Jeffrey Grellman was raised in Belgium for the first seven years of his life before moving to California where he began winning awards for his creative writing at an early age. He worked professionally for a short time as a voice artist for radio ads and video games as he continued to pursue writing and directing films. His award-winning screenplay for Mermaid Down was featured in Filmmaker Magazine. The film became his first feature and was sold to Sony Pictures via Archstone Distribution (later sold to Alliance Entertainment); it was released on every available streaming service, screened in over a thousand movie theaters overseas, and sold on DVD at Walmart stores nationwide despite a budget of only $85K. Fangoria featured Mermaid Down in a 3-part story about how the film was made.