BANANA
BYTES
ZACK BALLANTINE · BUILDER · PALM SPRINGS, CA
Websites, photography, apps & custom software. AI's in my toolkit — never the whole trick.
For local businesses — restaurants, shops, coaches & studios across the Coachella Valley.
NOW PLAYING — ZACK BALLANTINE
The respawn.
I'm a Palm Springs solo builder. For 16 years I was the person at the cart on photo and film sets — the bridge between the camera, the technology, and the client.
Then AI came for the whole job. So I learned to build with it. In under 90 days I've shipped 31 projects — apps and tools, a few for clients and a few just to prove I could — plus countless websites. This page is the story of how, and an open door if you want to build something together.
> 16 yrs at the cart on world-class sets
> AI orchestrated, human-directed
FREE CONSULT · A REAL MOCKUP IN HAND
Book a free consult and send me your website link. I'll come to the call with a custom mockup of your site — your own photos and words — and walk you through it live. See exactly what's possible before you spend a dollar.
Sites from $1,500 · most custom builds $4–6K
Live in ~1 week, polished within 4
Every build includes analytics so you can see what's working. Photography, video, custom branded AI art, apps & bespoke software quoted per project.
LIVE SITE ↗
▸ PLAYER REVIEW
★★★★★"As a tennis instructor I used Banana Bytes to set up my business website. I received a new client almost immediately. Zack has been a pleasure to work with. He has answered all of my questions and given great advice about style and functionality. He has creative solutions to grow business using a data driven approach. Zack's use of AI to enhance the product really sets him apart. Thanks Zack for all your help!"
THE SET ERA
Stills tech 2010–Present · Motion DIT 2017–Present
On set, I was the bridge between the camera operator, the technology, and the client. My job: put the live, color-graded image up where everyone could see it, name every file so it could be found in a heartbeat, and back up, process and transcode every frame. I was the safety net and the speed.
DIGITAL TECH
The stills side. Tethered capture, on-set color, ruthless metadata, instant retrieval, bulletproof backups. 16 years.
DIT
The motion side. Live grading, dailies, data wrangling for film & TV. Same craft, different format. 9 years.
YRS STILLS
YRS MOTION
PHOTOS / DAY
★ Phase One Certified, 2015
BOSS LEVEL — COACHELLA
Lead tech at Coachella, I built a real-time content pipeline from the ground up — 16 photographers, 3 ingesters, 4 editors — moving ~90,000 photos a show day, every single one richly keyworded, published live to Goldenvoice and the Coachella feed.
Coachella was the marquee — also Arroyo Seco · BottleRock · Camp Flog Gnaw · Splash House · FYF.
That's the part people miss: I've been building systems that turn chaos into something shippable for a very long time. The medium just changed.
HAVE CART, WILL TRAVEL
BAJA 1000
2nd shooter for Toyota in Mexico, running the Baja route for the new TRD lineup.
SPAIN · 9 DAYS
Flew out for a nine-day pharma campaign — the kind of shoot AI is now quoting at a tenth of the price.
THE MIDWEST
On the road through the Midwest shooting political ad campaigns.
THE YELLOW CONTROLLER
A controller mapped to Capture One — so even when a client crowded the monitor and I couldn't reach my keyboard, I could keep tabbing and rating. Between shots I'd hand it over: simple, familiar controls let them browse the shoot themselves, with nothing they could break. On-brand, and faster than a mouse.
THE NUTRITION LABEL
Every delivery shipped with a "nutrition label" printed on the drive box — project info, shot count, file types, cameras used, total GB, and how many drives were inside. Clients loved it. The little details are how you get hired over the next guy.
"On set, the camera op is Jordan — I'm Pippen. My job is to see everything they can't: the stray hair, the light that drifted, the wardrobe tell — and catch it before we move on. My OCD finally found a career that loved it back."
TRUSTED ON SETS FOR
ON SET WITH
THE DISRUPTION
Then the ground moved — from two directions at once.
PRODUCTION LEFT
After the strikes, work picked up — then faded. Productions chased tax incentives to Georgia, Louisiana, and New Mexico. California lagged, and it's still hurting.
AI CAME FOR THE IMAGE
I had a front-row seat — on the Midjourney beta from the start, and I've run every tool since. By late 2024, Vodafone and other big brands were already shipping AI ads.
The math is brutal: a pharma brand doesn't fly a crew to Spain for $3M when an AI team at home delivers for $100K. And since Sora 2, video is catching up fast.
year-over-year demand for what I did on set
I didn't panic. I'd been living inside these tools for years — I knew exactly what was coming. So instead of waiting to be replaced, I decided to get to the other side of it.
THE RESPAWN
I've always had more ideas than time to build them. The tools finally caught up to the ideas.
FEB 2025 — THE IDEA
I watched people I love run a tennis club drown in the same pain points — gaps the existing software never filled, feature requests ignored for eight years. So I wrote the entire spec, roadmap and market research myself, before I even had the tools to build it.
APRIL 2026 — THE BUILD
I got on Claude Code. And I started building.
"I cried the first time I logged into my own app. I'd finally built my dream — and I could see that my future was mine to control."
PROJECTS SHIPPED
DAYS, START TO NOW
THE FIRST WIN
A watch app — now StrokeBuddy — that senses racket-to-ball contact and calls a coaching cue in your pick of voice personalities. I'd never built an app in my life. It worked. That was the unlock.
THE DIRECTOR
Late in my set career I wanted to direct — the one role that's pure creative vision while everyone else executes. Now I am the director: I orchestrate specialized AI agents, oversee everything, and adjust until the build matches what's in my head.
THE TOOLKIT
WHAT I BUILD NOW
BANANA BYTES
Custom websites & apps — not templates, not AI slop. Same obsessive eye I brought to the cart, pointed at your brand.
I'm finally building my own dreams — and the best part of the job is getting to build yours too.
THE HEAD START
Most web people cold-call to sell you a $3K site. I'd rather show you. Send me your website and book a free consult — I'll come to the call with a real mockup of your brand, built with your own images and copy, and walk you through it. No commitment. You see the vision before you spend a dollar.
Live in ~1 week, polished within 4. Fastest yet: coffee-consult to live in 27 hours. Need it sooner? Rush builds available.
▶ BOOK A FREE CONSULTHOW WORKING WITH ME WORKS
Built from scratch, not a template. Real custom code — sharper and faster than any drag-and-drop builder, and made for your brand alone.
Hosted & maintained by me. I keep it fast, secure, and current — $50–$200/mo by build size. Most edits land within hours, and within 24 unless I've flagged time off — and I still check in remotely.
Revisions handled. Your first month covers the big changes; everyday tweaks stay included in your hosting plan.
Your domain, whenever you want it. I buy and hold it while I host your site — and hand it over whenever you decide to take hosting in-house.
The first look is free. I bring a real mockup of your site to our call. Don't love it? Walk away, no charge.
Original & protected. Every build and mockup is my original, copyright-registered work — and your finished build becomes yours the moment it's paid in full.
NO SLOP
I researched exactly what makes an AI site look AI-made, then built a knowledge base my system checks against before anything ships. Same for design trends, layout, performance and SEO.
ROSETTA STONE
I'm the translator between business and technology. I step into your shoes, attack the problem from every angle, and bring back options you hadn't thought of — so tech supports you instead of something you dread.
YOUR KIND OF CLIENT
I do my best work with open-minded people who trust me to run — to come back with three ways in and a solution they never saw coming.
BEYOND THE STUDIO
I'm also Director of Innovation & Marketing at CC Tennis Club — on a mission to make tennis inclusive and accessible to everyone (and, one day, to own the club). And I consult with businesses on how to actually implement technology, not just talk about it.
WHAT I'LL BUILD FOR YOU
THE MOCKUP GALLERY
A real, launched client — plus six concept builds from my rapid-build engine. This is the kind of thing I'll make for your business — and walk you through it on a free consult. Tap any to open it live.
★ LIVE CLIENT
NICE GUY NATE
LIVE ↗
Tennis coach · real launched site — "landed a new client almost immediately"
THE SANDWICH SPOT
VIEW ▸
Palm Springs sandwich shop · editorial concept
LAS PALMAS VINTAGE
6 LOOKS ▸
Vintage shop · six directions from one brief
HARKINSON INVESTMENTS
VIEW ▸
Texas commercial real estate · corporate
STRATHCONA DRUIDS RFC
VIEW ▸
Heritage rugby club · editorial & cinematic
GARDEN STATE TENNIS
VIEW ▸
NJ tennis academy · concept, art in progress
ALEXANDRIA ROSALES
VIEW ▸
Personal brand · soft, modern portfolio
Nice Guy Nate is a real, launched client site. The rest are concept mockups — some live, some spec, not production sites yet. Your brand could be next.
WHY HIRE FOUR PEOPLE?
ONE BUILDER.
THE WHOLE STACK.
Most projects take four vendors — a web dev, a photographer, an app developer, and someone to build the software that actually runs the business. I'm all four. Sixteen years behind a camera on set means I don't just build your site — I shoot the content that fills it.
CONTENT & PHOTOGRAPHY — every frame shot, lit & graded by me
Tennis, automotive, editorial, food & commercial brand — shot 2010 to today. Tap any frame to enlarge.
GAME SELECT
A few of the 31. Insert coin — pick a cartridge.
SUNSET SINGLES
★ FLAGSHIP
Operations tool for a weekly singles tennis round-robin — automated draws, live scoring, and standings that run the whole night without a clipboard.
TENNIS OPS · LIVE · 161 HRS / 9 WEEKS BUILT
▸ More cartridges loading. Full screens & deep-dives on each are coming online soon.
CONTINUE?
That's me — Zack. Insert coin and let's build something together.
GAME OVER? NAH — NEW GAME+.
Leave people better than you found them. 🌻
ZACK BALLANTINE · PALM SPRINGS, CA