Matt studied at Bournville School of Art and Crafts in Birmingham during the early 1980’s, under the charismatic tutelage of BBC Pebble Mill designers Tony Fisher and Chris Brett. Another major influence was Julijana Zappia of Zappia and Zappia Design Partnership from whom Matt gained valuable commercial experience while still at college.
In the mid ‘80s, Matt co-founded an innovative below-the-line design and advertising partnership with Nigel Beaverstock - Beaverstock, McArdle and Hyams - before enjoying a successful period of freelance and consultancy during the early 1990’s.
A five year period of in-house design work during the transition to computers ultimately led to a long and fruitful time doing freelance web design, until Matt joined up with renowned Bath creative studio, Red Central in the early 2000’s.
Matt was until recently based at leading document innovators CFH Docmail heading up their in-house design team.
DESIGN FOR CFH DOCMAIL
I have recently finished a 13 year stint as chief designer for CFH Docmail Ltd, a large document print and mail company. In that time I have overseen a complete overhaul of the company’s image, including the development and roll-out of sub-brands.
This has encompassed design for print, web site design and build and motion graphic video editing, from the full-on corporate to the downright whimsical! See more examples on Behance…
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VIDEO EDITING
I’ve been interested in shooting and editing video for many years - ever since I first purchased an early JVC Mini-DV consumer camera and a copy of Apple’s Final Cut Pro in fact. Shooting videos for bands led eventually to full-blown YouTube channel dedicated to Heavy Metal interviews!
I’ve since shot and edited instructional and corporate video incorporating motion graphics, 3D animation, green screen and motion tracking.
I mainly use Final Cut Pro X and Motion with a variety of third party plugins.
Good Clean Fun
Music was the driving force for getting into shooting and editing video. A need to document some of the fun I was having in bands, and attending European festivals led to the formation of a groundbreaking YouTube channel for Extreme Metal fans, “Contraband Candy” with Redemption TV presenter René Ackerman. As co-founder and producer ‘Matt Gytrash’ we spent nearly three years touring Europe interviewing artists and fans from the various ‘tribes’ in the scene. Some of these little shows leveraged a huge number of hits - nearly 400k being the top rated so far! Some are included below, but there are plenty more at the Contraband Candy YouTube Channel.
Work
Business and product promotion using video hasn’t been high on the agenda at CFH Docmail, but there have been one or two opportunities to script, shoot and edit a few ‘no budget’ promos and product walkthrus. This has been very much a solo effort using a variety of hardware and software which includes assorted Canon HD cameras, Rode microphones, Final Cut Pro and Carrara 3D.
Although I’d not big myself up as a video guru by any means, I do have a level of competence in most areas of the creation process, including concepts, storyboarding, scripting, shooting, sound recording, editing and delivery.
For a more thorough exploration of my video work, please check out:
