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Showing posts with label Film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Film. Show all posts
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// By Jonathan

If you are an avid Jolly Interesting Stuff reader, you will remember that at the start of this year I told you about a film that was being made called Dream Racer. One man's dream to complete the Dakar Rally. Well, now that film has been made. And here is the trailer.



I could wax lyrical about how inspiring it looks, but I don't think I need to. It very much speaks for itself. To keep up to date with Dream Racer and view more clips you can visit dreamracer.tv and join the Dream Racer facebook group.
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// By Jonathan

You may have been wondering what on earth is going on with Jolly Interesting Stuff as of late. It used to be filled with so many apparently random ideas. Catching 100 buses in one night; driving between New York and San Francisco 25 times to beat an iPod; getting engaged on on New Year's Eve.* Recently though there hasn't even been a flicker of a new challenge or a bizarre project. Well that's because I have been planning. And playing with next door's cat. And when you are planning and playing with next doors cat you really have to give it 100% of your time and attention. But now the planning is over and next door's cat has escaped, so I can finally tell you what I am doing next. (As well as 7 Reasons, Third Shepherd™ and getting Is This You? published).

The working title of my new project is Midnight Train To Georgia. No doubt I am violating some copyright issue by calling it that, but until Gladys Knight sends the Pips over to have a word, that is what it shall remain. As the name suggests, I am planning to catch the Midnight Train To Georgia. If indeed there is one. But that's half the fun. The seed of this idea started many years ago when I was at University. I thought, having just heard the Deep Blue Something song, 'Wouldn't it be fun to have Breakfast At Tiffany's?' And at the time my answer was yes. But I never got round to doing it. Eight years on, my answer is still yes. But it's also no. There is nothing much to eating breakfast at Tiffany's. Basically it involves eating and getting asked to leave. That may have been the type of thing a younger me would have done - in a respectable manner of course - now though, it seems somewhat, well, immature. Without giving away too much of what Is This You? is about, I end up inspiring people to reconnect with friends and family who they have, for whatever reason, lost contact with. That was never the intention. It started as a whimsical quest to try and find my best friend's look-alike. But it evolved in to something that I could never have foreseen. And it evolved in to something life changing. Partly for me, but more for other people. It was fantastic and I wouldn't change any of it, but it was fantastic because of the end point. The start of it was just silly. Very, very silly. So I don't want to do silly things anymore. Not that silly anyway. Everything I do will always have a quirky edge, because that's what I do, but there will also have to be stimulation. And that is why I don't want breakfast at Tiffany's, it's why I want to catch the midnight train to Georgia. I imagine it must be a fascinating thing to do. More fascinating than the midnight train to Loughborough anyway. The characters, the scenery (I'll have to take a torch), the sandwiches. Think Michael Palin meets Bill Bryson meets Jonathan Lee.

Catching the midnight train to Georgia is only the start though. I am going to embark on a number of other journeys that are inspired by song titles. The plan is to make a film of it and also make it my second book. And this is where you come in. Because you get to shape my journey. You get to decide where I go. Or at least you suggest songs and I think about them or ignore them depending on whether they might get me killed or not. Oh, and each song doesn't have to follow on from the other. I.E.: My second trip doesn't have to start in Georgia. And please, do me a favour, don't suggest Breakfast at Tiffany's. I look forward to all your suggestions - either in the comments section or in an email if you want to suggest something by Steps. And who knows, maybe you'll get to join me for a leg of the journey.

*One of these may still happen. I'll let you guess which.
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Time To Reject
// By Jonathan

It's been nearly a month since I went on holiday. How time flies when you are thinking about enjoying yourself. Not that it was exactly a holiday. It was more a case of doing what I usually do without stopping occasionally to update my blog. Kind of. In fact, the real truth goes much deeper. I have, after much deliberation, been putting an end to what I usually do. You see, in the last year I agreed to get involved in approximately 33,786 projects. Approximately. Now, while I have the brain capacity to complete such trivialities, what I don't possess is the time, the inclination, the lung capacity or the direct access to a girl guides motorbike stunt display team (that was a strange project idea). It finally dawned on me that with so many projects on the go none of them were actually moving forward at anything like the speed I needed them to. Skodas have travelled up hills faster. The only way to rectify this has been to do some culling. So, here is a quick breakdown of what is staying and what is going from Lee Enterprises. Let's start with the goners.

The US iPod Challenge. For the time being the mammoth 73,000 mile road trip between New York and San Francisco - that esteemed architect Nicholas Kennedy and I were planning on tackling - has been shelved. Out of all the projects this was the hardest one to say goodbye to. We've spent years planning it. We have sponsors. We have petrol (or gasoline). We have a car. We have a sat-nav. We have a compass. We have a tent. Come to think of it, the only thing we don't have is an iPod. So why have we shelved it? Well, basically it comes down to time. We don't have it. Not now. Nicholas is having a baby. So is his wife. I am having roast beef. We may come back to it in five years.

One Night One Hundred Buses. Now I know some people thought the idea of me trying to set a world record for the number of buses caught on one night was a bit stupid. I can see your point of view, but it actually wasn't. It was actually quite cool. Now, though, you'll just have to take my word for it because it has been postponed. And when I say postponed, I mean expelled from my mind. It's a time thing again really. The getting on the 100 buses in one night is the easy bit, that hard part will come afterwards when I have to edit it all. I want to do it properly and that means concentrating on it 24/7. Something I can't commit to. If I spend less than all my time on it, it's just going to end up as a 'direct to YouTube' film. And the idea deserves so much more than that. I also need to prove you all wrong. One day you'll be forced to apologise to me though. This project is not totally dead yet.

Sandra Bullock. I am no longer paying attention to her. I'm glad she won her Oscar, but as far as our future together goes, well I think that was just infatuation on my part. And lust on hers.

So that's the bad news out of the way - particularly for Sandra - so what about the good news? Well here is what I will be doing this year. (Yes, I guess some of these could also be deemed bad news. Perhaps I should have done a vote?).

Strauss v Ponting: The Ashes Diaries 2010/11. The 2009 was a very half-hearted effort. So half-hearted in fact that I actually gave up before The Ashes started. That's quite a poor effort by anyone's standards. In the end I spent all summer doing it via Twitter. Which, while proving moderately popular with Michael Slater and the Barmy Army, didn't really help me in a professional sense. So this time it's going to be the proper thing. Not that I know which publication is going to let me run with it yet, but one will. They'd be silly not to.

The sitcom. I can't quite remember when I first said I was writing a sitcom, but it must have been nearly a year ago. Funnily enough it's not quite finished yet. Or should that be not quite started yet? Anyway, it's going to happen. I even have books on scriptwriting.

7 Reasons. Yes, I'll still be churning out irreverent reasonings on a wide variety of as yet unthought of topics. Which reminds me, I must discuss the idea of having June - August off so that I can have a life.

So that's where we are at. You may have spotted the pattern. Out are going the random missions and the filming of the random missions, remaining and being pushed to the forefront is the writing. I guess the truth is that I enjoy writing more than I do travelling around on four wheels.

Without getting too 'acceptance speech-ish', I do want to say thank you to the ridiculously large number of people have been in touch over the last year offering their services (not like that) and wishing me luck - especially with the US iPod Challenge and One Night One Hundred Buses. I know I have a habit of occasionally appearing to be a self-loving egocentric narcissist, but I am not really. I'm actually quite nice and I am always very grateful and humbled when people get in touch for whatever reason. So thank you and I am sorry if you feel I have let you down in some way. To make it up to you I am coming back to Jolly Interesting Stuff on a permanent basis again. Never will you have to go for longer than a few days without reading a bit of nonsense here. Right, let's rock.
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// By Jonathan



On New Year's Day you may remember I told you to follow the Dream Racer blog. I hope you did because it was a great read; conveying hope and despair and joy and pain. All on a daily basis. Just to achieve a dream. Last week - against the odds - they completed the race. Yes, it sounds like a cliché, but there is nothing wrong with that. Clichés happen. And I make no apologies for being a romantic. To me there is nothing greater than to achieve when everything is stacked against you. (Which is probably why I have decided to make a new film - 'Alex Bogdanovic: My Quest For The 2010 Wimbledon Title'). Above you can see a quick montage of some of the Dream Racer footage. Lifting your bike up when you have torn triceps and an injured back is an overrated pursuit.
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// By Jonathan

Buon giorno. If you ever wanted to know what the Italians think of me, now is your chance to find out.

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One Night. One Hundred Buses. 89 Days To Go.
// By Jonathan


Way back in 2009 you may remember me mentioning something called One Night, One Hundred Buses. I can't remember exactly what I said, but it can't have been much when you consider that back then I didn't really know what I was talking about. Not because I was on drugs or anything like that, I just didn't have the facts to hand. Now I do. Sort of. Between dusk on Monday 12th April and dawn on Tuesday 13th April 2010, I, along with one cameraman, one certified representative of Guinness World Records and one tea-lady, will be attempting to catch 100 London buses.

Let's start by answering what I imagine will be a popular question, "Why?" Well the answer to this lies in advertising. Just over a year ago I was working on ideas for a Transport For London campaign with a particular emphasis on getting people to use buses more. The way I saw it, the one thing buses had going for them was that there were bloody millions of the things. Oh, and they ran at night. That was about it. So one of my ideas - in very simple terms - was a competition. A competition that would create a buzz. A competition that would challenge people to catch as many buses as they could in a single 24 hour period. A competition that would mean the tubes were empty and I would have an enjoyable trip home. It wouldn't have been hard to monitor either, as Oyster cards record all that data. Anyway, some liked it, most thought I was mental. Probably those that actually caught the bus. In the end I expect they went for a poster that said, 'Catch The Bus!'. I really couldn't care less.

So, I was left with the idea. And now I want to prove it would have worked.

Using a little bit of common sense, I have tweaked the concept slightly. Twenty-four hours is a long time - it's pretty much a day in some places - so I have more than halved it. I think you'll agree that One Night, One Hundred Buses sounds much better than One Day, Two Hundred Buses. It is also sounds like much less work. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that there is no world record out there for 'the number of buses caught in a single night'. By 8am on Tuesday 13th April, there will be. And it will belong to me. (So long as there isn't a strike). In theory it will also belong to my cameraman given that he will be with me throughout proceedings getting the footage that will turn this baby into a film. But we'll gloss over that for now. I am doing all the planning after all. He is just going to be standing there holding a bit of expensive camera equipment.

By the night of the challenge we will all be aware of the rules and regulations I have to adhere to. Because I will have told you about twenty times. To reward your loyalty though, I am prepared to give you a sneak peek. They will look something like this.

1) I must not catch the same numbered/destined bus more than once. For example, I can only catch the 11 to Ealing Broadway once. However, I would still be able to catch the 11 to Liverpool Street or the 207 to Ealing Broadway or even the N11 to Eailing Broadway.

2) I must not stay on a bus for longer than one stop.

3) I must not go along the same part of road twice unless I am travelling in the opposite direction.

4) I am allowed to walk/run between bus stops but I am not able to use any other form of transport.

5) I must pay for each journey. An Oyster card swipe is sufficient.

6) The period 'night' is determined as the time between dusk on Monday 12th April and dawn on Tuesday 13th April 2010. Based on those timings from previous years, it will give me approximately 11 hours (7:45pm - 06:45am)

And as things stand, that is where we are up to. The skeleton is in place. I just have to plan the night. Plan the best route. Plan which buses to get. Plan when to get them. Plan back up plans if they don't turn up. And try not to break a leg.

If anyone would like to get involved in anyway then send me an email: mrjonathanjameslee@gmail.com Support and abuse are also welcome. Incidentally, you probably have a better chance of getting in the film if your message is full of venom. I will make you look like a prick though.
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