Today we’d like to introduce you to Robert Silverstein.
Hi Robert, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
In Summer 2018, I was good friends with an artist who went by Andrew The Rapper. At the time, I was actually focusing more on producing and less so on the visual side of my creativity. I remember one night I was playing him some new beats that I made for him and then he started freestyling over them and asked me to record him freestyling for Instagram, so I did. And then for some reason, after people saw that video, everyone started asking me if I could shoot music videos, so I just said, “I don’t know I’ll try.”
Heading into my Junior year of high school, my parents bought me a Sony A7III camera, and I started shooting super low-budget videos for high school rappers who found me through Andrew. For some reason, all of those videos started gaining me recognition throughout Baltimore, Howard, and PG County. And then through Andrew, I met an upcoming singinger, Alex Fraze, who I started working with closely along with their mutual friend Zayy Lindsey. I still work with Zayy and Alex to this day! I honestly really enjoyed that time of my life and loved being able to help young and aspiring artists on their journey, so I moved forward with that goal in mind under the business name Rob Silver Visuals.
While I was in school, I was focusing very heavily on my photography class taught by the amazing Hannah Elliott, who helped me hone my photographic eye and skills as a cameraman. On my own, I would always be binge-watching every single camera video on YouTube that I could. I soon learned that this video thing I had going was my true calling.
Towards the end of high school, though, my mother started to develop a very light early stage of dementia. I don’t want to go too much in-depth on that end, but it is important later on.
I continued shooting low-budget music videos up until I graduated, and then I, unfortunately, had to put a pause on my career once college kicked in. I guess I just didn’t feel like I would have time for videos and college at the same time. While I was at college though, I met my business partners James Carline, Luke Tittle, and Thaddeus Harold and we would later go on to found Light Street Productions in 2021. They are such amazing people, and I’m blessed to be able to call them part of our team. They’ve done so much incredible work over the time we’ve been working together, and I don’t think that I am ever going to be able to thank them enough for all of the blood, sweat, time, and tears they’ve put into our company. So huge thank you to James, Luke, and Thaddeus, so much! None of this would be possible without them!
After attending Towson University for a semester in 2019, I decided that college just wasn’t for me since I had already established a growing business as Rob Silver Visuals. For my entire life, however, my father had always stressed the importance of receiving a good education, so I was honestly really scared to talk to him about what I felt was the right move for me. But after talking with him and giving him some time to think, he approached me while I was working and said, “you can go ahead and drop out. Make her (or us, I don’t remember exactly word for word) proud while we still have her,” and that hit me like brick.
It was at that moment that I realized it’s either videos or nothing. And I sort of put this unfair pressure on myself because even though I knew that my mother was and always will be proud of me, I felt like I wasn’t satisfied with the person she was proud of. I just felt like there was a point that I wanted to get to with my career that I wanted her to be proud of, if that makes sense. So, then my life became a weird mix of trying my best to spend time with her while also racing against the clock to get to where I wanted to be for her, and I regret to admit that most of that was the latter. Both of my parents have done, given, sacrificed, and put up with so much for me, and I just don’t want her to remember me as the college dropout son who is still living with his parents two years after. But at the same time, I also still want to be living as close to my parents as possible during this time to be there for both of them. I still don’t feel like I’m doing a good enough job of that.
So, I kicked my work into an unhealthy overdrive. Bought a cinema camera. Started doing 46 hours awake on nothing but one meal and a couple cans of Monster Energy. Literally working until my body wouldn’t let me anymore. Unhealthy as it was, the quality of my work began elevating to levels that I would watch in the camera videos on YouTube I used to binge in high school; I started getting mildly recognized in public in Columbia and Baltimore (like 2 or 3 people), and I was even a vendor for Atlantic Records in mid-2020.
What I loved seeing the most were the happy faces and reactions of the artists that we’ve worked for. That’s honestly kind of what I live for. Just seeing the face of someone who is living their dream and being thankful that I had the opportunity to help bring their dream to life.
Recently though, I’ve started taking more time for myself both physical and mental health-wise, and am learning to balance my work time with being here for my parents.
So now, our mission at Light Street Productions is to continue creating music videos for rising artists in the DMV, help them chase their dreams, create support communities and hopefully change the industry for the better!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Most of the more challenging things I’ve had to overcome have all been internal struggles. As I mentioned before, trying to be there for my parents while also working as hard as I can to get myself to a place that I am proud to show them has been difficult.
I love helping and making videos for people, so it’s difficult to say no to some projects that are pitched to us, so sometimes in the past I’ve gotten in over my head with too many projects to complete efficiently. Recently I’ve been learning to put my foot down more and now have a better understanding of what kind of workloads I can take on. There have definitely been a few times where my willingness to work has led some individuals to take advantage of me, thus I am learning to not lay down everything on the table for everyone from the jump.
There’s a saying that goes, “done is better than perfect,” and as a perfectionist who is only comfortable putting out projects that I am proud of it’s been difficult to start working in that new mindset. It is something that I have to do though because trying to make every single project perfect is what keeps me up for days on end haha.
Due to the way that I work, once every month and a half or so, I will reach a physical and mental burnout which used to be hard to get through because I didn’t know why I was feeling that way, but now I have learned how to cope with that burnout and work in a way that lessens their frequencies.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Working as Rob Silver Visuals, I would direct, shoot and edit low-budget (sub $500) music videos for music artists in the DMV area. Photoshoots were sprinkled into the mix as well, but they weren’t my main focus.
Working with our team, Light Street Productions has been much of the same work; however, James has taken over business communications as well as 50% of the camera work on set, and Thaddeus has taken to running our social media page, allowing me to focus on editing and speaking with current clients one on one. Luke and Thaddeus both act as production assistants (PAs) on set. They’re all absolutely amazing.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Baltimore is absolutely brimming with hidden gems that my team and I want to introduce to the world. Artists like SGE Kash and Deetranada are two from recent memory that have begun to take off. I have actually been working with SGE Kash since 2018, and it’s so cool to see him on Lyrical Lemonade now.
Personally, I just dislike how cutthroat this industry can be. There’s a lot of questionable or hidden agendas from some people/groups. A lot of fake support like people constantly watching your story even though they don’t follow you. There’s an extremely prevalent lack of interest in some artists until they start blowing up, then everyone acts like they’ve been there from the start. This just applies for some (groups of) people, not everyone. So, what I’ve learned from shooting videos in Baltimore and the rest of the DMV is that we, as videographers, can create communities of artists, just as artists can create communities of fans. The artists see other artists who we’ve worked for and reach out to each other and start working together, and I think that’s amazing!!! That literally just happened last month too. STR Wild and Josiah, two artists who we work with often, reached out to each other through us and did a song together that we ended up shooting a video for! So not only do we want to help artists chase their dreams, but also show people where the love and support is in this cutthroat industry.
Pricing:
- Video Production ($1000+)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lightstreetproductions.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lightstreetproductions/
- Other: www.robsilvervisuals.com
Image Credits
Thaddeus Harold
