“The Devil’s Matchmaker: Creating Awkward Matches Since 2004”

Alexander is a matchmaker like any other most of the time, but as a side hobby he sets up dates with people whose last names make hilarious combinations, like Peters-Rising or Small-Johnson. He hopes with every such date that one day the couple will marry, providing the world with some humor and Alexander with his trophy, making him the Devil’s Matchmaker.

Alexander is a professional matchmaker. While he has a fun, desirable job, he is a loner who prefers creating relationships for other people rather than focusing on his own life. He has a set routine each day that he follows closely, has few friends with whom to speak about his job, and has just one great joy in life, which is setting up matches for people with awkward last names. While his primary job is just an ordinary matchmaker, his hobby is to arrange dates between people whose last names form awkward combinations, like Furr-Muncher, Peters-Rising, and Small-Johnson, for instance. He knows he cannot force love, but he plays the odds that some of his dates will click with each other and eventually marry. The resulting wedding announcements are his trophies.

Alexander reasons that he is doing no harm, because after all he cannot force people to love each other, and ultimately everyone wins with his hobby. The couples are happy together, he gets his trophy, and the public has a laugh when they see the wedding announcements in the newspaper or on late night television. Until now, you thought those wedding announcements were the result of funny coincidences and random chance, but now you know they are the result of careful planning by the Devil’s Matchmaker!

I had the idea for Devil’s Matchmaker after a good friend of mine, Erik Sogn, sent me a link to a news article showing about nineteen awkward last name pairings in wedding announcements in local newspapers. I had seen such clippings before on Jay Leno and other sources, but the sheer number of them collected in the article made me shake my head in disbelief, wondering how they could all be simple coincidence and accidents. I started thinking, “What if someone had secretly arranged these marriages, by pulling the strings behind the scenes and putting these people together, unbeknownst to the world?” The initial concept was a bit more creepy and a bit less funny, so I settled on Alexander being a harmless matchmaker who just happens to have a side hobby that he enjoys from time to time.

The character of Alexander really came together after a lot of discussions with Erik about who he is, what his motivations are, what he does in life, and the details of his personality. I felt that having him be a fairly ordinary guy would underscore the importance of his naughty matchmaking, because it becomes the one aspect of his persona that really separates him from the rest of the world. Without it, he is boring, ordinary, mundane, but with it, he feels somehow powerful, influential, and important. He knows he is a bit naughty, a bit in a moral gray area, but he does not feel overly guilty about it. His lack of guilt, though, is not a lack of concern; he wonders how others would react to what he does, and whether he would be seen as twisted and evil, but whatever friends he may have, he does not want to jeopardize his career telling them about his hobby, so he visits a psychiatrist.

I was most nervous while writing The Devil’s Matchmaker about the preponderance of voiceover in the script, and the structure in general, making the short almost more of a character sketch than a traditional short film. I feel, however, that the voiceover is used properly, to comment upon actions and enhance the humor, rather than to drive the story forward, which is done through visual cues and events, like the dates. Without the voiceover, I believe the short would still make sense and function logically, but it just would lack a lot of the humor and character depth. Additionally, the voiceover is in fact a conversation with another person, but only revealed fully at the film’s end.

I also feel that The Devil’s Matchmaker has a clear beginning, middle, and end, and I believe it succeeds at making the conflict apparent as well. The beginning demonstrates Alexander beginning his quest, preparing for his journey of trying to pair people with awkward last names, with the middle act showing the unforeseen difficulties and obstacles he encounters on the way to success, which is ultimately the final act. The conflict in the short is internal, focusing on Alexander’s struggle with his conscience, externalized through his visit to a psychiatrist and his revelation of the work he does. Ultimately, in the final act, Alexander undergoes a change, not of behavior but of attitude, overcoming his insecurity about his work and deciding that he likes who he is and that he accepts himself as a Devil’s Matchmaker. The audience, ultimately, can judge him as they see fit, but the character has come to terms with his personality and deeds, at last.

“Guardian Angel”
Cooper Harris, an actress friend who I had worked with on a food services training video for BPM Senior Living and met through a friend in film school on his short Fix, read the script for The Devil’s Matchmaker and enjoyed it enough to help me on the short. Cooper’s assistance made the project become a reality, but not only did she facilitate a quicker finish of the project, she improved its quality and recognition far above what I had expected. Cooper cast the film, after we discussed the characters in detail, and was able to secure a talented group of actors, including several people who have worked on countless professional projects and who viewers will recognize from other work. Cooper’s assistance did not end at casting, however; she also started the paperwork to make The Devil’s Matchmaker a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) shoot, took care of craft services, helped with paperwork on set, acted in the film, and generally became my guardian angel on the project.