If you would like to book a presentation and showing of Stupid Enough for your college, university, school or business, please get in touch.
Let us know your location, estimated class size and the dates you would like us to consider.
Presentations last at least two hours with a break, and will include a short Q&A session afterwards. Portfolio consultations can be booked in addition on request!
Still a practising illustrator, Louisa was director of one of the UK’s most established agencies, Central Illustration in London, before moving to New York to head up multi-disciplinary creative agency Bernstein & Andriulli. Now partner and Head of Integrated Media, she is settled in Manhattan with her husband and daughters, whom you can hear playing in the background of her interview!
Beginning with home-made tapes with covers printed in the small hours at Kinko’s, and arriving as owner and director of one of the US’s most important independent hip-hop labels, Sage remains a prolific artist in his own right and has lived every minute of an arduous, determined, sleep-deprived journey toward making creativity pay. Sage’s path to a business in music would put even the most workaholic night owls to shame, but his gentle humour and love of the business remain undiminished and as fierce as ever.
is a realisation that everyone’s route to a creative business is different.
We’ve all seen those terrifying online lists of the '10 things you need to do' to ensure you get where you want to be, creatively and professionally.
These things are well-intentioned and can be helpful, but can also become a sack of 10 (or more, sometimes) sticks to beat yourself with. What if you hate social networking? What if you live on a remote island? What if you shy away from those ‘crucial’ social gatherings? What if you’re hopeless at paperwork? And cold-calling terrifies you? What if you simply don’t want to follow someone else’s ‘list of ten things’?
They can give the misleading impression that these are the magical steps - and the only ones. Follow them, and success can’t fail to come - ‘one size fits all’.
Stupid Enough is a film in which eight successful and creative people (and they will share their own definition of those words) share their experiences on how they reached their present stage, whatever that might be.
They’re all very, very different. They’ve all tried and failed, struggled, succeeded, cocked up, learned, and kept going. None of them started out with a list of rules or a guidebook. They were stupid enough to have a go, and find their way by applying their natural creativity to every aspect of their business.
And they’re still doing it.
Creative businesses can be organic, unique, messy. They can be silly and unpredictable, and very...human. Watch how these humans are giving it their best shot.
Beginning his studies at a Nuneaton art college, Gareth spent over decade working in special effects before writing, producing, directing, editing and creating special effects for his own partly self-funded microbudget sci-fi film ‘Monsters’. On the back of its success, he was invited by Warner Brothers to direct 2014’s ‘Godzilla', and has recently been signed on as director of Disney/Lucasfilm’s 'Star Wars Rogue One', the spin-off of the legendary film series due for release in December 2016.
A willow artist creating giant sculptures from natural materials, Tom’s work has been installed all over the world, from his quiet and productive workshop in rural Warwickshire. Arriving at his current practice via a path as bendy as his sticks, Tom is a fine example of finding your ‘thing’ - and making it your business - through patience and experimentation, failures, successes and early starts in the cold.
Jonathan runs the legendary gallery named after himself on the west side of Manhattan, representing artists who might traditionally have fallen outside a historically narrow definition of ‘art’ before Mr Levine and his energetic embracing of the DIY and punk ethic. He represents and exhibits such well-known artists as Ashley Wood (a collection of whose robot sculptures can be seen behind Strictly Kev in our film), Gary Taxali, Tara McPherson, Ray Caesar and Shepard Fairey. And he’s a really Nice Bloke.
Barely into his twenties, self-taught chef Jed left a chemistry degree to pursue a life in food by walking right into the New York restaurant he wanted to work in, and asking for shift (he got one, followed by a job). Still in the earliest days of his career, Jed’s exuberance and love for his craft have taken him all over the world. He does not have time for a website (he literally doesn’t), but you can see where he currently works here:
A self-taught promoter with three years’ experience pushing bands and events while at university, Rebecca is now a booker at major DJ and music agency Primary Talent. Her path to full-time music promotion reflects a willingness to graft and take chances, and reveals the need to be absolutely organised - and self-motivated!
One of Ninja Tune’s longest-serving artists and part of the pivotal creative crew that defined the label at its outset, Kev juggles smoothly the parallel roles of musician and designer, while spending over two decades DJing around the globe. He now also manages the role of ‘Dad’ to twin boys, and is a voracious blogger and collector. Kev’s route to ‘his dream job’ (his words not ours!) is a shining example of perseverance, chance and seized opportunities.
Record store manager, pirate radio DJ, photographer’s assistant, driver, music distributor, manufacturer of 45rpm record adapters and co-owner of a record label: in a 'career-path' that couldn’t be more different from Sarah’s, Leigh’s role as ideas generator, ass-whupper and long-term schemer with Inkymole has run alongside the many roles played in a life often spent sleeping too little and working too late, and informs the core message of Stupid Enough - that there is no standard path.
Now working on Stupid Enough and a fistful of other projects, the phrase ‘while you were sleeping’ still feels like a manifesto of sorts.
Sarah is a British illustrator working all over the world. After years of speaking at colleges and universities - always followed by exhausting unscheduled Q&A sessions and emails asking the same question, ‘but how did you get there?’ - she and partner Leigh developed the idea of making a collection of stories about how other creatives arrived at their careers. Never a fan of the ‘read this book and be successful’ school of working your way through life, Sarah is keen to take the angst out of finding your way through, while emphasising the pivotal role of hard work and optimism. Sarah’s own role to full-time illustration was direct as an arrow and fairly straightforward - hence inviting other creatives to talk about theirs instead!
