Since 1968, Matthews Studio Equipment has built gear in Burbank that changed how sets get rigged. Three times, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has recognized that work. Here is the record, in order.
The Academy Plaque. Cast in bronze, gold-plated, mounted on black marble: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — Scientific and Engineering Award.
This one sits in Burbank. It came home in 1986 for Cam-Remote.
Key Grip Roy Isaia starts supplying studios out of his mother’s garage. Ed Phillips — a former drummer building lighting equipment — partners with accountant Carlos DeMattos to buy the business, and puts in a machine shop. That machine shop is why everything below happened.
Ed Phillips invents the folding-base 40" Century Stand. Before it, C-Stands didn’t nest — a truck held only so many and a corner of every stage was full of legs. The folding-leg C-Stand is now the worldwide standard, made by everyone. It started here.
A portable crane that broke down and folded to eight feet, weighed roughly 600 pounds, reached 16 ft 5 in and dropped 3 feet below grade — equally at home on a studio floor or rough terrain. A crane a small crew could actually move.
A remote camera head engineered to carry a full Panavision package and put the operator somewhere the camera could go and a human could not — the end of a crane, a car mount, a position nobody could safely ride.
The plaque itself — the Class II award, and the only one of the three that comes as an object rather than a certificate.
The 1992 product catalog. Corporate office: 2405 West Empire Avenue, Burbank. Order hotline: (800)-CE STAND. Matthews has printed a catalog nearly every year since.
Presented May 4, 2012 by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce at the 86th annual World Trade Week Kickoff, recognizing firms with significant, continued growth in export sales. At the time Matthews was a 44-year-old Burbank manufacturer with more than 80 employees, exporting to clients in 78 countries.
Before MAX, a menace arm was jury-rigged on set — slow to build and dangerous if it was built wrong. Hollywood Key Grip Richard Mall designed a better one and Matthews built it. MAX carries fixtures up to 175 lb (80 kg), reaches 17.5 ft horizontally and over 20 ft in elevation, and works 6 ft below grade — placing a light off a rooftop or balcony without scaffolding.
Matthews is led by President and CEO Tyler Phillips, still headquartered in Burbank, still running its own machine shop, with more than 2,000 products in the line.
The thing that never won an award
The most consequential thing Matthews ever made wasn’t a product — it was an agreement. Working with Washington, Matthews helped formally establish the 5/8" Baby Pin and the 1-1/8" Junior Receiver.
Every stand, head, plate and adapter on a set anywhere in the world now mates to those two dimensions. A grip in Prague can hang a fixture on a stand built in Auckland because of a spec written in Burbank. No statuette for that one.
Recognition Beyond the Set
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The President’s “E” Award for ExportsThe highest recognition the United States government gives an American company for significant contribution to increasing U.S. exports. Matthews ships Hollywood-style gear from Burbank to production crews on every continent. |
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International Cinematographers Guild — Ed PhillipsThe ICG saluted Matthews co-founder Ed Phillips “for forty years of service and love to the crews who make the art and craft of filmmaking.” Recognition not of a product, but of a working life spent alongside the people the products were built for. |
The night itself
