Miriam: What have you found the most interesting thing so far, in your time doing video work with youth? What's the thing that keeps you coming back?
 
Matt:

I dunno, I guess I just really like teaching. Um I mean it makes sense, 'cause I like teaching I like making films. I think, I think my initial motivations were um that I think if I, when I was in high school if I had that program, my, the decision-making I, well the decision I made about my schooling would have been different and I probably would have had a much better experience with high school because I had a really terrible high school experience. Like I just really didn't know where to place myself in that system, and it was only after high school and into the cegep and university system that I really felt better about my education. So um... I think that's my motivation to keep teaching with kids, because I think that these programs are really great and important and um, you know... what?
 
Miriam: Bless - I'm all like, oh I also hated high school...
 
Matt: Well it's true high school is terrible for 50% of kids, the other 50% love it.
 
Miriam: Yeah I think your numbers are wrong. I'm like 70 - 80?
 
Matt:

Well when I was in high school it seemed like half of my friends didn't mind, or didn't love it but didn't mind it, they were kinda like, whatever and then got straight A's and then there was like the other. I mean, I don't think it has anything to do with being smart or not smart, and I felt like I was constantly being placed in high school, my high school was weird. But I felt like I was kinda being categorized as either not smart or smart, in every class I went through.

It wasn't like, I think it was just the teachers were overwhelmed, like they have these giant classrooms of 40 kids and they can only put you in a category of smart / not-smart and constantly be punishing the not-smart ones for acting out because they are like ‘I don't understand what you're talking about I don't learn this way’. And then the ones who do learn that way do well, and sort of move on and get you know, scholarships and whatever.  

Miriam: So do you think programs like a youth media program offer opportunities for people who...
 
Matt: Yes.
 
Miriam: Absolutely - whatever you’re saying.
 
Matt:

Yeah I think that out of school and introducing programs into schools offers a lot of kids a window of opportunity that, like nobody ever came to my high school and was like oh one your curric, you know, it was always like oh you're gonna be a doctor or a lawyer and these are all like really arbitrary and silly things, to me, I was like: ‘What do you mean be a doctor or a lawyer I'm like 13-years-old how the heck do I know what I am going to be?’

You know and I think if I had the opportunity for like a group of artists to come in and show me like I dunno 'acting' we didn't have these sorts of things so if like someone came in and had like a youth media project and was like this is how you make a film, I'd be like wow this is very interesting maybe I'll get more interested, get more involved in my art classes and pursue a portfolio to build, to be able to enter this sort of career but you know, nobody ever told me that film-making was a viable option, for academia, or career-wise.

Miriam: And in your work do you feel like you've seen that thing happen? Where you come in and teach stuff and some of the kids - Do you see that like, low performing kid get more excited?
 
Matt:

No, I wish I had, I wish I could say I saw that person who was just like you know in the corner, and was like, just came out and shined and was just like wow look how brilliant I am when it comes to camera-work. I think they're a lot more exposed to media and stuff like that. Or at least the kids I've dealt with seem to be a lot more, they're a hell of a lot more media savvy then I was when I was a kid.

I hadn't, I think I took television and film for more face value then they do nowadays. They seem to know a lot more, like when I talk them about you know, what a pan is, or the tilt. I think it's because they grew up with all their parents owning video cameras, and you know making that, and getting on to you know Windows Media Maker or whatever. They're a lot more, they're exposed to it, whereas when I was a kid I mean we were, the internet was just coming out like we didn't have stuff like that, I didn't have a video camera so like.
 
Miriam: So what do you think the value is now compared to what it would have been when you were growing up?
 
Matt:

The value of media? Well because we, you know, media, uh la la. I think the value of it is um I mean you're giving them theory and something to grasp to. I mean they're not just like handling the camera and moving around with it, they're applying all these like sort of theories to it. So I think that's something that like even some teachers can't teach their kids about in the classroom because they don't know it, as much as somebody like you who has training, media-training.