Check Out Zach Huber’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Zach Huber.

Hi Zach , thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My journey with video/film has honestly been quite silly, rooted in following my intuition and working tirelessly through failures. I’ve been producing videos for just over 12 years, I started in high school in spanish class, where being sort of the class clown and one of the most out spoken members of class I was challenged by my teacher to create a video in spanish for our final grade. I not only called her bluff, but in typical fashion for me decided to go way over the top. With her help I wrote an entire feature film in spanish (really just a silly spoof of lord of the rings and the heroes journey) and enlisted my entire class to help me make it. In that moment I caught the bug for creating films and art and really never looked back after that.

I decided to pursue cinema arts in college at UMKC in my hometown of Kansas City, but was pretty quickly underwhelmed. I was displeased with the fact that they only wanted to teach me how to make documentaries when all I wanted to do was make my silly comedy films and almost quit (this will prove to be ironic). My teacher at the time encouraged me to research the types of artists and filmmakers I wanted to emulate and find a different school that would better facilitate that. That’s when I realized I was inspired by a lot of stand-up comedians, I began performing stand up comedy in Kansas City and eventually transferred to Columbia College Chicago, the biggest film school in the midwest in a city that has a rich history in comedy.

My time at Columbia College Chicago (2015-2017) is what really ignited my love for cinema as an art form. It sometimes shocks people when I say this, but up until then I did not like movies that much, I more so just enjoyed making them. Studying film there and working on countless other films with world class artists totally changed the way I looked at cinema as an art form, it wasn’t just about making silly videos for me anymore, it was a craft that I knew I wanted to devote my entire life to perfecting. Embracing cinema history I became inspired by foreign films like the ones made by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and the Shaw Brothers (a weird combination lol, but the visual style really spoke to me) and by studying them, producing my own films, crewing on lots of other films, and performing stand up at night I was able to develop my voice as an emerging artist during that time. I also, crucially met my best friend and biggest collaborator Austin Crowley during this time. We grew together building a tight relationship collaborating as director/cinematographer duo on all our projects, and fostered a relationship that now looking back really has been the most important one in my life.

Then, I graduated and like many graduates, I had a complete existential crisis. Art, especially freelance art like film/tv/video is a pretty tough field to break into, and it was a big struggle the first couple years out of school. I religiously checked craigslist and used that as my main tool for getting jobs (can share a funny video my friend Austin and I recently made recounting this time in our lives if you’d like to check it out). But as wild and zany as most of these craigslist gigs where for me, it ended up providing me with the biggest turning point of my career.

One day I answered a craigslist ad looking for a sound mixer to help with various projects. I agreed to meet this guy up at his house in Wilmette, a good way out of the city limits of Chicago. After taking the train for an hour and walking a mile from the stop I got to the house of my would be mentor, Max Miller. He was abrasive, funny, bold, and very blunt. In a whirlwind of a first meeting on his front drive way he literally prophesied my creative career. He told me that if I came over to his house everyday and learned how to use his sound and camera equipment that he would pay me to go on jobs with him. That I would start out with low pay and slowly increase pay until eventually I had fully eclipsed him with my skills and (in his words) “tell him to go fuck himself” and then become him and do this on my own. And that’s exactly what happened lol. I worked under him from 2018-2021, during that time I traveled the country with him and worked on some pretty big jobs way out of my depth. We shot ABC nightline/2020, on the case with paula zahn and many other crime shows, we shot an hbo documentary and filmed the first healthcare workers in Cincinnati getting the first covid vaccinations, we filmed the black panthers and weathermen episodes of the ABC 1969 documentary series, and Max was the Director of Photography for vh1’s black ink chicago where I helped with sound and camera as well. That’s just a small window into all the work we did during this time, Max was one of the busiest and most popular television DoP’s in the entire midwest region. But Max was right, by following in his foot steps I became a well accredited and extremely skilled documentary/reality tv show shooter/producer (which is where the irony comes in, almost quitting film altogether because I didn’t want to make documentaries, but then becoming an elite documentary tv shooter, haha still makes me laugh thinking back on it).

In 2021 we had a falling out and I broke my ankle dunking a basketball at lunch on a film shoot lol, so I made a sudden decision to move out of my 3 story walk up apartment in Chicago, across the country to Albuquerque, NM where at the time a mortgage was less than my portion of the rent in Chicago. New Mexico is where I really came into my own as a Producer and Director myself. There is a thriving creative community there that embraced and supported me in such a beautiful way. I made friends with a large portion of the music scene and city officials there thanks in large part to Bands of Enchantment, the emmy award winning television show that I am now the director of photography for. I started working for them on season 2 as the BTS videographer, and shot so many useable clips for the actual show that they promoted me to lead camera operator the following season and eventually DoP in season 4. The show is one of the biggest film/tv projects ever sponsored by the city of Albuquerque and State of New Mexico and just finished filming its 5th season this past September. To date it’s still one of my biggest and proudest accomplishments, It’s hard to put into words how meaningful it is for me to be able to promote a place as spectacular as Albuquerque and New Mexico with my art, it’s a place that facilitated magnificent change and growth in my life and it notoriously gets a bad wrap in media, so being able to recontexualize how special and beautiful it is with my art, it really does feel like one of the most meaningful contributions I’ve been able to make to the world and something I cherish greatly!

(this long ass story is almost over i promised lol)

Outside of Bands of Enchantment, I produced/shot/directed/or edited a variety of Documentaries, tv shows, music videos, commercials, and films during this time. I accumulated quite a bit of my equipment and learned how to run my own business by just jumping into the deep end and failing a lot (thankfully New Mexico was quite a forgiving place to do this). Even though I had created a fulfilling and fun creative life in New Mexico, after the writers/actors strikes in hollywood reality began to set in. The film economy in the entire country took a pretty big hit from those strikes, and in New Mexico a place that relies heavily on out of state production, my income was dwindling and for the first time in a while my future was looking dim. This is when I took one of my biggest risks that has paid off tremendously.

Feeling down on my luck I called my best friend Austin Crowley, who at the time already lived here in Los Angeles working for a youtube incubator and studio in hollywood. Austin famously told me that his boss and my now friend, Zane Helberg, told him that if I could get to Los Angeles by Monday (it was Friday at that time) that I could have a job at the studio he worked at. I didn’t think twice. I packed up all my stuff and drove 12 hours straight to Los Angeles, accepted the job at the studio, and a week later found a sublet, cementing my life here in Los Angeles. That studio would quickly fall apart from mismanagement, but through my short time there I would make some of the most meaningful relationships still in my life today.

Zane is the producer for the Kevin Langue Show, a hit youtube show that now has over 3 million subscribers, Austin and I have been working on the show since the early days when it was just starting to eclipse 100k subscribers. This opened up a big world for us working for a variety of youtuber/channels like Bobbi Althoff, Aaron Branch, Paul Pierce, etc. At the same time I began working for a variety of Indie rock bands in Los Angeles and have been growing as a videographer/video producer in the music scene here as well (hence how I met and know Asha!)

I kind of rushed through the last bit, but that pretty much brings us up to the present. Where I produce/shoot a variety of youtube shows, produce/direct music videos and quite a bit of live music shows, and am the director of photography for Bands of Enchantment. I do quite a bit of other work as well, but that’s the main crux of my business and work currently in Los Angeles.

I feel like I wrote so much and yet left out so many details haha, if you have any follow ups or need more details on anything in particular feel free to reach out and let me know.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It definitely has not been lol. I have failed so many times and I honestly think that’s a crucial aspect of developing as a video artist in today’s world, persisting through failures is what has given me the strength to persist through this difficult film economy in today’s world.

some key failures:

My last year in New Mexcio before moving to Los Angeles in October of 2023, my business was completely failing, I had only brought in $10k in total income (which I shared with other people working for me), and almost became financially trapped in poverty in New Mexico. I managed to get a lump sum payment from my tv show in September and used all that to move to Los Angeles on a whim and begin working for that studio, shooting freelance for bands doing vertical music videos and live concerts, and crewing on shorts/feature films. Between October and December of that year, I had tripled my income from january-september in new mexico, and since then I’ve over 10X my income. I still don’t know how I made it through that time financially, but now that I’m on the other side of it business here in Los Angeles honestly feels easy. That time really taught me how to market myself and and trust my intuition. Following my intuition is what brought me here to Los Angeles, introduced me to Zane, Kevin Langue, and so many other important people that have completely transformed my life.

Working for Max was also pretty difficult. To work for him I had to do quite a bit of extracurriculars. I had to learn how to use all his equipment in the beginning like I said, I also had to clean his garage, move furniture, pick his kids up from school, I wasn’t a film/tv worker I became a steward in his life and a part of his family. I have so many stories from this time it’s hard to condense it all into one big challenge, but through countless failures on these jobs I sharpened my teeth and became a true film/tv professional, then when Max and I had our falling out (we have since very recently rekindled our relationship) I had to start over completely from scratch. Sure I could call upon my skills and experience, but without him I didn’t have any of the clients or even equipment to be able to do this work anymore. So when I moved to New Mexico I had to take a lot of big risks and bet on myself by making big investments in equipment, that ended up paying off.

While I don’t do stand-up comedy anymore, I think doing it early in my career as a filmmaker gave me the framework to deal with and accept failure as part of the process of growth. Like many others, I was incomprehensibly bad at stand up comedy when I first started in Kansas City. I’ve told jokes to countless empty rooms, or quiet audiences starring at me awkwardly, I failed so much and so often for a year straight that it became second nature, it wasn’t scary anymore. When I finally started to succeed at stand up getting booked on shows and hosting open mics I was so comfortable with failure that it became part of my process, I knew that if I didn’t fail every so often that I wasn’t pushing myself enough. Carrying that mindset with me into filmmaking and video production has helped me turn the harshest failures and difficult times into opportunities that have propelled me forward, rather than hold me back.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I specialize in Film/TV/Video production, and what I think sets me apart from others is that I am multi talented and work professionally in every aspect of the filmmaking process. I’m a working Producer, Director, Cinematographer, Sound Mixer, Videographer, and Editor. I think having a diverse skillset like this is absolutely imperative in the current landscape of Film and TV. Crews are getting smaller and more specialized positions are becoming scarce. The people that I know that are working the most are multi-talented creators wearing multiple hats on hybrid productions that are mostly streaming or new media projects.

I’m known for and most proud of the Emmy Award Winning Television show that I shoot in Albuquerque every year called Bands of Enchantment, it’s a music television show and international music festival that serves as a postcard from Albuquerque to the world. https://www.bandsofenchantment.com/

A lot of my work is done in the independent music world. I produce/shoot/direct music videos, vertical videos, and live music videos for quite a few different artists in Los Angeles and around the world.

I’m also an award winning short film director and documentary producer in my own right. I produce independent documentaries for distributors like Plantpop, and have won awards for a variety of my own films including my most recent “Deceive to Achieve” and “Savage Horses Prayer”.

And I work for quite a few different famous youtubers, most notably Kevin Langue and the Kevin Langue Show.

Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
You can DM me on instagram @directed_by_zach . I am easy to collaborate with and can work with just about any budget, I still routinely work on passion projects because filmmaking isn’t just my career, it’s also my hobby, and a lot of times if I’m available and someone needs my help on a project the answer is “yes”. I’m also getting to the point where I can give back and help the next generation navigate the challenges of film and creative industries, and doing so is actually something that brings me a lot of joy. I’m happy to meet up with people to talk about how they can grow/navigate the industry and to give advice or help any way I can!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://directedbyzach.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/directed_by_zach/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Zach_and_Austin

Image Credits
BOE Photos in Albuquerque – Travis Montoya @travnotscott IG and Justin Flanagan @filmedbyflanagan IG (Justin took the orange photo of me on stage with the big camera set up and the easy rig on my back during a performance of bands of enchantment DSC02394.jpeg, travis took the rest)