One Door closes and another one opens. (Turning adversity into advantage).

We all know the saying “When one door closes, fortune will usually open another.” But how many of us actually take advantage of its enormous potential, which, in this case, is to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

As a creative you are kicked in the teeth again and again. Rejection, there is no avoiding it! Actors have to audition numerous times. Even well known ones. I remember at Disney seeing Wayne Knight in the hallway.I asked him what he was doing there and he said he was auditioning for Tantor in Tarzan. I was amazed as he had done the voice for one of my characters in Hercules, Demetrius, surely they knew his work that he was perfectly suited for! No! he had to go through the motions. I hugely admire actors for their resilience.

You need a thick skin. Ironically I don't , so I overcompensate by working extra hard to make sure I am not rejected but of course the nature of the business means you will be. Look at the criticism of Ridley Scott's Napoleon. One of my favourite Directors yet as a creative you are always there to be criticised. I am not saying he shouldn't be, it's just something that has to be dealt with whatever heights you achieve.

At the age of 9 I had a form of tuberculosis. I was in and out of Hospital for 2 years. As I dressed the pus filled scar and bandaged my neck the kids in my class would cringe and make comments and make fun of me. As well as medicine I had to have multiple injections each month for a year. I remember asking my Mum about it and back then Family wasn't allowed to stay overnight. in Hospital. I was so lonely at night without my Mum. Times were different then as no one stayed the night. After two operations the second one the surgeon? had a nicked vein and lost 3 to 4 pints of blood. I still remember that night as I kicked my leg and saw the blood drip swinging. (They had put it in my ankle as I kept pulling the drip out of my arm.) That image stays with me forever till this day. My Parents later took me to meet others that had Tuberculosis, survived and had long lives. Their scars had faded. As a consequence of missing so many classes I failed my 11 plus. It is far to young an age to be judged though and My Dad knew better. He said I had a good head on my shoulders and could do anything I set my mind to. I believed him and went on to do very well at school and despite being a Maths Teacher he was very proud of my “A” grade in Art!

Another door that closed on me was when I applied to Art School. I had an "A" in Art and was told I was a first choice candidate by my Foundation class Tutors. However I didn't get into my first choice. Another co-student on my course did. He was 7 years older and had even worked at Playboy Casino London as an accountant. He was full of confidence as he had life experiences and clearly impressed the Tutors at the Art School with his presentation. I was a naive shy "Country Boy" and thought that my work would talk for itself. I confess I didn't make a great presentation as I didn't know how! I could draw and paint but you also need to know how to sell and market yourself. It was a huge lesson to learn. So that door closed and I went to Liverpool Polytechnic (Art School) instead. Interestingly if I had gone to my first choice I am sure I wouldn't have gone to Disney in Los Angeles and more importantly I wouldn't have met my Wife and had the two amazing children that I have! Life I often think is like a river making its way and as it comes up against an obstacle it veers in another direction sometimes combining with another water source becoming stronger!

Years later I was working in Advertising as a Junior Art Director. It's a cut throat business. After 6 months the Agency I worked at was bought .The redundancies followed! Another door closed. I joined another agency as part of a team as that was the way it worked. You have an Art Director and a Copywriter and in theory although you both come up with the ideas and concepts the Art Director takes care of the visuals and the Copywriter the text. However when I heard about this opportunity I didn't have a Copywriter. So I called a friend who was also an Art Director and said hey let's go for the job! Needless to say after 6 months it didn't quite work. Yet another door closed! Advertising wasn't quite doing it for me anyway as it felt I was selling my soul. We all have to work to earn money I know, but I wanted something that satisfied me creatively!

Then another door opened! However this would take pages to explain this one but I landed a job at Disney on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit''! I started as an inbetweener, the bottom rung of the ladder. It was an amazing experience but was to come to an end 6 months later when Disney closed it's London Studio after promising to keep it going. I remember the Director Bob Zemekis being confused when he was heckled at the Roger Rabbit Wrap Party by the crew. He didn't seem to get that the crew were upset at being laid off . I imagine he was so much in his own bubble he didn't even know. Again a door closed but this time I was patient and was able to open it again. It took about 6 years and after working as a Lead Animator at Don Bluth Studios in Ireland Disney was able to hire me in Los Angeles as I had reached a level where they could get me through immigration. They had to prove that they couldn't find the talent in the USA and that I was of exceptional ability! I had bashed that door down!

You would think that the story ends there, happily ever after, as I was in Hollywood now! Once in a while technology comes along and blows everything out of the water. When Pizar's "Toy Story" came out we knew it was something special but always thought that traditional Classical 2D would continue doing well. We were so wrong. Even great films like "The Iron Giant" bombed and Classical Animation died not all at once but a slow and painful death in Hollywood. Again this is a whole other debate but for me that door closed. Once I was able to earn thousands a week doing what I loved but no more. A few have soldiered on and I admire them. So when that door closed numerous artists had to either leave the industry or reinvent themselves. Whether it was CGI or storyboarding or something else.

The last straw for me I think was when Warner Bros Feature Animation laid off its entire animation division. I had a massive mortgage but also had a massive house so decided to use the situation to my advantage, My Wife wanted to go home and I wanted to make my own films. We had the house valued and it was worth 100k more that we paid for it after just two years! After I sold it the house over the years it was to increase to over 2 million!? Welcome to Californian Real Estate! I could use part of that money for a deposit on a house in the UK and spent another 20k on computer equipment! Again another door closed but another door opened. I set up shop at Corsham Media Park set near Bath. It was a fabulous concept with huge digital storage capacity and bandwidth. There were plans for films studios and much more. I was there for three years but sadly the Media Park faded away and was no more. Another door closed. But it wasn't the end. I still had my dreams and they were far from faded!

I was always interested in film whatever the medium. I was also an ideas man hungry to make my own films. The advertising background interestingly helped hugely with my films as I would find the ideas would flow and think that training enhanced that ability.

I developed a number of films, shorts and features, mostly Live Action. Even teamed up with Legendary Producer Gary Kurtz (Star Wars, Dark Crystal). I even managed to get Hugh Laurie to do the voice on my first short as a Director "The Journal of Edwin Carp". That makes it sound all too easy though. Getting a film made is a huge feat! The doors will not only close in many cases they won't open in the first place, so my setbacks of the past gave me? the resilience I needed.

The straw that broke the Camel’s back for me was an experience I had with a so-called “A-List” Actor. Something I will not talk about here ( I will save that for a book in the future!).

Needless to say it didn’t happen but it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Why? Because it felt like the last straw. I decided that enough was enough and I was going to Produce and Direct my own films! I embarked on a new path Directing Live Action. I picked up the phone to a good friend and DOP John E Fry and said let's just go out and make a darn good film. I had also discovered a ridiculously talented writer called Neil Bason and was also able to pull in the magical and musical Adrian Chivers (Noise In Your Eye, Adrian Chivers, Daniel Pennie). Being an Ex-Ad Man my strengths are ideas and as an Ex-Disney Animator visuals. We crafted two films one after another, “Censure” ( Actors: Tom Conti, Connor Wulfric, Vivien Taylor and Elaine Makenzie Ellis) then “Confines” ( Actors: Luke F Dejahang, Vivien Taylor Editor: Jay Cox) . A door had closed and another door had opened and we went on to win over 40 awards for the film Censure Featuring Tom Conti. In turn it led to Luke F Dejahang contacting me about doing another film and Confines followed hot on its heels.?I shoudl add one last anecdote about Tom Conti. I am a huge fan and had wanted him to be the Lead in my Feature " I See Spiders". That films hasn't happened yet and he was first to come into my head for the Father in "Censure". But we hardly had any budget so I felt I coudln't ask him so went for what I thought was a safe choice only to be turned down! So I threw caution to the wind as there was nothing to loose and asked Tom if he would play the character. To my amazement he agreed! If the other actor hadn't declined I wouldn't have tried Tom! It's is strange how things turn out!

Boxer Anthony Joshua recently said about Fury’s loss to Usyk that losing is a good thing. Why would he say that? Because it is almost like being checked and gets you focussed again. You are struggling again and you are at your best when you struggle not when you are cruising. Look at Pizar’s incredible stream of successful films. It is inevitable that a degree of complacency sneaks in. You start copying your past successes and it starts to become formulaic. The audience senses it and you have a film that fails. Then you have to do something to shake things up.?

I sometimes get called lucky by people. I just smile as I know how unlucky I have been at times and just go about correcting that!

So you know what they say, "One Door closes...."