59 - Landing an Open Directing Assignment with Evan B. Matthews

Evan B. Matthews is an LA-based director whose feature directorial debut “Motherland” comes out this month, we’re recording in September 2025, in both theaters and VOD. His previous directing work includes the 2019 short film “The Telios Act” which won multiple jury prizes and was licensed by Array of Hope; and his 2014 USC thesis film “Recoil,” which is available on YouTube sci-fi curation channel Dust. 

A graduate of UC Riverside and later the USC masters program, Evan got his start interning under Mike Meadavoy at Phoenix Pictures, PA’ing on TV show “24” and landing a job under Mike Burnett, working on shows including Survivor, The Apprentice, An Inconvenient Truth, and The Hollow, among others; going on to produce the MTV Movie & TV Awards. 

Today we get into how Evan went from meeting with an executive to landing his first feature film directing job in just one week, what he focused on during his pitch for this open directing assignment, and how to pivot out of reality-focused projects when pigeonholed and be taken seriously as a narrative director. Let’s jump into the interview.