We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jacob Grehl a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jacob, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start big picture – what are some of biggest trends you are seeing in your industry?

Entertainment and film is and has been gravitating towards a for-cash moment. Instead of a rich storytelling and quality controlled industry where only the great stories and works were able to shine, all it takes to produce a “successful” peice of work is a name brand and an over-inflated budget, with no talent or creative effort necessary. This is a very sad and dangerous movement, mainly because when good art dies, the passion and effective expressiveness of the world will as well. I aim to be a small part of the solution.

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

My name is Jacob Grehl, I am a 20 year-old college drop out who has broken into a very exclusive industry. I am an independent Director based out of Davie, Florida, a small city-town 20 minutes west of Fort Lauderdale. Currently, I’m working on my first full feature film that is releasing on Amazon Prime Video in November. Being an independent director or even creator of anything is a very daunting and troublesome career choice for anyone, much less a broke college dropout with no budget or capital to work with. Luckily, my work and vision has inspired many private entities to invest in my projects, in confidence I will return their investment with plenty of interest. I am currently the youngest platformed Director in the world, at 20 years old, and even still, it took over a year from the point I first picked up a camera when I was 16, to making my first $500. As a creator, you have to separate yourself in a presentable and unique way in contrast to your competitors, and let me tell you, in the entertainment industry, there are hundreds of thousands of competitors. You have to, not only find your niche, but go beyond what anyone else is willing to do. You may have to stay up till 5am editing, or climb on top of a roof to get the perfect shot, or work a night shift job at night in order to fund your equipment sustainability during the day. You have to do so many things to even have a chance to make it in this industry, and the concept of instant gratification is an after-thought. There have been nights where I didn’t go to sleep until the sun came up, I was too busy working on my projects, sometimes I don’t even sleep, I want the dream more than I want to sleep. If I were to tell you the gymnastics that I go through as an underfunded Director producing a film for the largest streaming platform in the world, you would not believe me.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My goal is to produce films that change people’s lives. Films that stay with you after you leave the theatre or shut off your TV. I want to bring back passion and worthiness to film, stories that require you to look beyond the obvious and engage your mind. I want to stop the cliche, and make every film a unique experience.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

You have to embody what your goal is. If your goal is to produce something great then you yourself have to be great. There has never been a great movie directed by an inadequate director, there has never been a great dish cooked by an inadequate chef, there has never been a great building designed by an inadequate architect. Leadership requires embodiment, that means being excellent at all phases of leadership. These are the qualities you need as a great leader, Communication, Organization, Skill, Discipline, Emotional Control, Common Sense, and Unrivaled Knowledge of your industry. My advice for anyone in a leadership position is to take a look at your team frequently, and ask yourself these questions are they doing a good job? Are they listening to you? Do they respect you? If not, then it’s all on you and you need to make self-adjustments to correct it. everything within an organization starts at the top, BE THE EMBODIMENT OF YOUR GOAL.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: jygproductions
• Youtube: jyg productions