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Lights, Camera, ºÚÁÏÉçÇø: Storyteller Noah Welter Frames His Future at Heinz College

When Noah Welter creates video content as a social media specialist at the , he sometimes imagines how the scene might change if a zombie suddenly lurched into frame. 

A lifelong fan of spooky movies, Welter was drawn to the performing arts as a child. While he manages social media today, his passion is filmmaking — acting, directing and screenwriting. 

“Everything I do here with social media is storytelling,” said Welter, who joined Heinz College in 2023. “That’s what I do outside of here, too. It’s just storytelling in different forms.”

Welter’s creative energy is a major asset to his team at Heinz College.

“He combines creativity and visual storytelling with a sharp understanding of social media algorithms, helping us shape content that really connects with students and performs well online,” said Bill Brink, associate director of marketing and communications. “Sometimes I feel bad because he’ll spend the weekend filming police chase scenes, then on Monday I’ll ask him to record someone sitting quietly in a chair.”

Welter uses his filmmaker’s vision to jazz up even routine assignments such as a sit-down interview. One standout project was an Instagram reel for Heinz College that recreated Nicole Kidman’s — with a .

“Several of the projects I’ve done for our social media have made me think, ‘I’d like to make this like a movie,’” Welter said. “I always try to combine my filmmaking and social media skills, and those projects end up doing really well.”

Since 2022, Welter has created four short feature films, including “,” produced in association with the George A. Romero Foundation. Welter wrote and directed the 15-minute chiller, which he described as an homage to the Halloween movies of his childhood in the 2000s and 2010s.

“I grew up with the ‘Goosebumps’ books and TV series, B horror movies and the SyFy channel,” Welter said. “With sci-fi and horror filmmaking, the world is your playground. You can make monsters and aliens exist, and the rules don’t apply as much.”

“Just Stay In” won Best Halloween Film at the 2025 Halloween International Film Festival; was nominated for best story, best cinematography and best sound design at the Days of the Dead Film Festival; and was nominated for best story at the Houston International Film Festival. It was an official selection in several national and international festivals, including the Chicago Horror Film Festival and the ETREUM Horror Film Festival.

Surprisingly, Welter’s first film script wasn’t in the horror genre, though it carried a hint of the macabre. “Found at a Funeral” is a romantic comedy with a quirky plotline: Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl’s phone number. Boy remembers her grandmother just died and crashes funerals hoping to find her again.

“It was a fun project,” Welter said. “I am self-taught when it comes to writing a narrative feature film, so for about two and a half years it was a workshop where I learned how to do a screenplay.”

In 2024, “Found at a Funeral” won the grand prize of the Sunvale Screenplay Contest and best dramatic script in the Pittsburgh Moving Picture Festival. It was a finalist at the Toronto International Hollywood Film Festival, a semifinalist in the Reno-Tahoe Fellowship and earned  honorable mention at the Santa Barbara International Screenplay Awards.

As a preschooler, Welter transformed his living room into a theater and staged magic shows for his parents. That spark led to roles in high school musicals, student productions at Slippery Rock University, and appearances with Pittsburgh Public Theater and other local troupes. Even with his growing success as a screenwriter and director, acting remains Welter’s first love.

“I don’t ever want to stop acting,” he said. 

Welter has been for the better part of a decade, with roles in several independent feature films and shorts. He recently landed a small role in Hulu’s reboot of the “Prison Break” drama series, which is set to air in 2026.

“I started out performing little magic shows for my parents and now I’m working with companies like Hulu and Showtime,” Welter said. “My passion has slowly turned into a profession, and I’m so grateful to be where I am.”

Transitioning from acting to directing felt natural, but it brought new challenges.

“I know how to talk with actors because basically I’m saying what I’d want to hear for myself,” Welter said. “The production side — knowing how to explain my vision to grips, gaffers and the director of photography — has been a bit of a journey. I’m not even close to where I’d like to be, but it will always be an incredible earning adventure.”