ABOUT

My name is Matt Holmes. I am a videographer, filmmaker, designer and musician/composer. I was born in Overland Park, Kansas - but I moved to the Northwest at the age of three. I grew up in Vancouver, Washington and attended a Montessori school in Portland through 5th grade. After graduating high school, I attended Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington. In 2009, I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts - with a focus in video and film.

I've always had a keen interest in visual arts and music. From a very young age, I enjoyed drawing, painting and music. One of biggest inspirations from a young age was Disney's Fantasia. As a child, I would marvel for hours at the harmonious mixture of music, color and motion - and it had a profound effect on my artistic ambitions. During my time at Cornish, I found the perfect outlet for those ambitions - video.

My first interest in video and film came from a young age. I started experimenting with shooting short videos on VHS and making crude edits on a VCR. It wasn't until high school that I got my first real taste of editing on a computer - and my first taste of animation. I consider myself fortunate to attend a high school with a 3D animation program. At that time, I had been captivated by the work coming out of Pixar and was thrilled at a chance to explore this world. I created a few short videos, which I was then able to edit on the computer.

My first job was during the summer of 2004, before my senior year of high school. I worked as an assistant teacher for the summer 3D Animation program. It was a great opportunity to improve my knowledge of the software and techniques, as well as help others with their own animated ambitions.

I began my time at Cornish in the fall of 2005. Although I came in with a strong interest in animation, my freshmen year opened my eyes to the world of conceptual fine art. I had the ability to experiment with painting, print, photography, sculpture, and of course video. During the following years, my focus shifted more towards filmmaking, and less towards animation - although I did get a chance to create a short, animated film.

During my junior year, I took a class on Super8 film - it was my first chance to work with any kind of film. I immediately fell in love with the look and feel of Super8. We were fortunate enough to have a film lab right across the street from Cornish, and they had a small theater where we premiered our final projects. Mine was entitled Variations on a Memory. It was heavily influenced by the early Dadaist filmmakers like Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, as well as the avant-garde film works of Hans Richter and Maya Deren (see Meshes of the Afternoon). In addition to filming, I also composed the soundtrack.

I took piano lessons from Middle School through High School, and it led me to begin composing my own music. I found that my video and film explorations at Cornish were the perfect outlet for my musical compositions. Remembering my love of Fantasia and the synesthetic blend of music and film, I took every opportunity I could to write music for my projects. As part of my senior thesis, I created a series of three short films shot on Super8 with an original soundtrack. They were really an expansion the ideas I explored in my first Super8 film, both visually and musically.

Throughout my time at Cornish, I worked part-time for Seattle Opera in their PR department. I've loved classical music since a young age, and having the opportunity to work for an arts organization was amazing. After only a few months, I began filming operas. The first opera I filmed was Der Rosenkavalier. Getting to see the rehearsal process and hearing the full orchestra was thrilling. I've continued to film all their mainstage productions - over 50 operas - including two full productions of Wagner's Ring Cycle. In addition, I worked on many behind the scenes and public event videos for the opera.

My work for the opera led to many other jobs with arts organizations in Seattle including: INTIMAN Theatre, Washington Ensemble Theater, Music of Remembrance, Seattle Modern Orchestra, Philharmonia Northwest, Pacific MusicWorks, Sandbox Artists Collective and more. After graduating Cornish in 2009, I started working for a gourmet food company called MarxFoods. During my six years at MarxFoods, I've worked on numerous video projects including interviews, behind the scenes videos, and product spotlights. In addition to video, I also did graphic and web design work – as well as illustration.

I've worked on many freelance projects over the years, as well as many personal artistic endeavors. In 2015, I premiered my first major film project, Summer of '69 - which I co-directed, edited and composed the music for. It was accepted in several film festivals and won Best Original Score by Northwest Film Forums Annual Local Sightings film festival. I've also collaborated with several Seattle choreographers in composing music for numerous dance pieces.