Most creative career stories get cleaned up before they reach the headline. The struggle gets softened, the losses get edited out, and what's left reads like a highlight reel with a motivational caption underneath. Greg Cally's story doesn't work that way. For any independent filmmaker trying to build a sustainable career, his path is one of the most instructive in the room. The director, producer, screenwriter, and Red House Visuals founder sat down with Steven Strickland on On The Set Podcast and gave something rarer than a success story — an honest account of what it actually costs to build a career and own your place in it.

The pattern that runs through everything he's made is the same: storytelling opened the door. Ownership kept it open.

The Name Came First. Everything Built From There.

Before the credits, before Red House Visuals, before Black Market and the Marvin Sapp biopic — there was the question of what to call himself.

Greg Cally started as a nickname. Friends in high school shortened his longer last name, and when he started rapping, the name traveled with him. But the choice to carry it into film was deliberate. His legal last name came from a father he hadn't had a relationship with since childhood. When filmmaking became serious, he didn't want to build something under a name that wasn't his. He compared the decision to Muhammad Ali's — claiming identity with intention rather than inheriting one by default.

That instinct toward ownership didn't come from nowhere. As a kid, he sat under a coffee table reading hip-hop magazines at his older cousins' apartment. Writers like Scoop Jackson caught his attention — not for the information, but for the voice. They used hip-hop language to talk about sports and made it feel like culture, not coverage. He was already studying how to tell stories before he knew that's what he was doing.

The earliest signs showed up in a school newspaper he helped edit — writing editorials that read more like film voiceovers than standard reporting. Personal, direct, full of inner monologue. Then as a teenager, freelancing for hip-hop magazines and learning fast that small checks took months and editors cut your work down to fit beside ads.

So he built his own platform. Page 31 gave him what the industry wouldn't — control over the final product, and a place to publish interviews, shoot his own footage, and own the platform itself. He showed up to concerts, industry events, and label functions with a camera and enough nerve to talk his way in. LL Cool J. Angela Yee. Kendrick Lamar. He didn't wait for a gatekeeper to pick him. He built the lane and drove it himself.

The people behind the frame who last the longest are almost always the ones who stopped waiting for permission somewhere in the middle of the story.

Ownership Isn't Just a Mindset — It's a Business Model

Greg didn't move from journalism to film in a straight line. He moved through cards first.

Spades was a constant in his life through high school and college. After college, he noticed there weren't many spaces where adults could gather around the game and still have room to talk, connect, and build something real. So he helped create Sippin' Spades — a cultural networking event built around the idea that spades could be what golf has long been for other circles: a place to relax, move in, and close real opportunities.

It worked. Actors, lawyers, doctors, and professionals started filling the room. Quala from Onsite booked a feature film at one of those tables. Before the pandemic, attendance climbed to 300 or 400 people per event. Jack Daniel's, Shinju Whiskey, and other brands wanted in. Sippin' Spades reached AFROPUNK. Custom playing cards illustrated with Black icons came out of it. Greg, alongside his cousin and business partner Regj and illustrator Graph Addict, turned a card game into cultural infrastructure.

Red House Visuals came from a harder truth. He was getting views, cultural traction, and attention — but not much money. A retired agency owner at the Small Business Administration told him plainly: if you're operating in the red, it's a hobby, not a business.

That hit. He had interviews popping, photos getting used widely — one shoot ended up on VH1 billboards across New York without proper payment — and still the money wasn't matching the work.

So he changed the model. Instead of chasing editorial exposure, he started selling the service itself. Labels paid him to follow emerging artists for the day and produce content. That shift moved him from passion project mode into something sustainable. He stopped trading work for visibility and started billing for what he actually built.

Set life doesn't reward people who give it away. It rewards people who know what the work is worth.

What the Set Actually Teaches You

Greg's view on collaboration is clean and direct: the work can't hold if the team doesn't.

He said it himself:

"One band, one sound."

Directors get framed as lone visionaries. The reality is that lights, sound, camera, production, and talent all shape what ends up on screen. If the sound is bad, the audience doesn't blame the sound mixer. They blame the director. The name on the project carries everything underneath it.

He learned that lesson through an interview with K. Michelle, where one of his collaborators was so rigid and controlling during setup that Greg could see it affecting the room. That behavior reflected back on him. The crew's energy shows up in the finished product whether the audience can name it or not.

For anyone breaking into the industry, Greg's advice was practical and hard to argue with. Your reputation follows you because the business is smaller than it looks. Being useful matters more than looking important. A good attitude shows up in small things — bringing back the right batteries fast, showing up already knowing your lines, arriving present. He pointed to a high school senior intern named Coko who kept showing up, listening, and doing the work with care. Other sets started calling Greg to ask for her specifically. That's how momentum starts — not from a highlight reel, but from a hundred small moments that people remember.

"Your reputation is everything."

No agent required. Greg has worked with ESPN, HBO, Vice, and Peacock. The through line, every time, was relationships and showing up ready.

Michael K. Williams Saw Him — Then Used His Power to Say So

The emotional center of Greg's story isn't a film. It's a friendship.

Michael K. Williams became a mentor and collaborator who didn't keep his support quiet. After watching Greg's work, Mike called his own agent and pushed for him. Then on Black Market, he went further. Greg was initially brought on to produce and assist with camera work. Mike called the network and said Greg should direct an episode.

The pushback came fast. The network wanted him to co-direct. Greg noticed something: the only episode getting a co-director was the one with the Black director attached.

Mike wasn't having it.

"You shouldn't be thanking me for an opportunity you should already have."

That line is the kind of thing that doesn't leave you. Neither did the work. Greg directed the episode. The feedback was strong. Network executives later called it the best episode of the season.

Shooting Black Market meant walking into some of the most unpredictable environments of Greg's career. Dangerous neighborhoods. A shootout nearby during production. A scene where scammers laid guns on the table in front of the crew. Greg remembered having to reposition one carefully — not wanting fingerprints on it. Through all of it, Mike's presence kept things calm in places where outsiders might not have been welcome. The weight of who he was traveled into every room before a word was spoken.

Greg later realized he may have been the last person to direct Michael K. Williams before his death.

That's not a credit. That's a responsibility. And he carries it like one.

Protect the Writers. Own the Rights. Or Watch the Work Disappear.

Writing the Marvin Sapp biopic Never Would Have Made It taught Greg something the business doesn't advertise openly.

He found the heart of the story not in the career but in the love story. Marvin Sapp and Melinda knew each other from childhood. On their first date, she asked about his five-year plan and he froze. She gave him another chance, cooked for him from scratch, and he left knowing he wanted to marry her. Greg wanted that relationship at the center of the film — not as backstory, but as the spine.

He was still carrying the grief of losing Michael K. Williams while writing the script. That grief helped him connect to the pain Marvin felt after losing Melinda. When personal experience lives inside the writing, the audience feels it even when they can't name it.

Then the business side hit hard. Greg and co-writer Samant Washington got COVID while racing a deadline. The network kept the pressure on. They delivered the script — and received a termination letter. Someone else wanted the "written and directed by" lane.

Greg called Marvin Sapp. Marvin called the network. His message was simple: if the writers are off this film, there is no film.

Marvin controlled his life rights. That power changed the outcome.

Two lessons came out of that moment — one about integrity and one about ownership. Without both, talent alone doesn't protect you. Greg also warned younger writers directly: pay attention to whether a company is a WGA signatory. When that protection isn't there, the rules get flexible fast — and rarely in the writer's favor.

Ownership changes the conversation. Every time.

For Any Independent Filmmaker: The Credits Are the Short Version

Greg built his career across some of the hardest terrain in independent film and came out on the other side with something more durable than momentum — he came out with a model.

Anime — a 40-minute short built on texture and honesty over production budget — landed on Peacock, Tubi, and Amazon Video. Festivals were slow to embrace it. Newark International Film Festival wasn't. Yaya Williams won best actress there. Greg still talks about that support with gratitude, because he knows exactly what it means when your own community shows up for the work.

On Life Unexpected, the ESPN documentary about Dwyane Wade, he sat with more than 60 hard drives and found the emotional spine — not the athlete, but the person. A child who grew up in a crack house. A man who built a life from the ground up. The public story was already known. Greg wanted the full arc.

The action feature is next. A circle of filmmakers who started meeting every two weeks to push each other's work forward already produced a scripted podcast called New Day, with Mack Wilds, Anthony Smith, and Desa White. Animation may follow. Greg only steps into new territory when the story feels true to him — and that standard has never moved.

The work that lasts is always built that way. Not for the algorithm. Not for the platform mandate. Not because the formula says so.

For the story. For the truth inside it. And for the community that deserves to see itself on screen.

That's the standard set life actually runs on. And if you're building a career inside this industry, you already know the uniform for it .

OTSA was built inside that same belief.

Find yours at onthesetapparel.com

#OTSA #OnTheSetApparel #GregCally #RedHouseVisuals #MichaelKWilliams #IndependentFilmmaker #SetLifeCulture #CreatorUniform #BehindTheFrame #FilmLegacy #OnTheSetPodcast #NJFilm #OwnYourWork

Creator Ownership

Key Takeaways

Greg Cally built his career through ownership, not permission.

Your reputation on set follows you everywhere.

Michael K. Williams used his influence to protect real talent.

Creative work must be protected through rights, relationships, and integrity.

Full Interview Transcript

what I didn't realize I was doing was storytelling as I got older I was like I need a better way to tell these stories I need a better way and eventually he went and called the network and was like yo Greg C's going to direct an episode of this you know there's no black directors on this after that I'm like thanking him and he's like yo why are you thanking me you shouldn't be thanking me for an opportunity you should already have that's it there's a scene one scene where there's ACH of scammers and they had their guns they take their guns out they put them on the table like we walked into some of the most dangerous situations we were in the middle of a shootout in one of the episodes everywhere we went we were good cuz we were with Mike we didn't have no security with us but when people saw Mike it was like Yo cool it I never spoke about this publicly but I'm going to talk about it and whatever happens happens I called Marvin and I said yo this is what's happening when people ask me yo you on ESPN HBO all of these things your shows on peacock you got an agent no this is all just me having relationships and showing up and doing what I do hey before we dive into this amazing interview I have to take a moment to give a huge shout out to our sponsor on the set apparel they are all about quality gear for creators like us with clothing designed to keep you comfortable and inspired on set ensuring that you feel and look your best as you pursue your passion so use code otp2 for 20% off your next order let's get back to this amazing interview and don't forget to use that code and tag us for a shout out peace welcome welcome creatives to the Ironbound film and television Studio here in the great city of norc New Jersey home of the exclusive on the set podcast where we take you behind the scenes of the captivating world of film making I'm your host Steven Strickland and today we want you to join us in the spotlight as we take you on a cinematic Odyssey unlike any other we will pull back the curtain of the creative process and unveil The Art of Storytelling in all its glory and we may even uncover some secrets and stories that make movies magic Our Guest today has been published professionally as a journalist since the age of 16 he's a senior video producer for the players Tribune which is Derek Jeter's Sports Media company he's a video production assistant on the Emmy award-winning HBO documentary raised in the system he's the DP that's Director of Photography for the Tribeca Film Festival Spotlight documentary Charlie's records he's a CEO of Red House visuals and he is the event curator at Sip and Spades now I've been to this event and it this networking event is unmatched so I want you to welcome our mult multi-talented director producer screenwriter of a guest Greg [Applause] C what's up my guy that's an introduction doing all right yeah man you doing all right doing all right doing good man good good good man it's good to see glad to be here with y'all I'm glad to have you so uh we're getting ready to start all right cool Greg C when I first met you when I first heard your name I thought it was like a stage name I thought it was like Greg Cali like you representing Cali that's on the birth certificate so it's a funny story technically it is a stage name oh and a lot of people automatically think like oh he's from Cali you know it's Greg c c a l l y but um the story behind it is actually a little bit funny is um when I was in high school so you know how everybody had nicknames like T-Mac Tracy McGrady um people had different variations of like their last name as nicknames so my friends just started calling me Cali right because my last name is a longer variation of that um what you're not going to disclose I don't really want to get into it you know I don't people you know the hackers is out here gotcha gotcha but um then I started rapping in high school and then that was my rap name Cali so everybody knew me as Cali throughout high school and then once I stopped like it just stuck everyone kept calling me C and then like it's funny enough like some people I didn't even tell call me Cali just started calling me c throughout my life so when I got into film um my last name is connected to my father I got it from my father but I don't have a relationship with him haven't seen him since I was probably like five or six and it was one of those things where my mom was just too lazy to do name change so I just grew up with that last name now I wanted to be intentional about when I started um film similar like um uh Cashes Clay Muhammad Ali it's like taking ownership of your name there's power in that so um I started going by Greg C so technically it is a stage name it's very close to my real name but technically it's a stage name look at that right yes so you do you still rap I have I haven't written a rap in like 10 years oh okay 10 years ago I could have said hey some spit something for us almost said kick it I was about to show my can you kick it kick it Ario Hall shout out to the funny thing is like did you ever rap at any point in your life uh yeah Christmas time I wrapped a hell a lot of gifts but yes I did I I I play around a freestyle from time if if you rap or freestyle or whatever you know how it is like sometimes you'll just be in the shower making up up Rhymes and stuff or like you think I would have said this so technically like in your head it's just I think rap was the first vessel of creativity that I like indulged in well it was really poetry but then poetry was lame in high school so then wow I had to learn how to put poetry on a beat which became rap and then it just evolved from there until eventually film making okay all right cool so we met we met at a premiere for a film that you wrote and directed we're going to talk about that film later and it got to the the the point where somebody said any questions and I asked a question that I asked a lot of people and you shut me down did I really you said it was the worst question you could ask anybody any artist yeah I said that for real yeah and it was no seriously seriously dead ass can I say that I don't know but um no but it was cool though because you know gave a reason for it you know and the question is oh I know what you ask me I know what you ask me now so I was sitting on the side he like anybody got they say anybody got any question I was like so so what's next for he's like man do you know that that is the worst question you could ask a creative cuz you know what if they don't have anything next and I felt like well if you ask that question they can say if they were okay with it hey man I'm just auditioning you know waiting for the next thing or just creating and stuff like that so I'm going to ask you that later just so you know the question is going to come up but I'm I'm going to expound on that cuz I don't want to get taken out of context right the reason that I feel like for creatives what's next is such a uh dangerous question is because when you're a freelancer or a creative or work for hire um it gives you anxiety about what is next you know what I mean because as a director or as a screenwriter you're always working on stuff but it's not like it's not like an accountant who it's like all right I closed this file let me move to the next one sometimes you have to take that moment to breathe and figure out or even you as an actor sometimes you got to figure out like what do I want to do in my next role I just played the cop four times I don't want to play a cop again like what do I want to do next how do I want to expand what I'm doing and sometimes I think in excitement you know consumers of content and I do this too we're so hungry for the next thing like there's a show on Netflix called um the upshaws wand the syes so I met wander Sykes at a basketball game and I asked her I'm like yo what's up like y'all keep dropping five episodes six episodes and you know as a creative you're like damn like it took us six months to shoot them six episodes and you already like all right right right what's next like that that was a snack like what's the next thing so that's why I think it's super dangerous because as artists who are like working hard to like try to like put impactful work out there we're in such a time now that like bad boys just came out and tomorrow people can be asking about bad boy 5 that's true at will and Martin they like yo we just right right part of my language but they're going to be like yo we just we just toured eight eight countries we just did like it took us two years to shoot it we had a whole strike this at the third and people always want the next thing so um I'm sorry if I gave you any PTSD from the shutdown it's okay I want to take this moment to formally apologize in that camera right there no I'm just playing man uh I totally understood you know you know why you said it but um let's let's let's get into it man so how did it get started for you I know you you know mentioned the rap into the PO The Poetry into the rap and then ultimately film making did it start for you you know when you were 16 being uh uh professionally published as a journalist uh was it when you interviewed l coolj boy did research yeah we know we do research here I mean I know You' G on to you know interview people like Angela ye and Kendrick Lamar but like when did it start for you was it at age 16 or was it when you you know worked at Madison Square Garden yeah we do our research bro man this dude is diving deep um for me as long as I can remember I've always been a creative person I've always been like trying to create things um my cousin used to draw sneakers like design sketches of sneakers we must have been like less than 10 years old he used to draw the little silhouette of sneakers and like make his own designs and then I started doing that but I couldn't draw for nothing but I enjoyed the process of like making the choices of like oh this one's going to have a strap or this one's going to have this or that but I just didn't have the training for it per se um then magazines you know I have uh a couple of cousins my my grandmother had 11 kids and I'm I for a long time was one of the youngest cousins cuz my mom is the youngest of those 11 and then I was her youngest son for a long time um my younger brother came like 8 years later and kind of snatched that title for me but I was the youngest of like all the cousins at a point so I have a cousin that is probably like 15 years older than me and they had an apartment their parents moved to Florida and they had an apartment and they were both very hip into hip hop into all of the stuff and to the Arts and they used to have every Magazine on their coffee table so when we used to go to their house guys were watching sports doing this doing that and I was just laying under the coffee table reading the magazines like something about reading stories just like spoke to me and I was just like reading people like scoop Jackson like hearing how they used um terminology from hip-hop to describe Sports was like oh that's cool like it wasn't it was outside of the lines it was breaking the rules in a sense um the vernacular that they were using and such so that always spoke to me like I always was like wanting to do something creative but I think at the time that I was coming up not really having the guidance like I didn't realize how much my my mind and my body was craving it so the first thing was rap and me and my friends well like I said I was writing poems writing poetry and then um there was really an Avenue to share that especially in high school you're not going to call your friends like yo check this poem out I wrote bro like that's just not you know that's not the thing what what was the thing was raps so everybody in the lunchrooms freestyling this St the third and then obviously I'm a fan of Hip Hop like I'm I'm a fan of Nas and Jay-Z and these people and I'm like you know what like I want to do that to like get these ideas out of my head um as I began to mature and ironically enough the the the context of why I stopped rapping and moved on was actually a very bad um assumption that I made where I was like nobody wants to hear regular people rap like people want you got to get shot you got to do this you got to cuz like Jay-Z sold drugs 50 Cent got shot nine times and I'm just a regular like kid that grew up in America a black kid so I'm magazines yeah like a nobody want to hear about that so I stopped and then like a few years later then the Jake hoh's and the big sha started to come along and you're like oh these dudes are super regular like they don't have felonies and stuff to their dayses they were doing all these copious things but yeah um in high school I started writing for the school newspaper I had a teacher that like was like yo you're really good like you should come be an editor we're going to revamp this whole newspaper and gave me a shot and it was like everything I needed I got to now write like those magazines and I started winning Awards and people started knowing me and like it was literally like you know all those movies that like you hear the like character like reading their piece like right um and all of that stuff like Misha like hey D diary like that's how I was writing in the school newspaper like I had an editorial spread and I was just putting all my business in there and like making it like into like my like monthly Corner type of thing and what I didn't realize I was doing was storytelling and as I got older I was like I need a better way to tell these stories I need a better way and eventually I landed into photography videography and the the Natural Evolution is film making so if you were to like look at it in like a sense of like Pokemon it was like this is the Charizard version of me as a creative right where I was writing little articles and freelancing for hip-hop magazines early on that was like you know the earliest form of me and this is like me towards my I might not even be in my final stage but yeah a man you still got you still got more work to do got more work to do you still got more work to do how how did you come across the opportunities to you know interview LL um um Angela ye Kendrick Kendrick Lamar so the first company I ever started was an online magazine it was called page 31 and uh um I watched The Social Network this is when Mark Zuckerberg like took over the world with Facebook and I was like oh yeah make your own website you're going to be a billionaire like that's what you got to do but on the serious side of that I was writing for a lot of hip-hop magazines they would they would give you a check for $40 it would take six months for that $40 to get to you and then you would write like 300 words and then when you open the magazine they put 30 words in there and then right under it was like an advertisement for like Smack DVD or some crap like that so it was just like oh shoot like it was nothing but ads they cut my whole thing up so I was like nah like I'm pretty much doing it for free anyway let me create my own online publication let me create a website and um let me just the interviews that I would have been doing for these magazines and stuff let me do them for myself and then let's go be billionaires like let's go get rich that's what me and my friends are saying like yeah we're going to do this we're going to be like The Social Network so so we um started the publication and at the time I was working for the Knicks um I was working for the Knicks as a locker room attendant so I had access like I was on the court every night so I would just be around I had my industry contacts people that I knew from just doing a lot of freelance uh journalism and then I had people that I was meeting at the Garden that I was able to network with and then I was a dog like I was going to every concert every event in New York City I wasn't even on the list I would show up with my camera and I would convince the bouncer like I'm supposed to be inside and I would get inside and when I got inside I would look around and see who looked busy who looked like they were working and I'd be like yo you work for the label and I would start talking to them networking let them know my skill set yo look what I could do look how look how I write this that and making those relationships so networking was like a big part of it I used to be anybody who came up in like that blog era that New York City blog era if they don't know my name they know my face cuz I was at all the shows I was shooting the footage I was I was um I was waiting around for the artist trying to talk to their managers and it was just little connections like the Kendrick Lamar thing um there's a guy who used to work at in scope older black dude his name was General and he had black hippie which is ab soul school boy Q Jrock and none of the hip-hop press wanted to mess with them in New York because they're these West Coast guys right that people weren't that familiar with you know what I mean so he was like yo I need you to interview my guys like can you come to this sneaker store and interview them went to the sneaker store looking back now it was probably production wise it was garbage because everybody was talking there was music playing we didn't have no La mics we just shot it on the camera mic but we interviewed them and we put it online and their fans flocked to it so probably did like 10 20,000 views and the dude was like yo I got you day that Kendrick Lamar's debut album good kid Mad City's coming out he's like yo come to Best Buy you going to interview him nice it was a lot of magic moments like that me really just um putting myself out there and letting people see my passion for storytelling and creativity and and doing good work cuz people were looking and they were like yo you should be doing interviews for you know XYZ right but I was too hardheaded to go work for somebody else so I was like I'm going to do it for myself I don't want to work I didn't want to like be in the system and have to like do that $40 an article grind and like work my way up like I felt like skill-wise the people that were um trying to make me pay my dues I I I felt like I was more talented than them in a lot of in a lot of regards so I wanted to make my own way all right I like that I like that all right let's take a step back when did you first realize your love for film making I know I know the part about storytelling you know reading the magazines and but when it was like okay I need to make movies and make these stories visually how when when did that happen unconsciously I have been starting the process of becoming a filmmaker in high school but I didn't realize it we had like school projects where you had to make your own brand and I was like we're going to shoot a commercial and me and my friends got together and we scripted a commercial out and we shot it and like I remember being the man in high school cuz they had to roll the TV in remember when you had these roll the TV in the classroom everybody like y they rolling the TV like they had to roll the TV in for my presentation because we shot a whole commercial and um ironically enough to go back to the Cali thing my product was called Cali juice C juice no Diddy but was called calii juice and um we're going to cut to the commercial but yes that was what the product was called we shot a commercial for it and then also like in one of my English classes um I wrote a play which was based on paid and full and it was called learned in school and we were hustling hall passes it was literally like a parody of paid and full which was my favorite movie so it was like I was doing that stuff but not realizing that that was coming from a passion of film making and I think like I went on tour um I'm doing all the media stuff and I end up forming a relationship with the R&B singer tanache and we got cool uh a friendship I should say and we got cool and she uh needed someone to come shoot photos and videos for her on tour so I end up going on tour with her and on that tour was like a boot camp for me as like a as like a videographer cuz I didn't go to film school so I'm learning how to use you know I had like a Canon 6D I had like all this different equipment that I was learning how to use on the road um I had to buy these manual ronon lenses cuz I couldn't I couldn't afford the auto the autofocus lenses so now I have to learn how to pull focus and do all of these things and in that process of like picking other people's brains that are around me I started realizing how much I have a passion for visually um curating art and then my literature background cuz my my degree is in English it was just a perfect Fusion so that's when I was like I went to Tribeca Film Festival after we got off tour I spent like a week sitting in Tribeca Film Festival watching all these films and I was like yo I want to do this like I want to I want to be a filmmaker I was looking at my interviews and I was like yo I'm editing them like they documentaries anyway and I just inadvertently was doing that I didn't even know technically that that's what I was doing okay man that's that's very interesting man sorry um apologizing to the mic like it's a real person I it I'm sorry I was actually apologizing to the sound man D how about that um what I didn't mention in your uh accolades is that you know you've hosted events for NFL uh for Jack Daniels uh uh who shinzu whiskey tell us how those things came about yeah um man it's it's uh so I have an event I have an event that I curate called siping Spades wonderful event I've been there I think that's the second time I saw third time I saw you yeah yeah first time was you know you shot me down at the premier of the movies second time was at uh onsite when you were on the panel and got to work with you that was great and the third time I came to your event Sip and Spade so yes talk strict showed love man I appreciate that too by the way um so yeah um and again like going back to high school I used to play Spades all the time in the lunchroom with my friends um used to cut class to go play spades yeah then in college I get there and people are like yo you know how to play Spades I'm like yeah I got another thing coming so like literally like this was like my favorite pastime and after college there really wasn't a place to like really play spades and kind of have that kind of moment but then also me being like a young creative I also felt like I was in the clubs a lot because there was like album release parties and stuff like that or people were doing them in studios there was a time when they used to do like the album listening in the studio terrible idea cuz recording studios it's supposed to have like eight people in it not 75 so we used to just be always in settings where you couldn't really Network you couldn't really talk to someone and ask them Yo what do you do where you from all of the things that you would need to speak about to have a connection so me and um me and a couple of me and my cousin and a friend of mine we were like yo let's do this event where um similar to golf how like in other communities golf is like where people go to close business deals it's a leisurely spot let's do that with Spades cuz this is kind of like something in our culture that we have and let's create like this adult game night where people can come together a lot of professionals actors um lawyers doctors and they can connect and like have fun but also find Synergy on like how to get stuff done so we have people um you mentioned on site quala who runs on site she came to one of my events and got booked for a feature film playing Spades doe like we have different um connections that have formed that way and and it and it's grown really it's gone really far where now you know and the cool thing I did to like really get CER Spades out there was again use my storytelling I would shoot Recaps and like do it in a storytelling kind of way that made people want to be at the next one so before the pandemic at our Peak we were doing events 3 400 people and then all of these Brands like sarak and Jack Daniels and Shinju whiskey started wanting to be involved in it and started empowering us um and last year our 6th year anniversary we were at AFR Punk the music festival which is thousands of people interacting with our game night which we started in Brooklyn New York and it was like 60 people at the first one so and that's dope man come on D that up um and you guys have your own cards yeah so yeah so now we created our own our own deck of playing cards with a bunch of black icons Illustrated on it and um it's been doing pretty well and um we we have an event with Samsung soon which uh myself and the illustrator and my business partner and my cousin regj um an illustrator his name is graph addict we are going to sit down at Samsung and have a panel to kind of talk about you know curating culture through illustration and branding and all of that good stuff all right cool cool um with such an impressive clientele at you know Red House visual you know is there any behind the scenes story that was just like amazing and that shaped you know shapes or had an influence on what you do that's a great question you know something that left left El lasting impression I think a couple moments actually one of them O So page 31 which I mentioned kind of so I was doing this online publication we were interview all these celebrities I was shooting footage of like Jay-Z jcole my stuff was going on TMZ my stuff was um we shot like a like a photo of Paul Johnson who is laa Anthony's best friend and was on her reality TV show we did a photo shoot spread with her and VH1 stole it and made a billboard out of it like all over New York City it was in the Subways it was in the bus stops we weren't getting paid for it so I went to the small business administ ation one day my uncle tells me like yo you should go to the SBA they have free counseling they have all these resources so for anyone who doesn't know small business administration is your best friend as someone who's trying to start your business you go to the SBA it's a bunch of retired rich people like in every industry so like my mentor was um a retired commercial agency owner so he shot commercials for Pepsi American Express all the big brands and he's now doing free work at SBA so anyone could walk in there and get this million dooll advice from him for free so my uncle told me to go and um before I found my mentor I spoke to another gentleman um very Frank dude who was just like yo um I'm telling them all the cool stuff like yeah I just interviewed L coolj I just did this I just did that and he's like cool how much money did you make I'm like money what do you mean money I got views what are you talking about that's currency yeah talking about I got you know um I just saw a funny skit the other day when they were like people trying to pay you an exposure oh yeah and then you go to the Apple Store you try to buy something be like yo this exposure right here you don't know how much that's worth I'm giving you exposure pass that so yeah I had all the exposure but I wasn't making no money so the conversation that like changed my my whole mind state was he was like yo you're in the red and if you're in the red and you're operating this is a hobby it's not a business and I was like this [ __ ] is a hobby I'm running around five six days a week doing this and he's like yeah it's a hobby like you're having fun doing it cool but you're not making no money and that was the Genesis of me deciding I want to make a production company and I want to offer the service instead of just interviewing people and then like not not really being able to monetize it now at that time I didn't really understand how to monetize content which now I think a lot of people are up on but but I didn't really have an idea I just looked at it like we're going to get a bunch of views which we did we had videos that had hundreds of thousands of views but we didn't understand like how to convert that into making money what I did understand was that the record labels that I was going into and doing interviews they were like hey um we'll pay you at that time like we'll pay you $1,200 to follow this upcoming artist around for the day and create a a video Vlog and me accepting that type of work and realizing like wow this is I have a skill set that is um tangible that I can actually put a barcode on and sell it to somebody and do this and make money to do it you know story tell but make money to do it and I could still go and independ L make my own films and things but now I understand that as a production company to take this from a hobby to a business that red get out of the red I can now make this into a tangible asset that I could build people for and send an invoice to people for so I think one of them was going to the SBA and having somebody um tell me myit was a hobby when I thought I was about to be Mark Zuckerberg and um markk Zuckerberg that's I thought that's what we thought we saw the social network and we were like you mark facts big facts big facts later big facts this said sucker um what is the collaborative uh process is that important to you and if so how like how important is why is it so important to you um the collaborative process is everything because you know like we're sitting here right now there's lights around us there's microphones around us and me and you ain't do 90% of the things that had to happen for this production to be going on you know um the sound man that you was apologizing to 30 seconds ago shout out to Alex shout out to Alex you know he has to be on point the whole crew got to be on point um and for red house and just me as a creative in general I'm very passionate about working with people that I like because when you work with people that you like it's a vibration that's going around and that vibration makes it from the set into the actual product um so that vibration is everything um you asked early you asked a second ago what were the defining moments for Red House me coming to the conclusion that you have to like your crew and like the people you collaborate on was part of that page 31 process when I had an interview with K Michelle you know who K Michelle is so K Michelle loving hip hop R&B singer all of the above she's from Memphis Tennessee feisty woman um sweet woman from my experience until you play with her so we went to go to Atlantic Records to do play with her meaning like do a joke on her prank on her something like that I'm going tell you right now so uh we went to Atlantic Records with we set up a interview and um I had a couple of guys that were working with me at the time who we ended up going our separate ways um but one of the guys was just like he was uh he was a bit of a perfectionist but in a negative way so he was telling K Michelle how to sit on the chair and how to do this how to do that that was when I realized like hey hold on a second I like a dumb because of this dude being a so the people that I'm working with are reflection of me so the film making process is collaborative because I just told a filmmaker this last night at a panel I was at I said yo if the sound guy has a bad day and you guys go screen your film they're going to say this director sucks cuz he allowed that sound on his film they're not looking up the sound gu's name you're your name the one in big letters right you wanted to make your name name so everyone can see it you left it on there 4 seconds like yo slow dissolve slow dissolve make sure they see my yeah anything that goes wrong they're going to look at you like like like you're the jackass so it's one band One sound like drum line like one band One sound like we all got to be on our p's and q's and that process is only tolerable when you like the people you're working with otherwise you're like y I can't wait for this project to be done because I don't want to do deal with whoever the pain in is that's true that is true so Teamwork Makes the Dream Work right team see what that's collaboration right there on said podcast you ain't gonna get it like this no Els stepen strick big facts big facts so um there are a lot of Industry Trends going around now have you noticed that short film films and and TV series they're tackling like more intense and deep you know subject matter yeah um it's a Renaissance if you um if you look through the the history of like black and black Cinema for example right um there was a time in the 80s even though this isn't a black film when Scarface came out Scarface um became the the backdrop of our culture like all the rappers started rapping like they were Scarface all the gangsters started trying to run like they were Scarface um and then towards the late 80s in 1989 there's a film by the name of do the right thing that came out and Spike Lee didn't there's no drug dealers in it there's no sh there's no shootings in it there's no there's none of that Scarface stuff in there right right then 91 you got New Jack City um and New Jack City we get to see um IC T playing this cop who's like rattled by how these drugs are like affecting the community and things like that so you're starting to see the consciousness of the films my favorite film Peyton full which came later on like you know towards 000 um you get to see the lifestyle of the Scarface but then you get to see through a boogie the conscious of the character being like my mind's different my body different like I'm not doing that and then you in contrast with moneymaking Mitch who's like this is all I could do you know what I mean so that's what for a long time from I'd say the late 80s until maybe like' 05 is the films were superc conscious you had films like the woods you had that was just about um Coming of Age and like black Brotherhood you had um set it off they all of these movies had the action but then they also had the meaning there boys in the hood John Singleton Spike Lees of the world like all of these films had that Consciousness and then we went away from it now it's a Renaissance because people are starting to do it again and the reason that you're starting to see it again is because independent film making has become so um inexpensive or so accessible like anyone can wake up today and make a movie True um you you could get a microphone you can get a decent mic for maybe 300 bucks and then you could go get a camera for like two grand and you could run around and and go shoot a movie so now you're getting the people that are conscious that have these thoughts are being empowered to create their own films and every now and then you get a fruit Veil station you get a Moonlight you get a origin by AB dub uh you get American fiction you know you get these films that are like giving it to you how you want it um on the flip side of that you know not to trash the platform because I think the platform can be very important moving forward but on tub there's a lot of films that um have become popularized for sensationalization MH so there's more of the sensationalization movies than there are the conscious movies and um and I almost did a film deal with tuby last summer and in the final stages they were like more violence more drama more violence more drama and my film started to slip away and slip away and it's like you guys are just now instead of saying what does this film mean you're like how do we hit all of these um different points and Market the algorithm how do we hit the algorithm okay women L dramas with eight killing scenes are what's selling and this is what keeps people watching and this is what the the demographic is tuning into and things of that sort so um these companies send out mandates every quarter or every year on like what films they're accepting from Sellers and they're they're pretty much controlling what the film that we consume look like and sound like because they're telling them we only want um suspense Thrillers and this that you know that's why you have like um I I like to call them like the the Michael eely stalker love drama joints okay cuz I feel like he's done like four of those and I love Michael elely but um there're so many of those because that's like on these companies mandates so if you're trying to make a film and this company says hey this is what we're buying guess what you're going to make that film it's true that's true yeah so with you know the TV series and the films um reaching deeper levels and and more personal stories was that the technique that you used uh yeah technique or the style or the influence that you used when you did your short uh um would mean nothing yeah TV series you know after hours mhm so so um ma Wilds um Grammy nominated singer shout out to hell of hell of an actor um one of my best friends in the world and one of my greatest creative Partners um we've gotone to work on a lot of cool things I've directed some music videos for him um we created a minseries together and and we also have some projects in development currently um but same thing like Mac has been hired for a long time to do certain projects and like as a working actor it's tough when you know the industry uh the industry gets to decide what stories you tell they get to decide what your place is and and all of this and I think when when Mac and I create and something that Mac said to me that that really changed my trajectory as a creative is you know when we first started writing skill um films and stuff I used to always write with a budget in mind so before I sat down to write I'd be like yo what's the budget like what we working with and he was just like yo bro sit down and write what you want to write we'll figure out the money later and that's what we've always done as a tandem we think about what we're going through we would have conversations about relationship stuff that we both shared in common and and uh things that are happening in the industry that we share in common and different things like that like yo I got a friend this happened to I Got a Friend yeah my friend is locked up and boom boom boom and we have these Combos and then we say all right how do we take that combo and and put it in in a movie and then like kind of reverse engineer these films from these conversations and just being a conscious person in general like that's the type of art you want to make um now with after hours after hours and wouldn't mean nothing after hours was the miniseries we did which was inspired by Max album of the same name after I was an amazing album and we decided to make episodes that that like brought the songs to life and that was probably um that was conscious in a sense but at the same time it was very it was about New York City NTI it was a sexy project it was like there was uh love making scenes in there there was all these different things that now as a creative when it came back around to doing wouldn't mean nothing which we had Shannon dorton from P Valley co-star with Mack in it um a really amazing cast um Joshua Neil U shaa shaia Dixon's in there um sh um Joshua Neil who like goes viral every day on Instagram that's the guy that does yeah yeah so we had amazing cast and in that process it was like we're having conversation and I'm like yo Mac like this love making scene that we have on paper where these two lovers go in the bathroom and let it all out like we don't need that it does nothing to move the story along right right right right it checks The Sensational so like Prime Time cable now you know Isa talked about how like HBO was pushing them to have sex scenes and stuff cuz people were asking like yo you you always butt naked in the show like why you got so many sex like HBO wants that you know what I mean this is what these networks want now when we're doing our independent art we could do whatever we want to do so we don't necessarily need that even though it might sell tickets but um we're more focused on telling the story the right way how do you feel about you know the audience like when you're when you're writing what do you do you take in consideration you know the audience not just what the networks or whatever want do you think about what the people want um yeah so as a Storyteller yo it's it's crazy because even before I started making films like if something funny happened I always wanted to tell my friends a story and my friends always like yo hurry up get to the end I'm like hold on I got to tell you everything that happened I got to set the stage like I got to so you can properly appreciate like the Arc of this story so that's always been where my mind is is like how do I deliver a story that at the end of this story you're going to be like yo that was a great story I'm always audience driven right number one thing is um figuring out what I want to say and then number two thing is figuring out how to make the audience connect to what I want to say right or how to like put this in a way where um the audience leaves asking thems a question about their own life ask them a bigger having a bigger conversation you know um so when you work with networks I find that they don't really care about that they are more caring about commercial breaks this scene got to be this length so we could cut to this promo ad you know they got to keep the lights on so to give them slack on one on one end of it I'll say it's a business right it's not a hobby so we got to keep the lights on I get that on the other side of it I'll say that these people are so stuck following a formula that they don't realize what the audience wants they're not tapped into the audience um I studied statistics I did College statistics in high school I learned statistics very early and statistics can be bent any way you want it to LeBron James is the leader in points scored right and somebody could say he's the greatest score of all time somebody else could argue well Jordan has almost as many points and played eight last Seasons or seven last seasons right however you if you want to do it by points per game versus total points you got Jordan up here if you want to do it total points you got LeBron up here statistics and analytics can be skewed to tell whatever conversation you want and a lot of times the corporations are are not are not getting the conversation from the audience they're not in the streets they're not having these combos with the consumer and seeing what they like so they keep making the same movie and yeah and we keep watching them yeah and then we keep it's like um Charlie Brown trying to kick the football yes we keep lining up to watch him and then at the end of it we like damn that sucks and it's like yeah but you keep watching it so they're going keep making it numbers going to go up going to make that money they so there was a film that um there was a film that came out on Netflix not long ago um by a very big black director um and people watched it the promo was great it was like a nice cast very sexy cast that was there very popular woman that we all know uh a male actor that the women all like and then everyone watched it and they were it wasn't me I'm not there yet I'm working on it you'll be there you'll be there but everyone watched it and then they were like oh my God it was so bad and I'm like yeah but there's there was no sign to show you that it was going to be good it other than other than the fact that you like the people that were casted you know what I'm saying but at the same time if you understand that like certain creators have been using a formula and it's been successful for them then why expect there to be a change in the quality we need to change some of the formula people um get well there's room for everything yeah cuz some people really do love that yeah yeah but we just have to support the stuff we really really want to see more on the same level so support the films the movies that you want to see more uh if you're a creative you know write your own stories that's where a lot of this comes from you know um from seeing from seeing the stuff that we're tired of seeing and we know what's going to happen and predictable so we write a different story from a different perspective and things like that so that's what we need to do people so let's do it chilling here with Greg C so uh anime that's one of your your your your films um that's my bab that's your baby it's streaming on what peacock yeah anime is on peacock it's on tub it's on Amazon video uh yeah we make it very uh hard for you to not find it hey we got to find it we got to find it um it's getting a lot of lot of recognition you know being on so many platforms um did It win an award the New York International Film Festival was the first you want to know something crazy yeah New York International Film Festival we won 2019 did we win 2019 we win an award there now Newark International Film Festival was one of the only festivals that gave love to anime what partly because of my fault um I didn't understand how you stole the name of the title oh no that's your boy I didn't understand how programming film festivals works okay so I was just having this conversation two days ago one of my friends who was like yeah I want to make a longer short for the next one do a festival run and I said yo you have to understand if your film the longer your film is the more jaw-droppingly incredible it has to be because they're harder to program when you go to a film festival you usually see four or five film festivals in an hour block right so if you have a 10-minute film and it's good it's very easy for them to put you with four or five other filmmakers and fill out a theater cuz you guys are unknown filmmakers fill out a theater cuz you guys are all selling tickets to your friends and family and fill out a theater it's easier for you to get programmed now if you're if your film is 40 minutes like anime they're like what the hell we got to give him his own time block because the blocks work in an hour so it's like we could get four films or we could get anime so I didn't realize how programming worked now New York International they realized that we were telling a really cool story and they realized the work that was done they realized the amazing acting that was in it and they made time for us so um uh Evette Williams Yaya Yaya Williams she won best actress for anime which we didn't know so it's funny because she uh she ended up coming late to the award ceremony I just knew new anime was nominated and then I think we were nominated for best short and then she was also nominated um and and uh and we lost to lorence Tate and his brother they had a dope project uh business ethic I think it was yeah so so so when we lost I'm like all right whatever we didn't win and then like the best actress uh category came up and then they said yeah I will she said you were trying to surprise me and I'm like you're like know I didn't even know I know so she ended up winning and she went up and she was like y I would have put a whole dress on if I knew I was nominated I said yo I really didn't know but I was super happy that they um they acknowledged us and um I'll always have love for nework uh International because it was like at a time where a lot of PE you got to I got to figure out how political the landscape of film festivals is and how much race plays into that as well um because I have um you know for for a distributor like peacock to to put our film on their Network and for certain places to act like we weren't good enough to screen in that Festival the Math's not math and we have the numbers and the data to show the viewership the people like it so is it is it Uchi Wally or is it one Mike you know what I mean like what's happening but nework International they showed us the love and and I feel like we um I feel like we uh validated them showing us love and even awarding us by going out into the world and ending up getting licensing deals with peacock and Tubi which a lot of people are trying to do that and can't so a lot of the films that got into XYZ Festival who we ain't even going to promote um they're just on the shelf right now right right and this is very hard to get your stuff sold so I'm not trying to [ __ ] on nobody who can't get their stuff sold but the fact of the matter is that because our content was very um very black for lack of a better word um it was based in like Urban reality um a lot of white festivals were just like nah I got time for that so shout out to the Nork International Film Festival one of our partners here at uh on the set podcast because we are filming here in the Ironbound TV and Film Studio in Nork New Jersey home of the Nork International Film Festival I'm not plugging them anymore all right so uh you mentioned the fact that uh Nork if accepted your film because of the story that I was telling what do you what do you think audiences you know what what do you think resonated the most with the audiences for what we lacked budget wise for what we lacked cosmetically we made up for in Tech texture I think that the film has like that texture of like a contemporary Love Story um I think that it it it's I think that it created a conversation that you can have and it it created like a story line that you could follow but like in a more genuine way than um than a lot of films that sensationalize I think that we were talking about a subject matter that isn't spoken about a and I don't want to spoil the film for whoever may want to go watch it on 2B on peacock on Amazon video go check yeah so it it we talked about a subject matter that isn't really spoken about that much um and I think like for me with that film it was telling the story with suspense it was allowing people to have to discover this SE secret with the main character okay so it it it it kind of feels like a mystery unraveling and a love story combined and I think a lot of people um were excited to see how it played out and what choices the characters made after that yeah but the the message I get all the time is like yo I never really seen a film talk about this and like yo um it it felt really real so yeah I think um made a lot of mistakes as a creative in terms of my inexperience making films at that point in my life but I think those mistakes actually happened with intentionality in terms of we prioritize the story over um the Cosmetic necessarily I like that term the Cosmetics yeah I got to I got to remember that put that on a t-shirt yeah um it's like it's if I could describe it it's like a it's like a it's like a a young woman stepping out without her makeup on and she's just a natural beauty that's how I feel about anime it's like oh yeah she's naturally beautiful now if you want to be a jerk you might be like oh why is your hair not done or this that but at the end of the day you can't hate on the core of what this film is it's like oh it's a this is a beautiful person so you worked with dwade yes dwade for a project for uh ESPN yep how um that's great you know by the way how was it you know what were the demands of producing you know dwade you know in that project it was working on documentaries is a fun process now I got to be there at Ground Zero it was myself and the director his name is Bob matelis um uh Haitian uh Haitian American director he was Dwayne Wade's longtime photographer and he um and he kind of transitioned into doing video work and he didn't he didn't necessarily have as much experience in documentary storytelling he was more so he had done like Vlogs and stuff like that and a lot of iconic photography work um and he was looking for someone that could help kind of like help him put the story together so I remember the day I had a conversation with him the day that I virtually met him he asked me when I was available I said whenever and he was I'mma call your bluff like come out to Miami tomorrow I was like all right and two days later I was in Miami um I'll never forget it was Halloween I got there showed up and he had to take his kids trick-or-treating so we didn't actually get to end up working that day but um the first thing that happened to me was I was handed 60 something hard drives and it was like go through all this footage organize it and tell us where the story is so I feel like to this day it's kind of trippy because I feel like Dwayne Wade is one of my best friends because I've seen so much footage behind the scenes of his life um where he's having personal Combos and things like that stuff with him and his kids him and his wife I feel like I know so much about him so like being a fly on the wall like being a fly on the wall I know his inside jokes I know words that he can't pronounce I know different things like that so uh a big part of my responsibility was one to help find the story and put the story together help get this thing sold to ESPN so I was part of creating the pitch trailers and and the Decks that we used to sell it and then Ron Howard eventually came on with imagine Productions and um they helped us complete the film but a big part of it was just um figuring out the moments that we had on camera that showed that he's more than a basketball player that this is a um that he's a superhero in actuality because he grew up in a crack house you know he grew up with police running into his house and when he was not even 10 years old drawing guns on him you know these are things people don't think about when they think of Dwayne Wade people see Dwayne Wade they see him walking red carpets they see him doing this they see him doing that and they're just like boom and they like to talk trash about his family and I think like when I think of the song uh the Jay-Z song in Paris I think of Dwayne Wade it's like we ain't even supposed to be here like when you see Dwayne Wade at Paris Fashion Week like this dude from Chicago he's not supposed to be there right but because he's very good at a sport he was able to do it and that's why like the documentary is uh Life Unexpected um because it's like it's no way he could have expected to go from that to that would you say that was your biggest hurdle or or thing you had to come up against you know try to find find the story and let the people know who Dwayne Wade is aside from what we know him to be I think the I think the biggest hurdle honestly was the fact that um me and Bob and and the team um my boy Yuri Israel um we had a team that was on the ground very early that was helping kind of sort through this and make sense of it and we all had a Clear Vision in mind and we were all like kind of on the right page and Bob was a very good motivator and like like me and Yuri were locked in a room just going through footage trying to figure out like how do we tell the world like what's coming and how do we get this thing sold and and we did that and one of the hard things I feel like was the fact that when you sell a project the intention gets Mudd gets mudded um we were working with imagine Productions and Bob myself Yuri we were all black men who were kind of like looking at it one way and then you bring in Imagine Productions and it's a little bit more diverse in the decision making and the storytelling room and they have different things that speak to them and we're looking at it through the way that speaks to our community so I think the toughest part for me personally was like trying to communicate to people in another Community why certain moments need to be in this film why certain things need to happen and why our community will appreciate it so much um yeah like we talked about earlier collaborative process but sometimes that collaborative process is the hardest part because people aren't going to understand the significance of you know a certain thing you know what I mean so would you say you know like you said having to explain the importance of certain things for your community to another Community percentage wise if you can what how much percentage was your ideas as opposed to the other communi ideas on that collaborative effort in the final project in the in the final documentary so you know I was a producer on the project Bob was a director and I think ultimately um ESPN had what they wanted um imagin had what they wanted and I think like if if I was like if if it was just what Greg wants like oh you can do this however you want it then maybe like maybe there's like a good 20% of it that I would have done a little bit bit differently okay but I I still think it's a great documentary it's all about and I might have made something that was more Niche because I might have been trying to speak directly to my community right and maybe somebody in Middle America wouldn't connect with that as well so that's part of the game um I'm proud of the project and I think that's the biggest thing you want to leave being proud of something that you work on so I'm proud of it and I think it's something that um people that are fans of just like uh Black American success stories should check it out all cool definitely check out D way Life Unexpected on ESPN um you've been on a lot of sets a lot of sets and there may be can you dispel any of the misconceptions of set life that people might have um number one people think that being being on set is just so fun and like oh man like you're having the time of your life like this that the third yeah it's it's fun but it's also the most stressful thing that you'll ever experience it's one of the most stressful um things that you can walk into um you're it's the only time where you're going to go into something I'll put it this way if you take the SATs it's they give you a time writing and a Time testing and people stress out over the SATs right because you only have two hours to do this thing or 4 hours or whatever the time length is making a film is like the SATs you only have a 12-h hour day you got to wrap out otherwise you're going into overtime and stuff you have this amount of time to get what you got to do done and if you mess up you just lose points there's no going back on that you can't repair what you did yesterday so if you have two bad days that's going to affect the final product um n out of 10 times so I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that like this is fun and a lot of people come to set like thinking that they're on a playground and it's like yo when you come here this is this is work you know what I mean like we're going to have fun but this is work so you know I shoted something not long ago and everybody showed up and understood what it was but one actor came over there trying to multitask like his mind was was offset while he was on set and it stood out he stood out like a sword THB and um I was talking to my team afterwards and I'm like yeah that that's as a director it's instant turn off when I see somebody comes to set and then they're not there you know this the same actor he asks me oh I see my scene doesn't film till 2 p.m can I come a little bit later cuz his call time was two hours before he thinks the work starts when it's action right right that's the misconception you're on set before you show up to location yeah yeah like you got to get your lines right you got to get your mind right if it's a Indie and you're bringing your own wardrobe you're in wardrobe in your house you got to make sure your character looks the way he's supposed to look and things like that people so show up on set and they think like if they're not in front of the camera what they're doing doesn't matter like for a director we see everything we might not tell you but we see it yeah we paying attention and when you don't get a call back you know what's up um so you were handpicked by the late great Michael K Williams for Black Market that's awesome to be handpicked by you know someone of that stature any you know anybody that you know that's a that level of celebrity I I'll leave it right there um can you tell us like how how working you know with him on that set on that series how has that influenced you know what you do the number one way um first of all I just want to say Michael K Williams was a great friend of mine A og a mentor I want to make sure that every time that he comes up people understand that this guy's mind he wanted to be the Barry Gordy of film as he would say he wanted to just be responsible for putting young black people on and like creating this Motown of sorts of like this is an umbrella of people underneath me that I've put in place to live out their dream and to bring good art through and things like that um I remember one day he called his agent so to answer your question confidence is the number one thing that he gave me that I hold on to moving forward and I'll explain how um one day when I I went to his apartment and I played anime for him and he watched it with his acting coach and they both loved it and they were like oh my God it's it's so Raw it's so vulnerable and and he called his agent and he was like yo we got to work with this kid we got to do something with this kid blah blah blah blah like let's make it happen and his agent was like okay you know what I mean like I think his a was looking at more the Cosmetics like you know he's a little raw like he needs some work and stuff like that and um Mike's like nah we can't let him slip through the cracks like um what's the director's name Stephen cople stepen Copeland J Steven copel what's his name he did uh St St J he did the Creed he did Creed two he did Creed too so apparently at some point he was someone else that might cross path with and recognized his genius and wanted to help Usher him in he ended up finding his way regardless but like the fact that like he was in front of him and he didn't have the opportunity to help him he was like nah we can't let this happen again with Greg Celly like this dude is on his way like I want to be part of it so with black market I was supposed to be a producer just a producer on the show I was going to produce and I was going to do a little bit of camera operating and uh um one day he was just like he just called me he's like yo be ready and I'm like what are you talking about he's like yo it's about to change be ready and I'm like okay whatever and he went and called the network and was like yo Greg Call's going to direct an episode of this wow you know there's no black directors on this this is a uh cuz it was his he produced it so he's like this is um a freed on production like we not going out like that like I'm trying to tell the stories of the minority and we got nothing but non-colored people telling the stories like get out of here so he tells them that he wants me to direct they call they call me and they're like yeah you're going to co-direct with this person right for me I'm just thankful for the opportunity so I'm not like that's not what Mike told me you know what I mean like but at the same time I'm like all right cool whatever you know compromises I kid you not this is So Divine I met his apartment helping him with something and he had to do a virtual setup so I'm over there building his virtual setup um cuz this was like right after Co and there wasn't in person Awards yet so they called him they were having like their conference call they don't know I'm there they're having their conference call and they go yo uh Greg will be codirector ING with blah blah blah he said hold on run that back for me and they were like yeah Greg's going to co-direct with and he goes how many episodes got co-directors if they were like one he was like oh so the episode with a black director is the only one with a co-director got him get the out of here but I remember being teod because I'm not related to this guy I this guy doesn't have any um ulterior motive to help me but he was cursing out a TV n work and telling them like yo y'all have held Us in chains for 400 years y'all been propping yourselves up unright now we have a chance to prop a young black creative up and y'all don't want to give him his his fcking chance let him have his name on the door by himself after that I'm like I'm like thanking him and he's like yo why are you thanking me like you're nice at this like you came on the last production and you killed it and you elevated the production you shouldn't be thanking me for an opportunity you should already have so I'm like now the pressure's on me so I go I do my thing I feel like I killed it um a lot of the network execs ended up saying that my episode was the best of the Season there was a lot of good episodes on the series but hearing that from some of the execs was great to hear um they submitted it for Emmy um for like Emmy consideration and by the end of the production they were they they were allowing me to co-direct other people's episodes um they the confidence went a long way because they got to see me in my element they got to see what I could bring to the table and some of the people that were doubtful that I could get the job done were like my biggest supporters by the time that we were rapping on um on the show and I ended up um crazy enough um and it's like I I'm not saying it's a flex cuz it's a weird Flex in a sense but um I had to come to the realization after Mike passed away that I'm the last person to direct Michael K Williams uh maybe three days before he passed I I was co-directing another director's episode and we went to Boston and shot a scene and I directed him and um and then we went out to dinner a couple days after that maybe like two days before he passed away we went out to dinner and and he was just giving me my props like yo you really came in and killed it like everyone's raving about your work and this that the third and so yeah that for me like to have that be like our last conversation and to kind of internalize the fact that like damn like I was the last person to get the honor of directing like one of the most talented actors ever like it's like yo that did a lot for my confidence so moving forward confidence-wise was huge and then one of the things that he taught me was like the commitment to keeping it real like we walked into some of the most dangerous situations we were in the middle of a shootout in one of the episodes everywhere we went we were good cuz we were with Mike we didn't have no security with us but when people saw Mike it was like Yo cool it there's a scene one scene where there's a bunch of scammers and they had their guns they take their guns out they put them on the table I remember staring at this situation because the guns on the table I don't know if the safety's on or whatever but it was like pointing right right at Mike and we had to go over there and like turn the gun wow I didn't want we didn't want to get our fingerprints on this so I remember I was like anyone have latex gloves and we have to turn the gun just in case cuz they're slamming the table and stuff and we didn't want some Accidental Fire to happen and things like that but the the way that he was because he was so real and so him and he didn't put on a facade everywhere we went people were like yo they thought that that was their brother like people that never met him a day in their life would be like yo you good here come on and it was cool to be around that energy Michael K Williams was a dope dope person I would run into him a couple times at uh Penn Station New York Pen Station I was like yo Omar and he was like yeah it was it was just cool you know know to to witness his his Artistry um let moving to another project and I got to do it this way I got to bring it in this way I gotta say never would Made It Marvin sa story and that's that's the film that uh that that we met on uh not we met there but you know at the the premiere of it on TV1 and when I asked that you know the infamous question uh it was a great movie uh you know my good friend Amber Anderson is in that uh film and um it had to be it was very inspirational story and I don't know if it was you know if it was a deep you know thing for you um how did you capture how did you capture the essence of Marvin sap and and and his his values of perseverance and Faith so the Marvin sap project was uh um I learned some things about life that directly impacted my life after writing that film um after some of the conversations I had with Marvin um it's very interesting because when I sat down and I did the research and I learned all about his life and and the first thing that stood out to me you know you asked me the soundtrack to my life and I said cherry wine because like I said Nas is trying to find his life partner in that song and and the first thing that stood out to me was that Marvin sap married one of his longtime childhood friends um Melinda sap um he ends up marrying her her name was Melinda Prince before that obviously but who Amber played in the film and she um she ended up passing away um too soon um due to cancer and there was two things that popped in my mind one was I was like this is a love story this biopic like I want to tell a love story cuz the fact that he knew her he was singing and choir with her when he was like five six years old and and he ended up marrying her and she ended up managing him I'm like this is the ultimate love story so number one like I was like yo I want to talk about that and number two I was like I was like man as a writer I don't know how I can tap into the depth of like this feeling of mourning and this feeling of loss you know like I remember that one being like one of my intimidations um was just like not being able to relate to that I lost my grandparents that was only those were the only close people I had lost at that point in my life so I was just like man am I going to be able to to do it justice um ironically enough we just spoke about Mike as I was writing the film Mike passed away mhm so I instantly stepped into that connection where I'm like ooh like me losing this friend and Mentor I'm like this was the mother of his children so the pain I was feeling I'm like damn I can tap into that and kind of weave that into my into the Genesis of what I'm writing right um the other thing was that having conversations with Marvin it was it was um um very early in the process he was telling me the story of him and his wife's first date um it didn't end up making the movie the way that it happened in real life or the way that I wanted it to happen for the world cuz I felt like they needed to hear this but on his first day with his wife um she was like yo what's your fiveyear plan and he just shut down like he had never had a woman ask him anything so meaningful or anything so intentional about his future and he shut down he literally like didn't like he tanked the date after that because he didn't know like how to operate in that moment he was like intimidated by it but that was also the moment he knew that he was going to that was the moment that well he ends up tanking out of that date and um she gives him another chance she tells him to come to the house and she cook for Scratch in front of him she was like I'm a cook you just talk he watched her cook a meal from scratch and ate the meal and when he left he was like yo I'm going to marry this woman and hearing the way he said it and like in the meeting I was like oh wow like as a as a young man like you're always thinking of a million other things when you meet or when you're courting the person that you want to be with but I felt like his testimony was like such a such a calling like he never wanted to date his future wife because he felt like she was too good to date he was like yo she's um she's not the type of girl you date she's the type of girl you marry and his his Bishop was like so then marry her the hell's wrong with you you know what I mean like what you talking about so um I learned that from him was changed um the way that um the way that like I approach things in my life love life it really like unlocked a part of my brain and then um another behind the- scenes story if I can yes but he taught me a lot about integrity um I never spoke about this publicly but I'm going to talk about it and whatever happens happens so um myself samant Washington my boy we signed on to write this film we wrote the film um and I towards like the time that the film was due um we both got covid and if it felt like it felt like I was on my deathbed like it felt like I got hit by bust the network was like movie at you know what I mean like I'm like we both have covid they're like cool you can have the script in by Friday wow we both have Co they didn't give a so um samat was so delirious I said yo don't worry Sam I got it I think samant lost like 30 pounds he's a big dude 68 like probably 220 or something he lost like 20 30 PBS from the co it hit him worse than me and I had to stay up for like two days straight with Co to meet the deadline and um the network tried to uh get us replaced not because the script wasn't good but because the person that they wanted to direct the script be able to say that they wrote and directed it so they tried the polit the politics of it all so they um they didn't try why did I say try they sent us a termination letter oh wow and um and I laughed and I told somebody like respond I called Marvin and I said yo this is what's happening Marvin called the network and was like if Greg and Sam aren't on that film y'all don't have a film no more that's amazing they called us back that email was a mistake the email of them firing us that was a mistake it should have never went how you accidentally fir somebody you ever heard of an accident like that no we accidentally typed up a whole termination email we accidentally offered y'all an offensive buyou we accidentally offered y a script Consulting credit after you just wrote the whole movie after you did the treatment that got the film green lit um and marap um he didn't have to do that he could have just been like sorry guys it is what it is he was like nah if these dudes ain't on it that whole movie I'm not signing my life rights over right so he fought for us the same way that Michael K fought for me and um for whether they wanted to or not they had to keep us on as the writers of the film hey and at the end of the day a great film was made yeah um I uh you know one day like it's interesting cuz I spoke to the the actors on the on the on the set of the film and like when I got to go to set and I got to meet the actors and things like that and there's more to this story but like we might have to get you on for a part two that story like when that's when I'm able to really tell the the story the way that it went down and oh you going you going make your own documentary yeah going to be it's going to be eye openening but um the actors when I went to set they could feel that the product had been diluted and there was a little bit of disappointment from them because they could tell where certain things in the script they could tell you know when like somebody remixes your sh and you could kind of tell like o they something different something's going on here like this ain't the same as that they could tell the certain moments didn't match up to others so they kind of knew something was going on and going back to the collaborative process you know as a writer um TV1 is a network that is not uh wga signatory and as Young Writers you need to know which companies are and aren't because the things that the writer's Guild has decided are ethical they don't have to abide by oh so just process that learn that learn that essentially that's like me telling you that um there's a law out here right there's a federal law but this one state doesn't abide by the federal law like if we say stop and search is illegal oh yeah this one state saying the federal law we going to stop and search anyone who's not a wga signatory is essentially saying what you think is ethical we going to do whatever we want that's deep that's deep I told you we going we going to uncover some Secrets uncover some secrets so you know get up on your wga you know info and all that stuff for all you you know writers that's coming up in the game oh he taught me the power ownership by the way okay because in that moment when I saw like that this company that they had been trying to make a Marvin sap movie for a while but they couldn't get it green lit um a lot of writers had come and gone and they couldn't come up with a way to tell the story that they felt would work we created the treatment for it so we first got hired to create the treatment for it they had to pay us to essentially tell them what the movie was right and then that's what they went into production based on that's what it got green lit based off that's what the network agreed to make and um and to have created the idea to have done all the leg work for it to have gotten it over the Finish Line essentially and then potentially almost get fired from it mhm taught me like oh [ __ ] I need to own my cuz I'll never be in a situation where someone could take my IP and push me out of it and Marvin showed his boss card like no I I own all this y'all can't do y'all can't do nothing without my okay that's true and that showed me like oh I got to boss up and make sure I'm never in that situation again so without Marvin sap I never would have made it you never would you beat me to it bro man that was good that was good that was good so before can get to the level that you know you are at with in your career you everybody starts out a lot of people start out as a PA and they move their way up to you know working on you know HBO and TV1 and having a movie on peacock and tuby and Amazon really quick can you give us some advice that you would give to uh upand comers on how to seize these opportunities and seize these moments yeah um I think the biggest thing for upand comers I think like your reputation is everything give it to that camera right your reputation is everything if you act like a jackass on set the industry is way smaller than you think um when I showed up to set here today there's people that I know from different places that I've run into um on this set you know what I mean so if I was a jackass to strick maybe this opportunity would have never came by you know if I was a jackass to Kenny maybe this opportunity would have never came there's different people involved and the industry is small so the number one thing is um I just have a I have a young intern that I want to shout out she just um finished interning for me she's actually a high school senior she's going to I think she's going to Dublin to go to film school um but she um she came in and worked her off and listens to everything and presented her best self every time she came on set her name is coko every time she came off set she presented her best self and um I had her go work on a set that my DP was shooting and I'm getting phone calls from the set yo this girl's amazing this girl's amazing this girl's a beast and then I had her come work on a project I just shot yo this girl's amazing yo one of the best Pas ever d d d du and she's a high school senior wow there's some grown adults 26 years old who don't get that kind of no calls yeah no calls about them but she came in with a pureness and a a general curiosity she ask the right questions she never said no she did everything with a smile on her face and that's what moves you up the ladder people got to like you like we said earlier you want to work with people you like and the number one thing that makes someone like you it's not the jokes you tell it's not the clothes you wear it's your usefulness how do you make life easier on everyone around around you if I'm a sound guy and I need Duracell batteries cuz my lab mics are dying how quickly can you get to the storing back are you going to do it with a good attitude are you going to bring the right batteries back are you going to call my phone oh what kind of batteries you want again oh or you can come back with AAA when I asked for double A and now you're wasand now you're wasting time on set these are the things that separate you I think for me I want to say I'm sure there's been some situations where I up and I made some bad I didn't show up in my best self but I want to say for the majority that I've showed up as me as a good person I've worked hard and I've tried my best to enhance the project and I think that that's why um I continue to get opportunities and I was able to move along and and get um into more situations um I I've never had an agent so when people ask me yo you on Vice ESPN HBO all of these things your shows on peacock you got an agent no this is all just me having relationships and showing up and doing what I do so people get um intimidated by not having representation you are your own representation until further notice right show up the right way and and you're going to get more opportunities there's nobody who works their ass off and is good at something that will not see more opportunities come their way it's impossible that's right so you got to you got to do your job show up uh and and service the need in the best way possible yeah put your best foot forward and just best forward and make sure you love what you do because if you don't love it which I told a couple of my um interns if you don't love it you're not going to be you're not going to be of use to anybody cuz we could tell when you know you could tell when somebody's doing something because their heart's in it and you could tell when they're doing it dragging their feet cuz they just want to check oh yeah yeah so now is that time where we talk about what's next so so uh with all the films and projects that you've done and you know is there something or a genre that you haven't tackled that you would like to tackle yeah um I think we're going to shoot a action feature this summer okay I haven't done anything in the action realm yet um I'm excited that uh a group of creatives um at the top of the year uh one of the things that I did as like a resolution or whatever you want to call it was that I created a uh a call between a bunch of filmmakers um that I frequently work with and we talk um every two weeks about um we talk every two weeks about just what we want to create and different things like that many projects have come out of these phone calls just by getting on the phone we ended up we we did a scripted podcast which a guy y'all made a may have heard of uh Steve Strickland is oh me is uh one of the voice actor in yeah was a new day new day new day with ma Wilds with Mac Wilds anthoni Smith another Grammy nominated musician and actress um she played on Broadway and rent um Desa Desa white Desa Andrea white another beast in her own um right so we were able to do a scripted podcast um that is going to have a life of its own it's there's there's some cool things happening with that now a um we're continuing to develop it um so we might be foring into illustration which is new for me you asked about new uh um animation I should say um it might be uh it might see itself manifest as an animated project um we're in the process of that right now and like I said a group of us creatives decided let's have some ownership so I took those lessons that I learned from Mike and Marvin sap and we said yo let's go make a feature and we decided we want to make action film and we're going to go um we're going to go make this action film okay yeah we got a tight um treatment and now I got to go write the script so write the script and we're going to go shoot this action film something that I've never done before um because for me I kind of I want to make sure that everything is true to me and now it finally makes sense for me to do it I'm actually doing it with purpose as opposed to just doing it because I just feel like doing it you know this a story that actually spoke to me that I decided this makes sense and as a group we all put our ideas together and came up with something really dope all right so you're excited you're excited about the things that coming down the pike man I'm looking forward to you know seeing reading hearing about all the the great you know great stuff that you you know that you're putting out there and I was glad to be a part of you know at least one of those projects yeah you killed it by the way oh thank you killed it thank you man bodied it thank you very much man you know doing my one two Yeah my two one you know well folks unfortunately it's that time where we got to you know wrap things up I hope you you know learn some new things learn some things about Greg and are inspired about you know um about writing screenwriting about directing about producing and and and working in different facets of film making working with different levels of celebrity and and not so celebrity the differences on set and just a lot of things insightful things that he's he's he's passed down to us so Greg we thank you for your openness your honesty and being on the show um would definitely love to have you back to hear that you know the whole story of what you like really couldn't say uh but real quick let the people know where we can where they can you know they can find you follow you stalk you you know that type of stuff yeah you guys can um you can follow me uh gregy on Instagram um uh shoot me a DM if you need any anything you know um opportunities actors I'm always posting casting and different things like that on uh my stories and things like that um you can send me your head shots uh different things I'm always looking for talented young crew members editors and graphic designers especially right now we are looking for but photographers videographers anybody who's looking to learn and who's serious about their business and who understands how to show up on time um reach out to me um heavy on that show up on time part um oh say what's Happ you care never mind never mind and um and yeah um that's how you can find me find me on Instagram at Greg um everything's there all the links and all that good stuff is there and yeah um we got projects all over the place it's great Cali you can find me I'm your host you know stevenh Strickland you know where to find me on Instagram I am stepen Strickland find me on Facebook is it Steven Strickland yeah Steph Strickland or strictly Talent one one of those you'll find me um re it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show um and looking forward like I said looking forward to everything that you have going on yeah shout out to you and the the whole um on the set podcast team podcast um it was it was fun man appreciate you having me so remember to subscribe to on theet podcast and stay tuned for more engaging conversations with industry experts uh until next time keep exploring keep learning keep embracing the magic of Storytelling I'm your host Steven Strickland this has been Greg C always remember do what you love and love what you do till the next time

Greg Cally Built His Name On Purpose — Then Protected Every Project That Followed

The Name Came First. Everything Built From There.

Ownership Isn't Just a Mindset — It's a Business Model

What the Set Actually Teaches You

Michael K. Williams Saw Him — Then Used His Power to Say So

Protect the Writers. Own the Rights. Or Watch the Work Disappear.

For Any Independent Filmmaker: The Credits Are the Short Version

Key Takeaways

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Greg Cally Built His Name On Purpose — Then Protected Every Project That Followed

The Name Came First. Everything Built From There.

Ownership Isn't Just a Mindset — It's a Business Model

What the Set Actually Teaches You

Michael K. Williams Saw Him — Then Used His Power to Say So

Protect the Writers. Own the Rights. Or Watch the Work Disappear.

For Any Independent Filmmaker: The Credits Are the Short Version

Key Takeaways

Join The Movement

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