Dylan Schwartz, managing director at Toast Creative, on making films in the mountains.
What’s the most important ingredient for great video?
Making great videos is analogous to creating a great dish – while each ingredient should be fresh and high quality in its own right, the finished dish is greater than the sum of its parts. For film, this couldn’t be more true, nor more impossible to achieve consistently. You don’t always get to shoot in the most ideal conditions, but what you lack in control, you can make up for with flexibility. As a paramedic, I’ve been trained to get creative with what’s around me and this has carried over into film-making. While I’m highly unlikely to have to fashion a lifting aid out of a blanket on set, knowing I can solve any problem is a great mentality to have and allows creativity to happen.
Toast started off making wedding videos – no second takes! What lessons from that do you use shooting commercials?
Wedding films are the perfect training ground for commercial shoots – you learn to become extremely efficient with your time. We take a similar approach when filming commercials, which encourages us to shoot intentionally. Our mantra is: ‘Thoughtfully simple video production.’ That means we do everything with purpose. There’s beauty in elegant solutions and we celebrate this throughout our work.
The mountains are gorgeous, what are other advantages of being in Queenstown?
I think it’s often forgotten just how much variety there is within such a small area. Of course, scenery is just the starting point and you need talented crew with local knowledge to get the most out of this place. Many people are drawn to Queenstown but few build a career here. Those who do are self-selected to be not only extremely talented but entrepreneurial too.
Favourite project from the last few years?
Most of our projects involving a heli ride or a day on the slopes filming outdoor brands (terrible way to make a living, I know), so it might surprise you that my favourite project was filming the recent Spark | Samsung Peak Sounds concert. It took place on top of Coronet Peak this year and was challenging both physically and mentally to produce while our hands and batteries succumbed to the cold. Watching our work trickle out has been extremely rewarding – and epitomises our ethos to create epic stuff no matter the conditions.
This story comes from NZ Marketing magazine issue 85, Dec 2025-Feb 2026. Why not subscribe? Get four issues a year for just $50 (including delivery) if you autorenew.
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