Shawn Peters: A Cinematographer's Perspective on Beauty and Objects

Rob Lee: Welcome to The Truth in This Art. I am your host, Rob Lee. Thank you for tuning in to these conversations at the intersection of arts, culture, and community. Today, we're delving into the world of a visual master whose lens has chronicled an array of narratives from the intimate corners of human emotion to the grand stages of global brands. His work not only reflects the zeitgeist, but also shapes it, engaging with giants like Apple and Hulu while keeping his finger firmly on the pulse of the streets. Please welcome Shawn Peters. Welcome to the podcast.
Shawn Peters: Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Rob Lee: Looking forward to it. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for making the time. And, you know, I made a point over, like, the last, like, four months to have more of the video component. I don't do the full video, but I do have excerpts from it. And it's great to see someone that's wearing what my normal fit is, because that's a sweatshirt. And so that's a normal fit, my hat, sweatshirt, beard. We're here.

Shawn Peters: Terrence got his little mattress right here, so let me just turn over here to Coltrane.

Rob Lee: So before we get into the deeper conversation, I want to give you the space to introduce yourself. I think that there is a lot that's there that often gets missed when we have the artist statement or the online bio. I remember doing an interview with someone, I'm going over all of the accolades, and they were like, you forgot one. I was like, which one is that? And they were like, I'm a human. And I was like, all right, I'm going to start passing it off to people, putting the onus on you. So if you will, could you give us a little bit, who are you? Like, introduce yourself.

Shawn Peters: I'm Shawn Peters. I would say I'm an artist who's really interested in beauty and beauty and objects. You know, I'm a filmmaker by trade, so my checks will often say, cinematographer or director of photography, entitled right at the moment. But I also am a collector of fine art, ceramics, I love chocolate, dark chocolate. And I, there's something else that I was thinking of, like, literally yesterday, I was like, man, you love that. And now I can't I like a lot of things. I like objects. I like beauty. I like things that are beautiful.

Rob Lee: That's dope. That's better than what I would have found online. You know what I mean? So it's working. It works. It works. And I too enjoy dark chocolate. It's like, look, you know, it's got to be 70 pure. Let's make it. So So from the creative side, I like to like go back to some of those like those moments, like those early moments that kind of set you on your path, like maybe some of those like early life moments or some of those inspirations that you know, had you, like, realizing, like, hey, I like beautiful things, or hey, I like the way this looks, I like this visual. Tell me about some of those early moments where creativity was just top of mind, not even, like, early in the career, but just this sort of early realization of creative things for you.

Shawn Peters: I have to say to give context that I never thought of myself as an artist. And that came late in life. You know, I thought I when I was in my junior high school, let's say I, I really respected Bill Cosby, right. And I was like, from Fat Albert to, you know, the Cosby show and all those things that were happening, I understood his power. Not, you know, over other people, but I understood his ability to you know to educate not just educate but to you know, be in the lexicon be in Culture to create culture for black people and then and to influence Minds in a certain way. So in junior high school, I realized that media was important and I didn't know what how I would participate but I knew I thought maybe I might be a journalist and You know, I would go to journalism school or you might be on, you know, even a newscaster or something. I was like, oh, maybe I'll just be a newscaster. I'll be in journalism. So I didn't really know, I didn't have anyone in my family. I come from a very working class sort of black family from New York, Bronx, Harlem, and New Rochelle, Mount Vernon. And no one that I knew personally was a full-time artist that made money. not a single human being that I knew personally, you know? So everyone I knew had jobs. They may be poets. My uncle might have had a little book published one time. You know, they might like painting. You know, they might, you know what I mean? They might like, they might like theater or film or music, but they had day jobs. Everybody just had a job, you know? So I had a few cousins that maybe were interested in things that were more eclectic or more interesting, but they all just, they all had degrees. Some had degrees, some didn't, but they all worked. So I didn't really know for the longest time that that was a thing, a job. I went to Morehouse undergrad, and I thought I was going to be an English teacher. But I had friends who were making films, small films there. And there's a famous professor named Dr. Eichelberg, who was at Clark, who taught a 16 millimeter film production class. It was like 16 millimeter one and two as an elective. And so in the AUC, you can take classes anyway. You can take classes at Clark or Spelman, as long as you take your bulk, your major courses at your primary institution. And so I took those courses. you know, and I was like, okay, I still didn't know if I was good at it in any way. But my friend at the time, Jonathan Roper, who's from New York, was making these short films, and he was engaging me and letting the camera operate sometimes. But I still, even before I graduated, didn't think I was going to be a filmmaker. I'd already been interviewing my senior year at high schools to teach English. And so to make a long story short, Jonathan was like, yo, there's this film program at the University of South Carolina that's up the road. I'm going to go show my film to the head of the film department. Do you want to take a ride? And I was like, why not? It's a four hour drive. So we drove up. He showed his film, which was like, proto Daughters of the Dust kind of thing. It was like, before Daughters of the Dust, it was about kind of Gullah, but in Savannah, the Savannah Seahawks, you know, so we did this little film about that. And we went and showed it to, her name was Dr. Wertz, who was the head of the department, and I can't remember the professor's name at the time, for some reason. But he went in on the film saying it wasn't universal enough, It wouldn't appeal to a broader audience, two white people, right? And my friend, John, is not the most, I wouldn't say the most verbal person. on the plane, he's a visual person. And so he was kind of just like allowing that conversation to happen. And so I was, I wasn't there for any reason. So I just, I just jumped in on the conversation and started chopping this dude down about cultural specificity. And what does that mean? You know, is Schindler's List too culturally specific? You know, why is this Gullah film too cultural? What does that mean? You know, are white people not curious? You know, and so we went to this whole thing and he conceded to my argument. And before I left, Dr. Wertz was like, you know, can I stay in touch with you? And I was like, this is before. cell phones, really. It was like the first cell phones I had when I was in college. And it was like, they were expensive. We had pagers and stuff like that back then. And I gave her my mom's number, literally, in New York. Like, here's my mom's number, you can call her. You know? So I had an internship back in New York that summer that I always had my cousin hook me up with to make a little extra money. And I got a call there from my mom saying that someone named Dr. Wertz called and wanted to talk to me. Yeah, so I called her back. I kind of remember and I was like, yeah, okay I called her back and she was like, would you be interested in coming to school here? And I was like, well, I didn't apply. She's like don't worry about the application. Just you know, get your transcript sent. She said, but I'm willing to offer you a full scholarship and a TA position. Oh, wow. So I ended up going to the University of South Carolina to study film and by accident really. I had no intention of going there, you know. So that's how, that's how the creativity started. It was in that program, I actually started getting more interested in still photography. There was a guy named Gene Crediford, a professor there, quirky, he looked like Einstein, quirky, who introduced me to the work of Roy DeCarava. I was a, you know, famous black photographer, one of our, one of our greatest influences as cinematography, black cinematographers. I didn't know at the time, And I had never heard of him. And I knew about Gordon Parks and a few other cats. But Roy, I didn't hear of him. This is early, early on before Roy had his big moment retrospective, before he kind of became, in the art world, public consciousness. Now, Roy DeCarava print is like $90,000 to buy a Roy DeCarava print. But I went and stalked Roy DeCarava when I was back home. He worked at Hunter College. And I went. I would write him, I would call him. He would tell me that he wouldn't see the work of non-students, that he had to reserve his critique to people who were paying tuition. So I just went there and sat in his office until he saw me. And then finally he saw me. And he told me, I had my book of prints that I made, The Dark Room. And he told me before I gave him the book, he said, I've been known to tell people to stop shooting. You know, I've been, no, I'm not a nice guy. Like, I will tell you, if you suck, you should not do this, this work. You know, and now he's like, you still want me to see your work? And I'm sweating through it. So I hand him the book, and he's looking at me, you know, he's looking at the images, mad stoked, no expression on his face. And he looks, he finished the paid book, he says, you should continue shooting. He said, but you print with too much contrast. Let me show you. They took me into his darkroom, showed me how he print. I spent a whole day. So that was the moment for me when Roy DeCarava, who's now my probably the greatest influence, one of my greatest influences, told me that I should continue making images.

Rob Lee: That's really dope. And see, here's the thing. Here's the thing. When I'm letting people cook, right? It knocks out other questions. That's that's really dope. And no, no. And I think the other thing that's that's that's really cool about it, you know, just based on a few things you said, I was telling you about my partner earlier. Y'all probably went to school together. This is the time. It's very similar. And the story is very similar. She was studying film, I think. So there you go.

Shawn Peters: She's probably much younger than I am.

Rob Lee: But I think like, and kind of the way that we get to it, like hearing like, hey, you know, kind of by accident, kind of by chance encounter, and this sort of creative life, this creative pursuit, you know, mine is a little similar, like coming from, there was some artists around. I had a uncle that was an artist, but he passed before I was born. So I was like, oh, I have no reference point. And, I mean, not even in this, I wanted to be a cartoon artist, like an illustrator and things of that and doing comics. And I was like 24 and burnt out in my day job, you know, like got to do something that makes money. That's what I would hear. I was like, I want to be an artist. Now you got to got to get a business degree. And I went to Morgan and. you know, had all of that different stuff. And, you know, I did the first job out of college, was a marketing job, trying to make it a creative marketing job. It was a marketing analysis job. Not sexy, not fun. And I was looking for an outlet creatively. And I was like, I'm into some weird stuff. I like documenting and talking about different things and really revisiting like pop culture and media. So I started doing a podcast. This is 2009. I went across the street to Best Buy, bought a bunch of equipment, didn't know what I was doing. spent that last $500 I had in my wallet, you know, and bought some gear. I still have the gear to this day. And that was sort of the thing. And it was just figuring it out. And one of the things you touched on earlier that I thought was really funny being on this this other side of it now, I've been doing podcasting for as long as I have, but also I've been able to be an educator for folks who are diving into the podcast scene. That's a side gig that I'm working in. And folks come to me and say, hey, So what do you think about podcasts? It's like, so do you have the stamina for it? Because I might tell you to stop. And I said that to Pete, but I was like, that's a little spicy. But hearing that that's maybe part of your journey. Yeah.

Shawn Peters: Yeah. I mean, it was honest, I think. you know, why I tell someone, and this is the guy who's known as the perennial genius of photography, Black photography, the first Black man, first Black person, maybe, or Black man, for sure, to go to Cooper Union, you know, this is a real artist elder, like, dedicated his life to this. And so for him to even, for him to acknowledge me like that, was huge. And he could have been like, He probably would have been better for me if he was like, don't waste your time, man. What are you doing? This is not your thing.

Rob Lee: Well, I want to move into this a little bit. So is there an experience? Because normally you talk about the first gig and feel free to chime in as it relates to any projects you've worked on, any of your own projects, any sort of collaborations, any projects that you had clients or have you. But, you know, could you share an experience that, you know, kind of pushed the boundaries of what those creative skills and those technical skills are that it was like, I went from being at this level to I'm at this level now after this sort of project and this experience?

Shawn Peters: You know, I worked on a series in Wilmington. And I can't remember the name of the series. But it was like, you know, probably a $200 million series for Hulu, you know, car chases. It was a femme fatale, big sets, big costumes. And I hadn't worked on, you know, sets of that scale before. I hadn't worked on the crews of that scale before, chase scenes in that scale before. So I kind of went from making indie films, you know, to doing this like huge thing all of a sudden. And it was a tough experience for me. It was, you know, crews trying to sabotage me. It was it was kind of crazy. I was isolated way down North Carolina. But, you know, it was I learned a lot. From that, you know, took my level of understanding of the production, the process, and I was able to take that into, you know, telling the great, you know, which is about the same level.

Rob Lee: Yeah, I think when we have those moments, those experiences, it's… you know, in doing this podcast, right? You know, I have done 700 plus at this point in four years. And sometimes I'll get someone, I'm like, how the hell did I get this person? And then other times I'm like, OK, cool, this is good. And trying to deliver ultimately the same thing in terms of the effort that I'm putting in, the quality of what the output is going to be. And sometimes it's like this one left, whether it be the person is not really into the conversation, whether it is the person is just preoccupied to have other things going on, or I just frankly sucked. And I will learn. I'll learn things from that or even being independent as you know, I'm pursuing this the way that I am. And sometimes things just blow up in your face and. I, I stick with it. Like I said, I've been doing the podcast thing for 15 years, but yeah. And when, you know, getting, getting budgets now, getting funding now, I'm like, okay, I hope I do good. It's like the beginning of that, uh, that end is crazy. The Richard Pryor joint. It's like, I hope I'm funny, you know?

Shawn Peters: No, it's real, man. It's, um, I've been fired before, you know, off a film project. It's me, you know, because me and the directors, I don't know, it was whatever, it was a clash. It didn't work out. you know, that took me back, my confidence back, you know, a few steps. So, you know, you've been, you go through, I'm sure every DP goes through, you know, the, you know, every time I step on the set, really, I feel like a charlatan. You know, every time I step on the set, I'm like, can I, do I do, do I do this? I don't remember. You know, every time feels like a new, like, challenge, like, Yeah, that's right. And then you get one day and you're like, oh yeah, I do this.

Rob Lee: How do you rebound from that, though, when you have those moments when you feel like a charlatan or you feel like people use imposter syndrome? But I don't know if I think that's reserved for a certain class of folk. But when you have those moments of, you know, like and I'm saying it may be selfishly for myself. Like, how do you recover from those moments? How do you, you know, tap back into sort of what the source is or what the being rooted in like no one should.

Shawn Peters: You know, I really just, I come, I don't, I just go into like, a real kind of Buddhistic philosophy that it's going to be, I'm going to show up and do my best. And it's going to be what it is, you know, I mean, and I think, and I have faith that I've been doing this for a minute. I have faith that I do actually know what I'm doing. And that it'll all fall into place, you know. And so, but I'm always nervous. I'm always like, I don't know if this director is going to be like, I don't know how we're going to gel. I don't know how the crew, a lot of times you're meeting crews and working for them, for the Furniture Crew in Chicago, I never met them. You know, I didn't know them. And a lot of times in new television, these series like for Hulu or Amazon or whatever, the budgets are getting a bit smaller than they were. And so me bringing a gaffer in from LA or, my gaffer from, most of my guys I work with continue from LA, but me bringing in my gaffers or my key grip, a lot of times it becomes a difficult conversation now. So they want you to work with a local cat. And so you're interviewing cats and you're, you know, hoping to get good, you know, and, and I got lucky in Chicago that I found the A Squad. and Ed, and our key group, and their crews were fantastic, and the crews were, you know, of color, mostly of color, and women, you know, it was very diverse, essentially mostly, but it was a lot of diversity, a lot of different gender expressions and queer identities as well. So it was a good experience in that

Rob Lee: I like the the thing that you said earlier, sort of the Buddhistic, the or even I even throw out there, the combat of it all, the Japanese thing. It's like, look, luck doesn't exist. It's like, look, I'm going to do my thing and the chips will fall where they will. But I know that I've done my piece. This is what I control in it. And. You know, I've been trying to abide by that because I really get caught in doing this. I'm good in this way. I'm good in this sort of control setting or even one to one, like if you were in the sort of in the same space together. Right. But, you know, when folks are in your ear and they're saying this is the next stage for you, you should be doing these like in person things because and I definitely want to get your take on this because you have to get the attention economy. You have to grab people. You have to always be putting something out there. You got a 10 exit, bro. It's like, no, I just I just want to do this. I like this. I like having conversations with people more talented than me, as I like to joke about. That's the thing I enjoy doing. And I try not to go too far away from that while sort of moving the needle that pushes the boundaries of, OK, I want to talk to these types of people. I want to have conversations with these folks. I want to be able to maybe improv probably 40 percent of this interview versus being completely structured. But, you know, how do you as you're progressing through your career and through your creative journey, which always feels weird saying journey, how do you continue to push the boundaries of your creative expression while being able to work with clients and being able to be part of these different projects? How do you marry the two of those?

Shawn Peters: Well, you know, I will say it's interesting, man. I was telling somebody the other day that I'm I'm not super ambitious. My ambition really goes towards my curiosity and sort of learning something new and doing something better, exploring something better than what I did the last time. It's not really like I got to do a bigger project necessarily. I mean, I like money. Don't get it twisted. I'm a socialist who likes money. enjoy pretty things, right? And so, um, but yeah, I don't, I, you know, for the longest time, I couldn't get into the commercial world, you know, not big, and I would do like little small web kind of things, smaller web masterclasses and those kind of things. And they were decent. You know, you can make, if a DP is working on masterclasses as an ancillary, you can make an ancillary outside of your other work. You can make an ancillary little hundred G's working in masterclasses, you know what I mean? Which is nice. But it's not, you know, and you work on sets, you learn how to work on sets. You get all this kind of thing that you can kind of, if you're a young DP, doing like that kind of thing is a good platform for a decent little living and learning, right? But I wasn't, that's not creative, you know what I mean? It's okay, you can learn, you can be a little creative, but it's three cameras on a person, basically. And so I came up with a few mentors, and a few people that I idolized, like Arthur Jaffer, you know, who's probably the biggest Black contemporary artist now, one of them, and was a cinematographer in his early days and kind of stopped doing that as a major thing, as a main thing, and then got into the final world later in life. He's probably in his 60s, I would assume. And so Arthur Jaffa, going back to Arthur Jaffa, Arthur Jaffa did a film called Daughters of the Dust. that I saw when I was in high school. I forgot what year it was, but it was sometime early. And that was one of the first films I saw that I was like, this is art. Whoever shot this, I recognized it. I was like, whoever photographed this is an artist. You know what I mean? And then I saw Belly and Clockers and saw the work of Malik Saeed and started reading about that cat who was another idol. And then I realized that they were doing stuff together. And so once I became friends with AJ, later on, you know, we developed, he started seeing my work, we developed a friendship. And so once AJ kind of blew up, he kind of, he blew up like instantly off this one Art Basel thing. And then he, he got this, he had an opportunity to direct this LeBron James Nike commercial. And at that time, I hadn't done Nike commercials. I hadn't done any commercial even. I mean, I've done small commercials, big, pretty decent sized commercials, nothing like that. Nothing like Wyden Kennedy, LeBron James Nike commercial. And so he got the commercial and he was like, Shawn Peters is going to shoot it. And they were like, well, where's his Nike commercial? He was like, you don't have one. They were like, well, we usually, he's like, I'm not going to do it unless Shawn does it. And most directors don't do that. they're not going to compromise their bag for a DP. And so we did it. And it was, I thought it was one of my best work, piece of work at the time. And that was it. And I'm doing some bowl commercials and, you know, the biggest directors, biggest commercials, you know what I mean? And so the commercials is where the bag is for a DP. That's where you make your, am I doing your series or your, or your film money, because I don't need to. So it affords you to make choices on what you want to do creatively. So that was a big gift for me. And I've been running, that's been by four, by five, six years ago. And I've been running ever since in the commercial world, which has allowed me to, you know, And now I'm shooting for Bradford Young. He's directing commercials now. I'm VPing for him. And I just directed something, a small thing for Sundance and a brand in Baltimore. So maybe I might, hopefully I might start directing some things soon. But yeah, it was like, but I didn't tell you. I'm not sure if I'm answering your question correctly. I'm kind of going on a tangent. But what I didn't tell you is that after film school, after that whole experience, I was too broke to pursue film. So I went into, I ended up after graduate school, you know, temp jobs, hustling, and then I ran into a friend that was doing early on websites before people was even on there. And so he was like, man, why don't you work with me, man? We can try to pitch these Black companies, we had a little company called New York Online. And we was like, why don't we pitch these businesses? It was like, you know, I'm talking about like, you know, Apollo Theater, we go to the Apollo Theater and try to get them a website, they didn't have one at that time. Or like, Wells Chicken and Waffles, you know, Harlem, you know, stuff in Harlem and Brooklyn, just Black businesses that were known, like, you need a website, it's a thing called internet. And so we did that. And I got a little experience understanding of that. And then I met his brother and his brother was working at AT&T as like a data network salesman or something. So he was basically selling at that time T1 lines that were dedicated to like from New York to Japan doing exchanges from bank to bank. It was like a pipe. This is when it was dial-up. Maybe DSL was just coming on the scene. I think it was before that. It was because I remember I had one of the first DSL pipes. you know, I was, I got, I was like, yo, can I, I was like, I said, yeah, like a bands, he was chilling. I was like, yo, what'd you get? How can I get a job at AT&T? And he was like, well, I can't get you a job doing what I'm doing, but I can get you an entry level sales job. So I got an interview. I got the job. So I ended up being at AT&T and then I ended up with his job, maybe a year later. Right. And then, and so I started like, you know, my 20, 26 years old back then, I'm doing very well financially. I'm doing better than all my friends. I had bad money for my age. And living in Fort Greene, I was enjoying my life. And I was able to take trips to this place and that place and do still photography projects when I had time off and all that. But that took me away. And then I ended up, a client of mine, who was a Black-owned information technology company, a big one, took me from AT&T. He was like, he poached me. He basically was like, why don't you come work for us? We'll give you like, at that time, we're talking about early, like, you know, early 2000s, like 99, 2001. They were like, we'll give you $150,000 plus bonus. You know what I mean? A year, 150, something crazy. I was making close to 170, And I was in my 20s, you know what I'm saying? Like my uncles and aunts, none of them would make it.

Rob Lee: I mean, that when I when I got out, and thank you for sharing that, because it definitely makes it makes it another one of those connections where, you know, my first job out of college was at that AT&T competitor and I was doing marketing and and, you know, it was the most money ever made. And, you know, at that time, and I was making more than both of my parents combined and all of that different stuff and having sort of those those those headaches that come there. But You know, like I said, you know, at 24, two years in, I'm like, I'm burnt out. This money doesn't matter.

Shawn Peters: No, that's what happened.

Rob Lee: And even looking at the career trajectory of, well, you can do this, but you know, sometimes you only sleep in like six hours a night. I was like, nah, doesn't work for me.

Shawn Peters: I mean, I only sleep six hours a night now, but not because I can't sleep. But, but yeah, I mean, Yeah, so I ended up, there's a separate time story, but I ended up with that management consulting company, the division I was in, ended up leaving and starting their own company. Now I'm a partner in an IT company out in Jersey. It lasted for a few years. I can't remember how many before. And, you know, there was a controversy in the company. I left, ended up starting a record label with some friends of mine. And we did this thing called Rebel Soul Records. You know, we started working with artists like Martin Luther, and we just got Cody Chestnut, and a few other people that we were working with. And did that for a while, thinking that that's an entry into being creative. And it was, you know, I was helping shape these albums and stuff. And was in on, started doing events, music events at this place called Weeksville. I was early on working with Afropunk, you know, that kind of stuff. And one day I was just like, I want to be a cinematographer. I was talking to this guy named Blitz the Ambassador, who ended up directing the Color Purple, this new Color Purple musical. But this is when he was a musician. And I was booking him, and he was my boy, you know what I mean? But I was like, yo, Blitz, man, you're not going, I was telling him, we were sitting on my stoop in Bed-Stuy at the time, and he was like, we were just talking about life, you know, he's my boy. So I was like, what are you doing? He was like, well, I'm just trying, I said, yeah, I stopped trying, he's Canadian. And I was like, yeah, I stopped trying to rap like Nas, bro. I was like, you're not going to be Nas. Where's Africa in this? You should be doing High Life. You should be doing Ghanaian music. And so he was like, boom. So he made this whole record, Native Son, with the High Life music. And he was like, what do you want to do? And I was like, man, if I had any courage, I'd be a singer-songwriter. So he was like, well, I'm going to challenge you. So we challenged each other and said, I'll make this record, this High Life record, if you pursue your dream. And so I ended up, I had like maybe $6,000, $10,000 in the bank, maybe. And I ended up buying a camera and going to this summer course at NYU in cinematography, like right after we had this conversation. And then I ended up, it's a long story, man, but I ended up, this guy from Holland, a Dutch rapper who knew my work at Rebel Soul, found me in the States and was like, I want you to work on this record with me here. So I worked A and R on this record, and then we finished it. And then I was like, he was like, come back to Holland and talk to the labels with me. I went to Holland and we shot a music video for the record. I came back. I'm just still scrambling, trying to figure out how to make my ends meet. And I see this IndieGoGo campaign for Terrence Nance's short film, How Does It Feel? So I'm like, oh, this dude is brilliant. And I was like, wow. Incredible. And it couldn't have been a week later I saw him on the train platform. Because he had distinctive big hair. And so I was like, are you Terrence Nance? He was like, yeah. He was like, you know, I was like, oh, you live in this neighborhood? He said, yeah, I just got back. I was in Paris for a couple of years studying, working. And I was like, man, I saw your thing. It's inspiring. And then he was like, what do you do? And I just said, I'm a single dog. I just said it. Oh, yeah. I just claimed it. You know what I mean?

Rob Lee: So he was like, you got a camera? I was like, yeah.

Shawn Peters: I'm about to shoot this music video for my boy, and I need somebody with a camera. He said, can you send me something to shot? So I sent him the thing I just did in Holland. He loved it. He was like, yo, that's bananas. He said, you want to work with me? So we ended up shooting a video for his boy, who was Bliss the Ambassador. Wow. So we ended up shooting this video, and it came out crazy. My boy called me, I was in the music business for a long time, so my boy, Guy Routier, who's in Baltimore now, called me out of the blue and was like, yo man, he was managing Pharoah Monch. And so he was like, yo man, Pharoah saw this video, man, a blistered name, Blistered Master, and they had credits. And at the end, I saw your name. He was like, you shoot video now? And I was like, yeah. And he was like, yo, can we meet? I'm trying to do this video for the songs. We ended up doing this video for Pharoah. And then we did another one, and another one. And that's when we did an independent feature called, Oversimplification of Our Beauty. It went to Sundance, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. And then we did Off for Short, another short that we did that went to another festival. I got signed by an agent, by William Morris, you know, agency.

null: That was it.

Rob Lee: I mean, the trajectory is just like, you're Johnny on the spot all the time.

Shawn Peters: It was just one of those things where I guess I was meant to get here. It took me a long time, and I didn't start shooting again. Motion, I was doing stills the whole time, but I didn't start shooting motion again. There's a story why I stopped. I forgot to tell you that, but I watched maybe another podcast, but I was in the early 30s, you know, when I got back into it, 30, 34, maybe.

Rob Lee: As I encroach on 40 and 39 current just turned 39. But yeah, I encroach on and I'm just like, you know, sort of what is the the next part of the way that's an Aquarius always throughout the way. That's the thing. I'm just riding the wave and also. I'm ambitious, but ambitious in a very specific way. And I like the thing that you were saying, like, you know, earlier about not necessarily being ambitious, but you like the things that you like. And I'll put this on it. Dark chocolate is not expensive. I'll say that much. It's not expensive. We have a lifestyle we must keep up.

Shawn Peters: But yeah, I think Aquarius, I know Aquarius very well. Because all of my major, Terrence Nance is in Aquarius, all my major collaborators, a lot of my collaborators, I'm a Gemini, so it's like an Aquemini thing. So a lot of my collaborators have been Aquariuses. And I know that, and one of my partners for nine years, she was an Aquarius. And I know that Aquariuses don't do well with not actualizing. It becomes misery. They have to actualize. Because they have a lot, most of their world, as far as I've learned, a lot of their world is in their head. A lot of the Aquariuses' world, how they experience the world, You're, you're, you're spot on. It's not through the outside world. So I can understand that. I can understand how you want to, you guys are very curious and need to always learn too. So I can see how, I would just say my suggestion to you would be age doesn't, I learned that if you want to do something, age, don't let age be a, A lot of people do that. They're like, oh, I'm too old. I was fully too old. I was in my third career at that point. You know what I mean? Technology, music, and then boom. And so I was like, I'm going to do it. And I was broke. And it took me a minute. But once I broke, I broke broke. You know what I'm saying? So you just have to know that, meditate on the fact that life is change. And that's inevitable anyway. You know, we can't be afraid of it.

Rob Lee: That's a very, very deep thing you just said there. All right. So I got one more real question, right? And then I have a few rapid fire questions before we wrap up here, because I definitely want to be mindful of everything and get everything in. Hey, guys, I want to tap back in real quick in the middle of this great interview to remind you yet again to leave a review on the podcast, wherever you listen, whether it's Apple podcast, Spotify on YouTube, leave a comment, leave a review, subscribe. It definitely helps us. We're in a fight to beat the algorithm. You know, there are so many podcasts out there, the numbers are in the hundreds of thousands. So I'm always appreciative of any time that you all spend with my podcast, but definitely make it known. Leave us a review, five stars or whatever you think this podcast is worth and definitely drop us a line. We're on X, we're on Instagram, Facebook, all of the platforms. Say hello, you know, chat with us, chat with me because I'm the person running it. But yeah, definitely hit us up, leave a review, all of that good stuff. Let us know what you think about the podcast. It really does mean a lot. And thank you for your continued support. And back to the podcast. And this is sort of the last real one that I have for you. This is one that I've been kind of playing around and exploring recently, this notion around like being a problem solver. I think we all have our different tools or what have you. I've used this scenario multiple times. I'll set up for recording and inevitably, just to make sure my process is tight, I'll forget something. I'll forget recording device. I'll forget like the car, the mic, something that makes me MacGyver, right? And now, so when something inevitably goes awry, because there's always something that goes wrong, and I know from a production standpoint, there's always something that goes wrong. In, you know, in your, your sort of journey, like where you're at now, what was something that used to be like, you know, insurmountable, something that felt like a mountain that now feels like a molehill that gets light work?

Shawn Peters: Um, you know, I think getting to the point where it felt like a mountain before was just like, you know, how do they, how do I become a access to work, you know? And now I'm like, I have to turn down work. You know what I mean? And so it was more like a fear of like, ugh, is this ever going to shift to abundance? And I'm going to be to a point where I'm always kind of struggling to get known or someone to know my work. And then you have a tipping point. And that tipping point, you know, that's no longer And then your reality is something else. And now the next desire for me is how do I balance work life, you know? So my next journey for me is I don't want to work as hard as I work. You know what I mean? I want to be able to, I want to create other passive incomes and figure out a way to only work when I really want to, you know? And that's my next journey in life is to create like a, you know, 70, 30% work, 70% life situation. I like that a lot. You know, so that's my goal. And for problem solving, one of the things I've learned, I'm going to say this real quick because I have to write an extra two, but for problem solving, you know, I've learned that you have to have peace. On set, set is a very stressful thing. You're, you have 5,000, you know, you're working on a, I'm working on this, I was working on this Amazon, MGM plus Amazon series, right? With Forest Whitaker in Chicago. You know, you got, and there's Warner Brothers involved, so you got Warner Brothers execs there, you got the production company exec from LA there, you got MGM there, you got everybody's watching dailies, you got People expect me to do things. If you don't make your day in terms of time, you can get fired. If you, that becomes a, something that becomes more than a few times. So you got a lot, it's a lot of pressure and it's gotta be beautiful and emotional. It's gotta be all the things that you want, you know, under the clock. And so what I've learned in that is that sort of that meditative process, like calm, You know, I always lead, too, and I'm going to say I lead with love, like, completely. Like, I lead with patience and love, because I want to create a safe space for my crew, and calmness, because I realize that when people are in survival mode, when they're in stress mode, when they're, now they're trying to survive just to get to the next thing, you can't be creative under those circumstances. Yeah. Or you have a very, your capacity is already exacerbated through stress. And so your brain capacity is already limited. You know, your creative capacity is already limited. And so my goal is for myself and for my people around me is to create a safe and nurturing space so that their brain capacity is now not worried about, oh, this person's going to go crazy or this thing, and now they're overachieving. because their brains are in a different stage. Our survival is not the basic function. Now we've gone to a creative stage of the brain. And so the work blossoms. And once I kind of figured that out, and that became my modality, I started doing better work. And with my collaborators.

Rob Lee: Thank you. That's that's that's that's great. I'm I honestly, as I as I'm going to listen back through this, I'm definitely going to tap back in because, you know, gems are being dropped. Jewels are being dropped here. And that's and that's definitely a good one to to close on the real the real part with. And in these last few moments, you know, I want to throw you these quick rapid fire questions and then we'll wrap up. So here's the first one. Here's the first one. And rapid fire, don't overthink. I'm always telling people, don't overthink it. It's just like, you know, don't be an Aquarius. Don't be in your head. So what is a lie that you always tell yourself?

Shawn Peters: My age.

Rob Lee: That's great. How do you spend your days? Like today, for instance, what are a couple of things that you did today?

Shawn Peters: Today I went to the Museum of Photography, I think it's called. It's also an exhibit today and I made breakfast.

Rob Lee: So you added a follow-up question. I'm not going to ask you that next question. I was like, yo, what you have? What you have for breakfast? This is the last one that I got. And this is one that always comes up. Me and my partner talk about this all the time. And we play casting director regularly. What is a Walter Mosley work that should be adapted into a TV show or series or even film?

Shawn Peters: Well, the two ones I thought should be adapted are being adapted. And those are the only ones I've read. That's a great answer. The one is Man in My Basement, which is being adapted, which I was going to shoot, but I didn't end up doing it. And Tallamy Gray, those are the only two Walter Moseley books I've actually read. So I can't, I'm not great to answer that question.

Rob Lee: No, I dig it. It's an honest one. Like every time I see something that feels noir-ish, I'm like, yeah, we need to read this.

Shawn Peters: I've read every Walter Moseley book. I think every Walter Moseley coach did that. I mean, and they're going through that probably a lot in Montgomery.

Rob Lee: Good, good. I am looking forward to it, and I feel like I just got some tea that I was not supposed to get, so I'm feeling really happy about that. But, um, really, truly, honestly, thank you so much for coming on and spending the time with me and, um, you know, just sharing, like I said, uh, this has been a highlight for me, um, and really privileged to be able to have this conversation with you. And, you know, in these final moments, um, on this final moment, really, um, I want to give you the space to, you know, tell folks where your website is at social media, all of that good stuff. Um, shameless plugs, if you will, the floor is yours.

Shawn Peters: Yeah, I guess I don't know. I'm Shawn PZ on Instagram. P-E-E-Z-I-E-S-H-A-W-N. ShawnPeters.com, I guess. I don't know. I'm not a big self promoter too much, but look forward to more of my own personal art coming soon. You know, both from still photography and also motion stuff. Starting working on some things. look for me to direct some things, hopefully in the future. I'm writing a feature-length film, too. So, you know, hopefully look for me to do other things in the future soon.

Rob Lee: And there you have it, folks. I want to again thank Shawn Peters for coming on and blessing us with a bit of his journey and his story. And I'm Rob Lee for Shawn Peters, saying that there's art, culture, and community in and around your neck of the woods. You've just got to look for it.