Proctor Alumni: Matt Hamacheck ‘99: The Storyteller's Journey

Additional alumni profiles will be published in the 2025 Magazine, available the last week of November. In the meantime, we will continue to share select profiles from the 2024 Proctor Magazine.

In an editing room, surrounded by monitors displaying NFL Films and New England Patriots archive footage, Matt Hamachek '99 leans forward, his eyes fixed on a clip unearthed by an editor working the night shift. In the clip, NFL Rookie Aaron Hernandez listens intently as Chris Carter, the legendary Minnesota Vikings wide receiver, addresses young players, warning of the pitfalls of newfound fame and fortune. This single, chilling clip of Hernandez was among 30,000 hours of footage stored on credit card-sized tapes that could fill two Mack trucks. The monumental task of creating a documentary series like The Dynasty: New England Patriots (Apple TV+, 2024) would have been unimaginable to the teenager who arrived at Proctor in the mid-1990s from a coat-and-tie all-boys prep school just outside of Washington, D.C.

For Matt, Proctor represented an opportunity for a culture shift and a fresh start. "I really needed to find a place where all aspects of who I thought I was and who I might be could thrive," he recalls. The transition wasn't always easy. During Wilderness Orientation, he found himself drenched and miserable after failing to set up his tarp properly. "It rained one night, and my sleeping bag was just absolutely soaked through," he remembers. It also represented how much room he had to grow in his journey from adolescence to young adulthood. 

At Proctor, Matt recalls, students were both pushed out of their comfort zones and entrusted with real responsibility. "Doc Hand’s ski program encouraged me and another student to get certified by the Professional Ski Instructors of America and then teach young kids from around Andover how to ski," Matt explains.

Matt also found an unexpected creative outlet in the school's radio station. During an assembly, he and a classmate announced their ambitious project: recreating Orson Welles' infamous "War of the Worlds" broadcast. Matt now realizes that this experience marked one of his earliest ventures into immersive storytelling. 

However, it was in an unlikely corner of campus, Patty Pond's geometry class in Shirley Hall, that Matt's passion for filmmaking was first fully expressed. When tasked with a final project, Patty encouraged Matt to incorporate his love for cinema. This simple act of encouragement led to Matt's first ever film project. This stood in stark contrast to Matt's experience at his previous school, where his art teacher confiscated the Pulp Fiction soundtrack he had been listening to and reported him for inappropriate content. The theme of teachers leaning into students' interests to engage them in the subject matter echoed throughout Matt's Proctor experience. In Laurie Zimmerman's English class, Matt's obsession with Jim Morrison became a gateway to poetry. "Laurie met me halfway and then got me really interested in poetry in general.”

"I think what makes the Proctor experience so great is that it's a combination of nourishment but also throwing you into the deep end and being told to swim."

After attending Denison University and graduating with a film degree, Matt found himself at the bottom of the film industry ladder, interning at a production company and working on a multi-part documentary. He quickly realized that his role wasn't pitching grand film ideas but making his boss' job just a little bit easier. From fetching coffee to logging tapes and cataloging raw footage, his diligence paid off when an assistant editor position on the night shift opened up. Matt found an unexpected advantage in the quiet hours when everyone else had gone home. "Being on the night shift afforded me the ability to learn and not have people looking over my shoulder," he explains. As others left or were let go, Matt's responsibilities grew. He moved from assistant to associate editor and finally to full-time editor. By the project's end, budget constraints had elevated him to editing alongside the director. This experience taught Matt a crucial lesson that would shape his career. "You just have to work hard, put your head down, and be competent," Matt reflects.

Matt discovered that a key element of his approach to filmmaking and storytelling centered on telling familiar stories – Amanda Knox, Tiger Woods, and the triumvirate of Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, and Robert Kraft – in new and compelling ways. When he stepped into the director's role for the documentary project Tiger (HBO, 2021), Matt discovered that great storytelling transcends subject matter and taps into the elements that make the story universal. "The thing that I found most interesting about the Tiger Woods story was this idea of a person who was seen as a blank canvas for everybody else to paint their hopes and dreams onto," he explains. “The fact that he was a great athlete was always secondary.”

Reflecting on his trajectory from Proctor to award-winning documentary filmmaker and director, Matt sees a clear through-line in how he approaches challenges and nurtures talent. He aims to create a collaborative environment where team members feel challenged and supported. Matt credits his advisor, Michael Koenig, and his Learning Skills Specialist, Dale Milne, for shaping his approach to work and life. "They kept me in check," Matt reflects, describing a balance of accountability and support. "I think what makes the Proctor experience so great is that it's a combination of nourishment but also throwing you into the deep end and being told to swim." It's a philosophy that has served him well, from those early days at Proctor to the cutting edge of documentary storytelling.

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