Matt McFarland

Matt McFarland was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and graduated from Creighton Prep High School. He attended Arizona State University, where he participated in the Creative Writing program and began studying screenwriting, poetry, and fiction. He studied screenwriting under Stephen Geller, known for adapting *Slaughter House Five*. McFarland entered the independent film community in the Phoenix area, using an Arri 16BL to produce his own short and feature films. This led to a career as a local cinematographer and eventually to teaching film classes at Scottsdale Community College before moving to Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, he continued shooting film while beginning work in post-production. After shooting two films, he shifted his focus entirely to post-production, specializing in VFX, VFX film scanning, recording, and color-timing. He joined Pacific Ocean Post (P.O.P.), where he learned digital color timing for film within a VFX pipeline. As digital film and the Digital Intermediate workflow emerged, McFarland moved into management and VFX color-timing, managing the Film Department at R!OT Pictures and Ascent Media. Recognizing the growing need for DI services in the independent film market, he founded Cranium Filmworks, a DI company. There, he worked closely with Lasergraphics on the development of their film recorders and contributed to the advancement of their film scanners. After four years as owner, operator, and colorist at Cranium Filmworks, he refocused on being a full-time Digital Intermediate Colorist, beginning a nine-year tenure at Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging, where he graded or collaborated on some of the industry's major titles. As the industry shifted toward HDR, McFarland joined Paramount Pictures, where he focused on remastering Paramount's film library into HDR, working with some of the most renowned directors and cinematographers in the field.