Gary Matoso and Cameron Zohoori Talk ‘Odd Hours, No Pay, Cool Hat’ And Volunteer Firefighters

Odd Hours, No Pay, Cool Hat, directed by Gary Matoso and Cameron Zohoori, pays tribute to the nearly 700,000 volunteer firefighters across the country. Viewers get an in-depth look at several diverse individuals as they navigate their daily lives with their passion for public service. Matoso and Zohoori talked to Find Your Film co-host Eric Holmes about their documentary which is now available on digital retailers.

“The thing with volunteer firefighters versus paid firefigthers is that they have to do all the same stuff,” said Cameron Zohoori, who also edited the documentary. “The fire doesn’t care, as they told us. Whether it’s a volunteer firefighter or a paid firefighter when it shows up. The training is equivalent and there’s a lot you have to learn. it’s not just fires – it’s rescue, EMS, disaster response. And little problems. They describe it as problem solvers all the time.”

Check out Eric Holmes’ review of Odd Hours, No Pay, Cool Hat on CinemAddicts:

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Cameron Zohoori and Gary Matoso have been working together for eight years, and Odd Hours, No Pay, Cool Hat is their first feature credit. For the project, they received 800 submissions for volunteer firefighter stories to spotlight. Shooting for the project took several months, and they spent up to four days on each location.

“The Washington State Fire Training Academy story which keeps getting revisited throughout the film, we kept going back to,” said Matoso. “On the production side, we have the experience of organizing productions. It wasn’t that different when you start thinking about them as individual stories. It was the post production and 300 hours of footage and making it make sense was the bigger challenge.”

Full interview with Matoso and Zohoori are featured in our Deepest Dream YouTube Channel and Find Your Film podcast:

Odd Hours, No Pay, Cool Hat is now available on digital retailers. For more information, go to oddhoursfilm.com.