Today we’d like to introduce you to Cedric J. (Saint) Williams.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
When I was little kid, around 4 or 5 years old, my mother would drop me off to my grandmother’s house before se went to work. My grandmother worked for the Kodak Photography Company, so she always had me surrounded by cameras, cables, printers, and computers every time I went over there.
I eventually began to get curious and started to sit in her office and watch her edit photos and videos. After a while, it got to a point where every time I went over there, I was excited to play with her cameras, make little video clips, and play little video games on the computer. This is when my love for technology became a part of me. Of course, I played sports growing up and did other extracurricular activities; but when I came home, that camera or that computer knew what time it was lol. In middle school, I began taking pictures and adding special effects on them, making someone’s head look like it was on fire, or drawing giant mustaches on people’s faces. I wanna say around high school was when I started developing a skill the skills that turned me into artistry and digital media arts. I took classes like theatre, animation, and digital media while balancing playing football. I knew whatever it was I was going to do as a career in the future, it was going to be along the guidelines of creating some type of art the best way I can.
Eventually, I began to question what my purpose of life was, what does it mean to be an artist? What does it mean to be a digital media artist? What is the processes, measures, and heights that an artist has to extend themselves to in order to make art that effects the world? I wanted to go to a good and expensive school out in California or Florida, but I did not have the money to pay for that nor did my financial aid offer to fully pay it. Out of state tuition was too high, and a lot of schools did not have was I wanted to do as a major. So I had to pick a school in Texas that was affordable for me. Well, I attended Prairie View A&M University, majored in Digital Media Arts with a minor in Mass Communications. Here was when I perfected my craft and took my work to a whole new level. Those questions I asked, I figured them out. I felt like I went into a lion’s den and came out with the lion coat lol. I figured out the game and how to play it. Not just how to play it, but how to win at it.
I became a Producer, Actor, and Digital Media Artist here. I started my own production company in February of 2019 called Saint Rendevu Productions, LLC. The company is now a registered LLC C- Corporation and is looking for investment and collaboration opportunities. Now that I had my skills that no one could take from me, and my company set up, I just needed the right opportunity to prove myself and get on the map. Well, my opportunity came! A production company came on campus to shoot a movie called “The Freshmen Year”. I volunteered as an intern and worked my up on set getting a little screen time here and there. The movie was starring Denzel Whitaker and Sheryl Lee Ralph. I asked Denzel a few times to do an interview with me almost every day, the set hours were so long and tedious, we kept pushing it back. But finally, there was one day he had time to sit down, we did the interview, we had a camera crew, I was a host as well as my friend Jejuan, we had an award-winning director, Tony Clomax and shot the interview. After that, I edited it months later into a documentary-style interview and released it on Amazon Prime Video. It’s called “Denzel Whitaker Transcend And Uplift”. Go check it out on Prime.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I learned a lot. Being an artist is a path of uncertainty, there isn’t really a blueprint. There will always be people who will not understand your thought process, tell you you’re wrong, or just full out not get the way you are. This is because you are doing something that is new and hasn’t been done before, keeps going, keeps striving to break new barriers and keeps reinventing the barriers. No one will get your dreams and aspirations until after you lay down the bricks and build the house up in their face, then and only then will it make sense to them. Getting myself to this point took a lot of perseverance, faith in myself, and structuring my thoughts and actions on my own.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Saint Rendevu Productions story. Tell us more about the business.
My production company, “Saint Rendevu Productions”, is a motion picture, multimedia and film production company. We focus on creating Movies, TV shows, music videos, and stunning graphics. We are most proud of our new documentary Transcend And Uplift on Prime Video, as well as the opportunity to be able to inspire and create art for the world to see. Saint Rendevu Productions is a Black-owned business.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I’m not gonna lie! I figured out that a lot of being successful in the entertainment industry is being in the right place at the right time mixed with you creating your own opportunities to be great. When an opportunity that could take you to new places approaches, you gotta be ready. You just have to be. The real question is, what will you do for yourself to make sure that when an opportunity comes your way, you not only take it, but you take it and run with it.
In order to do that, you have to do the necessary groundwork to set yourself up to be ready when it comes. You can’t be lazy. You need to already be informed 100 percent about whatever it is that you’re doing in order to know what steps you need to take to set yourself up. It’s like building a cannon around you, you’re the cannonball inside, and the steps that you take is the manual to how to build the cannon. But I believe in blessings not luck. So if God has something planned for you, it will be for you and only you.
Contact Info:
- Email: saintrendevu@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cedric_williams/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/CedricJWilliams
- Other: https://www.patreon.com/saintrendevuproductions
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