BRIAN ZAHM
I BRING MY Z-GAME
EXTRAZ
A whole hodgepodge of stuff.
45 sec | color | 4k | stereo | 2025 | festival trailer
Here's the 2025 trailer for Chicago Underground Film Festival, the longest-running underground festival in the world. This homage to classic Adult Swim bumpers is centered around the Chicago-style hot dog, with nods towards Chicago's skyline, the Chicago L, Chicago blues, Chicago house music, Chicago comedy, Chicago's one-and-only Bozo the Clown, oh, and Da Pope. Thanks to Ella Stevens for the rad moshing!
5 min | color | 4k | silent | 2025 | 3D vid installation​
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With performances from my Experimental Filmmaking 2 students, I made this anaglyph 3D video installation for the Jarvis Student Center for Innovation and Collaboration at DePaul University to kick off D.E.F. Showcase 2025. If you have anaglyph 3D glasses (red/blue), now's the time to put 'em on.
4 min | color | 2k | stereo | 2025 | AI vid installation
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I created this single-channel infinite loop video installation as a tribute to Andy Warhol, replication, and technological revolution. For this collage, I individually generated 1,200 different still images using AI. I mean, I had to make this homage to the ultimate replicator, and I'm sure it will be made by others, over and over again.
8 min | color | 4k | stereo | 2019 | experimental doc
STAN by Kristen Nutile and JP Olsen is an experimental documentary based on the life of former heroin addict, Stan, who was among several thousand New York City teens in the 1940s who were victims of the world’s first teenage opioid epidemic. Using contemporarily shot footage, the film explores the shifting nature of drug use, its changing populations, and recalls a time in the United States when drug treatment was virtually unavailable. I was cinematographer/camera operator this project, which changed the way I think about documentary film and its lyrical possibilities.
9 min | color | 2k | stereo | 2017 | documentary​
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Robert Kidney has been a musical force since the 1970s. His group, The Numbers Band, has been praised by Rolling Stone’s David Fricke and Greil Marcus and called "the greatest band I’ve ever seen" by Pere Ubu’s David Thomas. Despite years of praise by peers, the band remains obscure. BIG PARADISE introduces film audiences to Kidney for the first time, revealing a powerful and complex person who lives and works in the shadow of Midwestern decay. Kristen Nutile and JP Olsen directed this; I was cinematographer/camera operator.
15 sec | color | 2k | stereo | 2016 | show open demo
This is a demo show open for the web series OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN by Anna Hozian and Brad Riddell, for which I was the cinematographer/camera operator. I took some still photos on set for this open and left placeholders for credits to help set the rhythm and tone for the show open.
5 min | color | 2k | stereo | 2011 | exp doc
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This is documentation of my dad making some pottery about a year before he passed away from cancer, a last ditch effort to preserve my memories of him. He took up pottery later in life. I love the images, but the soundtrack is far from my fav, tbh. I made this in a fugue state while trying to heal alienation that I've felt since childhood.
30 sec | color | 1080p | stereo | 2010 | IG installation
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I made this when I had a broken heart (was this my Taylor Swift era?) This is the first film I made entirely on an iPhone. I filmed a time lapse of smashed heart-shaped rocks on the pavement and did some compositing in an app. The music is by Dull Boy. And yes, this is very much art therapy.
5 min | color | 720p | stereo | 2010 | rock doc
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Here's a musical performance by Tiffany Vasquez for the Guyana Pepperpop TV Series. I was teaching Documentary Production in Georgetown, Guyana and Tiffany Vasquez happened to be one of my students. Then I happened upon someone watching a video of her from a local high school talent show and was blown away. So I asked if I could document her playing a few of her original songs. This one is called "HEAVEN." I will forever value this moment in time.
3 min (infinite loop) | monochrome | 16mm | stereo | 2008 | vid installation
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My Turkish friend Sinan had a real penchant for offensive hand gestures. Sinan was assisting me with shooting a music video. I had a light already set up and 15 seconds of 16mm film left, so I asked him if he'd jump in front of the camera and fire off a few gestures. I made a loop and slapped on some Dull Boy drones to create this confrontational little installation piece. So if you're not happy with someone, send them this electronic greeting card; )
10 min | color | SD | stereo | 2006 | sound exercise
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This is the goofy/absurd result of a sound exercise from graduate school. We were given a 10-minute silent clip from the movie BLOOD FARMERS and asked to do sound design for it. I leaned experimental for sure.
1 min (infinite loop) | color | 720p | stereo | 2008 | dvd menu
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This is a DVD menu for a disc featuring some of my work I made for my family and friends for Xmas 2008. I made a series of experimental films on the side while working in Ecuador with the CDC, US AID, and The Tropical Disease Institute. The image is a picture I took in Catamayo, Ecuador and the sound is from a band that was playing in the background of Catamayo.
1 min | color | 720p | stereo | 2008 | exp film
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This is a short subversive experimental film I made while working in Ecuador with the CDC, US AID, and The Tropical Disease Institute. This first paragraph text is an almost verbatim description of how someone on the crew described a cockfight they watched while driving through the Andes Mountains. It was a real "Three's Company" moment. Come on and k(n)ock on my door...
2 min | stereo | 2002 | radio commercial exercise
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I made this very all-American parody radio commercial quite randomly one night to practice sound design and mixing after I had a dumb idea.
30 sec | color | SD | stereo | 1999 | commercial
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Inspired by classic Adult Swim bumpers, this is a promotional animation I created for the legendary TV-19. This showed thousands upon thousands of times, lulling everyone in devotional trance. I miss the TV-19 crew.
30 sec | bw | SD | stereo | 1999 | commercial
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Inspired by classic Adult Swim bumpers, this is a promotional commercial I created for the legendary TV-19. Don't sniff the glue, Johnny!
30 sec | color | SD | stereo | 1999 | commercial
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Inspired by classic Adult Swim bumpers, this is a promotional commercial I created for the legendary TV-19's local music scene. This station let me do whatever I wanted as long as it was entertaining, so I said, "Okay."
2.5 min | color | SD | stereo | 1999 | 5 commercials
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Inspired by classic Adult Swim bumpers, this is a promotional commercial I created for the legendary TV-19's local music scene. This station let me do whatever I wanted as long as it was entertaining, and this is about as fly-on-the-wall dumb as it gets. Who are those knuckleheads?
30 sec | color | SD | stereo | 1998 | commercial
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Inspired by classic Adult Swim bumpers, this is a promotional commercial I created for the legendary TV-19. They needed promos for the station to run when they couldn't fill air space, so I made a few. Before working in film full-time, I worked many jobs, including at an industrial drainage pipe factory. This is an homage to industrial replication, and hopefully functions as a hypnotic commercialist indoctrination to the TV-19 landscape. My inspiration was from repetitive patterned packaging of a four-pack of Heineken cans. I also created this so I could learn After Effects.
30 sec | color | SD | stereo | 1998 | commercial
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Inspired by classic Adult Swim bumpers, this is a promotional commercial created for the legendary TV-19. They needed promos for the station to run when they couldn't fill air space, so I made a few. This is an homage to the beating heart of commercial culture. I also created these so I could learn After Effects.
30 sec | color | SD | stereo | 1999 | commercial
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I made this local TV commercial in exchange for lots and lots of free food. I miss Hanny! It was the 90s and motion-picture media was generally pretty active and tilty, and this is no different. And if you keep a keen eye out, you might see the one-and-only Jive Turkey (Hi Sir Nyrad!) who was recording sound for me that day.
3 min | color | SD | stereo | 1999 | dvd menu
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A DVD menu to promote a documentary project called FREEDOM. Feel this menu does a good job of capturing the spirit of the project itself.
8 min | color | SD | stereo | 1999 | concept reel
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Made this to help promote/conceptualize a documentary project called FREEDOM. I love that Vic Chestnutt, Koko Taylor, Willie Nelson, Derek Trucks, The Last Poets, Rhonda Vincent, Reverend Horton Heat, Galactic, Hank III, The Asylum Street Spankers, and The Legendary Shack Shakers are on there.
30 sec | color | SD | stereo | 1998 | parody
​A goofy project I made to help learn After Effects and incorporate some compositing vfx/motion graphics into my skillset. This was the third AE-based project I made. I believe my sister, who's a great gift giver, gave me the toy I used in this piece — I was a big fan of monkeys.
7 min | color | 16mm to VHS | stereo | 1993 | student film
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One of my student films from Boston University. I found an old VHS transfer of this when I was moving a few years ago. This was edited on a Steinbeck with a razor blade and tape. I grew up on action films, was in love with John Woo's work at the time, and well, naturally, I had to make this film. This film was co-directed by Seth Walker and stars a young Todd Cahoon.
7 min | bw | 16mm to VHS | stereo | 1992 | student film
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One of my student films from Boston University. I found an old VHS transfer of this when I was moving a few years ago. This film, entirely cut on a reel to reel with a razor blade and tape, made me fall in love with art of editing and subsequently got me a lot of work when I was starting my career. This film was co-directed by Seth Walker.