Clarence Peters looked around the football pitch one day and counted 10 people who could play better ball than him. That’s when he decided to hang up his boots and announce to his parents that he wanted to venture into filmmaking.
His mother was very relieved. Being the kind of person who had let her son go through the motions, she had supported his every venture: from engineering to playing soccer. So when Clarence said he was going to make films, she knew her son had finally come home.
Clarence’s mother is an actress and his father is a musician, and he was literally conceived on set, he told Capital Lifestyle. But there’s no telling if that is why filmmaking seems to flow in his veins.
“If there’s anything I can do well, its film. I tried to stay away from what my parents were doing but I just ended up coming back to it.”
Now he thinks that he has the best job ever, and that’s not to mention all the travelling involved.
“Filmmaking is the biggest art form ever, because it combines all art forms into one.
He has been touted as a super talented filmmaker, and he defends his trade.
“I have to do something that I know that no one can do better than me. I don’t think any filmmaker is whack, but I think that everyone’s perspective is unique… That being said I know that Steven Spielberg can’t make a film they way I would and that makes me unique in my own way.”
Though he is better known for music videos; Clarence says he has done some short films and advertisements and it’s not only about music videos.
“Filmmaking ministers to me. I have been broken up with several times and I have broken up with people several times. To have people act out such emotion and seeing it come to life, that’s what I love about film. That’s why it’s in my blood.”
Clarence was in Kenya recently – for the second time – to shoot a host of music videos, primarily the theme song for MTV drama Shuga: Love, Sex, Money which featured Boneye from P-Unit, Nigerian musicians Banky W and Wizkid and South African rapper L-Tido among others.
The Shuga track was shot at SkyLux Lounge, Kimathi Street and the Tribe Hotel.
The first video he ever came to shoot was the ever popular Party Don’t Stop by Camp Mulla.
Clarence says his dream one day is to shoot a film in Kenya.
“I love the weather here and it’s a beautiful country. I hope one day to shoot a film here.”