CHRISLEYDON.COM

I’m back at University and already I’m up to my neck in work. You might remember the film that I’m working on as part of my University project, if you don’t then let me remind you. My semester two task is to create two 3 minute films, one is a documentary and the other is a dramatisation based on the information gained in the documentary. The documentary has been filmed and can be seen in my Videos page.

Project Elements, the drama, isn’t coming on very well, in all honesty. Over the past three/four weeks we were supposed to have a cast, locations, equipment, storyboard and a shooting script all ready and raring to for this weekend; so that we could commence filming on Monday. I, personally, have managed to find most of the actors and get my part of the storyboards done; I’ve also secured permission to film on location and booked the equipment. What we don’t have is a cast, I was informed of this small huge detail last night, at about 5 o’clock. Naturally I’m now in panic mode and trying to find a cast, with very little success.

Incidentally, if you’re an actor aged 20 - 30 in the Worcestershire UK area and you’re free on Monday and Tuesday to help me out, please drop me an email - address in the Social section. Wage of about £40 per day plus travel expenses.

Urgh! Let’s see if I can get something done about all of this!

Chris Leydon.

What a busy week I’ve had, a busier one still is about to happen.

So this week I’ve helped some year 11s at a school with their Graduation and Yearbook DVD, popped down to London, invested in a Skypephone and been detained under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

What was that last one? I was detained under the Terrorism Act 2000? Well yes it’s true. On Wednesday afternoon at about 12:09 PM (GMT) I was detained and searched under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act of 2000 on suspicion of carrying items that might be harmful to the state. Of course I wasn’t, but they suspected that I was. Half an hour I spent outside of Paddington tube station, trying to get to Baker Street, answering pointless questions whilst the plod was assessing my status as a threat to the state. In the end I was let go with no charges held, but that’s not the point. I was stopped, harassed and mate late for doing bugger all. Section 44 of the Terrorism act of 2000 allows the police to stop ANY member of the public for anything they want, as long as they are “acting in a suspicious manner”.

No doubt that I’ll end up in a spot of bother for writing this article but the police weren’t just doing there job, they were victimising. In the half hour that I was there I was the only White British citizen that they stopped. Everyone else detained was of a different ethnicity; I guess I was the token white guy that they had to stop that day.

Section 44 of the Terrorism Act of 2000 is a way for the police to whatever the hell they feel like, you can be stopped for any reason and if you refuse you’re arrested for disobeying police orders and under suspicion of terrorism. You are stopped for going about your daily business, terrorist or not; I wouldn’t mind but how many people have they actually stopped from committing acts of Terrorism under this legislation? It was effective in 2005 and we still had the July 7th bombings, it didn’t stop that.

I clearly wasn’t doing anything wrong, had I refused being stopped and searched I would have been arrested. This is an invasion of my privacy. Some of you will ask that if I haven’t got anything to hide then why should I be worried? My answer to that is that I haven’t got anything to hide, so why abuse my rights? If you haven’t got anything to hide then how much do you earn a year? How old are you? Where do you live? Come on, tell me, you have nothing to hide and nothing to be worried about, you’re not doing anything wrong!

Chris Leydon

Time to answer that question of why I’ve been so quiet over the past few days. Believe it or not I am a fairlyish busy person, I have Uni work to contend with, co-running a business, various volunteer work and the odd private creative digital media job.

Keyone Productions is a business that I am a partner in, along with my dear friend Nick Cooper. Keyone Productions was established in the spring of 2006 as a creative digital media outlet, for a group of friends to release content under. Keyone is responsible for overseeing The Podzone and Finding the Right Chord, amongst other things. Enough of the plug though.

Keyone Productions has, for a long time, been fairly dormant in the world and is in dire need of freshening up. Later on this year we plan to introduce two new video shows, update The Podzone and introduce a new business website. All is fine with the business and 2008 looks set to be very interesting indeed.

Chris Leydon.

The second of my three posts today is concerning PodShow, more specifically, the rumours circulating about PodShow’s current state. I’m not allowed to go into much detail about this, due to contractual reasons and moral obligations, but I shall try to clear the air a bit.

It has been reported on Valleywag that PodShow are making radical changes to their company. First of all I’d like to point out that Valleywag is a rumour blog and nothing more, there are no quoted sources and most of it is speculation. Second of all what should it matter IF PodShow is making layoffs, IF it needs to downsize, let it.

Adam Curry, President of PodShow, has contacted PodShow producers today to inform them of exactly what’s happening within PodShow. As an independent PodShow producer myself, I too have been informed of these changes; they are not as radical as certain “publications” and fabrications are making them out to be.

This is a typical example of a rumour snowballing. Valleywag has no evidence of these layoffs and there has been no word from PodShow itself. PodShow is still committed to creating fantastic content and supporting its producers. Version 2.5 of its site launched this week and this sees a whole fresh look on PodShow itself. 2008 is set to be a big year for PodShow and I for one support them 100%.

My 12 month agreement with PodShow UK Ltd is up for renewal within the next few weeks, I have no plans not to agree to an extension; and as far as I’m aware, neither do PodShow. My experience with PodShow has been fantastic and I think that we are great partners together. The Podzone isn’t a huge internet sensation, but it is indeed great content that many people do want; PodShow and I see this and hopefully we’ll continue to produce fantastic content with each other for another 12 months. The money hasn’t been that bad either.

Blogs such as Valleywag exist to spread and fuel rumours. This is just PodShow bashing, it must PodShow’s time again. After all there’s no Apple news in sight to wank over, so it must be a slow “news” day.

Chris Leydon.

I’ve got quite a bit to say, well three things actually, and instead of writing out a long post I’m pondering whether to write them as three separate posts, spread out over the weekend; that’s what I’ll do actually.

First item on the agenda is why I’ve been a tad quiet this week. I’m now back in Worcester, the land of sauce and home to Keyone Productions, as you will know from previous posts; this means that I’ve been able to concentrate more on personal and business projects, as opposed to mainly the University ones.

My relationship with Youthcomm, has been a long and fun one to say the least. Youthcomm currently runs three main projects, an online and FM youth operated community radio station (Youthcomm Radio), an online interactive portal (which is undergoing a revamp) and a youth operated telephone hotline for young people (Youthline).

Youthcomm, for some time now have had plans to launch an online television service, showcasing content created by the young people of Worcestershire. The content that it plans to deliver will be high quality video, generated by anyone who wants to be involved. This will be unlike services such as YouTube or PodShow because the Youthcomm TV project plans to provide training and equipment, to make these videos some of the greatest on the web.

There are current training modules in place and I’m helping to devise another aspect of the training that Youthcomm will provide. The area that I’m involved in focuses on evolving the skills gained in earlier training sessions, to make the generated videos of even better quality.

That is all that I’m going to say on that matter for the time being. There will be more posts later on…

Chris Leydon.

It feels great to say that I’m back home early from University. All of my Uni work was finished early on this semester, so there really wasn’t anything keeping me there, and now I’m back in Worcester. I’ve still got bits of preparation work to do for the Project Elements Drama film; but I’ll get that done during my time off.

Today I got around to adding a video page to my blog, now you can see some of the video projects that I’ve worked on in full streaming internet flash quality; you just now it’ll be good. I’m thinking about adding an audio and imaging tab as well, at some point in time.

For some reason I’m not in the greatest of blogging moods today, I haven’t really achieved anything and it just feels as though I’m doing it for the hell of it; which I’m not. Well, I think I’ll cut this thing short then and get around to sorting out some Keyone stuff with Nick, that’s if I can get a hold of him.

Chris Leydon.

Right, that’s it, no more time off for me. New resolution, keep up the blog; after all I have paid for the damn thing, so I may as well use it.

Some work has indeed been done around here, there is a new blog theme, courtesy of wpdesigner.com - I may be a good designer, but programming a WordPress theme is one thing that I can’t do; not yet anyway.

The main page of CHRISLEYDON.COM is also due for some freshening up soon, but that I shall do myself. In the meantime I am solemnly swearing to keep this blog updated, regularly.

Those of you who had read my previous blog over at http://chrisleydon-theblog.blogspot.com may recall that I’d started to post up film reviews after I’d seen a film for the first time. I’ve decided to start this habit up again, as can be seen by the review of “Bridge to Terabithia” below.

My University life is going swimmingly. I’ve now confirmed a place to live next year (which is always helpful), I’ve received my results for my first semester’s work (2-1s all around!) and I’m getting stuck in to all of the work in this busy semester.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bridge to Terabithia was released in the UK in the Spring of 2007, the same time that I was working at Vue Cinemas; so of course I’d heard of this film before seeing it.

I’d seen the theatrical trailer for the film dozens of times and I’d see sections of it when screen checking; so I thought that I’d have a fairly good idea of what to expect from such a film.

Naturally the trailers and the bits that I’d seen, before starting the movie, had led me to believe that this would be a child’s film which would follow the same principle as Disney’s “The Chronicles of Narnia”. This principle being, children get bored, children stumble upon a magical kingdom, children save magical kingdom from evil force, audience leaves the cinema wondering if they’d seen the movie beforehand. What I wasn’t expecting, however, was a story that mixed contemporary adult themes with childhood wonder; this makes “Bridge to Terabithia” in a new fantasy movie genre of its own.

The film works on two levels, not in the way that a Pixar movie does, but whether you’re a child or an adult you get a completely different story. Children will see this movie as a great fantasy adventure between two friendly characters that they can relate to. Adults will be seeing a different movie, one that highlights child neglect, physical abuse, religion, love, loss of childhood, growing up and most importantly a bond between two children that is so strong that it can create worlds.

We begin our story in a modern day setting, a small middle American town; the roads are dusty, the school is overpopulated, people live off the land and it’s a few miles to an urban metropolis. Seems like a perfect setting for a film that explores the strength of children’s imagination. Most of the film’s action either takes place in the local school or around the leading character’s house; this seems a little strange for a film that seems to be about a secret fantasy world, of course it’s much more than that.

The supporting characters in the film seem a little weak in the beginning, but as the story progresses their cliché roles seems to disappear and we get real people. We have the typical school bullies, the whiny sister, the strict teacher, the liberal teacher and the neglecting father and mother. These roles all change without warning during the film, this helps to progress the story in a more believable manner.

Being a protagonist in any story is always a hard performance to pull off, making your performance believable and natural is another hurdle altogether. Which is why whenever you don’t notice or pick up on an actor’s performance capabilities, you know that they’ve done a fantastic job. The mark of a true performer is to make you believe so much in a character that you forget where you are, you are compelled by their performance to such an extent that it enthrals you. Thankfully the portrayals of Jess Aarons and Leslie Burke by child performers Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb, respectively, manage to achieve this feat perfectly. Watching these two performances completely engulfs you in the story, if they were any weaker the story being told would not be believable.

Despite the marketing of this movie as a Children’s fantasy, the film is incredibly deep. Do not be put off my the sickening and misleading promotion, this film is a diamond in the rough of fantasy stories. No better fantasy film was released in 2007 that gave so much back to the audiences that went to see it. This is not a children’s fantasy movie in the line of the “Harry Potter” series or “The Chronicles of Narnia”. This is a film that can be compared to none. A REAL family film that does not rely on CGI and a fantasy world to keep the audience paying attention; but instead relies on a great story, fantastic character development and the innocence of a child’s imagination.

Total Rating: 8.5 / 10

Chris Leydon.