Speaker 1 (Zach) 00:00
Lights! Camera! Market!
Speaker 2 00:09
Zach was diagnosed at five with autism. He has struggled through his whole life with acceptance. People don't understand what he's like. He repeats things constantly. But he's like an encyclopedia. He's just full of information and getting it. He just wants to get it out.
Speaker 1 00:29
Growing up, I was like a parrot mimicking movies, and I was like, Grab your joystick. The 80s are back in a world where giant explosions happen for no reason. This is a story that started 65 million years ago.
Speaker 2 00:46
We've known Zach's very, very talented, but we've never been able to find a pathway which would lead to a career.
Speaker 3 00:52
When Zach came for pre-planning support to me, we sat down and he said to me, I want to become a voiceover artist, how do I do that? So we worked backwards from there, we thought about what skill sets he's going to require, what experience he's going to need and we created a pathway from that.
Speaker 3 01:10
We realised that TAFE wasn't going to work for Zach's unique talents here and we really needed to secure some one-to-one capacity building supports. To really make this work, we needed a support coach that had industry experience - and this is where Matt Anderson came in.
Speaker 1 01:27
Matt has been a brilliant support coach for me, because he sort of gets me and we have a really special connection with each other because we love movies, editing and all that kind of stuff - and he makes learning very fun for me.
Speaker 2 01:41
Matt's taught Zach how to use technology. Instead of doing the old way using his tape recorder and his DS, he's now using computers, YouTube, Facebook. It's been magnificent.
Speaker 1 01:53
Setting up my first YouTube channel and Facebook page was a big challenge for me, because I was really apprehensive at first about the audience judging my talent.
Speaker 2 02:04
Zach's biggest fear of social media was rejection in bad comments.
Speaker 1 02:08
After posting my very first video on YouTube, I had a lot of positive feedback like, Your voice is infectious, keep it up! Or, You are born to be a star, dude. One of the amazing things I've done so far is getting a part in Hannah Rosie's short film One Job Too Many, where I play two characters.
That's our girl. Whoa, that was epic, dude. Let's call it a day, guys. Catch up with you on Monday. Yeah, weekend, here we come.
After seeing my name at the end of the credits, I was like, Look out Hollywood! I'm fine.
Speaker 2 02:43
Over the last six months, Zach's journey has been amazing. We cannot believe he's done a short animated movie. He's been on the radio, he's done YouTube, he's got a Facebook page, and now he's in the process of singing with a moment of joy from next factor at Willara dinner.
Speaker 1 03:02
Both a little scared, neither one repaired, beauty!
Speaker 2 03:16
Zach interacts with people a lot easier now, whereas before he wouldn't start a conversation. Now he's starting conversations with people and he's using social media.
Speaker 1 03:26
I've been more confident and I really feel proud of achieving my goals and it's just an incredible experience for me.
Speaker 2 03:33
With what Zach's achieved in the last six months, we can see Zach moving on in leaps and bounds with a view of getting a job and that's what we want. We really hope he achieves it and we can see it happening.
Speaker 1 03:55
Bring it on!
