while embracing cutting edge technologies and creative trends. We learn from people of all ages – there are people in their 80s thinking younger than Gen Z’ers, and there are young people overflowing with talent.

This applies to the business side as well. Now that we’re past covid, our documentary is moving out into the world, and we’re working on a new EP, we’re working to build a social media strategy from the ground up. While we’ve done this before, it’s exciting to be starting from scratch with a blank canvas, and we hope you’ll follow us to see what’s next!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.pelepictures.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/pelepictures
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pelepictures/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/pelepictures
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@pelepictures4235

Image Credits
Photos 1 & 2 – Jeff Frazier