Hilltopper and environmental studies major Matt Morton ’99 found an avenue to express both his interests in his latest project, the documentary “Dinosaur 13.”
Dinosaur 13 tells the story of a tremendous dinosaur discovery – the largest, most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever found. Morton wrote, played, recorded and mixed all of the music for the film, which was released in theaters in the summer of 2014 and will be broadcast on CNN starting in December 2014.
“We made 99 percent of the movie with only three people; so we each had to do the amount of work typically handled by an entire team” said Morton, a successful composer, multi-instrumentalist and engineer/producer. The film premiered on the opening night of the Sundance Film Festival. “We sold the film within a few hours to Lionsgate and CNN Films,” he added.
Based on the book, “Rex Appeal: The Amazing Story of Sue, the Dinosaur That Changed Science, the Law, and My Life,” by paleontologist Peter Larson and Kristin Donnan, the film documents a ten-year battle with the U.S. government, powerful museums, Native American tribes, and competing paleontologists over the dinosaur named Sue.
Sue now resides in Chicago’s Field Museum, after a well-publicized dispute over ownership that included the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, whose members first discovered the skeleton; Maurice Williams, the landowner; the Sioux tribe, which claimed ownership through Williams, who is a member of the tribe; and the U.S. Department of the Interior, which ultimately was found to have been holding the land in trust, and was therefore the legal owner.
According to a Columbus Dispatch article about the film, “Using an electronic keyboard linked to a network of computers and sample libraries of sound in his home studio, Morton played every instrument in his orchestral score: strings, woodwinds, brass, piano, guitar, banjo, mandolin, drums, bass ukulele and tribal drums.”
Morton was a founding member, lead guitarist, and vocalist for the rock band “The Shantee,” which he began at Denison, and he has recorded several albums, toured nationally and opened for bands including George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic, Blues Traveler, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, the Neville Brothers, Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers, Widespread Panic, Kim Taylor, O.A.R., and The National.
Morton has composed and scored music for several international brands including JPMorgan Chase, Wendy’s, American Eagle and Hollister, and he has two other films to his credit, “Scaring the Fish” and the documentary “Beauty of the Fight.”
Morton says, “I did a lot of music at Denison. I was a Hilltopper, took a lot of guitar lessons from Tom Carroll, and my band, “The Shantee,” started there and stayed together for nine years.”
In the Dispatch article, Todd Douglas Miller, who directed and produced the film said, “The music is the driving force behind all the emotions in the film. After this film comes out, Matt is going to be one of the most-sought-after composers in the world.”
