Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
—Winston Churchill

Before he became a successful director Toby Barraud weathered countless failures. As a young man Toby’s aspirations of rock stardom were scotched when his near complete lack of musical talent became apparent. This caused Toby to transfer his enthusiasm to photojournalism, and upon finishing college he left New Zealand to cross Tibet overland. His adventures there involved failure with daily regularity. Equipment malfunctioned, personal relationships came unraveled, and certain bodily functions became wholly unpredictable. Nevertheless, Toby’s enthusiastic account of the journey became his first published work.

After Asia Toby moved to New York. There he undertook many endeavors, with his success in each directly proportional to his level of enthusiasm. His lackadaisical approach to male modeling kept him off the runway, but his fierce pursuit of photography and writing eventually led him to his become a director.

To make Can’t Get A Date Toby designed and built The Inquisitor camera system while teaching himself to operate a Steadicam. He directed both field production and post production. To do this requires eclectic skills: aesthetic sensibility and creativity are essential, but so is the flexibility to deal with the inevitable unexpected eventualities. Creating stories around real people is like life itself: the decisions we make lead us to surprising places, and negotiating the kinks in the road gracefully is where the real art lies. Directing is about overcoming a thousand little failures to achieve a single great narrative, and this is what Toby does, with enthusiasm.