Michael Matessino

Real world article

(written from a production point of view)

Michael "Mike" A. Matessino usually credited as Mike Matessino, was the restoration supervisor involved in the making of the Director's Edition DVD of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It was Matessino, together with partner David C. Fein, who originally approached director Robert Wise to create a revised version of the film on video, while they were working for Wise's production company, Robert Wise Productions, on the 1994 commemorative documentary The Sound of Music: From Fact to Phenomenon. (The New York Times, 10 February, 2002, p. 26) It took an additional three years of persistence before Wise agreed, and green-lighted the project. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 8, p. 25) Matessino, after he initially viewed the movie in 1979, felt it didn't represent the quality expected of an inaugural Star Trek film, as evidenced in a letter he wrote as a youth to Starlog magazine, "...I expected the movie to be spectacular, even though I was hoping that it wouldn't be better than Star Wars. It stunk! I saw the movie again the following week thinking I would like it better. I didn't like it better. It was even worse. I was never a real Trekkie." (Starlog, issue 33, April 1980, p. 8). His youthful feelings notwithstanding, his work on the Director's Edition won him and his colleagues a Video Premiere Award.

Matessino was featured in the "Redirecting The Future" documentary included on the ST:TMP Director's Edition DVD, in which he and his co-workers discussed the facets of work they contributed to the project. In addition, both Matessino and his colleagues were featured in an after-the-fact, separately produced audio commentary, released in 2007 as a podcast on StarTrek.com, the official Star Trek website which, at the time, could be downloaded at the site. [1]^(X)

During his association with La-La Land Records, Matessino became reacquainted with the film when he served as producer on the 2012 Star Trek: The Motion Picture (expanded soundtrack) soundtrack project, earning him an IFMCA Award. He had previously worked on the earlier released 2010 Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (expanded soundtrack).

Career outside Star Trek[]

Mike Matessino is a New York City area native and graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he majored in Film. A "film historian and preservationist, with particular emphasis on the restoration of film music", according to his website , he had from early childhood developed a passion for motion pictures and their soundtracks.

Matessino first met fellow film buff and future business partner David Fein while both were residing in the New York City area. When Matessino moved to California, he and Fein (who relocated to the west coast a few years earlier) reaffirmed their mutual passions for the cinema. They founded their own production company in 1991, Sharpline Arts, located in Glendale, California. The company's purpose was to produce additional material – yet to become known as "special" or "bonus" features – for inclusion on home video formats, which encompassed LaserDisc, then DVD at a later stage. Daren Dochterman served in the early years as executive director for the company. [2]

Sharpline Arts' first project was the 1991 LaserDisc Aliens–Special Wide-Screen Collector's Edition. This release was very well received at the time in movie collector circles, as it was a portent for things to come. Not only were several in-depth making-of documentaries included, but the footage was also cleaned up, deleted scenes were inserted, and the soundtrack was remastered; the last item being Matessino's forte. Projects that followed in the same vein include Alien–Special Wide-Screen Collector's Edition (1992), The Abyss: Special Edition (1993), Independence Day: Special Edition (1995), The Thing: Special Edition (1998) and others. Released first on LaserDisc, all special features were later one-on-one transferred to their DVD and Blu-ray successors. The project for which Sharpline Arts received the most recognition was the 1999 The "ALIEN" Legacy DVD collection. [3] The company has attained somewhat of a legendary status in movie collector circles, as it has set the standard for how special editions should be produced. [4]

In addition to producing the documentaries, Sharpline Arts also restored music scores for studios on a commission basis. These include those of the Star Wars franchise, Poltergeist, Superman, and The Omen. Matessino, as the resident soundtrack expert, was mainly responsible for these projects. [5] As sub-contractors, the company (more specifically its two founders) worked in the 1990's for Robert Wise Productions on the special editions of The Sound of Music (1994), The Sand Pebbles and of course the Director's Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The experience gained with Sharpline Arts served both men well when producing the special features for the latter, as it became the very first Star Trek home media release to feature a substantial amount of in-depth bonus material, beyond the superficial promotional "filler" material hitherto included on such releases, if at all. Bonus material of this kind went on to become a staple on the subsequent Star Trek home video releases, most notably the 2002-2005 two-disc "film DVD special editions", the franchise was inspired to embark upon themselves due to the success of (and modeled after), The Director's Edition which, as an originally intended stand-alone release, was in retrospect fitted into the collection as the first one.

While not bankrupt, Sharpline Arts has been dormant since 2003; the retrospective documentary DVD Discoveries (in which the two founders look back on their productions while operating their company), is its last recorded production.

After his work on ST:TMP, Matessino expanded his career as sound editor and mixer. From 2001-2005, he primarily concentrated his talents at Varèse Sarabande, putting his skills to good use on numerous music scores and soundtracks. [6] In 2005 he began a collaboration with La-La Land Records as sound editor and mixer, as well as adding producer to his growing list of credits. He acquired an outstanding professional reputation as a soundtrack engineer, which eventually resulted in his participation on the two Star Trek expanded soundtrack projects.

As of 2015, Mike Matessino continues his passion for film score and soundtrack restoration, adding to his prolific discography on a regular basis.

Star Trek awards[]

For his work on the Star Trek franchise, Mike Matessino received the following awards:

DVD Exclusive Award[]

Matessino won the following DVD Exclusive Award (at the time called Video Premiere Award) as restoration supervisor in the category Best New, Enhanced or Reconstructed Movie Scenes

2001 for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Director's Edition, shared with Daren Dochterman and David C. Fein

IFMCA Award[]

Matessino won the following International Film Music Critics Association Award as producer and liner notes in the category Best Archival Release of an Existing Score

2012 for the expanded soundtrack, shared with Jerry Goldsmith, Didier C. Deutsch, David C. Fein, Bruce Botnick, MV Gerhard, Matt Verboys, Jeff Bond, and Jim Titus

External links[]

MikeMatessino.com – official site
Michael Matessino at the Internet Movie Database
Sharpline Arts at the Internet Movie Database
1999 interview with Matessino at DVDReview.com