Chevy Happy Grad ad adds to LIer's resume
Long Island filmmaker Zachary Borst's Chevy ad submission, which won a top prize of $25,000 and was seen during the Super Bowl, was selected out of 200 in an international competition. Borst has his heart set on becoming a feature filmmaker. Credit: Handout
What's next for Zachary Borst, the aspiring young filmmaker from Merrick whose humorous, 30-second ad for Chevrolet made it all the way to an airing during the Super Bowl Sunday night?
Could fame be this fleeting? On Monday, we were the only ones -- outside of family and friends -- to call Borst to ask, well, what happened since the ad ran.
"You're the only person who called," said Borst, 26. But that does not mean his career has already flamed out. In fact, he got lots of calls last week, before the Super Bowl, when his ad, "Chevy Happy Grad," began to circulate online, and newspaper stories also appeared. Weber Shandwick, the Manhattan public-relations and digital advertising firm, has been talking to him about creating ads, said Kelly Kass, a Weber Shandwick spokeswoman.
"Certainly Zach is an amazing talent," Kass said. "We started talking to him as we saw the ad."
Borst, who won a top prize of $25,000 for his ad, which was selected out of 200 in an international competition, has his heart set on becoming a feature filmmaker.
"I think I need to do that myself," he said. "I need to go through the whole process. I don't want to be handed a script from someone in Hollywood. I want to come up with one myself. Everything would be on my shoulders." Borst has been holding a camera in his hands since he was 7, one given to him by a relative. He has made eight commercials, including spots for Sovereign Bank and American Express.
The ad for Chevy featured a blindfolded young man wearing a graduation robe. The camera then shows a new yellow Camaro. The young man and his friends think he is getting the Camaro, but his parents have actually bought him a mini-refrigerator. A neighbor carrying golf clubs gets into the Camaro and drives off. "Hey," the graduate yells, "Mr. Johnson just stole my car."
Steve McGuire, Chevy's marketing strategy manager, said some other submissions came close, "but this one was definitely above the others, especially for the Super Bowl," which calls for funny, energetic ads.
Matthew Borst, 31, of Coram, Zachary's brother, said he believes "100 percent" in Zachary's dream to become a filmmaker. "That's all he has ever done," Matthew said. "He has never wavered."
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