As one of the students in the inaugural SAE Bachelor of Film Arts prepares to graduate on 1 February 2018, Zharnell (Zaza) Arere, says the programme is “life-changing”.

Twenty-one-year-old Zaza is one of a cohort of the first graduates of the Bachelor of Film Arts. She came to study at SAE through encouragement from her father, an SAE Diploma in Audio Engineering grad from way back. An audio engineer, he returned to SAE to brush up on his skills and complete the Audio degree in 2014. 

Zaza came to SAE knowing only she had a ton of passion, but barely any experience in film.

With her father’s support Zaza enrolled in the Diploma in Film Making at SAE and quickly realised she wanted to complete the degree. After four months she said, ‘I had that moment where I was like ‘Yes!’ I knew I had found what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.’

Since beginning her study at SAE Zaza has bloomed into an impressive film maker with a keen directorial eye. While studying Zaza followed her passion of directing music videos and worked with artists such as Razé Williams. She directed two of Razé’s music videos ‘Figure Out’ and ‘Round and Round’, both of which have clocked up over 4,000 views on YouTube.

Zaza hasn’t even officially graduated yet, but she’s already landed a job at NZME. Her lecturer, SAE Head of Film, Michael Miller put her forward for a contracting positon in her final year of study and she’s been there ever since. In her spare time, Zaza works with her family’s audio and film production company, Mizhado.

Zaza loved her time at SAE. She says, ‘I had a blast. The best thing about it was the support and friendship of my class. We all pulled through together. I look back on my class and I’m like, that’s my family. SAE helped me gain so much confidence in myself.’

‘One of the greatest things about SAE is the hands-on learning. The opportunity to handle industry standard equipment and familiarise yourself with gear is incredible.’

Zaza says her advice to current and future students is: ‘Just ask! There’s no such thing as a dumb question! And I don’t mean only your tutor, I mean, anyone that works there. All the staff are incredibly knowledgeable and helpful in one way or another, audio/academic writing/film/networking. Take advantage of their knowledge.’

Zaza will be graduating with SAE’s Bachelor of Film Arts on 1 February.

More information about the Film programme at SAE can be found here http://auckland.sae.edu/courses/film/.