Just three years after graduating from the University of Arizona School of Theatre, Film & Television, RJ Zabasky (BA Film & Television, ’23) has written and directed his first feature film. Sync recently had its world premiere as an Official Selection of Dances With Films Festival, bringing Zabasky back to Los Angeles, where he grew up, to see his film screen at the famed TCL Chinese Theatres in Hollywood.
Set in the near future, Sync follows a grieving man who enters a simulation that uses artificial intelligence to recreate his late fiancée, only to discover that this seemingly perfect world holds something deeply unsettling beneath the surface. In this Q&A, Zabasky reflects on the journey from TFTV student to feature filmmaker, the inspiration behind Sync, his creative partnership with fellow TFTV alum Vincent Young, and the lessons he’s learned along the way.
Sync recently had its world premiere at Dances With Films at the TCL Chinese Theatres. What inspired the story, and what did it mean to see your first feature film premiere at one of the most iconic venues in Hollywood?
The initial inspiration for Sync came from conversations I was having with friends and classmates about the rise of AI. I remember being a senior at the University of Arizona when ChatGPT had just come out, and everyone around me was talking about it. We would have long conversations and debates about where AI was headed and how much it could eventually change the world.
At the same time, I was grieving a recent loss in my family. It was the first time I had really experienced grief, and somewhere between those two things, the rapid growth of AI and what I was going through personally, the idea for Sync was born.
I’ve also always loved science fiction and shows like Black Mirror, so I wanted to make something that I would genuinely want to watch myself. I think that became an important lesson for me as a writer. Instead of trying to predict what other people will like, ask yourself what you would be excited to see.
Premiering the film at the TCL Chinese Theatres as an Official Selection of Dances With Films was surreal. I grew up in Los Angeles and had been to that theater as a kid, so seeing a film I wrote and directed play there was a real full circle moment.
Sync explores artificial intelligence through the lens of grief and human connection. As both writer and director, what conversations or questions are you hoping to spark with viewers?
I hope Sync gets people thinking about where we draw the line with technology, especially as AI becomes more advanced and personal. The film presents a technology that can recreate someone you have lost, which sounds unsettling now, but could easily be viewed as a major breakthrough in the future. I wanted audiences to understand why someone grieving would be drawn to that, while also questioning when technology stops helping us and starts pulling us further away from ourselves and the way of life.
More broadly, I want the film to spark conversations about what actually makes us human, how we choose to live with rapidly evolving technology, and whether some of the tools designed to connect us are actually creating more distance. I’d like people to leave the film thinking about where they personally draw that line with technology, and maybe questioning whether they have already crossed it in certain ways.
Fellow University of Arizona alum Vincent Young joined the project as a producer. How did that collaboration come about, and what did Vincent bring to the film?
Vincent and I met in a 9 a.m. TFTV class with Professor Michael Mulcahy during our freshman year. We had assigned seats based on last name, and because his last name starts with Y and mine with Z, we naturally ended up sitting next to each other. We started getting to know each other that week, and since then, we’ve worked together on almost every film I’ve directed.
Vincent is one of the most dedicated people I know. He has been my right-hand man since our freshman year, and I know I can always rely on him. He has a great creative eye, but he is also incredibly strong on the logistical side of filmmaking and knows how to work with all kinds of cast and crew personalities. On a project as ambitious as Sync, having someone beside me who I trusted that much was invaluable.
What’s exciting is that our collaboration keeps evolving. On our next feature, which I can’t announce by name yet, we’ve actually flipped roles. Vincent is directing, we co-wrote the screenplay, and I’m producing. It’s a very intense and dramatic story centered around a talented rock band, but it also has a lot of heart. It’s been really rewarding to see our partnership grow from sitting next to each other in a freshman TFTV class to now making feature films together.
And a question we love to ask our alumni: who at TFTV inspired you and why, and what did you learn at TFTV that you value to this day?
Professor Shane Riches taught me how to create budgets and shooting schedules in Movie Magic, which ended up being extremely useful when I started working on feature films. It helped me understand the budgets our line producers were putting together and what each line item meant. He also had us develop a feature idea, create a treatment and pitch deck, and pitch it in front of the class. That was my first real experience pitching a project, and it’s a skill I use all the time now.
Professor Lisanne Skyler’s screenwriting class was also really important for me. It helped me understand story structure on a deeper level, and I learned a lot from workshopping scripts with her and my classmates.
I’m also grateful that TFTV gave us the opportunity and equipment to actually go out and make films. I co-directed a short film called Luck of the Draw in Professor Yuri Makino’s class, and being able to workshop the script and then actually make the film was a great experience. Overall, I’m very grateful for the skills and relationships I built at Arizona. I still use all of them today.
Many TFTV students dream of making their own feature film. Looking back on your journey from student filmmaker to premiering Sync in Hollywood, what advice would you share with aspiring filmmakers?
First off, it’s a very tough industry. Feature filmmaking is incredibly hard, and sometimes one or two mistakes, or even just bad luck, can derail a project. You also have to get very good at researching the people and companies you work with and learning who follows through on what they say.
That being said, if you still want to pursue it, my biggest advice is to just make films. Start with shorts, get better, and find your people. Find the DP, editor, producers and crew members you trust and enjoy making things with. Then, at some point, go make a feature.
I’ve seen feature films made for under $50,000 that still found distribution and screened at reputable festivals. Your first feature may not be everything you dreamed it would be, but you will have made one, and that experience is incredibly valuable. You can show people you’ve done it before, build a body of work, and be much more prepared when you eventually pitch something that requires larger financing.
A lot of young filmmakers wait for the perfect opportunity or focus on making the perfect short. I think there is a lot of value in using the relationships around you and finding people who also want to grow. Find the talented DP who wants a feature on their reel or the editor who is ready to cut their first feature. If there’s a will, there’s usually a way.
More than anything, just go make films. Don’t wait around for the perfect opportunity. Start now.
Following the premiere, what’s next for Sync? Are you pursuing additional festivals, distribution opportunities, developing your next project?
A lot of exciting things are happening with Sync right now. We recently had our world premiere at Dances With Films and were also selected to screen at the Studio City Film Festival in September. We’re continuing to pursue additional festivals while speaking with several sales agents and distributors. We’ve received multiple offers and are excited to choose the right partner for the film.
Outside of Sync, Vincent Young and I co-wrote another feature, Small Talk, that he is directing and I am producing. We just wrapped principal photography.
I’m also almost finished packaging my next feature as a writer, director and producer, which is something I’m especially excited about. I’ve been taking everything I learned from making Sync and applying it to this new project, both creatively and from a production standpoint. I plan to start taking it out to producers and financiers soon to find the right partners to bring it to life. My goal is to continue growing with each film, take bigger creative swings and build a body of work that feels distinctly my own.