Pete Chatmon, Director/Author: I vacillated for 10 seconds deciding which way I wanted
to go and if I had chosen the street I wouldn't have seen them and if I had been a second later
I wouldn't have seen him.
Film Courage: When did TV become a major goal for you?
Pete: TV became…I was kind of peeking around the corner looking at TV starting around
’07-’08. I mentioned in my book [TRANSITIONS: A Director’s Journey and Motivational Handbook
- Michael Wiese Productions] one of my buddies Seith Mann was a director friend who had gone
from indie films to television and so I was okay he's a filmmaker to me and he's going
to TV and he's I know him personally, he's a cool guy so maybe there's something there
maybe it's not the the place where storytellers go to die because in the past people just TV
and so I kind of always have my eye on him and there's it's funny too because there's
I take I'm not a mystical kind of person but I guess I'm spiritual and I often
can't help but remark on the the kismet of events sometimes and I was walking down Melrose I parked
on Melrose to go somewhere and I was oh there's something shooting and they had
all their equipment and blocking this place of business or whatever I was do I want to walk down
Melrose or do I want to walk through the alley behind the alley Melrose alley narrows and I was
alley and so I walked down the alley and out of the corner of my eye I see the back of his head
oh and and I was wait is that you are y'all his name and he turned around I
was yo that's crazy I haven't seen him in years and just the real I vacillated for 10 seconds
deciding which way I wanted to go and if I were had chosen the street I wouldn't have
seen him and if I had been a second later I wouldn't have seen him wow and then that time
this must have been 2012 and he was oh well you should apply for this HBO directing program so
I applied and I didn't get in but I got a little bit closer I had to get a DGA I had to get a DGA
director recommendation and I was able to kind of finagle that and I was okay I'm kind of getting
closer even though I'm still on the outskirt and so I applied to every program that existed and
in 26 no I'm sorry in 2015 after my short that I made which was called Black Card premiered at this
film festival in New York that was part of HBO the gentleman who runs the Sony program Brett King was
at the screening and came up to me and was you should apply and I was all right well you got it
and so of course it was do for the next day with a letters of recommendation notary notary public and
an essay and I was cool I've been I've been at the wire before and I got into the Sony program and
the fall of 2015. and that was when around that time if I were I kind of talked a lot earlier
about expectation and I think the thing to kind of take away at least as far as how I think about it
is I'll do a thing I know that it can potentially do all of these things maybe help me get into TV
or maybe get me an agent or manager but then I kind of while I know they exist and while I'll
do my best to put to create it in a way that helps me achieve that then I kind of in my mind
back away from that because I don't want that to be the that the only way to put value on what I do
with it and so this short film was very much that it was all right I'm gonna call my active friends
I'm gonna if there's anyone I know that can maybe is more visible as an actor than somebody
else maybe I'll see if they'll do me a favor I'll put the money where it matters on screen
and in a perfect world it'll help me get in the TV but also I know that won't happen that I mean
I also know that's not a guarantee I know it'll be a guarantee for me to make this short look at it
and say okay this is where my talent Lies when no one's telling me what to do and I'm making it for
myself and so that alone will be something that I'll really get value from because then I can
learn and pivot again but it did the thing that I had hoped for and it got me into these it got
me on the radar of of people in the business of making TV and so I did the Sony program 2015 I did
the HBO program 2016. I did the Disney ABC program 2016 to 2018 and I did the NBCU program in 2016
and through the relationships I was building I was shadowing on shows observing other directors and
making sure that I was building a network of folks who were aware of me and what my
goal was which was to direct single camera comedy and sorry just a side note here you
mentioned your book did I just see your book for a second okay so this is the book
this photo was actually taken on one of my return trips from LA back to New York after
I moved out here and a buddy of mine Eric Van't Zelfden took it before we got oysters because
that was our ritual thank you but yes transition is a director's journey in motivational handbook
and it's for me it's the book that I wish I could have read along the journey of the 17
years to getting paid for narrative directing and I distinguished that because I got I made my own
films I did client work for people but that that was never someone saying we want to hire you to
direct this narrative film or narrative TV show and and tell our story in this kind of way with
your with your skill set so it's a mixer of how to self-help and inspiration and I think it's
it's useful for anybody in a creative field but it's particularly tailored for directors
you said you wish you'd had that book yourself when you were just starting out was there any
tough love advice that you have in that book that you wish somebody had given you that maybe it
doesn't always sit well but then you think about it and you're yeah it applies I don't know if
I don't know if there's if I have tough love in the book I think it's I'd have to think about
that because I almost I'm almost compelled to revisit my definition of tough love but I feel the
what I found I responded to in the books that I read was
someone walking me through undeniable facts right so and for for instance in the book I talk about
going to the Robert McKee seminar and people have a lot of opinions on it but on the third
day he walks through or at least when I took the the course scene by scene analysis of Casablanca
which is one of my favorite films and so you walk through it you break it down and then for
me what that did was well at the conclusion of this intricate breakdown of something where I'm
nodding my head for five hours that that makes sense oh that's great that's smart
I can't go back to my script and where it doesn't have those things that I know work I can't say
it's good enough what I mean I have to now work on my script and get it to the point where with where
whatever I'm trying to do with this story matches the execution of those things in a Casablanca and
I think in the book the things that I talk about are if we agree that these are the things then
how do we make sure that we as artists and as business people execute on those things so I even
talk a lot about the technique and the psychology of the job it doesn't matter if you make the best
shot list in the world if you can't navigate the personalities that come out of the trailer and out
of the office and out of the van every day then you're not gonna get one third of that shot list
and nobody's gonna remember what you had planned so kind of just getting into the nitty-gritty of
that and maybe opening opening the reader's eyes to those things more so than maybe that maybe
that's my version of tough love yeah I was gonna say that that sounds some explosions yeah maybe
it is I that though it is I think of Whiplash yeah I'm not throwing throwing cameras at people.