He made a horror movie during lunch breaks. Now it’s headed to SIFF
Growing old isn’t easy.
Ask anyone past the age of 30. There’s the nagging pressure of paying off bills and debt. The never-ending responsibility of raising your children. The random aches and pains that seemingly spawn out of thin air.
But for hobbyists and creatives, there’s another adult ailment that can be just as hard of a pill to swallow: not having enough time for your passion.
Facing that exact struggle, a Tacoma filmmaker set out to explore the theme using the limitations of corporate adulthood. What resulted was an hour-long absurdist millennial horror flick that’s premiering at one of the largest film festivals in the world.
Zachary Weintraub’s film “Assets & Liabilities” will premiere at the Seattle Film Festival on May 12 and 13 at SIFF Cinema Uptown.
The feature stars Weintraub as a suburban father balancing his work-from-home job with raising a daughter and selling an investment property. When his wife and daughter go on a trip for the day, he seizes the opportunity to rekindle his adolescent passion for skateboarding.
When a chance encounter with a teenager at the skate park turns into a fast friendship, the father quickly spirals and realizes their connection is much darker than he thought.
Weintraub is originally from Olympia and studied film at New York University. Prior to “Assets & Liabilities,” he made four other feature films between 2009 and 2015.
After his last film, he found himself too busy with work, family and other obligations to dive into another feature.
Ten years later, he reached his limit. He had to create something, and was tired of making excuses.
“It just started with the concept that I was going to make a movie no matter what,” he said. “I’m not going to wait for having some inexplicably long time off work that’s never going to happen. I’m not going to wait for having a bunch of money that will never come.
What followed was a do-it-yourself production filmed over the span of a year. His cast consisted of himself, his wife, Justine Eister, their three-year-old daughter Frances and fellow filmmaker Arsenio Salvante.
With his limited resources, Weintraub had to create the movie intermittently. Part of that included recording at home during work lunch breaks and coaching his toddler through long take shots.
Despite all the challenges of filming, one of the most complicated parts of the process was using makeup to create a realistic, gory stubbed toe near the end of the film, he said.
Toward the beginning of the film, you can catch a glimpse of the Tacoma’s Catherine Ushka’s Gas Station Park. It also includes real archived footage of Weintraub skating at his childhood skate park in Olympia, the same park seen in the film.
“In skateboarding there is this kind of intergenerational community, because as long as you’re doing the activity, you have a lot in common just out of the gate,” Weintraub said. “I remember being at the skate park with like older guys around, and it was cool. But now it’s funny to depict myself in that reverse role.”
He encourages other filmmakers with limited time to start with what they can do then “reverse engineer” the movie.
“No matter how little time or resources you have, there is a movie there,” Weintraub said. “And it does suck that not everyone who wants to make movies has the same opportunities and resources, but you can’t change that. So it becomes a question of make something or don’t.”
