High Receipts

Matthew Loren Ballard

How did the idea for this project come about?
I first discovered kendama when I was 13 and became very involved in the scene in my teenage years. After 10 years away, I went to the European Kendama Championships in 2024. This is when I first met the boys who had come from Japan to compete. Watching them reminded me of my youth and the energy of my teenage years with my friends, and I saw the opportunity to create a story with them.

What did you discover or unlearn while doing it?
This film took everything I had learned up until this point. It was my first time shooting four people in a scene at one time, and I learned that allowing their energy to exist organically in front of the camera was a great benefit. We also shot this film with a very small crew and all lived together at the same time. This kept a great energy and, from a practical point of view, made it easier to make sure everyone showed up on time, hah.

What images, sounds or emotions guided the construction of the piece?
I always start compiling a playlist early on in a film’s process. When I first met the boys, we were hanging out in a park and someone started playing Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang” on a loudspeaker. I started imagining a scene of Nobu to this song and it just clicked for me. Later on, Inoue Y?sui became an important musical inspiration. He’s cinematic and dramatic, and this gave me a certain confidence in the visual language.

I didn’t realize at the time while making it that it was that personal, but I can say after that I was certainly channeling a lot of my memories with my friends from my youth.

Were there any conversations, movies, music, or books that made their way into that work?
I was particularly drawn to the physicality of the characters in the film Made in Hong Kong. There are scenes where these characters are running and jumping through the city. When I first watched this, I figured that shooting these scenes must have been physically exhausting, but that the effort shows up as this energy in front of the camera. While we were shooting, we had to keep getting everyone pumped up with every take to make sure the energy was in the physicality. During this scene where the boys prank a ramen shop, they did it many times to get the choreography right. It was exhausting and everyone was sweating a lot.

What was the biggest challenge during creation (filming, editing, production, or idea)?
The post-production was a new experience for me. Previous to this, I had been a cinematographer on short films but never had directed and edited. Continuing the energy through post and turning over every rock, I became very empathetic towards this process and now understand why it often takes directors so long in post.

What is your favorite restaurant and what do you recommend we order?
There is a small Japanese-style bakery/café called Panya Sam in La Condesa. If you’re feeling up for a sweet breakfast on the weekend, go order their pancake japonés de miel (:

Recommend us an artist you follow who inspires you, and tell us what you like most about their work or their way of working.
There is a wonderful painter I’ve been following for some time, Sagami Mariko. There is something about her hand that I really love. She often paints old, worn stuffed animals or torsos. Her hand is light, fluid, scratchy, wispy. It feels like a dream to me.