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Chris Hodson giving his presentation which is summarised below.
The Right Direction
Chris Hodson`s fear for the future of the film industry, as we know it today, is the ever increasing use of computer generated images. Although these can be entertaining, the next step is to replace actors with generated animated scenes in an unreal series of adventures. Craft not gimmicks is required.
This view should be considered seriously as Chris has spent more than 50 years in the entertainment industry starting as an actor and ending as a well respected Director with many credits to his name.
Some of the details of events during those 50 years were brilliantly described in his lecture "The Right Direction " before a large audience of club members and guests from Chichester and Hayward's Heath clubs.
His first recollection of theatre was of his first visit to the pantomime at the age of 5 when he declared that he wanted to operate the stage curtains. As he grew up his aspirations changed; he wanted to be an actor then he wanted to be involved in the mechanics of staging a show. Experience in the latter was gained during National Service. Taking his singing duet act into Civvy Street he failed to excite the Booking Agents.
At that time there were still a large number of small theatres that needed to survive so they tried to fill the houses with plays having saucy and titillating titles to attract the customers. Chris landed his first juvenile lead role in Derby but he realized from the level of applause he received that he was not going to make it as an actor.
Lucky star No 1 now struck. " Kiss Me Kate " having been successful in London and was going on tour. Chris was invited to become Stage Director. After giving serious thought to the offer (for 1 night!) he accepted and his career was launched. It was on this tour that he rescued one of the lady members of the cast from the nasty machinations of an unscrupulous landlady. 56 years later the lady is still his wife.
Chris was now working for Emile Littler as Stage Manager and he was involved in two flops, " Bruno and Sidney" which ran for only four nights, and " Thirteen for Dinner"
which ran for one!
However, Lucky Star No 2 was about to strike. This was in the form of Bobby Lewis, a famous American Director who was an advocate of the Stanislavsky Method of acting and the founder of the Actors` Studio in New York. Method acting is characterized by improvisation, spontaneity and an emphasis on psychological realism. Chris believes he learned more about acting working with Lewis than with anyone else. The play was "Teahouse of the August Moon", presented by Williamson`s Music, which was difficult to stage, but after 6 weeks of rehearsal with Lewis ( without the actors being able to take their scripts home) the play was a huge success. Chris illustrated his liking for this type of acting with an excerpt from the film "Dean Spanley" in which Peter O`Toole brilliantly demonstrated how to express raw emotion using only facial expressions.
With this knowledge and experience Chris was able to obtain work in the emerging commercial TV market. Although there was some retrenchment as the industry struggled to take off Chris was able to retain his job at Associated Redifusion and gain more experience on Advertising Magazine programmes. He so impressed the Head of Drama that he was promoted to Director and never looked back. One of his most challenging pieces was "Hello Lola" in which a live rattlesnake was the key prop. A clip from this film demonstrated the problems encountered.
The musical is one of his favourite forms of entertainment and in one episode of "Campion" a dance sequence was introduced which proved difficult to film since the leading actor could not dance. Chris was able to find an ingenious solution and in spite of camera malfunction the episode hit the screen albeit with some of the frames being truncated.
Chris introduced some clips from the film "Paper Moon" starring Ryan and Tatum O`Neil the latter winning an Oscar for her performance. This being his favourite film he particularly likes the ending which leaves the audience several possibilities as to the final outcome.
He started off wanting to be an actor and when filming "Raffles" in Yorkshire his crew manoeuvred him into playing a small part. It did not produce a BAFTA award but demonstrated that his forte was in directing.
This presentation was worthy of an award and we look forward with anticipation to the next instalment.
Jim Anderson
SOCIAL EVENING
An enjoyable and entertaining evening was experienced by members when some 30 stalwarts attended our shuffleboard evening.
Margaret and Ken Collis organised the refreshments which were much appreciated after all the exertions at the tables.
The victors: l to r Bert Wilkins,Pauline Redmond, and Cris Hodson. The chairman is hiding.
THE CHICHESTER CHALLENGE 2010
A full house enjoyed an entertaining evening of films from both clubs with 2 categories being contested.
The 6 films in the main category were:- On Top of the World, Time Flies, and Garden Majorelle from Chichester and, Howarths of London, The Missing Peace and Road Works from Southdowns.
The judge Keith Sayers assisted by Keith Baker and Jim Anderson awarded first place to The Missing Peace.
In the 1 minute category there were 4 films:- RTC and If I should Die from Chichester and Fan Fare and Commercial Break from Southdowns.
RTC took the first place.
The challenge was won by Chichester after adding the points from the placings in both categories.
Congratulations to Chichester.
THE ALBANY 2010
A note of thanks from Judith to all those members who contributed to a successful competition.
Well done to you all.
On a personal note may I thank everyone for all the splendid work done by you all yesterday.
Special thanks go of course to Judy and her helpers in the kitchen. A long hard day for you all.
Thanks also to Barbara for organising the raffle which again goes to help boost the revenue.Thanks to our projection team, Fred and Chris who on the day mastered the new projector with no hitches.
Last but not least our thanks to Fred for all the emails sent and additional grey hairs he acheived during the months leading up to yesterday.He virtually single handed ensured that the entries were made, the films made available and the judges ensured. Without which no competition would have been held.
Congratulations to Brian for winning both the editing and comedy trophies with his film "Safe and Sound". At least by winning these two awards we won't have to organise next year's event!
Once again, many thanks,
Judith.
HOLIDAY AND YEAR IN SUSSEX COMPETITION
There was a pleasantly full club room for the annual competition for films made by members whilst on holiday. Additionly there was a new competition for a cup presented by our recent chairman. This was for a film with the theme of A Year in Sussex. there were five and three entries respectively. In the holiday competition the audience was taken to Africa, The Far East and Europe. Enough to satify most tastes. Aspects of life throughout the year around Worthing were entertainingly presented.
These competitions were prejudged, which saved a lot of time during the evening and the judges were able to present their findings after careful consideration of the merits of the films.It is hoped that this method of judging will be followed in future competitions. And the winners were:-
HOLIDAY COMPETITION
JUDITH KENNY for her film on Botswana and Namibia. Well done Judith!
A YEAR IN SUSSEX
HOWARD JOHNSON for his film A Green Legacy which depicted the activities on Broadwater Green throughout the year. A typically professional film from Howard.
Winners of Club Competitions 2009/2010
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 The Club Trophies presented to the winners at the AGM |
Crunch Time.
This film is now completed.
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