Matt Shea (filmmaker)

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Matt Shea
Matt Shea on Targeted Individuals Set.png
Matt Shea in Targeted Individuals, 2017
Born (1991-12-16) 16 December 1991 (age 32)
Occupation(s)Producer, film creator and editor

Matt Shea is a British documentary filmmaker, journalist and presenter.

Contents

He is known for the VICE documentaries Iceman, Targeted Individuals, The Pink Cocaine Wave, Ravers Vs. Putin, and The Last Festival on Earth. [1] He produces and presents High Society, a documentary series that explores drug culture in the UK and features access to real criminals. [2] [3] Shea's documentaries often feature "crime and fringe stories". [4]

Career

Shea started his career writing for VICE Magazine. [5]

As VICE moved into digital, broadcast and feature documentaries, Shea produced a number of films and series including Gaycation, which featured the actor Elliot Page, and Chemsex. [6]

He also directed the feature-length documentary Time To Die, which was filmed over four years and covers the illegal underground global network that illegally sources, buys, and sells assisted-dying methods. [7]

Shea was the first journalist to gain access to the Albanian Mafia and Colombian Clan Del Golfo Cartel for the Channel 4 documentary A New Cocaine Mafia. [8]

His documentary about Wim Hof led to a global surge of interest in the Wim Hof Method. [9]

Shea has also produced drug programming for Netflix and Channel 5, producing Channel 5's Britain's Cocaine Epidemic [10] and Netflix's Dope. [11]

He produced a documentary about the famous fraudster and sex party organiser Lord Edward Davenport. [12]

Shea's special report for VICE about Andrew Tate, called The Dangerous Rise of Andrew Tate, was released on VICE and other platforms across the world in January 2023 and BBC iPlayer in the UK on 11 February. [13] [14] [15]

Presenting

As a presenter, Shea is best known for his films about crime and drugs, such as the High Society series. In Inside the Laughing Gas Black Market, Shea met criminals who broke into hospitals in order to steal canisters of the recreational drug nitrous oxide. [16] How Weed Laws Are Failing the UK portrayed new trends in the cannabis black market including groppers (grandmothers who grow cannabis because they are seen as less suspicious) and gangs using heat-seeking drones to find and rob rival cannabis grow operations.

In The Truth About Ecstasy Shea witnesses students manufacturing ecstasy tablets in Brighton, and visits the first ever on-site drug-testing at a UK music festival.

Shea has also met Wim Hof, embedded with targeted individuals, and covered competitive gaming in South Korea. [17] [18] [19]

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Recreational drug use</span> Use of drugs with the primary intention to alter the state of consciousness

Recreational drug use is the use of one or more psychoactive drugs to induce an altered state of consciousness, either for pleasure or for some other casual purpose or pastime. When a psychoactive drug enters the user's body, it induces an intoxicating effect. Recreational drugs are commonly divided into three categories: depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pablo Escobar</span> Colombian drug lord (1949–1993)

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was a Colombian drug lord, narcoterrorist, and politician, who was the founder and sole leader of the Medellín Cartel. Dubbed "the king of cocaine", Escobar was one of the wealthiest criminals in history, having amassed an estimated net worth of US$30 billion by the time of his death—equivalent to $70 billion as of 2022—while his drug cartel monopolized the cocaine trade into the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Club drug</span> Category of recreational drugs

Club drugs, also called rave drugs or party drugs, are a loosely defined category of recreational drugs which are associated with discothèques in the 1970s and nightclubs, dance clubs, electronic dance music (EDM) parties, and raves in the 1980s to today. Unlike many other categories, such as opiates and benzodiazepines, which are established according to pharmaceutical or chemical properties, club drugs are a "category of convenience", in which drugs are included due to the locations they are consumed and/or where the user goes while under the influence of the drugs. Club drugs are generally used by adolescents and young adults.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">War on drugs</span> Global anti-drug campaign led by the United States

The war on drugs is the policy of a global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States. The initiative includes a set of drug policies that are intended to discourage the production, distribution, and consumption of psychoactive drugs that the participating governments, through United Nations treaties, have made illegal.

Lacing or cutting, in drug culture, refer to the act of using a substance to adulterate substances independent of the reason. The resulting substance is laced or cut.

Sex and drugs date back to ancient humans and have been interlocked throughout human history. Both legal and illegal, the consumption of drugs and their effects on the human body encompasses all aspects of sex, including desire, performance, pleasure, conception, gestation, and disease.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Griselda Blanco</span> Colombian drug baron (1943–2012)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wim Hof</span> Dutch extreme athlete (born 1959)

Wim Hof, also known as The Iceman, is a Dutch motivational speaker and extreme athlete noted for his ability to withstand low temperatures. He previously held a Guinness World Record for swimming under ice and prolonged full-body contact with ice, and he holds a record for a barefoot half marathon on ice and snow. He attributes these feats to his Wim Hof Method (WHM), a combination of frequent cold exposure, breathing techniques and meditation. Hof's method has been the subject of several scientific studies, with mixed results.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Nutt</span> English neuropsychopharmacologist

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DrugScience

DrugScience or Drug Science (originally called the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD)) is a UK-based drugs advisory committee proposed and initially funded by hedge fund manager Toby Jackson. It is chaired by Professor David Nutt and was officially launched on 15 January 2010 with the help of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. The primary aim of the committee is to review and investigate the scientific evidence of drug harms without the political interference that could result from government affiliation.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Tate</span> American-British social media personality (born 1986)

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References

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  2. Harrison, Phil (15 October 2016). "Catch-up and download: from Mascots to High Society". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  3. "Vice documentary High Society shows what's really in ecstasy". www.news.com.au. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  4. "Matt Shea". Vice Media . Retrieved 11 January 2023.
  5. "Matt Shea". Vice. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  6. "Matt Shea". VICE Film School. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  7. Clarke, Stewart (8 May 2018). "Vice U.K. Brings Its First Feature Film, 'Time to Die,' to Cannes (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  8. "Criminal Planet - Series 1: Episode 1 | All 4". www.channel4.com. Retrieved 2 January 2023.
  9. The Superhuman World of Wim Hof: The Iceman , retrieved 2 January 2023
  10. "Britain's Cocaine Epidemic". Channel 5. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
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  12. "Wolf of the West End". Sky. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
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  14. "The Dangerous Rise of Andrew Tate". Viceland. 28 January 2023. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  15. "The Dangerous Rise of Andrew Tate". SBS On Demand . 27 January 2023. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  16. VICE (7 February 2017), Inside The Laughing Gas Black Market , retrieved 11 April 2019
  17. "Daisy-May & Matt". VICE Film School. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  18. Vice Reports: Targeted Individuals , retrieved 11 April 2019
  19. McKinnon, Jason (5 February 2017). "Watch This 5 Part eSports Documentary Series On VICE". Nerd Infinite. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  20. "THE 5TH ANNUAL LOVIE AWARDS NAMES ELTON JOHN, IMOGEN HEAP, DEUTSCHLAND25, VICE, IKEA, ZOELLA, LUFTHANSA AND TOCA BOCA AS FINALISTS" . Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  21. "Grierson Trust unveils 2016 nominees". Royal Television Society. 27 July 2016. Retrieved 25 April 2019.
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