Matthew J. Santo is a bicoastal cinematographer. His commercial credits include well-known campaigns for Geico, Sprite, Microsoft, Samsung, Sony and Nike. In addition, he has filmed music videos for artists including HAIM, LCD Soundsystem, Justin Timberlake, Death Cab for Cutie, and Depeche Mode. He has received the Technicolor Cinematography award for his work, and shot numerous commercials and films that have won Gold Lions at Cannes, as well as the New York Magazine First Run and Tribeca Film Festivals.
Matthew's film career began as a producer's assistant on the 1995 Merchant-Ivory film, The Proprietor. Since then he got an early taste for virtually every job in the industry, having worked as a locations manager, production manager and production coordinator for several feature films and TV shows including Ransom, Mickey Blue Eyes, and Mad About You. While still in high school in New York City, Matthew began working as a focus puller for such shows as "Will & Grace", "Everybody Loves Raymond" and the feature 15 Minutes. As an AC he worked on on the final episode of “Friends,” as well as the action features Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Lucky Number Slevin.
He went on to working as a DP full-time with AICP awards for several of his first commercials after graduating Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Matthew shot several episodes of the HBO series “Girls,” frequently shoots commercial parodies for “Saturday Night Live” and won a Best Cinematography award for the feature Bert and Arnie’s Guide to Friendship. He was the additional unit DP for Marvel's Spider-Man: Homecoming, the NY VFX DP for Spider-Man: Far From Home and the NY Unit DP for Spider-Man: No Way Home. He has also shot specialized units for Apple Studio’s Wolfs and “Your Friends and Neighbors.” Recent features include the comedy First One In and soon, the upcoming films Latchkey Kids and Civilian.
Matthew has served as an adjunct professor and is a frequent lecturer for the cinematography department at New York University.