‘Shark Week’ Director’s Caper Tiger Grad

NORTH CAPE MAY – When Olympian Michael Phelps tries to take a shark to school by racing it during this summer’s “Shark Week” (which debuts July 23 on the Discovery Channel), the man controlling the film’s artistic and dramatic aspects is none other than Lower Cape May Regional High School’s 1999 salutatorian.
Paul Matusheski, who credits his father with giving him a start in the film-making business when he was 7, and first received a video camera as a gift, said, filming Phelps off the coast of South Africa for a week was a “great experience.”
The water was cold because it was winter there, so that presented a challenge for Phelps, who is used to swimming in warmer water.
“But if there is a man who could stand a chance in a race against a shark, this is how it would be done,” Matusheski said, referring to the episode as the “great gold vs. the great white,” referring to all the gold medals Phelps has won in the Olympics.
The race happens at the end of the first night of the season premiere (8 p.m. airing), the director noted.
While he couldn’t divulge any details, a second show directed by Matusheski has Phelps learning about the fearsome predator in the Bimini Shark Lab at 8 p.m. July 30.
He also directs a third episode, “The Lost Cage,” which airs 9 p.m. July 26.
After receiving a video camera when he was younger, the 37-year-old said he “took a liking to it right away.”
Although the novelty of filming wore off for a few years, when he was in sixth grade, he got another camera and started shooting films again.
A cousin was attending Temple University’s film school and provided guidance, which eventually had Matusheski writing his first screenplay.
“In high school, I knew I wanted to be the next Stanley Kubrick,” he recalled, referring to American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and photographer who is cited as one of the greatest and most influential directors in cinematic history.
“My dream was to go to the New York University (NYC) film school,” he added.
Unfortunately for Matusheski, he didn’t get into NYU, but instead, got “almost a free ride” to the University of California’s School of Cinematic Arts. The rest is history.
For the past decade, he has been cutting and producing series for a variety of networks, spearheading shows such as “Duck Dynasty,” “Sons of Winter,” “Auction Hunters,” “Speed of Life,” “American Guns” and “Haunted Collector.”
A veteran and pioneer for Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, Matusheski’s shows provide an “intimate and in-depth look into the world below the water’s surface.”
In 2011, his team became the first to use high-speed cameras underwater to capture sharks in their natural habitat. His crews specialize in slow motion photography, motion controlled time-lapse photography, underwater cinematography, and drone technology.
He has produced 18 “Shark Week” shows, including 2012’s “Impossible Shot” and last year’s top-rated “Monster Mako.”
“The ‘Impossible Shot’ was one of the scariest, and most memorable, I’ve done,” the director recalled. “I almost lost my foot when we did that.”
The “Impossible Shot” was their effort to film a shark breaching from the air, he said. “Drone photography in 2012 was not like it is today, so we hung our expensive cameras from a balloon trying to get this shot. We’d tried for two years, and we were in the second year, on the last afternoon of the last day before the Discovery Channel was going to pull the plug. And we got it. It was a magical moment, a really epic shot. It was pretty amazing to see this shark breach from the air.”
During the filming of the shot, Matusheski also developed a bridge contraption with 45 cameras to capture the breaching. He recalled having his foot on one of the bars, sitting, waiting for the shark when all of a sudden, one appeared.
It bit part of the rig and clamped down on the bar where his foot had been. “One of the cameras on the deck captured the moment,” he said. “It was pretty scary.”
“‘Always’ a fan of the movie, ‘Jaws,'” Matusheski said he’d developed a “flair for editing with sharks. The shark is the star, and I’ve always honored that motto. Directors are used to cutting people, but sharks don’t get a script. You have to learn how to massage the shark to get what you need.”
Because you can’t film sharks 12 months a year, Matusheski also has filmed other animals including lions, snakes (getting venom for research) and tigers.
In 2014, he made his first special for NatGeo’s “Big Cat Week” entitled “Man V. Lion.” The top-rated show made “waves in the wildlife community for its incredible high-speed photography, and its incredible access into a coalition of African lions,” according to his online biography. “With suspenseful storytelling and a cinematic flair, Paul’s work illuminates the intricacies and majesty of the animal kingdom, giving audiences unprecedented access to some of the world’s rarest species.”
For the show, Matusheski had a man get into a clear, Plexiglas box that was covered with animal carcasses.
They filmed the lions feasting on the carcasses from inside the box.
“I have a knack for making animals into characters and giving them a personality,” Matusheski noted. “I treat them like an actor.
“If someone wants a career in TV and film, I would pass along this advice which I learned later on in my career,” the father of one said. “Watch the credits of a show, and you’ll see the names of many, many people who all worked on it. There is tons of work in producing a show. Everyone can’t be a director.
“I took all kinds of jobs to work my way up,” he added. “There doesn’t have to be a direct route to being a director because there are many options along the way. Sometimes you have to go sideways and around to get onto the island.”
To contact Karen Knight, email kknight@cmcherald.com.