AustLit

Script-writer and musician.

Matt Ford's earliest television credit was as script editor on the mini-series The Paper Man (1990), scripted by Keith Aberdein and John Lonie. He followed this with the script for the Australian/British/American co-production Frankie's House (1992), which he co-wrote with Lonie and British script-writer Andy Armitage, after the book Page after Page by Tim Page. He has worked regularly as a script-writer ever since.

Ford's scripts in the 1990s include episodes of G.P. (1993 and 1996), Sweat (1996), Driven Crazy (1998), Medivac (1997-1998), and Wildside (1998-1999). He also co-wrote (with Elizabeth Coleman) the romantic comedy Diana & Me (1997), directed by David Parker and starrring Toni Collette.

In 2000, he co-wrote, with Catriona McKenzie, the short film Road (directed by McKenzie), following a night in the lives of four young Indigenous Australians from the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern. The film was devised and performed by Redfern inhabitants (all of whom were Indigenous Australian) with no previous acting experience. Road won Best Direction in an Australian Short Film at the 2001 Flickerfest International Short Film Festival and the Award for Australian Short Film at the 2001 Sydney Film Festival.

In 2001, Ford wrote a number of episodes for Love Is a Four-Letter Word, which he followed with three episodes of Farscape (2001-2002, beginning in season three), and at least nine episodes of Stingers (2002-2004), for one of which he was nominated for an AFI Award for Best Screenplay in Television (2004, for episode 172). He followed this with episodes of Lockie Leonard (six episodes, 2007-2010), Sea Patrol (2008-2009) and Satisfaction (nine episodes, 2007-2010).

Recently, Ford has written episodes of Dance Academy (2010), Cops LAC (2010), SLiDE (2011), and House Husbands (2012).

In 2011, Ford wrote the science-fiction horror film Panic at Rock Island (directed by Tony Tilse), for which he won the John Hinde Award for Science Fiction at the 2011 AWGIE Awards.

In 2018, it was announced that Matt Ford would be working with American showrunner Alexa Junge, as well as scriptwriters Ellie Beaumont and Leanne Mangan, in developing his dark drama series The Surgeon's Knife, about a murderous neurosurgeon.

Under the pseudonym 'Pinky Beecroft', Ford was the lead singer and songwriter for Australian band Machine Gun Fellatio, until he quit the band in 2005. He was nominated for an ARIA Award for Best New Song for the band's 'The Girl Of My Dreams Is Giving Me Nightmares' in 2003. He also co-wrote (under his birth name) the song 'No Aphrodisiac', which won an ARIA Award for Song of the Year after being recorded by The Whitlams.

Australian Writing and Rock Music affiliation: vocals, keyboards, piano, songwriter.