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Director Matthew James Thompson joins Smoke&Oakum
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Thompson, whose debut feature plays at the Newport Beach Film Festival this October, is a self-identified skeptic of technology but Smoke&Oakum's unique approach in the space won him over.
Smoke&Oakum, the generative-first commercial production company built on traditional craft, announced a creative collaboration with director Matthew James Thompson.
"Matthew came to this the way any serious filmmaker should, skeptical, and unwilling to fake it," said Adam Witten, Creative Director and Partner at Smoke&Oakum. "He started as an editor, so he doesn't trust a frame, generated or otherwise, until he's earned it. That instinct is exactly what this work needs right now."
Thompson's path to directing started without a film school or an obvious way in. He taught himself by shooting skateboarding videos with friends, then talked his way into an in-house editing job at a Boston ad agency, cutting Boston Celtics commercials by day and shooting on the side. A self-funded spec commercial, shot on a rented RED camera over a single weekend, led to his first directing work. He later moved to New York and co-founded the commercial production company North of New York, which grew to seven directors and a staff of five over roughly eight years before he stepped away to focus on narrative film. Fast forward and Thompson's first feature Handle With Care premiered at the Oscar Qualifying Rhode Island Film Festival in August, winning Best Feature and Best Actor for the lead, Justin H. Min. The next showing is at the Newport Beach Film Festival in October.
Thompson remains based in New York, where he continues directing commercial work and developing his next scripts, with past campaigns for Chipotle, Squarespace, Goodwill, Google, Bose and Etsy, among others. He arrived at Smoke&Oakum after having been an outspoken skeptic of generative tools for years, he told the team that he didn't use AI and wasn't interested. What changed his position was the studio's insistence on documented origin over prompt-and-regenerate shortcuts, an approach that treats generative work with the same editorial rigor Thompson has applied since his earliest days cutting commercials. Smoke&Oakum gives Thompson a home for that generative work, alongside his continued work as an independent director and filmmaker.
"I told Adam early on, flat out, that I don't use AI," said Thompson. "What changed my mind was watching how much they insist on provenance, you can't just drop in a reference and regenerate it. There's real editorial craft in that process, and it's a language I already speak. I'm not interested in fully generated movies. I'm interested in continuing to understand this as a tool."
Thompson's collaboration comes as Smoke&Oakum continues to grow its roster of directors pairing traditional production craft with generative-first process.
