The Fiddler

The Fiddler is now available worldwide on kindle and paperback from all branches of amazon.
A novel from a screenplay ,written by Cinematographer Richard Dodd.
A film waiting for a Director/Producer.
Check it out and read the first five chapters for free at  amazon.com    or any other amazon outlet.

 

the Fiddler

The Fiddler

 

 

 

Great news....The Fiddler is now available on kindle...worldwide from amazon.

 

 



The Fiddler

 

The Fiddler

 

by

RJ Dodd

 

 

Yep, thats me..RJ Dodd..not the fiddler, I am completely tone deaf and unable to play any instrument at all..but I always wanted to be a Rock n Roller..oh woe..

 

The Fiddler is a new novel which will be published within the next two weeks and it explores the murky world of the Rock n Rollers of the 18th century, particularly the ones in Italy..which is a good idea as the story is set in Rome,Venice and a mysterious nunnery way up in the dolomites.

 

 

Why Rock n Rollers..in that period of history?.. Well I have always subscribed to the idea that musicians of any era including the headbangers of today are very much the same basic breed of people..extroverts, headbangers, talented, hedonistic and ruthless pursuers of all that is naughty, bad and great fun in life..yes, including imbibing all of the goodies of their time.

 

That is why the sub title of the book is called  "Sex,Drugs and a String Quartet"

 

Nothing has really changed in the world of music for centuries. Travellin musicians were always welcomed in medieval Europe and beyond, but they were always regarded as being somewhat to the side of what passed for civil society in those days and were often encouraged to leave the vicinity after theuir particullar gig was over..and then the locals would count how many chickens had gone missing and how many daughters were impregnated.

 

The origins of the Fiddler began some years ago with the simple thought..How did people who lived in remote areas of Europe,and elswhere , in the days of complete absence of any form of communication, except word of mouth, ever get to know what was happening in their world.

 

In this instance I placed a young man who worked on the family farm some distance from Rome and who was a talented natural violin player in the path of a travelling orchestra that was passing through his area on its way to Rome.

 

The accidental meeting changed his life forever.

 

The story started out as a two page synopsis for a screenplay, which we sold to a USA film production company.The deal was done, we were pleased with the contract and terms, the movie was going to be made.

 

Then we had a letter from the comapmaie lawyers sayingb they wanted to chanfge the contract...in their favour.

 

After some cross Atlantic messaging and the involvement of contract lawyers we decided to pull thye story and we reluctantly consigned it to a drawer.

 

Some years later we dug it out again and wrote a screenplay, which involved a modern rock band interweaving with the orchestra from long ago..no-one went for that idea so the heavy metal boys were dropped..CLANG..and we moved onto a single strand storyline.

 

No-one ever read the script because we never sent it to market..

 

Some years later (honest) the script was dug out of the drawer,again, and we decided to turn it into a novel..tricksy stuff.

 

Two years in the writing, I was busy doing other things, like shooting some TV Drama series, the finished article is about to be unleashed upon the world....and it is more filmic as a book than it was as a script.

 

We hope you like it.

 

It will be available from amazon worldwide..I will post the release date here on the blog.

 

PS: the cover of the book is from a very old engraving someone gave to me as a present, it came from America and is titled  The Fiddler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



The Deafening Sound of Silence

This artivle was written some time ago and MLB and I have moved to an even more remote address in Italy...the same principles apply... by Richard Dodd

 

One of the most evocative lyrics to emerge from the partnership of Simon and Garfunkel and a major hit for them.

Mary Lou and I have, over the past month, endured one of the most stressful things that humans can do, we moved homes.It was an appalling experience.

I won’t dwell on the details too much but almost everything we worried about came true.

The removal men were great, very professional, but their truck was too small and what was planned as a two journey move turned into a four journey one and we finished up stacking remnants of the contents into our car, not to mention the logistics of keeping a highly stressed cat away from the main activity area…we locked her in a bathroom for two days, with food and water of course, plus the occasional hug and some soothing words as we passed from an inner city apartment block into a house in a very remote farming village at the foot of the Italian Dolomites.

We had then to wait for the famous Italian beurocratic machine to creak into action and grant us leave to actually purchase domestic supply gas from a provider, that took two weeks for someone to sign and stamp a piece of paper.We are almost thawed out now, but hey it was worth it.

We now reside in a small but perfectly formed farming village with stunning views of the mountains and at the bottom of our very long garden we can step through a garden gate and almost into the local supermarket which just happens to be next door to the only bar in town…Idyllic..

In more ways than one and which brings me back to the title of this article.

It is silent here….for the first time in years we are surrounded by almost total silence for long sections of the day..It makes a powerful noise.

Last night I lay awake in the early hours and revelled in the fact that I could hear nothing, no vehicles, motorbikes,chatter from the odd drunken group making their way home, the very noisy street cleaning machine, bakery delivery trucks etc,and the complete absence of near neighbours carrying out their bathroom ablutions.

Silence is an abomination on mainsteam television..it is abhorred, banned, almost totally eliminated, why?

Some of the very best feature movies of recent years have joined the telly noise makers, the soundtracks are at earsplitting levels and in my opinion totally detract from the scene on the screen..

I am in the fortunate position of being able to view, for judging purposes, the entrants in the BAFTA Foreign Film section.
The difference is quite marked…these foreign johnies certainly know how to keep quiet when quiet is called for.

Sometimes a situation between two actors is carried out by looks, glances, small body movements etc, and its not because the scripwriters are being paid by the word and the producer has a limited budget but because they know how to use silence….and they let silence become a dominant player, it becomes the conduit, it crosses between the characters and conveys all manner of information.

We do not need the spoken word at all times and at all costs, keep the crashing music away, let the receiving sensors in our overstretched brains enjoy the very loud and crystal clear Sounds of Silence.

Please.

Maginty's Quest.

 

The Stack

 

The Sandrunners

 

 

 

Now all on kindle from amazon   worldwide.

 

Written by Mary Lou Brown and Richard Dodd,,(Pen name ..  Chelsy Swann)

 

Enjoy

The USS NIMITZ

As it is the weekend and I don't start filming until Monday I  thought you might like a rerun of a post from a couple of years back.... by Richard Dodd

This is a short tale, but it sticks in my memory so maybe you will also enjoy it….
A day out on the ‘USS NIMITZ’ ..as you will see from the picture this is one Mother of a ship…one of the biggest tonnage vessels in the USA Navy.

I was sent down to Naples in Italy with a crew to do a short documentary on this naval titan as it set off on a patrol around the Gulf of Libya…in those days the Libyan state, controlled by Col Ghaddafi, who was not considered to be a friend of the Western world and it was constantly monitored by Allied navies.

After an eventful night in Naples..(Another story) we were picked up at the dockside and transferred to the Nimitz which was moored out in the bay.

Once on board we were shown to our quarters and invited to the Officers mess to meet our press liaison Officer. We all enjoyed our welcoming drink of a cola.

Yep.. all USA Navy vessels are dry. .no alcohol whatsoever, ever, nada, zilch.. this was a three day trip but it already stretched out ahead of my near alcoholic crew like a lifetimes sentence.

OK, So, parched, alcohol free and already showing anxiety levels akin to those who go cold turkey on any addiction we set off on a filmic tour of this leviathan of the waves.

IT IS BLOODY BIG.

A one point I was able to stand at what can only be described as a crossroad of gangways, one in each direction. they all dwindled off into the distance for what seemed like hundreds of bulkhead doors.

Then there was the storage and engineering deck.

 This is immediately below the flight deck, its like several football fields joined together and it is stuffed full of aircraft, of all shapes and sizes but mainly fighter attack planes as one would expect, but the thing that really amazed me was the number of engineers who live down there, it seemed like thousands of them, all beavering away on engines and broken bits.

When we talked to some of these men they all said they had never been on the flight deck, they were on board for the two year mission and their aim was to work, pump iron in the vast gymnasium, eat, pass exams, eat some more, pump more iron and SAVE MONEY…these were serious people..and they had a lot to be serious about.

On our mission there had been a dog fight with a couple of Ghaddafi’s Migs out over the Gulf and both of them had been brought down.

Time for a modest celebration in the Officers mess, modest it certainly was as we downed copious amounts of Coca Cola, but for these steely eyed Top Gun boys it could have been the best champagne or beer in the world.

The operation of Jets taking off and landing seemed to be a 24/7 task as jet after jet catapulted off the flight deck and the incoming hit the deck with a thump and were then taken down to the maintenance deck for a mechanics rub down.

We met and interviewed the Captain of the vessel, this man was a USA Hero going back to the Vietnam war, it was reputed that he had been shot down on two occasions behind enemy lines and fought his way back with just a small hand gun, a tough cookie indeed, if it were me then one time being shot down would have sufficed.

The interview was arranged to be filmed on the flight control deck, the Captains Bridge, that’s the tall spiky tower in the pic.

  All was set up, the skipper arrived and we began, except we couldn’t..

Every time we started the interview the sound man would shout “Cut”…he had a problem with his recording machine, in those days it was a Nagra, A state of the art recorder and a reel to reel ,very reliable, but this one would only turn round in short bursts of a couple of seconds. It didn’t take long to work out that the signal from the large rotating radar dish, just above our heads was sending out such a strong magnetic field that it actually stopped the recorder from working.

We quickly found another venue for our chat but it did give me food for thought that if the signal was that strong it could stop the recorder …what was it doing to the personnel who spent hours working on that deck every day…just a thought.. They all seemed quite normal..

OK..we did the usual documentary stuff for a few days , nice pics of the aircraft taking off and landing, some little escapades and near accidents but it all went relatively smoothly.

And then came the day of our departure.

The ship can stay at sea for over two years without re-fuelling and personnel rarely got to go on shore leave but for those in an emergency they can be flown off.

Not many volunteered.

At the appointed hour my crew assembled at the detailed departure point on the flight deck.

All equipment boxes securely fastened and stacked neatly, Navy style.. Then I looked around the deck. It was completely stuffed with fighter planes, row upon row of them, dozens of them, it was all you could see..

What I couldn’t see was a flight deck for my plane to trundle along to take off.

And where was our transport plane. .nowhere in sight.

Then a huge hole in the flight deck opened up and like the Phoenix from the ashes our twin prop driven aircraft arose. Its wings were folded up like a broken bird. They were soon flattened out and now it looked as though it was capable of flight…except.. there was no runway.

Then it dawned on me.

These lunatics were actually going to catapult us off the deck.

And we were lunatics for agreeing to it…not that we were ever asked.

They were really going to sling us off the very short flight deck on a catapult..

Most people today have flown, the plane taxis to the end of a VERY LONG RUNWAY..

They then run up the engines to high revs and start rolling down several hundred yards of concrete runway. .at a certain speed lift is achieved and the aircraft powers serenely into the blue yonder..

As aircraft went, ours was quite small, but it was much larger than any of the fighter planes that we had filmed taking off, these massively powerful war planes had been hooked up to the sling. Run their engines up to max power permitted, held back on their brakes and when ready the deck man would give a signal to both pilot and the catapult man and the combined forces of engine and catapult would throw the plane into the sky, an awesome operation.

Best seen from afar as a spectator.

Like sheep unto the slaughter my crew were herded across the deck and quickly kitted out in flight survival jackets, flight helmets, goggles.

Then we were boarded on the rear of the plane, the seats were all facing the tailgate ..we were told to take a brace position on take off and we did. The gear was stowed. The door was locked and now there was no escape.

The plane was trundled over to the end of the catapult section and attached.

 Looking out of the very small window I noticed we had attracted quite a crowd of onlookers.

Dozens of Navy folk were standing around peering at us, thumbs up signs etc were in abundance. I had the feeling that I had suddenly been invited to go into a big stone circular ring with some hungry lions licking heir lips at the other end.

I watched through the small window at the deck control man who I had filmed many times over the last few days giving his usual signals to the pilot, it normally consisted of spinning his index finger at ever growing speeds.

 This digital movement was copied on board the plane by the engines being revved to ear splitting level, the plane was threatening to tear itself apart as the engines reached maximum revs and then came the executioners moment.

The deckman stopped his murderous spinning and pointed forward with what I thought was a flamboyant gesture .At that moment I hated that man.

But I had no time to dwell on how I wanted to kill him as I was being propelled into the air at a limb wrenching speed ..and suddenly we were airborne, we soared away from the deck which I could see rapidly dwindling in the small window..

Brilliant…no doubt this was an exhilarating moment.

And then we stopped flying…

Apparently this is normal. .But I didn’t know it.

As we went rapidly down towards the ocean the aircraft made a valiant attempt to reach airspeed, it transpired that the catapult actually throws the plane off the deck at a much higher speed than the plane can fly at and it really just starts to fall into the sea.

The screeching from the engines was now overwhelming and the plane appeared to resemble a million rivets flying in loose formation.

The glistening ocean was fast approaching and I made all of my prayers, in Urdu, Hebrew, Christian , Rastafarian and all of the rest…this was it, the end. The Big End…it was just a few hundred feet away and arriving quickly.

 Bye Bye life, Sex, Boozing, Watching Footie, and then as we were about to impact we started to lift.. we were actually flying… we seemed to just skim over the top before we began a stately ascent to a safer altitude.

Now it became clear to me why all those big body building, gluttonous, money saving mechanics never left the ship on its two year cruise.

 This was the only way off.

They should all retire as rich men..

Two short footnotes to this story.

The Cargo master who had flown with us told me they had lost two of these aircraft recently and it always drew a good audience of ghouls on the Nimitz to see if we could make it. He happily confessed that he had a death wish… Thanks fellas.

We were landed at an airbase on an Italian island, Sicily I think, and we were transported to our hotel by a Navy driver who had a big blue bus.

 On the way into the town, in the local rush hour we were struck a number of times by other vehicles.

 Our driver seemed completely unfazed, I asked him why. He said “Its always like this, none of these guys have ever learned how to drive, they have been driving like this FOR SEVERAL HUNDRED YEARS and aint got the hang of the motor car yet”

I guess he didn’t graduate with a major in history from his high school..

Still, as usual ..it was a pleasure to have completed another little adventure with the American Forces.

RJ Dodd

Superstar to Old Age Pensioner

This was posted some time ago but it is worth another visit  .Sadly some of the names on the list of stars have passed on ...Richard Dodd

This might turn out to be a difficult item to write, mainly because it is based on rumour and my own hazy recollections but the idea for it came from this weeks cover on The Hollywood Reporter which features six famous actors who seem to have been around forever

Ed Asner
Larry Hagman
Debbie Reynolds
Eva Maria Saint
Betty White
Mickey Rooney

All of them have had astonishingly successful careers and are fortunate enough to be still employable, and therefore able to make some money.

I wont detail the careers of these six extremely talented icons of the silver screen, we remember their performances, but what about the ones we have forgotten about, those famous faces of their day, never off the telly or starring in a movie, where are they and how do they exist

Every year I am invited to a re-union of my old film department, a gathering which takes place in a very nice hostelry in the UK..

We gather and swap stories, repeatedly, and to some of us boringly, but we do it and enjoy it.

Unfortunately, every year the group could meet in a smaller venue because someone has passed on.

Last year I talked to a colleague from those far away days and it took me some time to realise he had no idea who I was, and we had often worked on the same camera crew, I had lost my hair, gone bald, and he had developed Alzheimer’s.

Appallingly sad for him, all I had lost was hair, he had completely lost all of his memory, he even had a minder with him to make sure he made it home, and he is younger than me..

The point is that every day we all get a little older but when you are used to seeing someone on the screen be it TV or Cinema you tend to remember them with that image in mind. Unfortunately they are all humans too and they age just the same as us lesser mortals.

Some years ago I worked out of LA, had an apartment in Sherman Oaks, in the Valley as it was called.

Several evenings a week I would be at some vast party or gala evening, all very posh and black tie, great fun, all of the stars were usually there, some had not worked for donkeys years but were still Hollywood legends, they all looked great, had great vitality and zest for life, just as they had been when they performed on screen, they all seemed to have very deep pockets, all of these functions were money raising events for some charity or other, they were all expected to contribute, and I am not talking loose change here, these people donated thousands of bucks, and it could be several times a week. .serious money.

Where did they get it from?

I have no idea about the financial affairs of the six on the front page but they all seem to live very well, maybe they were shrewd and saved some of the dosh they got.

Stars today command much more than any of our cover stars so they do have a chance to invest for their old age or their inevitable fall from the spotlight…Not all of them do.

Think about the cost of being a Superstar
Agent
Personal Assistant, even models have those.
Hairdresser
Manicurist
Masseuse
Publicity
Fitness instructor
Gym fees
Driver..plus Limo..
Clothes.

And then there is the house..

John and Bo Derek moved way out of Hollywood onto a remote Ranch, eschewed the Hollywood scene, must have saved a lot of money not attending those functions.

Another International Star lived on a quiet stretch of the coast road north of LA, in a modest house, for a star.

When I visited him the maid asked me to wait by the pool and our hero would join me out there.

A few minutes later a small man, with a humpback and dragging his foot like Quasimodo, carrying a tray with some drinks on it, made his way slowly from the house and set the tray on my table.

I stood up and said.”Hello Mr xxxxx, Nice to meet you”

He was not happy, he was an actor and had put on a performance for me and I had spotted the real person, not surprising really if you knew who it is am referring to. But this man too had moved out of Beverly Hills.

He explained that he was still regarded as an International Hollywood Star but he had not made a movie in years, he was not far from being short of cash…He was still expected to go to functions and spray cash around etc but he did not have the income anymore…So he moved out of town.

Another world famous star arranged for me to go her house in the Beverly Hills…It was a mansion…acres of grounds, all well attended.

I arrived and rang the doorbell, no answer, the door was slightly open so I pushed it further and shouted into the deserted and vast hallway, no answer, calling out “Hello, anyone there” I ventured further into the massive property.. Still no sound, then I heard a response from a back room that overlooked the enormous lawn..."Through here..at the rear of the house."

There, in a darkened room was a little old man, sitting in front of a make up mirror, except it wasn’t an old man but the superstar without her wig on to cover her almost bald head.

She had no staff and had reduced the gardeners to short time.

"Why?" I asked.

“Money, sweetheart “ she replied, or rather lack of it.

So even the well known ones find it difficult to keep up appearances but what happens to the second billed actors in shows like Miami Vice…Hawaii Five O …Columbo etc, there must be hundred or even thousands of them that have never worked for years but who are all instantly recognisable.

Do they open corner shops, drive taxis, pretend they have dosh but run up massive debts…who knows, but it would be fascinating to find out .