We recently connected with Jose Perdomo III and have shared our conversation below.

Jose, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

Yes, and honestly it took longer than I expected but it happened more naturally than I planned.
I started in 1998 in the Dominican Republic doing graphic design and commercial photography, which paid the bills but never really fed the soul the way I needed. The turning point was 2008 when a friend asked me to shoot her wedding. I had never photographed a wedding in my life and I almost said no, but something told me to just show up and be present. That day changed everything.
Wedding photography and later cinematic videography became the business that actually let me live as a full-time creative. It gave me financial stability, which is something a lot of filmmakers never figure out. Most people chase the art first and struggle for years. I accidentally built the business first and that gave me the freedom to chase the art on my own terms.
The short films and music videos came later, once Boogietek was solid enough that I wasn’t worried about rent. That creative freedom, the ability to write a story, cast it, direct it, score it, that’s only possible because the commercial side of my work is healthy.
If I could go back and speed anything up, I would have taken the business side more seriously earlier. Not because money is the goal, but because financial stability is what actually protects your creative voice. When you’re broke you make compromises. When you’re stable you make art.
So yeah, full-time creative since day one technically, but the version I actually wanted took about ten years to build right.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Jose Perdomo III, a filmmaker and cinematographer based in South Florida. I was born and raised in the Dominican Republic and my relationship with images goes back further than I can even take credit for. My grandfather, Manuel Rodriguez, was a pioneer of photography in our hometown of Moca in the 1940s. So in a way I didn’t choose this path, it was already in the family long before I showed up.
I grew up around my dad’s movie theaters, which means I spent my childhood watching films the way other kids watched cartoons. That combination, photography through my grandfather and cinema through my father, is basically the blueprint for everything I do today.
I started professionally in 1998 in the Dominican Republic doing graphic design and commercial photography. Eventually that led me to wedding cinematography when I moved to South Florida, which became the foundation of my commercial work through Boogietek Photo+Cinema, the studio I run with my wife Sheila. That side of my career is strong and I’m proud of it, but filmmaking as a storytelling discipline has always been the deeper calling.
Over the years I’ve written and directed narrative short films and music video films that live completely outside the commercial space. These are personal projects where I get to work with actors, build worlds, control the light, shape the story from script to final cut. My work is listed on IMDb and that body of work keeps growing.
What sets me apart honestly is the combination of technical discipline from years of professional production and genuine emotional investment in story. I’m not a filmmaker who learned on YouTube. I came up the hard way, shooting thousands of real moments under real pressure, and that trained my eye in a way that no film school assignment ever could.
What I’m most proud of is that I’ve never stopped creating. The commercial work funds the artistic work and the artistic work makes the commercial work better. They feed each other. A lot of people separate those two worlds but for me they’ve always been the same conversation.
If there’s one thing I want people to know about me it’s that every project I take on, whether it’s a wedding film or a short film or a music video, gets treated with the same level of intention. The frame matters. The feeling matters. That’s just how I was wired from the beginning.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The moment someone watches something I made and goes quiet. Not bored quiet, but that specific silence where you can tell something landed. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. You spend weeks or months obsessing over a shot, a cut, a piece of music under a scene, and most of the time you have no idea if any of it is working. Then someone sees it and their face changes and you know. That moment never gets old no matter how many times it happens.
The other thing is that creativity keeps you honest. You can’t fake a good film. You can have a big budget and the wrong instincts and it still falls flat. Or you can shoot something small with almost nothing and it breaks people open. The work always tells the truth about where you are as an artist and that accountability is something I’ve grown to respect even when it’s uncomfortable.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Preservation. That’s the word I keep coming back to.
My grandfather preserved faces and moments in a small town in the Dominican Republic in the 1940s. My father preserved stories through cinema in a way that shaped my entire childhood. I feel like I’m the next chapter of that same mission, just with different tools.
I want the stories I tell to outlast me. Whether it’s a short film, a music video, or a wedding film, I want someone to watch it twenty years from now and feel something real. We live in a time where content is everywhere and most of it disappears in 48 hours. I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in the frame that stays with you. The feeling that doesn’t leave. That’s what drives everything I do.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.boogietek.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jose3perdomo
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boogietek/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/boogietek
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@boogietek
• Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5446745

  THIS LINK IS THE MOST IMPORTANT IN MY CAREER PROFILE.

Image Credits

These images are the posters for my short films:

https://www.boogietek.com/anyday

https://www.boogietek.com/herencia

https://www.boogietek.com/hecatombe