Media Specialist, Locations and Fixing, Production Coordination
Matthew Vella
I have covered politics, crime, environmental and investigative journalism, and interviewed people in authority over the course of 20 years
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Journalist
Story generation, follow-up on leads, newsroom management, launched newspaper titles, consulted on design, and managed editors and sub-editors
Editor
Extensive network of contacts and location scouting make me the first point of contact for pre-production services and TV news crews and production companies
Locations and fixer
‘Passport To Vice’ – the history of Maltese vice and crime in Soho, out with Horizons, built on research in the Maltese and United Kingdom national archives
Author
About
Matthew Vella is a journalist of 20 years’ experience, extensive local knowledge for TV news production, location scouting and media consultancy. Formerly executive editor at MaltaToday.
His extensive network of contacts and can-do attitude are a must for small-scale shoots requiring the gamut of services for their production on the island of Malta.
CONTACT Matthew by email
Passport To Vice (Horizons, 2022) traces the evolution of the Maltese criminal class that took control of vice, prostitution and gambling, in the red-light district of London’s Soho, from the Tiger Bay docks of Cardiff, through to the East End’s Stepney and Whitechapel areas, and into the West End itself. With never-before published findings from the Maltese and British national archives and confidential interviews from the last of the Soho denizens....
Passport To Vice
Experience
Commissioned genealogical searches, fished out stories from the Maltese National Archives, set up pre-production meetings, locations, and troubleshooting for production team. Worked on S04E04 Shaun Micallef and S05E04 Adam Hills
Locations, Research, Fixing
Who Do You Think You Are (SBS, Aus)
Secured access to government ministers, NGO workers, and army detention facilities for short film documentary on migration and asylum in Malta
Interviews, Access Permits
Migration and Refugees (Six Oranges)
For Radio-Canada (fr), I obtained access to the underground water reservoirs of Malta for a fantastic three-day news production on this precious resource
Fixer for news productions
Drinking water from the sea (CBC)
Coordinated Malta production services for Mediawan Finland during two-month television shoot, as Malta production specialist for London partners Storytailors
Production Coordination services
Global production specialist for Storytailors, London
Please get in touch through this contact form or directly via my contact details below with your requests
Get in Touch
Testimonials
CBC, Radio-Canada (fr)
Jean Francois Belanger
“We worked for a couple of days with Matthew for a story about water in Malta. He is great fun to work with, knows his way around really well, knows everyone that counts in Malta. In a nutshell, he’s a great fixer; very resourceful. Highly recommended.”
Independent filmmaker, SRdocs.net
Shafiur Rahman
“I worked with Matthew Vella for a project on migrants crossing the Med. Matthew proved to be an exceptional fixer. He managed to get us an interview with the home affairs minister at short notice, and even more remarkably, he got us into two Maltese detention centres with permission to talk to the detainees and film them. He really did work wonders.
“As a journalist he is very au fait with issues concerning the region and even knows where to get replacement windshields for microphones! Always punctual during the days we worked with him. He is a polite and interesting character to boot. We found he had empathy and sensitivity for the stuff we were trying to get at, and that to me also set him apart. In the final analysis what you want in a fixer is a can-do guy who can deliver. Mathew is definitely a can-do guy, and for us, delivered all our requests.”
Danmarks-Radio (DR)
Neils Kvale
“I worked with Matthew Vella and I can definitely vouch for him. He did a good and solid job working on two different stories with me on Malta in 2014.”