Untethered Minds Media was built on a deliberate choice. Not a layoff. Not a pivot. After 20 years with one organization, including 7 years in a director role and 3.5 years as Executive Director overseeing $10M+ in annual revenue, Tavis chose to take everything that career taught him and apply it to building something of his own.
That meant getting certified before charging a dollar. Investing in cinema-grade equipment before landing the first client. Carrying $10 million in liability coverage because the work demands it, not because it looks good on a page.
Most search providers are marketers who added AI to the pitch. UM Media treats it as an operations problem: audit every surface that describes the business, resolve the contradictions between them, repair what blocks a crawler, and document a baseline so the result is measurable rather than asserted. That is the instinct of someone who spent two decades accountable for numbers before ever picking up a camera.
This isn't a side hustle. It's the work.
Tavis McGrew is the founder and lead operator of Untethered Minds Media, a Phoenix, Arizona studio. He personally runs every engagement, from SEO, AEO, and GEO foundations through custom and immersive web builds and cinematic production. FAA Part 107 certified and $10M insured for aerial work.
Before founding UM Media, Tavis spent 20 years in executive leadership, reaching Director and Executive Director roles with direct oversight of $10M+ in annual revenue. That background informs how every project is scoped, planned, and delivered. Clients get an operator who audits, measures, and reports, not a creative who figures out the business side as they go.
Owner-led. Licensed. Insured. Personally overseeing every project from planning to delivery, with fast turnaround and no gray-area shortcuts.
UM Media did not start as a creative hobby that grew into a business. It started as a deliberate exit from nearly two decades of executive leadership, where the standards for delivery, reliability, and accountability were non-negotiable and where system thinking, not output thinking, was the job.
That foundation is what makes UM Media different from most creative studios. Most creative operators learned creative first and are still figuring out the operational side. Tavis learned operations, leadership, and system design first, then layered creative production on top.
That translation shows up everywhere in the work today.
The primary service. A one-time Foundation that repairs what blocks crawlers, builds structured data, resolves the contradictions between every surface describing a business, and documents a baseline so movement is measurable rather than asserted. Buyers now find brands through ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, not just blue links.
Executive operations taught one core lesson: a system that isn't documented, repeatable, and connected will fail at scale. That same discipline shapes every Cinematic Brand System, the work is built as a connected architecture, not a collection of one-off deliverables.
Modern websites are not brochures. They are experiences, funnels, and conversion engines. UM Media builds cinematic interactive sites with scroll storytelling, motion design, and Apple-style product reveals, integrated with the strategy behind them, not bolted on after the fact.
The studio operates a modern AI-assisted production stack (Higgsfield for cinematic visual generation, Lovable for web builds, integrated motion design) used to deliver premium brand experiences at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional agency workflows, without losing craft.
Full cinematic production stack: ground cinema (Sony FX30), aerial cinematography, and FPV (FAA Part 107 certified, $10M insured), executed as one connected capture system. Real production craft, delivered by the same person quoting the project.
Every brand system begins with a working session on brand voice, positioning, audience, and visual direction, built into the engagement before production begins. The executive background that informed business-level strategy now informs brand-level strategy for the studio's clients.
The visible output is the film or the website. The part that compounds is the structure underneath it: schema, entity consistency, crawlability, and a baseline someone actually wrote down. Operational discipline is what makes that half reliable, and it is the half most studios skip.
Untethered Minds Media exists to prove that discipline still matters. That integrity still wins. That you don't have to cut corners to succeed.
This is about more than gear and rankings.
It's about building something meaningful. Something lasting. Something that reflects faith, responsibility, and pride in workmanship.
We believe in showing up prepared. Measuring before claiming. Delivering consistently. And treating every client like a long-term partner.
No shortcuts. No excuses. No gray areas.
The result is simple. You get documented work, clear updates, and a presence that reads at the tier the business actually operates at, without inflated promises or missed expectations.
Every project follows the same standard, no matter the size.
We partner with people who care about doing things right.
Businesses that need to be found, understood, and cited by AI answer engines.
Learn more about SEO / AEO / GEOAnyone who refuses to let their project look ordinary.
Learn more about Visual ProductionBrands that treat their site like an experience, not a brochure.
Learn more about Web ExperiencesFor the ones built to set the standard, not chase it.
Learn more about Brand SystemsWhen clients work with Untethered Minds Media, they're not hiring a vendor. They're partnering with someone who treats their project like it's his own.
If you care about doing it right, documented baselines, clear communication, honest timelines, and work that holds up to scrutiny, let's talk.
Untethered Minds Media is owner-operated by Tavis McGrew from Phoenix, Arizona. Before founding the studio he spent 20 years in executive leadership, including 7 years as a Director and 3.5 years as an Executive Director with oversight of more than $10M in annual revenue. The studio's primary service is the SEO / AEO / GEO Foundation, a one-time engagement from $7,500 that makes an existing business readable, consistent, and citable across Google and AI answer engines. UM Media also builds custom and immersive websites and delivers cinematic production, including FAA Part 107 aerial work covered by $10M in liability insurance. No ranking or citation is guaranteed. Every engagement is measured against a baseline documented before work begins.
Tavis McGrew is the founder and lead operator of Untethered Minds Media, a Phoenix, Arizona studio specializing in SEO, AEO, and GEO foundations alongside custom web and cinematic production. He owns and operates the company directly and personally runs every engagement from diagnosis through delivery.
Twenty years of executive leadership, including 7 years as a Director and 3.5 years as Executive Director overseeing $10M+ in annual revenue. That background is directly relevant to search and AI visibility work, which is largely auditing, reconciling contradictory sources, documenting baselines, and reporting honestly on what moved. He also runs the full production stack: ground cinema on a Sony FX30, FAA Part 107 aerial, immersive web builds, and motion design.
Yes. UM Media is owner-led. Tavis scopes the engagement, does the work, and reports on it. There is no agency layer and no account manager between the client and the person delivering.
No. Rankings, traffic, and AI citations are controlled by the engines, not by any provider. What UM Media guarantees is the itemized scope, performed to professional standard, measured against a baseline documented before work begins. Any provider promising guaranteed citations is selling something they do not control.
FAA Part 107 is the federal certification required to operate a drone commercially in the United States. It covers airspace rules, weather, regulations, and operational safety. Every UM Media flight is conducted under Part 107.
Premium brands, venues, artists, hospitality operators, and businesses across Arizona and nationally. The studio delivers full cinematic brand systems, immersive web experiences, brand films, music videos, live event coverage, luxury stays, documentary work, and aerial cinematography. Custom projects considered case by case.
Text (602) 842-3420, email tavis@untetheredmindsmedia.com, or use the request a quote form. Initial responses arrive within 24 hours.