Interview Transcript:

CG: Hey Maxwell, thanks for joining us this morning. Can you tell us a little bit about you and your company?

MB: Absolutely. So my name is Maxwell Bentley. I’m the chief storyteller at the Bentley Media Group here in Atlanta, Georgia.  We are a full service video marketing studio.

I exist to help my clients create video content that makes them look good and sound good, and also

makes their target audience feel good. And that translates to creating videos that influence minds and win hearts.

I happen to have grown up in the Forsyth County School System, and I was a graduate of Forsyth

Central High School, went on to University of North Georgia, graduated from their

Film program back in 2019, and I have been in business on my own for the last six years.

CG: So as an avid storyteller,  what would be some advice or things that you would share with students that are currently in high school in the AVTF  program?

MB: Definitely keep a very open mind because you never know what direction life is going to take you.

Even within the realm of AV, there are so many directions you can head in considering Georgia’s booming film industry. You can easily go onto work on blockbuster films that are happening here in Atlanta or TV shows like “Stranger Things.” Or even go into short films, make short films that are set up to one day be at Sundance.

You know there’s that, or you can go down a similar path that I went down with client based video projects where instead of you creating your own short films, you have big brands coming to you saying, “Hey, can you tell our story?”

And you create the visuals and the sounds and the storyline to go with it.  So I would encourage any high schooler who might be watching this or listening to this to really lean in on where your heart is and where your passion is and you’re a teenager. You may not realize that right away.  You may not recognize it right away, but that’s totally fine.

In fact, you may come to realize that you prefer another track you prefer. Maybe science or biology later on in life, and that’s OK. But if you…. I’ll speak to a subset of students right now. I’ll speak to our budding entrepreneurs that we have that maybe don’t know if they have any….. an idea worth pursuing. If you can give yourself the opportunity to and the permission to chase your dream and start up your own enterprise. Even if you start small, whether you start small, whether you start big, what no matter what it is, if you give yourself permission to do that, you are at least giving yourself a fighting chance even if you fall flat on your face.

Give yourself that chance because you never know what might come from that. And if it ends up working out in your favor and you will be pleasantly surprised and you will be happy, you’ll be so happy that you at least gave yourself a chance.

So that’s what I would say. Chase…. it’s cliché to say chase your dreams and chase your heart, but it’s worth saying because it’s what led me to where I am today.