‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade’ - or do you have a philosophy Tim ?
Storytelling. We all do it. I do it through film. Human, authentic (I hope), funny, sad, quirky, short and long. Powerful storytelling for brands, corporate, charities and sometimes tv. I have the awards. I have the experience. I write, direct and sometimes shoot and produce. But here’s the thing - I can get to grips with a clients story but I can’t grasp my own professional story so confidently. Selling myself makes me queasy. ‘Selling’ myself on Linkedin doubly so. But then all creative has to be sold. So there’s the rub. As the pit of my stomach turns I’ll distill it down to this:
Lemons to lemonade. There’s an iconic VW ad from the 1950s which launched the Beetle in America with one word and a full stop. ‘Lemon’. So I plagiarised my thing I do from there. You get an unpromising brief, the budget dwindles, the goalposts move, the client is resistant to the treatment, you doubt yourself; your sweet idea starts to taste sour. We’ve all been there -
- It’s a lemon. And yet…nevertheless, though I say it myself, my job is to take those lemons and make lemonade. It’s what I do - though I’m also professionally partial to a fruit salad.
Other random (fun) stuff about me - not made up:
*I was once on the set of Coronation Street in the make-up room and had my arms shaved in order to appear in a film as a famous person’s arms I was supposed to be producing…
*I was obliged to dance on stage with a famous Egyptian belly dancer, backed by a 40 piece orchestra, at a Cairo nightclub, in front of an audience of 500 after we filmed with her.
*I spent time with Al Pacino in his apartment where he shared the rushes for a film he was making in his private cutting room where he asked me to give my opinion.
*When I was 16 I won a national newspaper competition with a fake name (which my sister and I borrowed from a family friend because it made us laugh) after making two illicit entries. Guess who one won ? I was then obliged to spend the day at the awards ceremony at the London Savoy answering to the name of - Albert Langford.
There are many more…