INTERVIEW: Josh Oreck and Eric Mathies - Ultimate Matrix Collection

The Seven Year Pitch

DVD extras director Josh Oreck and producer Eric Mathies talk to Matt Chapman about their epic task in creating The Ultimate Matrix Collection...

Did you know from the beginning that this project was going to take you seven years?
Josh: I called Eric when I first got the job and I think we were supposed to work for six weeks?
Eric: If even that. We were supposed to go over for a month and then edit for a couple of weeks and that was going to be it.

How much footage did you shoot?
Josh: We have about 1,100 hours total footage. It was whittled down by a devoted crew of assistant editors, editors and slaves to the Matrix.

Were the actors OK with you being around?
Eric: They were so OK with it that if we weren’t on set sometimes we’d get a call from the assistant director wondering where our unit was.

Having shot extras on The Matrix and on Matrix Revolutions, what was the difference?
Eric: Bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger.
Josh: Nobody besides Larry and Andy knew what they were making with the first film, it was a very complex vision involving a lot of genres and elements that hadn’t been integrated into a mainstream film before.

Is there anything you couldn’t put on the DVD?
Josh: There was a piece we couldn’t put on for legal reasons, about one of the cast extras in the freeway scene who was a brilliant home actor. You can’t even see him in the film, he only passes by in a fraction of one frame – but his car was an exact replica of [KITT from] Knight Rider. We made a film about him and Warner Bros. just could not agree with Universal who own the rights to Knight Rider.

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