filmed sporadically between 2009 and 2012, this was my first attempt at a personal/art film about a friend of mine, randy cannon, a jazz pianist living in bangkok. not scripted at all i approached the project as i would approach a painting. the analogy ends there. the technical aspects and the need for a crew makes it an entirely different process.i would do things differently now, but it was a great learning experience and we had so much fun filming. i was assisted technically by my friend neville powis [www.nevillepowis.com] whose creative insights and friendship i greatly appreciate.








wandering around, bangkok is different to any other city i have experienced. i am also playing around with synthesizers and sequecing software, so i put the soundtrack on this piece too.










i learned a lot of things from this project. not just technical lessons, but many personal ones. mixing friendships and creative projects is a far more challenging exercise than i imagined and in the end the whole thing went awry. on the other hand, i needed to go through thie experience to understand how to approach things in future. my intention was to find a way to bring randy's music to a bigger audience while making a film that explored him, not only as an artist, but from more than one vantage point. i find it valuable to try and dig beneath the surface, beneath the standard narrative and the masks we wear, to find the person that is mostly less accessible. the last image was inspired by a story randy told us about how he had gone for acupuncture treatment in a small chinese clinic in bangkok and how after sticking a whole load of needles in him, the lady finally stuck one in the top of his skull, wired him up to an electric current, turned down the lights in the room and said with a smile 'try to relax' as she closed the door. he let me arrange a re-enactment. we laughed a lot throughout this project. i miss randy's friendship, but such is life. the images with the street in the background are not composites, they were taken by neville using the window's reflections. in fact he was pointing the camera out of the window looking at the city, capturing our discussions in the background. i think they are great images.