Zach Tavel Directs the Absurdist Launch Film for ‘Plonts’ Featuring Comedian Kate Berlant

NYC-based Zach Tavel directs the absurdist launch film for plant-based cheese brand 'Plonts', planting a strong flag in the ground for the brand's absurdist perspective.

Playing on increasing consumer concern about climate change, Zach parodies anxieties around whether individual efforts can significantly impact such a global threat. Enter 'Plonts', a new-to-market plant-based cheese that seeks to provide chefs and consumers alike with a plant-based alternative that tastes and melts, like dairy.

Satirising the myth of Sisyphus, the surrealist film stars comedian and actress Kate Berlant ('Once Upon A Time In Hollywood', 'Don't Worry Darling'), who plays a Zeus-like figure engaging in a comedic exchange with Charly Clive ('Pure', 'All My Friends Hate Me') playing the mythologically inspired character, as she pushes a giant wheel of plant-based cheese up a mountain. Starting with a dialogue on the futility of singularly fighting climate change, the piece gets increasingly surreal, climaxing in a meltdown, pun intended, of biblical proportions. 

"When it came time to create a launch film, we realised there was no better way to poke fun at the existential dilemma faced by consumers than to riff on the original absurdist comedy, the Myth of Sisyphus," Zach explained.

"We chose to utilise old-school techniques like miniatures and models in a contemporary way, playing into the tension between feeling powerless in the face of a mythologically tremendous burden." 

The practical effects, miniatures (created by BAFTA-winning production designer Brin Frost), cheese wheel, and Sisphyus scenes were all created and shot in London, while Kate Berlant's scenes were shot in Los Angeles. The talented VFX team, led by Simone Ghilardotti and John Malcome Moore, incorporated these traditional methods with contemporary techniques.

Beyond the video, Zach Tavel's NYC-based creative studio, Easy Pete's, handled the broader campaign for the brand. The studio developed every facet of the brand world, from its logo and overall identity to surreal product photography, as well as a big push on social video—collaborating with comedians and sketch groups to create original content to amplify the absurdist, climate-focused values of the brand.

Zach explained how the idea for the film developed into an 'anti-ad of sorts', parodying the typical mission-driven branding that places pressure on consumers, "The product is a plant-based cheese that tastes like cheese and is made like cheese, and the script is a comedic riff on the Myth of Sisyphus - all of these old things done in a new way.

I've long been fixated on low-budget movies from the 30s through the 60s that dealt with stories of massive biblical scale but used the dumbest, least-convincing primitive techniques possible to pull that off. 

Ultimately, I wanted to let Kate and Charly's talents carry the comedic essence of the spot. I just made sure to provide them with a world that was visually dynamic and off-kilter enough to work with the tone."