Diverse Voices: Casey Zilbert

Visual: Filmmaker Casey Zilbert sits in a dark room with studio lights on them. They are wearing a black shirt and a black backwards cap. Throughout the interview, we switch from one camera angle to another, where the camera is zoomed to focus on their chest upward, with their head being the focal point. The other is zoomed out more, showing a table with interesting objects, such as a pink spiky ball, teapots, oranges, and candles. A hand places a card on a silver tray with their name on it.

Audio: I wanna make people laugh so hard that they don’t realise I’m being serious until it’s too late.

I started out in screenwriting, but also direct-produce, but a lot of my interest moving forward is about financing, and how to help diverse voices actually build engaging, but sustainable and financially viable careers, in the digital future.

So yeah, a bit of a hybrid.

My life story?

The biggest thing about me that probably impacts everything about me is: that I have a bunch of fatal food allergies and dietary restrictions.

I started in screenwriting because it was a job that allowed me to participate in storytelling but also exist in isolation.

COVID-19 was a really interesting experience for me because I basically live in Level 4 all the time.

You hear 65-year-old men be like: “I realised my own mortality...”

And I’m there, being like: “The first time I nearly died was when I was at least under 10 years old.”

Like, you know, we’re only just sort of... We’re only just starting to peel back what it means to have a brain that functions differently from other people.

So be it autism, be it ADD, be it OCD.

Why am I able to deliver a shootable screenplay in under four weeks? Autism, bro.

How am I able to do that job and then integrate with people who don’t wanna integrate with an autistic person becomes really complicated.

One of the phrases that I often heard from people was, “You’re so prolific!”

And it’s like, “Well, yeah... I’m at home... and I’m autistic.”

I honestly lose weeks at a time. If I’m on a project, I will force myself into hyperfocus. Once I’m in the mental space where it’s the real world to me, I can sit down, but I literally can’t do anything but that.

Eating is not necessarily on the list. Sleeping is not necessarily on the list. And so the benefit of hyperfocus is you don’t notice any of that.

Visual: (Scenes from ‘Hang Time’ trailer)

• A drone flies over a vineyard.
• Six people taste wine placed on barrels.
• One person drinks wine from a glass.
• Two people high-five.
• Two people drink coffee from mugs.
• A person carries large boxes into a house.
• Two people high-five.
• Two people play guitar at night-time.

Audio: Hang Time trailer plays.

We have a beautiful vineyard.

We have amazing wine.

I’ve got my best friend, two beautiful girls and an American warrior by my side.

I like your style.

‘Hang Time’ was the first feature film that I wrote and directed.

I created ‘Hang Time’ because I knew a bunch of really great people who, like me, weren’t getting any recognition for the work that they were doing.

My parents are in the wine industry, and there were no wine movies in that space, especially not targeting millennials.

And so the film actually started as a business pitch to my parents’ company and Astrolabe, which is the winery that they also grow for, effectively trying to raise the initial 20 grand to go and shoot the film.

Cause we were working on a sweat-equity model, which meant I was covering the costs of all of the travel, all of the food, all of the accommodation, and nobody got paid for the shoot themselves.

They got paid in backend, which means as the film starts making money, it disseminates.

Because we had the location space down in Kekerengu, it was really about being creative with what locations we had available. So building the story up and behind that.

We got a lot of really great deals in regards to sorting gear. The Interislander comped all our travels and let us shoot on the ship.

You know, there are lots of things of me just writing cheeky emails and going, “Please, can we have this?”

So one of the things that we did as a distribution model for ‘Hang Time’ was instead of going for traditional theatrical, we did a bit of a roadshow, and we wanted to look at other ways of monetising content, and so that includes merchandising.

And so one of the things that we did, in addition to T-shirts, we also did a range of ‘screw caps’.

This is my lucky one that I wear everywhere, travelled with the film with it, and we pressed the soundtrack to vinyl.

You know, the film played, it premiered at Sonoma International Film Festival and played at a bunch of really great international wine and film festivals.

All up, we made the film for $60,000 New Zealand dollars. And in our first sales deal, we were able to pretty much clear all that in our investments. And now any sales deal we have from here on out goes out to the cast and crew.

Visual:

A clip of card paper shows, written on it the credits. These are written below:

• Producer, Writer and Director: Pachali Brewster.
• Director of photography, editor and colourist: Ben Dickens.
• Featuring:Oriwa Hakaraia
  • Jade Jackson
  • Aditya B. Parige
  • Kathleen Winter
  • Laura Yilmaz
  • Casey Zilbert
  • Raqi Syed and Missy Molloy as the facilitators
  • and Glen McLaughlin as the butler.
• Special thanks to:
  • Massey’s School of Music and Creative Media Production
  • College of Creative Arts Toi Rauwhārangi.
• Production manager assistant, 1st assistant director, and Unit: Anna Valentine.
• 2nd camera operator: Elise Lanigan.
• 3rd camera operator: Nathan Roys.
• Sound Recordist: Jessy McNamara.
• Sound Recordist Assist and Sound Mixer: Matt Asunder.
• Art Department: Glen McLaughlin.
• Hair and Makeup artist: Serena Parsons.
• Stills photography: Celeste Fontein.
• Runner: Ivy Robinson.