Looking at the production quality of your short films, one wouldn’t expect to be a husband and wife team in Utah. Where did it all begin? Julie: It is really just the marriage of both of our creative minds. Once we knew we were both into art, we began collaborating and liked what we came up with. Filmmaking just became the medium of choice based on Matt’s years of work and study.
Where does the name come from? Matt: Tiger in a Jar was adapted from a song lyric that talks about a lion with a jar. I thought it would be cool to be "Lion in a Jar", but Julie thought people might confuse "lion" with "ly'in" so we picked a different big cat.
take different forms – some could be described as recipe videos, others are cinematic shorts with swelling musical backings. How would you describe your style of storytelling? Matt: Our goal with filmmaking is to inspire and to give people a chance to escape a little bit. We hope to present people with an experience that moves them or gives them reason to think a little differently about things. It’s to entertain, but with a more meaningful purpose.
Can you map out the creative process that goes into a video? Matt: The approach we take in starting any project is from an emotional perspective. We ask, ‘Is this something that has heart?’ and if it doesn’t, we figure out a way to give it heart. We then figure out a way to present a story or information in the most beautiful and interesting way possible by picking the right elements in regard to location, props, light, etcetera. Sometimes we like to add a little whimsical touch for an element of fun.
Rather than being instructional, your recipe shorts are designed to “entice viewers to cook”. What inspired you to take this approach? Julie: When we first were married we realised how much we enjoyed cooking together, but more specifically baking. We really enjoyed what a creative process it was to bake and loved learning how every ingredient had its own unique purpose. There was a newfound interest in watching how the textures, colours and elements all changed and transformed while we mixed the ingredients.
from on .
The slow food movement features both visually and substantively in a lot of your work. What does the phrase mean to you? Julie: Life can feel very rushed and sometimes food and the preparation of food can be just a road bump along the journey every day. If we can stop for a second and enjoy the simple moments and experiences found in eating and preparing food, then we can allow a simple task to become a meditative, fun experience.
The slow food movement is a way we can appreciate the experience of eating and understanding our food and where it comes from.
Your travel shorts have taken you to France and China. Did you meet any particularly inspiring characters along the way? Matt: We had so many opportunities in our travels through China to watch people cook the food they served us. There was a region in the Tibetan part of China where we were walking up a street and saw a beautiful older Tibetan woman standing outside her small restaurant. She was dressed in rich, bright colours and had a face that told a hundred stories. We knew we had to eat there. We filmed her as she put together our meal. It was a food we had never eaten or prepared before, so it was a fascinating process to document. That experience was one of the most memorable in our lives.
Were you touring with a band? Tell me about that collaboration. Matt: For our first trip to China, yes. A member of the band was a friend of my sister’s growing up and she contacted us asking if we wanted to go to China. We ended up immersed in a beautiful new culture, documenting her band as they learned new instruments and explored the country. They are a fun group of musicians who also have an appreciation for adventure and new kinds of food, so that worked out really well.
Source: Tiger in a Jar
Matt, you haven’t always been an enthusiastic cook. What lured you into the kitchen? Matt: Where did you get that information? Ha! The funny thing is that Julie was the first one in my life to point out that I get really excited about food. I guess through most of my life I enjoyed food without ever really preparing it myself. I was guilty of hurrying through life, eating what I needed to, when I needed to. If someone gave me something really good I appreciated it, but never really needed to know where it came from or how it was prepared. That all changed when I started cooking for Julie when she came home from work later than I did, before we quit our day jobs. I started to realise that I found the process of preparing food to be therapeutic and interestingly creative.
Truth be told, I wanted to be a cake decorator when I was younger, so I guess it’s always been in my makeup, I just needed to rediscover it.
And making food-based videos takes it to a whole ’nother level! Did you predict food would be such a focus for your craft? Julie: We never intended to have food be such a huge part of what we do, but when you have little to no budget, food is an inanimate object that can be a really interesting subject. From our first food film, , things just blossomed and we found ourselves really enjoying the experience. Food is such a fascinating subject with so many possibilities, and we love it, so I guess it was bound to happen.
One of the most distinctive, and indeed heart-warming, elements of your work is its appreciation of the everyday. What are the small things in life that make you smile? Julie: Our first baby girl, Willa, is just about a year old and to be honest, the moments we have with her as she progresses make me the most happy. Matt: I think once we have the necessities of life the little things become more meaningful. The everyday moments I share with the ones I love, whether it’s cooking, playing or making each other laugh, those simple moments are what make me happy.
Fringe Foodies Editor Siobhan Hegarty
In our new monthly blog, , we interview creatives, artists, designers, writers and poets about their affinity with all things edible. From the printed page to sculptures and soundwaves, we discover the myriad ways food can be created, celebrated and consumed.
