Matthew Festle

Matthew Festle came into the world on March 21st, 1994, smack in the middle of a freezing Chicago spring—not that he minds the cold, honestly. Growing up in the city, he got hooked on movies early, but it wasn’t the flashy stuff on screen that grabbed him. Nope, it was the weird little sounds, the stuff nobody else seemed to notice—the crunch of gravel, the hum under a tense scene, footsteps echoing down a hallway. That’s what dragged him in. He ended up at Columbia College Chicago, which, if you know anything about film, is kind of the place to be there. He picked Sound for Film as his focus, not because it was easy (it’s not), but because it kept bugging him how much sound could mess with your head while you watched a film. So, he grabbed his B.A, probably survived on too much coffee and not enough sleep, and then just packed up and moved to LA like thousands of other film dreamers. Only, he actually stuck it out. He jumped straight into the trenches—sound departments, music teams, whatever gig let him play with audio and push buttons until the story felt just right. He’s still grinding, still obsessed with those tiny noises most folks miss. If you’ve watched something and felt creeped out, thrilled, or whatever, that’s probably Matthew and a bunch of his gear making sure you feel exactly what the story wants you to.