Beaufort native searches for — and finds — a life in filmmaking

The novelist Walker Percy said “the search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life.”

Former Beaufort resident Zach Graber knows that feeling well as he finds himself deep in the ever-changing world of freelance filmmaking.

“After college I was searching for what to do with my life,” he said.

In 2004, with an undergrad degree in liberal arts, Graber, 37, found a gig in New York City as an editor with an ad agency who specialized in television ads for pharmaceutical companies. This despite having zero experience. He cut his teeth editing videos but longed for more. While working on a commercial shoot on Coney Island, he realized the story he was helping put together – that of a woman whose cancer had been held at bay by medicine – was one of many he was destined to tell.

“Technology is fascinating, but telling stories is what got me out of bed every day,” he said.

So he answered an online ad and hooked up with director David Wain on the film, “The Ten.” Though Graber’s participation was limited to working with motion graphics and compositing, it gave him access into a bigger world. He attended the Sundance Film Festival that year when “The Ten” was an entrant, and spent his time as “a starry-eyed guy following around people in the industry.”

It gave him the thirst for more.

“Being in rooms with professionals changed my whole idea of filmmaking,” he said.

Sleeping in his day job’s office on 42nd Street so he could work at night on editing jobs became routine. Eventually, though, something had toi give. Graber decided to leave it all behind to pursue more education. He came home to Beaufort and commuted to SCAD in Savannah to work on his MFA in film and television.

With that degree in hand two years later, the search was back on. A call from a friend in the industry led to him working as a production assistant on “X-Men: First Class.” Surrounded by fellow freelancers working for a major studio without the support of studio system employment, he was once again “figuring out how to cobble together a living.”

Then he was pulled back to Savannah to work on a movie that while critically panned led to his elevation from production assistant to the camera team. The brief artistic freedom he tasted from behind the camera was enough to keep him going.

“Questioning decisions is a universal trait,” he said. “It wasn’t a great movie, but it did affirm that the choice I made was the right one.”

In many ways, it was also a natural one.

As the son of attorney and former Beaufort Gazette columnist Scott Graber and artist Susan Graber, Zach may have had a genetic predisposition toward creating visual narratives. He remembers dinner table conversations while growing up in his family’s Port Royal home that involved his father “always generating stories” while his mother mused about the importance of framing and lighting in capturing the essence of a portrait subject.

“It was the perfect blend of what I do now – imaging mixed with storytelling,” he said.

His work remains on a freelance basis, but it has given him access to working on movies that have screened at the Cannes Film Festival. More recently he worked with famed and eccentric director Werner Herzog on the technology documentary “Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World,” available now on Netflix.

Graber describes Herzog as “an amazing person who understands what he wants to say” and is able to say it in a very stripped-down fashion, without loud explosions and constant use of computer-generated images.

The biggest takeaway from that experience is that despite being labeled by Graber “the smartest man I’ve ever met,” Herzog’s resume is filled with clunkers.

“He just keeps at it at an aggressive pace,” said Graber. “Perfection isn’t possible but he finishes his projects and moves on to the next.”

The same might be said for Graber.

He spoke of his recent experiences from a café outside Central Park. He’s also spent time in New Orleans, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Australia. It’s a long way from Beaufort, but the “constant battle” he describes as his quest for film work gives him a rare life experience most of us will never live. And the end product is right up there on the big screen.

If the fun truly is in the search itself and not the final destination, let’s hope Graber has a long road ahead of him.

This story was originally published February 8, 2017 at 11:14 AM with the headline "Beaufort native searches for — and finds — a life in filmmaking."