Bio
Tim Pope first began film-making aged 9, taking him up to 3 months to save up for a roll of 8mm film. Growing up in Enfield, north London, he was one of the first students to take up UK exam O-level film studies, studying the works of Buñuel, Hitchcock and Polanski. He was featured at age 18 in the London Evening Standard and on BBC Radio 4's Today Progamme as a young film-maker. He later attended Saturday morning film courses at Hornsey College and full-time at Bromley's Ravensbourne College of Art. His first job in film was with a company that trained politicians for TV appearances and entailed him going to Number 10 Downing Street often. It was the same camera he had just filmed politicians with that he would go afterwards, unknown to his boss, to film bands on stage, including The Specials and The Psychedelic Furs. Before MTV was born, he subsequently became the sixth ever pop promo director in the world, directing Soft Cell's Bedsitter in 1981, with its iconic matching shirts and walls. With Soft Cell he also directed a TV special called Non-Stop Exotic Video, causing much controversy with the Sex Dwarf clip. Pope talks about Sex Dwarf with Soft Cell's Marc Almond here in 2012. Pope was considered the new wave of directors, creating a harder edge with his work and getting away from the normal saccharine pop promo approach and clichés. From the eighties to the present day, he has made 200 plus clips, with, amongst many others, Amanda Palmer, Fatboy Slim, Queen, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, The Cars, The Kaiser Chiefs, Neil Young, Iggy Pop, The The and The Cure. The latter is perhaps his most famous working relationship, totalling across 16 years, from 1981-1997, over 34 clips and a live 35mm cinema-released The Cure in Orange, considered by many to be a benchmark for concert films. His distinctive and internationally known work has been name-checked and cited by many other directors to have influenced their own work. Pope has been given awards from across the globe by MTV, the Brits and countless others. He has been interviewed often on TV and in magazines and newspapers about his work. He is also referred to in artist's biographies, including Neil Young, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Jools Holland and The Cure. Neil Young said of him in his biography: "Tim Pope's really a talented man - very innaresting guy". Iggy said: "I sought him out years ago on the advice of David Bowie, who said there's a really interesting young video director in England, Tim Pope, you should meet this guy, he'd be right to work with you because Tim's very intense" . Tim was awarded an MVA 'Outstanding Lifetime Contribution' in 2006, with filmed contributions from fellow film directors in the business, Iggy Pop and Robert Smith from The Cure, who stated Pope's best work was to come. In parallel with his pop promo career, Pope developed a successful career in commercials, working with the same clients, over and over: Agent Provocateur, the BBC, Coca Cola, Kodak, Tuborg, Renault, etc. He still shoots commercials, and sometimes videos, to this day through London production company Black Label, having in 2012 completed the campaign for Agent Provocateur, starring Penélope's sister Mónica Cruz. Pope shot the film and stills for the campaign and wrote the idea. Pope had a successful career in Hollywood, shooting for Miramax/Dimension and producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein and independent producer Ed Pressman The Crow: City of Angels that reached the No. 1 box office spot in America. Variety magazine said at the time: "It becomes the highest Labor Day weekend opener ever". Previous to his Hollywood debut, Pope had directed Phone, a self-financed 31-minute film starring Bill Pullman, Linda Blair, Amanda Plummer. The short film went on to win awards at 23 festivals around the world and was released in cinemas by Island Pictures supremo Chris Blackwell, the man known for discovering Bob Marley. The film was taken from a real-life prank phone call. Martin Scorcese said that the acting in the film was "very good". In 1991, Pope was co-founder of production company Cowboy Films that as well as being a highly successful production company of commercials and videos went on to produce feature films such as the Oscar winner The Last King of Scotland and TV shows like C4's Top Boy and launched the careers of directors like Oscar winner Andrea Arnold and Nick Love. In 2012, Sky TV shot a documentary about Pope and his work, partly filmed in the sewers of Brighton and the top of The Arc de Triomphe, Paris, reuniting him with old friends such as Paul Weller, Marc Almond, Norman Cook and Robert Smith. In 2013, he is in development on several movies and documentaries as well as doing the pop promo and advertising work that he still enjoys enormously. As of April 2013, he has just recently returned from South America with The Cure, visiting seven countries and shooting 8 concerts and footage for a documentary, which will enter the post-production phase and should be released in 2014.
