Robert W. Peterson, Chair of the new Broadcast Cinema program, was one of the original group of six students at Art Center in 1973 who promoted the start of an innovative filmmaking program that specialized in the creation and direction of television commercials. His experience with the origins of the new program and the students' dream to use television commercials as a path to the entertainment industry made him the ideal candidate to monitor the first generation of filmmakers from the new program.

Peterson worked as a Director and Director of Photography on commercials, music videos, public service announcements, documentary and educational films from 1975 to the present. He is credited with initiating a focus on the narrative aspects of filmmaking for the Art Center Film Programs when he became Chair of both programs in 1990. The change to the narrative focus gave Art Center graduates the skills and potential to gain work in any area of the entertainment industry. Prior to 1990, very few short form specialists were able to successfully make a transition to narrative filmmaking. Since the change, many Art Center graduates have transitioned to feature films and television programming with great success.

At fifteen years of age, Peterson became a professional rock musician from 1965 to 1968. After a stint with the military and his later studies at Art Center, he was a natural for the new genre that gained attention in the late 1970's. The new films were designed to be displayed as short subjects with feature film presentations. At that time they were called, "Musically-oriented Theatrical Shorts." Peterson is a member of the Directors' Guild of America and the International Photographers' Guild. His clients include, AT&T, IBM, Porsche/Audi, Nissan, Anheuser-Busch, Gallo, Kirin,Kodak, McDonald's, Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Universal Studios, United Artists, A&M Records, Bijan, Saks Fifth Avenue. Awards: Clio, Belding, Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), New York Film Festival.