The Healing Power of Movies

The Bafta Awards season is well underway (Sept'12 to Feb 2013) and so I'm in the midddle of seeing many screenings of new movies which members vote on from Dec'12 to Feb'13. The Orange Bafta Awards take place on 10th February 2013 at London's Royal Opera House. I've always loved the power of television and film - that's one of the reasons I wanted to be a producer. I have often found that moments from great movies can contain messages and stir emotions that you can identify with. Freud said that images are the language of the unconscious. I can look back to old and new movies that have affected me or family and friends in some way. I always wanted to translate that powerful moment and message into a commercial - not easy when involving a client and product - but film moments are used as references relentlessly in ad agencies and production companies.

I was lucky to see 'A Life in Pictures' discussion with Dustin Hoffman in person at Bafta this week. He's everything you'd want him to be and more and a much loved neighbour of mine. Totally authentic, funny and surprisingly quite emotional when talking about his personal divorce in 1980 in relation to the multi-award winning film Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) about divorce and how that had affected him - the power of movies! Lord Puttnam has also referred to how movies have got an amazing way of detecting those moments - they speak to us -  and has referred to them in his acceptance speech for his Bafta Fellowship in 2006.

Bernie Wooder, psychotherapist, has pioneered the use of movie therapy to assist his clients and says that seeing emotions played out on the screen is a more powerful experience for many of his clients than talking about an abstract idea. It gives people a resource that endures. Movie therapy can help people change enormously and get to who they really are. My powerful film moments are from: Black Swan, Rebecca, The Remains of the Day, The Lives of Others, Separate Tables, etc. What are yours?

Words that Burn

This week I've been researching and writing 2 speeches and a separate article for a business magazine. I visited the London Library  in St. James Square SW1 and I'm considering becoming a member - it truly is a brilliant and inspiring library. I've always found that if something is troubling me and I write it down I can bring order to the situation and I am able to look at the it more rationally. The power of words....... My blog this week is about the power of words.  I was invited by Lord Saatchi to his Friends and Family opening night of his late wife Josephine Hart's Poetry Week at the Arts Theatre. Over five nights the work of some of the world's greatest poets were celebrated and brought alive with the help of Josephine's words and the poems themselves, read aloud by some of the finest actors. This first night were poems by TS Eliot read by Edward Fox and Harriet Walter. The evening was a real treat.  There was a fantastic audience of family and friends too from Edna O'Brien, Bob Geldorf, Sir Simon Jenkins, Sabrina Guinness, Lord Gowrie, etc etc. I have The Josephine Hart Poetry App on my iPad which I highly recommend too. However there is nothing quite like seeing poetry performed at this level.

St James Theatre Bully Boy

Last Wednesday (October 10th) was World Mental Health Day and I was invited to the charity performance of the play 'Bully Boy' at the St James Theatre in collaboration with Combat Stress. There was a lively Q&A session afterwards with the play's writer Sandi Toksvig, the cast - Anthony Andrews and Joshua Miles, director Patrick Sandford and Commodore Andrew Cameron who is the Chief Executive of Combat Stress.

The play is about a young squaddie in Iraq who is court-marshalled for his role in the death of an 8 year old Arab boy, it's a question of class and rank when his defending officer is a Falklands War veteran. Anthony Andrews is brilliant as the war veteran and Joshua Miles as the young squaddie - his first play - is just excellent. I have never seen a play with a continuous standing ovation before - it is seriously a must see. The energy, the stress the emotion all powerfully portrayed. The Q&A were good too and then we had drinks with everyone afterwards downstairs in the studio bar.

The play highlights a very neglected area of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) soldiers returning from war with little help for them to integrate back into society. So as Sandi said its either The Priory or prison. The soldiers need our support and understanding - that's where Combat Stress comes in but they have had cuts implemented............Sandi's script is very powerful.

My guest was Hugh Lillingston, a Master Practitioner and Trainer of NLP and Hypnosis and a teacher of Huna who is one of the practitioners of the warrior programme a charity which has helped many ex-soldiers get their lives back on track. I met Hugh and his wife Catherine through Tracy Worcester.

My next event was a dinner with the entrepreneur, Luke Johnson (Risk Capital Partners) at CSFI (Centre for Study of Financial Innovation) - a financial think-tank in London and New York. I've been asked to produce a TV Channel for Entrepreneurs - so it seems in the same week appropriate that I go to a dinner with one of the UK's most high profile entrepreneurs. Luke was great despite us exhausting him with questions - he answered all of them - no complaints - mind you the food was delicious so I think that may have helped sustain us all.

"Poetry is thoughts that breathe and words that burn" - Thomas Gray.

The Healing Power of Nature

My blog this week is about how nature and our physical and visual surroundings can deeply affect us. One of my daily treats is to exercise for @ 30mins in Kensington Gardens. It happens to be a 4 minute walk from my house and it is one of the joys of living in this area. The beautiful trees and gardens, the lake, the cute dogs, bumping into neighbours, the wild flower area to encourage bees etc., the sunshine, the rain, the seasons! It's nature in all its glory - I love it - as well as the exercise giving me a feel good factor, I find nature spiritually enriching. As it is often said "its the simple things in life". Nina Simone got it right with her song 'Feelin'  Good' - listen to those words. It is a well known fact that appreciating and getting close to nature is good for us - but our physical surroundings at home and work do affect us too. I love having a beautiful home to come back to - the orchids, the fire, the cosy sofas - that's why I love to make properties look great! A visual feel good factor.  Very important to our spirit and soul. It's proven that a lovely office has a huge impact on the way staff perform too. None of that hot desking either!  Give everyone their own nest not to procrastinate but to make them feel happy.......that's one of the reasons why I started my own business. Flowers grow in the sunshine.

Talking of visual feasts I was invited last Monday to a Harvard Business School evening at Kensington Palace. It's 5 minutes from my house so we just walked there. Kensington Palace has been newly transformed by a 2 year (much needed!) £12 million refurbishment undertaken by Historic Royal Palaces. The evening was about the challenges and triumphs and the planning and realisation of the project.  We arrived to a champagne reception by the Kings Stairway - a wonderful backdrop - then sat in the magnificent King's Gallery for the discussion and then drinks were served in the King's Drawing Room and Cupola Room. It really was an interesting evening - I love history brought to life and leaving the Palace on a dark moonlit night was very filmic - you felt you were in the deepest darkest Dorset countryside but High Street Ken was 2 minutes away!

My next visual feast was seeing Mike Newells film adaptation of Charles Dickens classic 'Great Expectations' at the Mayfair Hotel. It really is one of the best cinemas to view a movie by the way. The film is well worth seeing and looks wonderful. The DOP (director of photography) is John Mathieson who I have worked with on commercials - it looks stunning. Fantastic cast and Ralph Fiennes as Magwitch is brilliant.

My third visual feast was having lunch in the brasserie at the St. James Theatre (SJT). Le grand fromage of SJT very kindly bought me and a business associate - Caroline Garnham of Family BHive network - lunch. The food was not only a visual feast but tasted delicious too. Now you may think I'm biased but the brasserie is well worth a visit on its own, but great to have an early supper there before seeing a theatre production - and they do prosecco by the glass!

My fourth visual feast was a week-end in the country - heaven, heaven, heaven. It really looked like my favourite poem by John Keats 'Ode to Autumn' - season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.......the photos were taken on one of our walks - soothing eh?

National Poetry Day was 4th October 2012