We recently connected with Michael Matsui and have shared our conversation below.

Michael, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I started filmmaking at the age of 11 years old. It all started with stealing my grandmas tape camcorder and going out with friends in town filming Jackass style videos. Ultimately I naturally began to make up stories on the spot to film and this led to later writing scripts and filming short films in high school. In high school I made at least a hundred short films and while they were extremely low budget and awful, this is where I started to develop my craft. I learned how to block scenes, how to choreograph movement, I learned the effect of wide, medium, tight shots, even though I didn’t know what any of these things were called. I started editing video as an 11 year old on Windows Movie Maker and later taught myself more professional programs like Adobe Premiere. Learning to do things on my own was always the natural progression as we were kind of poor growing up. The point of all this is I learned by doing. Film school just wasn’t an option for me, I had to get out there and learn by trying.

Michael, 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?

I am Michael Matsui, a 31 year old Marine Corps veteran, Park Ranger, and filmmaker from Northern California. I got into filmmaking naturally at the age of 11 just loving movies. Picking up a camera just felt so natural to me and it seemed a camera was nearly glued to my hands all throughout my teen years. Throughout my teen years I made narrative short films and at the age of 16 took my first paid gig filming a documentary for a local band and it kept going up from there. That is until I joined the Marine Corps in 2011 and everything stood still. In 2017 after leaving the military and setting myself up financially as a civilian, I got back to filmmaking and truly began educating myself in the technical aspects. I moved into commercial work including real estate, weddings, and so on. I really found my heart in commercial work and was privileged enough to produce content for some well known companies around the US including Kids Care Orthodontics, Get Axed, FreshFin Poke, Uscape Apparel, . I later moved into Narrative filmmaking where I produced, wrote, directed, and edited my horror short film “You’re on Your Own, Kid” that has performed well at the end of 2023 in film festivals around the world. I am most proud of myself for continuing to chase my dreams even after becoming a Dad to three girls and facing many of life’s challenges. In my work, I work very closely with clients and really get to know what their goals are what they aim to accomplish with their products. This helps me develop a plan to best display their product or message in the most efficient means.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Life is extremely challenging post-military life as a veteran. Veterans are among the most goal oriented workers in the civilian workforce that are misunderstood and poorly utilized. During my time in the military I developed some medical issues that continued well out of my time out of the military. As veterans, we often don’t leave the military with degrees or the appropriate job skills as others who had spent four years in college, therefore we can be overlooked with zero time to treat underlying health issues before job searching. This was my downfall as I secretly struggled medically in my civilian career field and was abandoned by my employer who didn’t care to keep me while I recovered. There I was, a Husband, a Father to three young girls, mortgage, car payments, and no job. Then the pandemic hit to make things worse. Luckily I had resources through the VA that got me through, I hunkered down and had a survivor mentality, recovered medically, and within a year I was fully recovered and back to work without missing a single bill payment. Losing my civilian career brought filmmaking back to me during my time of unemployment and filmmaking truly saved me.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being a filmmaker is seeing my vision come to life. For my most recent short horror film “You’re on Your Own, Kid,” nearly every scene was carefully written, storyboarded, and rehearsed. I had a specific vision for nearly every shot and it was executed so well far exceeding my expectations. This is every filmmaker’s dream.

Contact Info:

• Website: bluecanyonfilm.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/bluecanyonfilm
• Facebook: facebook.com/bluecanyonfilm
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-matsui
• Youtube: youtube.com/mikematsuijr
• Other: https://filmfreeway.com/MichaelMatsui

Image Credits
Tim Engle of Engle Photo Inc