Jeresum Entertainment is ran by 3 multi-hyphenate creatives and executives. Find out more about each of our individual team members below.
Our Team
Vivian D. Payton
WRITER/DIRECTOR - PRODUCER - MANAGER
A Chicago native, Vivian’s creative career began on the University of Illinois campus in Champaign- Urbana where she graduated with a B.S. in Speech Communications and a minor in Broadcast Journalism. She was staffed as a writer on NBC’s Medium before the 2007 WGA strike disrupted opportunities for emerging writers. She was then chosen as a 2008 Television Screenwriting Fellow at USC’s School of Cinema Guy A. Hanks and Marvin Miller Screenwriting Program.
Faced with an industry shift, Vivian reinvented herself as a reality TV producer, where her storytelling instincts became an asset in crafting compelling, female-driven docu-series. She produced the first and most successful season of VH1’s Love and Hip Hop Atlanta and returned for season 6, as well as the Hollywood and Miami LHH spin-offs. As a showrunner and executive producer, Vivian has produced Toya and Reginae, Waka and Tammy and Brat Loves Judy for WE TV and Royal Rules of Ohio for Hulu.
Now, after having made a name for herself in the world of reality TV, Vivian is focused on a return to scripted as a writer, director and show creator. Her most recent short film, Save A Life, which she co-wrote and directed, screened at festivals worldwide, with highlights at the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival and the British Urban Film Festival. The film won the Silver Award for Best Ensemble Cast, the Bronze Award for Best Director (Female), and an Honorable Mention for Best Women’s Short at the Independent Shorts Awards, and later secured a two-year streaming deal with ALLBLK, an AMC Networks platform.
As an artist manager, Vivian manages and oversees the careers of both Summer and Phillips Payton.
Summer Payton
ARTIST - COMPOSER - PRODUCER - SONGWRITER - SCREENWRITER
Summer Payton is a multi-hyphenate creative from Chicago, Illinois. Growing up, Summer was encouraged to explore her creativity and thus she found a love for multiple artistic expressions and it inspired her to pursue a career in the arts. Her journey led her to New York University, Tisch School of the Arts’ Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music where she fully developed her artistry. Later, at the 1500 Sound Academy, Summer enhanced her engineering and music production skills under the mentorship of Grammy award winning music producer, Rance Dopson of the legendary band, 1500 or Nothin’. Musically, Summer is an r&b singer, songwriter, producer, and musician. Summer released her debut album, “Golden Hour” on her golden birthday, December 25th, which features a stunning array of songs straight from Summer’s heart and soul and continues to be her proudest accomplishment to date. “My Life,” an inspirational anthem and original song from the short film Save A Life, touched audiences across the globe, with specific success in the UK as it reached #10 on Amazon UK’s Hot New Releases in R&B Songs chart, as well as charted #20 on the UK Soul Top 30 and debuted on the UK Global Soul Chart Show as a new entry at #9. Most recently, Summer released her first holiday single, “Christmas Magic” which was featured in the Netflix film, Meet Me Next Christmas. Her music has also been featured in sync placements on shows such as Crave and World of Wonder’s Slaycation, Yara’s Day Off from Facebook Watch/Meta, and VH1’s Love and Hip Hop Miami.
In addition to her own musical projects, Summer is a gifted composer writing music for film and television, like she did for the award winning short film by Regina Hoyles, Adullam, as well as Felicia Pride’s (Queen Sugar, Grey’s Anatomy, Bel-Air) critically acclaimed short film Look Back At It, and the highly watched short film by Vivian D. Payton, Save A Life. Most recently she has been hard at work composing several upcoming narrative projects currently in post-production including the AFI Thesis film, Paradise, directed by S.S. Ayers and adapted from Dominique Morrisseau’s Paradise Blue.
Save A Life, Summer’s first project as a film producer was an official selection of the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival as well as the 2022 British Urban Film Festival. She has since gone on to produce other short films including Message For The King, directed by Phillips Payton, which won Best Period Piece at the Las Vegas Film Festival.
Summer took a page out of her screenwriter-mother’s book and began writing her own content as a vessel for her creativity. She has since developed multiple pilot scripts in partnership with her mother, Vivian D. Payton, as a screenwriting duo. Their pilot Quarter-Life was an official selection of the 2022 Sherman Oaks Film Festival and a Quarter Finalist in the Female Voices Rock Film Festival.
In TV production, she has served in many capacities before finding a home and a love of Post Productions. She served as Story Producer for season one of OWN’s Ladies Who List and season five of VH1’s Love and Hip Hop Miami and was Supervising Story Producer of Fuse and World of Wonder’s Big Freedia Means Business S1 & S2.
As a highly motivated innovator fueled by a love of the arts, Summer is committed to perfecting her talents and is dedicated to leaving her mark on the entertainment industry.
Phillips Payton
ACTOR - WRITER/DIRECTOR - COMPOSER - MUSICIAN
Phillips Payton is a recent graduate of USC’s School of Dramatic Arts where he earned a Master of Fine Arts in Acting, as 1 of 8 students selected for the prestigious program. On stage he has embodied roles such as Achilles in Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare, Vershínin in Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, and Dez in Skeleton Crew by Dominique Morisseau.
He is also a graduate of Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film and TV where he majored in screenwriting with a minor in Theatre. His work has been categorized as “very classical with a modern spectacle.” His love of history and classical literature has influenced themes in his writing drawing him towards the historical fiction genre where he is driven to infuse color and diversity in the space. His directorial debut, the short film Message For The King, won Best Period Piece at the Las Vegas Film Festival. He has since directed the LMU thesis film, Blood Pact as well as the upcoming New Orleans Blues.
Musically, also known as Prodigal, he is a producer, composer, musician and singer/songwriter. Prodigal has been making ‘ahead of his time’ music. Born and raised in the south suburbs of Chicago, Prodigal learned to play piano by ear in a home filled with music. His musical obsessions were Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Scott Joplin and The Temptations, a mixture that helped to shape his musical vocabulary. As a producer, Prodigal started by taking classic songs and sounds from everything from video games to other musical cultures like Asian, Latin and Indian cultures and meshing them together with a hip hop flair. As a composer, his music is keyboard and percussion driven, defined by his unorthodox rhythmic choices.