As an Internet actor, Nelson Castro played a sadistic Easter bunny, a dancing gorilla and a diaper-clad, murderous Cupid.
It’s tough to mentally reconcile all that with the mild voice talking investment strategies on the other end of the phone line.
Castro, an East Hartford native, acts and does production work for Black20.com, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based company that produces video shorts exclusively online.
But he wouldn’t be on your screen in that rabbit suit — mock-choking a victim with Easter basket grass — without his Hartford insurance and IT background.
Hartford Expatriate
His résumé includes financial work at The Hartford and IT experience at MassMutual; he may have sold you your IRA from Cigna Financial. That is, before he ditched those jobs, moved to New York and tried his hand at the entertainment industry.
But those Hartford years were totally worthwhile, Castro said — a financial and IT background, paired with film production know-how, was his ticket onto Black20, where he is now chief operating officer.
“Nelson is the glue that keeps this place together,” said J. Crowley, the new company’s CEO, who described Castro as a Jekyll-and-Hyde type: comedic actor/producer by day, company numbers-cruncher by night.
“When everybody leaves to go home at like 10 o’clock at night, that’s when he has to put on a completely different face,” Crowley said, commenting on Castro’s long hours. “I’ll come back and he’ll look like hell.”
Black20 is comprised of former NBC talent who create original Internet shows and video shorts. Black20 is wholly rooted in Internet entertainment – it’s had millions of hits on its shows, Crowley said, and it’s growing.
While Castro produces and acts in the content, his finance background is fully engaged in keeping the lights on.
Castro earned his financial know-how through a finance degree at Bryant College and work at some big companies in the insurance world. By his late 20s, Castro was climbing the career ladder at The Hartford, owned a home and was living the comfy white-collar life in West Hartford.
But, “I always felt like I hadn’t found exactly what I was looking for,” he said.
So in 2004, he did the logical thing: He quit, sold his house and moved to New York to work in television.
Nelson’s father “was so upset,” said Castro’s mom, Elaine. Their son, with two academic degrees, was now living off his savings as an unpaid intern. An intern on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, but an intern nonetheless. Mrs. Castro said the couple was nervous, but bore with their son’s plan.
“Not all of us get to do what we love to do,” she said.
The breaks started coming. He got in to the entry-level page program at NBC studios — at 29, he was the oldest page on staff. But soon after he used his IT experience to jump aboard a new NBC department for original Web content.
There he met up with his current partners, Crowley and Neil Punsalan. They created “The Easter Bunny Hates You,” for NBC, with cinematic action shots and slick editing to amp up Castro’s enthusiastic fist fights.
The video got major play on YouTube, but NBC’s budgeting swerved away from their Web projects. Full of ideas but strapped for the cash to make them reality, Castro and his partners made a desperate move: They took the remainder of their budget and bet it all on black at the Atlantic City gaming tables. The wheel landed on black 20 — suddenly, their budget was doubled.
That lucky stroke was like a benediction from fate: it gave them the confidence to take risks, Castro said – and launching Black20 was definitely that. The site launched in January, Crowley said; now it’s a matter of building it up.
Castro said the company is working to find the right sponsors and investors, create good content and build a faithful audience. In the meantime, Castro is production manager on Black20’s video shorts, and frequently shows up in the background as a silent office worker or a perpetually victimized intern on “Black20 News.” Then it’s back up to his nearby apartment for more account filings.
“I’ve never worked harder at anything in my life,” he said.
