CHRISLEYDON.COM

Escape, we all need one. We all need to get away from the slum of day to day life. We all need to feel free and clear our head. We all need a clear vision. Where can you go for this relief? That’s your choice.

What is such a dark or deep intro for a post doing on my blog, you may wonder. Don’t worry, I haven’t become some sort of manic depressive. The paragraph above is a quick teaser synopsis of the idea behind my latest film project. What’s happened to Project New York? This has. This, for the time being, is Project New York.

For various reasons, business and personal, the film that I was planning to film in New York had been put on hold. This doesn’t mean that the project has been cancelled, I still plan to make it one day, the story is very close to my heart. However, my film module requires me to man a film this semester so I had to brain storm a new idea. The working title for the film is “The Woman on the Roof”.

“The Woman on the Roof” revolves around a young woman who has recently been raped. She goes to the top of the roof several weeks later, to relive the entire event, looking for some sort of escape. It’s not necessarily the film that I set out to make, or wanted to make, but nevertheless it is now the film that I am making. Maybe it has to do with the mood that I was in when I wrote the script. I was going through an emotional time and needed a release, I guess this film is my roof. I’ve channelled all of my hurt feelings into this project, I just hope that it pays off.

Location hunting for this film has been relatively easy, getting in touch with said locations though has been much harder than expected. As it stands I currently have one location out of three; with a week to go before shooting this is perhaps not a great thing. For this location, however, I am having to hire a policeman to be on set at all times. Apparently you can’t fake the scene of a rape on the streets of London, without a police officer present. I have no idea how much this will cost me, but let’s see.

If all goes to plan, shooting will all be done in one day. These “let’s shoot it all in one day” plans tend never to work, I hope that this one bucks the trend. This is the only window that I have to shoot it, due to equipment and University rehearsal schedules, so I really hope that it all manages to come together.

Chris Leydon.