About John L Matthews
Thanks for dropping by.
I’ve been a tv producer and film maker for almost thirty years. I’ve produced films sold all over the world, in 65 countries, seen by over 100 million. I’ve raced cars, motorbikes, I’ve ski raced and entered running races. I’ve made films about winners and also about things going fatally wrong when trying to win. I know how to make stuff and also how to deliver on my promises.
I’ve written and produced six books. I’ve taught film making, story telling and writing at six institutions. You can see [and buy] some of the things I’ve made here https://big-pic.co.uk/directs/shop-direct.html]
Wherever I have been researching, filming, writing and lecturing, I have always run.
As a member of a few running clubs I noticed that a lot of people don’t actually enjoy club runs.
They enter races and don’t enjoy them either.
I’ve met lots of people who trained to do marathons and never ran again. De-motivated by the data from their gadgets that tells them they are getting worse, not better. [we are all getting older!]
Even park runs have competitive racers in them, getting in the way of people wanting to have fun!
I dance as well as run. At dances there is no competition. People go dancing to have fun, not ‘be better’ than anyone else, not to ‘win’. Just because you are faster does not mean you are better. It just means you are faster. Just because you might win, does not mean you are better. It does not mean you are happier, either, actually. If you think about it, in a race, there is only one winner…if everyone is trying to win then that is a lot of disappointed people!
This got me thinking.
What if there was a place where runners could go just to have fun, like those dancers having fun at dances?
Unplugged Runner came to me at 5 am one Monday morning. Ultimately a worldwide network of groups of runners that get together, not to show off about how far they have run, what they have won, not to run further or faster, but to purely Run For Fun. Run Without Gadgets. To enjoy the actual running, not just getting pleasure from looking at the stats afterwards.
So, I wrote a book about the running I had done for pleasure – ‘Unplugged: What Happens When You Run Free’ [for sale now on Indiegogo]. Which set me on a new journey. There is a link here to the launch site – https://tinyurl.com/UnpluggedRunner.
Tech permeates our entire lives, including leisure time. Personally I think it gets in the way of having fun. I don’t want to be anywhere near my phone when I am out running. I guess ideally, I want to create a movement that ditches tech in the outdoors.
My thinking is it’s time we all Run Unplugged! I appreciate not everyone feels this way but my hunch is a lot do! So as well as a book, I came up with some fun products and opportunities that hopefully will help the Unplugged Runner movement gather momentum and grow!
p.s. below are a couple of random things I’ve made as a filmmaker. ‘Love Zie Brain’ went to every high school in the UK. ‘Killer Years’ is sold all over the world by my distributor BBC Studios.