We were lucky to catch up with Cheyenne Miller recently and have shared our conversation below.

Cheyenne, appreciate you joining us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? We’d love to hear the backstory the illustrates how you grew your brand.

In 2017 I was booking web design, logo design, photography, and video for friends, family, and local businesses. This hobby quickly took a toll on me and I became burnt out! I was saying yes to anything and everything and realized what I was once passionate about was greatly overwhelming me.

I desperately needed to pull back and go all in on just one area. I knew deep down that filming is where I drew the most creative fulfillment from. Filming challenged me to not only be an artist with camera in hand, but also be an author in post production. I knew that my love of cinematography grew through wedding filmmaking and that is where I needed to focus! I booked my first non family/friend weddings in 2019 for 2020. As we know, that year was the worst year for weddings, but kinda a great year for videography because family and friends could enjoy the wedding day from afar with the wedding day story told through film. I realized I could do this business thing and people would hire me for one of the most important days of their lives.

After researching the ABQ/Santa Fe area, I saw it wasn’t overly saturated with videographers. At least not the kind of videographer that I had envisioned for Cheyenne Films. My goal was to create elevated films infused with romance and art! Not the outdated, uncle videographer hired for a wedding delivered on DVD lol! I dove into vendor relationships for growth and overtime have developed into a more luxury brand. These two actions have taken my business in a direction I’m very happy with! Eight years ago, I never would have imagined that I could charge several thousand dollars for a wedding day! I’m constantly educating myself with videographers that are in the luxury space and have big goals to keep scaling. It all started with cutting the excess and focusing on my passion…wedding films.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Miller Media, now Cheyenne Films, was started as a college project for my senior year. I was required to create a media company with a portfolio, logo and full branding etc. Once I graduated, I had a huge interest in filmmaking and design specifically. Since I also had experience in photography, many friends would ask for me to shoot their family portraits and small weddings.

I created an instagram for this hobby back in 2017 and two years later booked my first non family/friend weddings. I was over the moon! The business snowballed and by 2022 I was shooting weddings every weekend. With time, we have rebranding to Cheyenne Films and exclusively offer wedding videography for NM couples. These days, our goal is not to just book out our calendar, but to provide wedding films to the couples that truly value video. Our couple will recognize that video can offer something that photography can’t. They get to replay the vows, hear their youthful laughter and watch their history with future families.

What sets us apart is our elegant and romantic style of shooting. We aim to compose stories with drama, cinematic flare, and carefully selected music that moves you emotionally. Each cog in the wheel of wedding films is important to us and we want to give attention to every detail that our couples have so delicately planned. Our bride doesn’t just want a wedding video, she wants a romance movie in which she’s the main character.

I am most proud of my early business days bucket list. I listed things like: getting published in Rocky Mountain Bride, shooting at luxury venues, working with the best of the best wedding vendors. All of these and more have happened. That bucket list looks very different today with all new dreams for the future and I hope to cross them all off.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

There are so many more resources today than there were ten years ago. Take advantage of all the educational podcasts and social media platforms, they give away so much information for free! Also, find someone in the industry that you look up to and subscribe to their exclusive educational content if they offer it. A lot of top entrepreneurs offer insight on their business, I wish I found those people sooner.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My family drives my creative journey. I am a new mom with a 4 month old and her future motivates me more than anything! I want to nourish whatever skills and interests she develops and catapult her to succeed. I believe that my current creative experience will prepare me to help her one day.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://cheyennefilms.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cheyenne_films/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cheyennefilmsco

Image Credits

headshot – Adrift A Dream