Originality

An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have.
Andy Warhol





Why my casual attitude to the response from Cannes?

Cryptopticon will always polarise.

Here’s a story to illustrate my point.

In the beginning - early 2008 - I couldn’t find a crew.

The blog posts and the personal approaches didn’t work.

As I re-read my diary/journal from the time - it was death by silence - death by indifference. Even though I was planning to work with a ‘skeleton’ crew – literally no one was interested as DOP, designer, producer, gaffer, sound recordist, caterer…

That changed when John Hipwell came on board. John pretty much recruited the whole production team: DOP, gaffers, sound, runners, on-set digital acquisition.

The casting was a major problem too - this was a first – never before whether casting for theatre, short films of a feature had I had problems, usually I was able to get cues round the block with actors and actresses all wanting a part.

On Cryptopticon none of the actors I initially had in mind were available or even wanted to audition (!) - this is not to say what we finally cast was the B-team - but when you plan a feature film you kind set your aim pretty high and get what your mind envisages.

Then Sarah-Jane came on board – thanks to her we saw a lot of people for each role. And the results speak for themselves.

The moral of this story is that if you truly do something personal and distinctive – you won’t find universal appeal – universal appeal only happens occasionally.

There are another 4-5 festivals where I will enter Cryptopticon (it’s bloody expensive once you factor in postage and administration fees) – I predict that 3-4 out of the 5 will reject it – I’m counting on the 1 out of 6 that will say ‘I love it!’

But if not – that is the path.

Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't mean it as a compliment, but it was.
Jackson Pollock

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt