Matty Ross on class, technology and filmmaking
An award-winning Scottish director on the challenges facing working class and emerging artists, despite advances in technology
Matty Ross is a Scottish director, editor and video artist who's been making films, documentaries, music videos and experimental art for the last 20 years. His collaborators include Charles-Henri Belleville, Tom Hardy, and the artist John Minton.
Matty's films have screened at Glastonbury and festivals across the world with Warner Music, Channel 4, Comedy Central & MTV among his past freelance clients. He just started a unique stock footage site, where you can license his stunning collections of archive footage directly. Read more about his work here.
The following text was originally posted on Matty’s Instagram in March 2024, as a response to a Twitter post by another filmmaker, Jason Ruddy (which linked to a longer post on his LinkedIn page). Thanks to Matty for letting us publish his thoughts.
Jason Ruddy’s comments could easily have been posted right after the first camera phones came out; when we started editing on Final Cut, or during the transition from film stock to tape-based media. Acquiring the technical ability needed to make films always gets easier after a new-fangled technical advancement makes everything more accessible.
The same challenges remain though. Regardless of whether you're a one-man band or part of a creative collective of like-minded dreamers, filmmaking still costs time and energy.1 Everyone can make a film now, or find a willing tribe to make one, I don't think that's the issue. The reality is how you buy the time.
Filmmaking and art in general is still reserved (for the most part) for those who can afford it, and those voices are usually those that don't add anything of value in terms of progressing the form. When I say 'afford' I mean those that have the luxury of time to develop their craft. A revolution of working-class filmmaking isn't suddenly going to arise just because the ease with which you can make or show a film increases. It never has. You can't dedicate years of your life to finding your voice when you need to pay rent or put food on the table.
We cannot allow these dreams of ours to become the oil which merely greases the cogs of a corporate machine.
The problems and challenges we face now as artists are exactly the same as they have been for decades. In many ways, I'd say they are a good deal harder to get around. Investment in the arts is always the first to go when the country is nose-diving economically. Access to funds made specifically for those who need it are virtually impossible to attain. Most initiatives have already chosen candidates long before opportunities are publicly advertised, and successful applicants are usually tied to the funding organisations in question. These schemes are done for tax-incentives and with the proviso of pushing whatever current social cause will improve their corporate reputation.
A revolution of any significance requires a drastic change to governmental infrastructure, which will never happen. Why would they empower the very artists that seek to dismantle their capitalist foundations? There is no space for progressive, experimental voices, nor any algorithm that will support the monetisation of free-thinkers. The best we can do is utilise these modern technological opportunities in order to make profit for us, rather than media corporations. As filmmakers and artists we need to think creatively, not just for our projects but for ourselves. We can and must learn how to exist in such dire environments long enough to disrupt the iron fist of a neoliberal capitalist culture industry.
Ruddy is right about one thing. This is indeed a transitional period in our art and culture. We need marginalised voices to be heard now more than ever, not just for the sake of filling quotas or tick boxes, but to create a landscape where thought-provoking artistic voices can flourish. At the height of its power, such an environment, and the films it could create, might even inspire progressive social, economic and political change.
The pursuit of artistic freedom has always been (certainly for me) about self-expression. We cannot allow these dreams of ours to become the oil which merely greases the cogs of a corporate machine. We have a responsibility, not just to ourselves, but to the art-form. We must find ways to survive, to create and to be free.
The more we explore how to monetise the things we are good at, the more opportunities will exist to operate outwith the traditional means of survival, and to do so in a manner in which we may not even lose our minds or suffer burnout in the process. Recognising we are in a rigged game means that our creative responsibilities are not just confined to our stories and characters, but also to how we adapt and observe, and get a seat at the table.
It's still astronomically difficult for working-class artists to reach any sort of public consciousness, and so it will remain until collectively, we as a society start focusing our minds within. I hope the actions of those of us who are lucky enough to at least give it a try might perhaps open the door to the next generation of visionary anarchists that want to shake the system and change the world.
— Matty Ross, filmmaker
Matty is currently working on a documentary about 80s musician Alan Rawlings. Check out his Stock Footage Licensing service, and get 20% off your first order using this link: shorturl.at/GKWX5
Episode 23 of Strange Exiles is a discussion with David McKerracher of Theory Underground and Michael Downs of The Dangerous Maybe. They discuss David’s theory of Timenergy, which touches on some of the themes in Matty’s post.
Thank you so much for your support, I'm incredibly honoured that you'd feature me and my ramblings in your amazing collection of interviews & articles. I appreciate it very much.