The Reelshow..

 Some years ago my wife, Mary Lou Clarke and I set up a website to show student film makers Graduation films.

Why?...

During my years as a Director of Photography on hundreds of TV/Film shows I was always asked by new additions to my film crews..they were always called 'Trainees' if I couls spare the time to look at their graduation films..I didnt have the time really but I crammed them all in somehow.

When I asked the Trainees who had actually seen their creative efforts they invariably told me that their parents, grand parents and very close friends were the only ones they could force to watch.As usual the many agencies were not interested and wouldnt even accept the tapes or discs.

I knew how much effort and dreams had gone into those Showreels..it was a shame that no-one ever saw them.

So we set up a site where any graduate or avid film maker could upload to a Social media page and the world could see their creative efforts.The results were astonishing.  We had films from every corner of the globe..Some were fantastic ..some were ok and some were dire...no matter,  they al got an appreciated showing on The Reelshow.We ran International Show cases..Had financialprizes..small ones.. and the films just flooded in.

  Mary Lou did the organisation and we employed a massive server unit in America to stream the films on request..Lotsa fun..

Unfortunately at that time the world was hitting some bad times economically.. costs were always rising and we never charged anyone for the site..eventually a large organisation began to take over the idea, paid money and naturally the students moved there. We cut our finacial losses and closed the site..

A sad loss but  we often wonder how many of the students went on into the industry and found their dream job..We hope it was many of them. 

 Maybe we should re-start 'The Reelshow' ..Part two.. on Chelsy Swann 

ROACHES PART 2.

 ROACHES  PART 2:

Just to wind up Roaches I have known etc..The largest group of Cockies I have seen was in the centre of a city.

Melbourne..Australia:

Melbourne is a beautiful place.. steeped in history and very cosmopolitan.. Fantastic food and a wonderful night life and sports area...A major tourist place   and the Cockies think so as well.

One evening my crew went walking through the very lively commercial centre, as usual we were looking for a great bar then we planned to descend on one of the many restauarants..The pavement was wide and there were lotsa people around...just ahead of us we heard a commotion and we spotted pedestrian getting off the pavement and standing in the traffic lanes, some of the women were beginning to scream a little..and then we saw the reason why. A column of Cockies at least five feet wide were marching along the pavement and the column seemed to be endless as it moved around a bend in the roadway..Pedesrtrians were now crowding amongst the cars which had all stopped..hundreds of people were stunned as this column of quite aggressive insects took over the street. My crew were all big tough lads but we all got out of their way and watched them..Then the leaders of the columnn stopped and veered to their left.The street we were on had some impressive stone faced buildings, mainly expensive Hotels..I know because we were staying in one...this one... Someone inside had left a pavement level ventilation window half open and the column took one look and went over the cill and began to march inside...Thousands of them....they just poured in..We checked out the following morning...Had breakfast elsewhere.

Cockies love beer. Just like a lot of people Cockies seem to like an evening out in a pub..

As a yong man I was visiting friends in another town, caught a bus and as I left the Station  I found the road slightly cordoned off as a team of demolition folk were taking down an old abandoned Public house..a pub..

Most of the superstucture had gone and now they were working to clear the very large and dark cellar. Everyone slowed down to watch as slings were placed around a massive wooden barrel, about six feet long and wide..All was going well as the crane started to lift  it from is corner,  then one of the slings broke when it was about ten feet from the ground. The  barrel smashed onto the concrete floor and spectacularly burst asunder...It was solid cockroaches.  Millions of them. They scattered everywhere and like cowards everywher we all ran as they poured onto the street...No doubt they were all drunk..      

ROACHES..

 Roaches...aka Cockroaches...I hate them.

As a child in war torn UK  I grew up in a slum..no electricity, no hot water..no bathroom..a toilet, unlit, across a back yard..and it was infested by mice and a creature I came to hate..Roaches.

They were everywhere,  in the furniture, the little larder the beds, in the wardrobes...Everyday before I went to school I had to check all my pockets and make sure ther were none in my shoes.....

And then I went Globetrotting..Lets start with INDIA:  Indian cockies are a tough breed, they will stare  you down, maybe cos they think they own the joint. In Mumbaia, my hotel was air conditioned and I was about ten floors up when I met one in the corridor.It stared at me..I was obviously in its way. I took my shoe off and hit it about a dozen times...it should have been Cocky paste..it wasnt..It was still there, it shook its head, turned around and waddled off down the hallway..A draw.

Still in India:..Cochin..In my hotel room it only had a bathtub, no showere, so every evening I ran a bath and had a soak. I always took a shoe with me.As the warm water heated up the tub the Cockies came out to play. Splat time..my average kill rate per bath was an average of 40...every night...In the bar where we all met up to have  a beer the barman always sserved up a big deep dish of Potato chips/crisps..We never touched them but watched carefully, after a few minutes the chips would start to move and out they came, maybe a dozen or so..and big..we would always throw the bowl onto the lawn outside and the incumbent resident rats finished the Cockies and crisps in seconds..and then there alwas the restaurant..A prize went to the first crew memnber who found a leg or a remnant of a Cockie in his meal.

Still in India: Trivandrum in Kerala..A very nice hotel..good bar.On our first night there the Director, who had just joined the team arrived, said hello..went to check out his room and returned a minute later screaming for the Manager, who arrived very quickly. Apparently when the director opened his room door and put the lights on there was a scuttering as dozens of Cockies ran for safety.The Manager immediately dispatched a house crew with sprays to clean the room.The Director had a few beers and then went his room...Yep..a few minutes later he is back. He had showered and then pulled back the bedclothes..to find the bed was full of Cockies.The Manager apologised once agin and said\ that as they had sprayed the room the Cockies had no where else to go except get into the bed..It seemed to make sense to him.

I could go on about india for a while but lets move on.

USA:  The home of some of the biggest Cockies in the world..It may be all the junk food.

Lets start in Charleston: We were there for a few weeks and had settled in to a motel just outside of town..Nice enough for what we wanted to do there, except on a Sunday the Motel and other restaurants and bars seemed to close down.My room..lotsa beers and crew members were dispatched to buy huge amounts of KFC..Boxes of it..US football on the TV.. Great evening.

Bed time..empty boxes  piled up..empty bottles everywhere and lotsa batter bits from the KFC, they were all over the place, I was stepping on them on the way to the bathroom.Sleep called and sometime  in the dark of the night I woke up to hear a noise..lots of crunching sounds. Being the craven coward that I am in such situations I pulled the covers over and quaked myself back to sleep.

Dawn arrived and I peeked out of my bedclothes..nothing untoward..I went to the bathroom,  no crumbs on the floor, none in the KFC boxes, the chicken bones were bleached desert dry.The room was spotless..Well trained are those Charleston Cockies

New York:Shooting a doco in an apartment block to one side of the GCP.The subject was a meeting of Fat Women Fetishists..I know..It just popped up on the list..

Anyway the place was jam packed with very large ladies and  quite small men, drink flowed, lotsa a chatting and filming..then I needed a drink of water. My golden rule was never to drink booze on location, it was broken occasionally..I made my way to the kitchen, very small, found a glass and filled it from the tap...Then I noticed the wall was moving..all of it. I thought it was my eye sight but it was really the wall which was completely covered in small Cockies..  hundreds of them. We were wrapped and out in three minutes.

Next up  Australia..Next Post maybe.

HATRACK UPDATE:

 HATRACK UPDATE:  In addition to the HATRACK Drama series there is a spin off game planned

Go where no one has been before..in History..in order to move through to the winners podium the Gamer has to learn, become educated, use that Knowledge to proceed..In the HATRACK Game the player is a participant not an observer..The gamer will have to make choices based on is/her level of knowledge..WIN WIN..Watch this space..RJ Dodd.

Books by Richard Dodd and Mary Lou Clarke.( pen name: Chelsy Swann) and Richard Dodd

 Published soon ..In final edit  'Leverage', by RJ DODD  A contemporary thriller  Pitching two brothers  against each other..with deadly consequences.  One Brother is a Bomber and the other is an MI6 agent. 

Already Published and available on Amazon.

MAGINTY'S  QUEST..By Chelsy Swann... An adventure book for young reades..Pirates and mischief galore in modern day London and the Island of Bermuda.  ISBN Number..10: 1494387239....13:978-149387235

The SANDRUNNERS..By Chelsy Swann..A great story set in Eygpt, London and Athens in the late 1800s It follows the adventures of a young man,Yusuf,  who works in the Tomb excavations in Egypt, along with his great companion Suzy, who is a small Camel.They live a long distance from the tombs and to get to them every morning they set off early and run.They are spotted running by the senior Excavator who is also on the committee for the New Olympics.  Their adventures take them into some dangeous places as peasants were not welcome into the rarified fields of sport. But they eventually overcome the obstacles in a spectacular ending.   For both YA and Adult readers. 

ISBN Number 978-1475021387 

The FIDDLER..By RJ DODD..Set in Italy in the late 1700s. A young farm boy meets up accidentally with members of Mozarts orchestra on their way to play for the Pope. He is besotted by them and leaves home to join them. He is an accomplished violinist, having been taaught by his Uncle who was the priest in his .

As good as he is it is not good enough to join the orchestra and he is forced to earn a living in a quartet that plays in local Palazzos for the gentry in Venice and Rome. He eventually falls in love with a beautiful girl violinist and they move in together.The girls father abducts her and she is sent to Morrocco to be a wife for a potentate after large amounts of money ha been exchanged. Dante, the violinist is distraught and he rapidly descends into the underworld of those two cities. 

Dante eventully becomes a fugitive and he returns to his village where he takes over as the Parish priest when his uncle dies ..On his journey to this point he has many instances of great danger including a murder, drug scenes and being locked in a mountain nunnery. as well as massive treachery from a friend. 

One day as he visits the village grave yard to lay some flower he spots a woman and a little child watching him fom a small hillock nerby..It is his long lost love....What does Dante do now.?

Musicians the world over and down history all seem to live similar lives  and an alternative Title is..'A tale of Sex, Drugs and a String Quartet'

The ISBN Number is: 978-09935414-0-7 

The STACK..BY RJ DODD..An Australian Family saga..Set in England, Gallipoli, France, Australia  and the USA

Robbing a bank on the war ravaged peninsula of Gallipoli of its hoard of gold was not the uppermost thought in the minds of two young men from Cumberland in the North of England when they joined the British army in 1915...After the war they decide to return to Turkey, dig up the gold from a grave yard where they hid it and go to Australia. They eventually buy two massive plots of forest land, each more than a million acres..Settle down, start a family and hopefiully prosper.

Then the dark secret they left in the Turkish bank vault comes back to haunt them and threatens their families,

 This family saga  and adventure  is full of danger , travel, romance, misplaced  love, greed. infidelity, Tribal honour and is actually based on two true life stories.  A great romp.

The ISBN Number is: 978-1478181569 

Life transition

 How does a young boy, ill educated and who left school at 14 who  became a Deep seam coal miner at 15 get to be one of the top DoP's in the UK TV industry..  Tavelled the world in First Class..5 star accom in some of the most desirable locations in the world..How did he do that?

I did..

Perhaps it was the terrifying daily drop into the bowels of the earth in a tiny compartment called a cage..it had four layers.  Four men crammed into each layer squatting, knees interlocked..in that confined space and when the 'cage'  was fully laden  the wireman took off the brakes and it plummeted 400 metres down a ten foot wide hole in the ground..The Shaft.. at freefall speed..It automatically slowed down when the brakes came on as it reached its unloading point.  I was claustrophobic ..the drop was horrendous..and when we alighted we then had to walk a mile or so down dark damp tunnels to reach the coal seam  which was just over 3 feet tall. Once in there it was impossible to stand up for the entire shift.

Some years of this convinced me I had made the wrong career choice and so I decided to change tack. I wanted to travel t around this beautifiul Planet..make a lot of money and hopefully meet some pretty girls..  It was a major leap...almost impossible..But I did it ..More on this in the next post..stay with it.

Contact the author: Richard Dodd.. Director of Photography.

 Contact...The contact details for Richard Dodd,,  the Author and owner of Chelsy Swann blogsite

Tel: 07860  555  794

E mail: r.jdodd@outlook.com

Please feel free to make contact if you need more info..thank you.

HATRACK

 HATRACK Is an new streaming drama pitched at the younger viewer..and the main protagonist is a 17 year old who is almost a dropout from school and society.  A total waster. whose familt despair for his future. Until the family move to an old property with many rooms..Then the fun begins..  Pacy.. slick..clever.. educational and it involves the viewer...and there will be a game spinoff.  Watch this space.