In Between Days

"I was working with a particular production designer then called Alex McDowell. He lives in L.A. now, he's worked with Spielberg subsequently and Tim Burton, all sorts of things like that. He was a wonderful, wonderful production designer, and it was his suggestion to use the socks. He said, 'Oh, there's just going to be scrunched-up color on the screen.' In those days, you have to bear in mind that everything we did, we did on film optical [note: unlike digital cameras, this requires the film to be developed and looked at some time after the shoot]. When I got the film back and I said, 'Let me go, I need to show it to Robert.' He came in, he went, 'But they're fucking socks.' And I was like, 'Yeah, I know they're fucking socks, but what can I do?' But then, such is The Cure, next they're going to go to some tour other and all the backstage passes have socks on them. Subsequently, in each video, I put socks too. I should have put one in the bloody film now. I should've have done it and I didn't, damn it! Sometimes things work out like that and that's great, and you go with it. I like that about The Cure. Another thing you have to understand about The Cure is people in the world of pop videos are not notoriously loyal. I mean, particularly these days when there's so much choice, which is why I don't really do them. But I had a fantastic rapport with the band and they were phenomenally loyal to me."