The Making of Recovery

At the age of 17, Matthew Gillespie was approached by the Durham Region Police to produce a video on the subject of Drinking and Driving:

“My Drama teacher nominated me to work with the Police on a new project that, at the time, I felt dealt with such a clichéd subject matter-- every commercial on the TV was doing re-enactments. At the first creative meeting, an Officer raised his hand and, sure enough, said, let's do a re-enactment. I shook my head and said no way! I asked if anyone recent had passed away? Within a few days, I was interviewing a family one week before the funeral of their daughter..."

"Tragic Memories" was the result and went on to win Matthew Ontario Citizen of the Year Award, an Award of Recognition presented by Lieutenant Governor Hilary Weston, and an honourable recognition letter on behalf of the late Jim Flaherty. It would later be used by Young Drivers of Canada as a teaching tool, being screened in classrooms across the nation.

Matthew Gillespie is a graduate of Queen's University Film Studies and began his career as an Intern for International Award-Winning documentary filmmaker Peter Raymont ("Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire"). He later went on to train in post-production as part of The Debbie Travis Group, working as a Post-coordinator on shows such as "From The Ground Up" and "Maxed Out". He continued building on his skills in the world of Editing, training alongside Executive Producers, and working on hit lifestyle TV shows such as "Love It or List It", "Brides of Beverly Hills", and MTV's "Spectacle: With Elvis Costello".

During hiatus from production, many of his Executive Producers recognised his talent for filming and encouraged him to shoot and edit various pilot reels for major networks including HGTV, SLICE Network, Corus Entertainment, TLC, Discovery and Science Channel.

He continued his journey in the foray of Post-Production by working with some of Canada's top Executives and International Networks such as TLC, Discovery and Science Channel. He has achieved acclaim and accreditation for supervising and delivering several big-budgeted shows under extremely tight deadlines while meeting all schedule requirements. After Post-Supervising and Assistant Editing for Discovery's "Survivorman", Matthew was promoted to VP of Development for Les Stroud Productions Inc.

Using all of his learned skills, he would later go on to write, film and edit his own short documentary film on the nature of stigma associated with mental health, addiction, and recovery. The film titled "The Making of Recovery" is currently winning awards for Best Documentary at various Canadian and International Award Festivals.