Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Greyson Welch. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Greyson, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

In 2022, Cedar was tasked with creating a short film centered around the experience of a sex trafficking survivor. Given such dark & heavy content, we had to find a way into the story that wouldn’t turn viewers away, but did justice to the depth of the story. We created Sula’s Story (https://www.cedarcreative.net/work/safe) and received the best feedback possible: Sula herself frequently uses the film in her talks and is proud of it.

When given someone’s story, it’s incredibly important to treat it with care & precision. I was wildly nervous going into the process, but having come out the other side am proud to have created something meaningful.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Since I understood how a camera worked, I’ve made movies. It started with LEGO stop-motion and grew into a career. I’m a Film Director at a production company called Cedar Creative. (www.cedarcreative.net) We specialize in narrative story-telling. Our work is primarily short-form (1-15min) commercials, but our ambition is feature films and episodics.

We believe in a singular idea: any problem can be solved with a story. All of our work begins with a deep sense of obligation to our audience and ends with the best version of our client’s central need/question they need to communicate. If you watch our work, you’ll feel our emphasis on story in each piece.

We recently won two national ADDY awards for our films “Sula’s Story” (www.cedarcreative.net/work/safe) and “Open Door” (www.cedarcreative.net/work/abch-open-door). Not many companies in Birmingham, AL get recognized on a national stage, so this was a huge honor! We love these projects and are proud of what they’ve accomplished for each client.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The curse of having to do things “the right way”.

The film industry is full of ambiguous gear “needs” and procedure advice – light an interview this way – use this brand new gimbal to stabilize your footage otherwise you’re an amateur – don’t make anything longer than 90sec because attention span’s are only getting shorter…. the list goes on.

When I started as a filmmaker, I had expectations on how things “ought to be done” as opposed to asking “what’s the best / most economic way to do this thing?” When I released myself from the burden of what I needed that I didn’t have, I started using iphones to pre-visualize films and only using one light on a scene because – guess what? I didn’t need anything more!

Unlearning my need for doing things the “right way” is arduous, but ironic – I’m making better things now than I ever have. I’m constantly asking how to get things done in the best way, not the right way.

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?

Cedar started with a crazy idea – can we get people to pay us to make short films? Selling a short film vs. a talking head interview or a pure commercial was difficult and required a great deal of trust from our earliest clients.

Our business is unique in two ways: 1) we make the most expensive/difficult kinds of films: narrative shorts and 2) we make those films primarily for non-profits and small businesses with tight cash-flow. Because of these, we’ve learned to be as lean & maleable as possible. We need gear on every shoot – so we bought alot of it to save on rentals. Each member of the Cedar team works 3-4 roles on set to make productions within budget.

The film industry works in waves and we feel them acutely. We’re constantly juggling multiple projects in various stages – selling an idea, writing another script, shooting a different project, and editing something in between all of it.

The morale of our story is: aim to be as useful in as many areas as possible & consistently look towards the future.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cedarcreative.net
• Instagram: @workwithcedar / @greysonawelch
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greysonawelch
• Other: vimeo.com/cedarcreative vimeo.com/greysonawelch