Today we’d like to introduce you to Zack Schaefer.
Hi Zack, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Back in very early elementary school, my Dad let me play with his camcorder. For whatever reason I was completely fascinated with it, and pretty soon I was racing home every day after school to go make movies. As I got older, I learned to use iMovie on my Dad’s computer to edit and began to discover an underlying passion for filmmaking, I had no idea what I was doing, but I loved every second of it and found myself completely addicted.
In my sophomore year of high school, I became good friends with a very talented filmmaker, Patrick Pulido. Patrick taught me a lot and helped me turn my love of filmmaking from a blind passion, into a skill. We worked on some stuff together, threw around a lot of ideas, and just in general had a lot of fun. We became pretty close and ended up co-founding our production company, Wildcard Pictures, with another very successful filmmaker and friend, Isaiah Gowan. Since then, my passion for filmmaking quickly grew more serious and I was gifted with several amazing opportunities to work on projects.
I’ve recently started attending Utah Valley University for the film. I have about two years left there, but in the short amount of time I’ve spent I have made so many amazing friends and gotten so many more opportunities as a filmmaker, it’s an amazing school that has given me the confidence to pursue directing as a career.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been relatively smooth so far?
Before I had any filmmaker friends I had a tough time making movies. My friends at the time either discouraged me from trying or weren’t interested in wanting to help out.
I felt alone, having all these big ideas in my head and no one to share them with, and it made me contemplate giving up on making movies altogether. I couldn’t be proud of anything that I made, and it didn’t feel like I was improving. I felt like I was going to be bad at it forever.
It took me a long time to leave that mindset behind, and even now I can feel it sometimes, but ultimately I learned to trust the process, keep my head up, and make the next thing better than the last.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
While I still work in most aspects of filmmaking, my specialty and passion are in writing and directing narrative content.
I work with friends to create personal projects through Wildcard Pictures, in addition to helping out with and crewing for other students’ and friends’ projects as well. I appreciate any opportunity I have to get on set and hone my abilities as a filmmaker.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
With my current public short films, it probably wouldn’t be obvious to most people that I have a huge passion for horror.
I’m currently writing a horror short film that I’ll ideally be shooting this summer, as well as directing someone else’s horror script that I’m very excited about.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.wildcard-pictures.com/zack-schaefer-portfolio
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zeabooo/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zack.schaefer.395/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@wildcardpictures
