CHRISLEYDON.COM

Finally, my blogging seems to be fairly consistent or regular, for the time being at least. My reasoning behind this is to do with the fact that I hadn’t touched my blog in over a month; two months really. I’ve let my stories and experiences build up, now I can begin to relay them on here.

Last week I made another journey back to that certain special school in Gloucester, Bishops’ College. This journey was in relation to two new promotional films that they’d commissioned Keyone Productions to produce. In case you can’t recall, or you haven’t read one of the previous posts, in July Keyone Productions produced a short promotional film for the school; it was a highlights reel of what had gone on during their Year 7 Induction week. The film got a warm reception and as a result the school commissioned 3 further videos to be produced throughout the 08 / 09 academic year.

Two videos were shot on Friday, one was another highlights stream (for the school’s anti-bullying day), the other was an interview/documentary on the school children’s perspective of bullying. I started work on the post production for the highlights video on Saturday, the first cut was finished on Sunday evening. Whilst the feedback for the first cut was good, the school requested that a number of changes and additions be made; such as the addition of titles to narrate some of the shots.

Chris Leydon.

Uni work has been hitting me hard pretty recently. It’s that time of year again where everyone finally realises that University isn’t one big social, as their first deadlines start to loom over the horizon. I, yet again, have fallen into the trap of NOT doing my Uni work as I go along my course; instead I’ve let it pile up and a deadline is approaching from around the corner. Admittedly it’s not as bad as I let it get last year, but I really should have learnt not to do this by now.

My modules, for the first semester of year two, consist of “Film Technology 2″, “Visual Media Applications”, “Video Editing Technology” and “Studio Production”. It’s my Visual Media Applications (VMA) work that’s starting to creep up on me.

VMA is a module that explores the use of After Effects within film. Throughout the course and over the past weeks, one has supposed to have been creating animations to upload to MySpace; how to do the basics of each animation was covered in the relevant lecture, one then has to put their own artistic flare on the work. I have yet to finish all of my animations. If truth be told, my mind has been preoccupied with other things; such as a social life, Keyone Productions progression and loosing a job.

The first animation that I’ve had to create for VMA, is one where a bunch of playing cards have to rotate, showing both the face and the back of the card, as well as appearing within 3D space. My take on this animation is displayed above in the video player. This animation has had to be uploaded to “MySpace” so that it can be peer assessed in order to complete my assignment and module.

Chris Leydon.

This is a post of two halves. I originally started to write this post back in September, a month later and I am finishing it. A lot can change in a month, as one shall find out.

September 27th, 2008.

That was a hectic past few weeks. Since my last blog post I’ve become a part-time intern for BTPodShow, filmed a pilot of Ask Dr Nick and moved back into Uni (amongst other things).

I thought that my time as the BTPodShow intern had come to an end but it seems that my contract will be extended. It should allow me to do less hours and work from wherever suits me. This is fantastic news! I really enjoyed my time as being part of the London team and I’m very happy with the possibility of continuing it.

BTPodShow & Mevio are re-branding themselves and re-entering the online entertainment market to take the field by storm. The companies have swung their attention to focus on creating high quality online video content in a typical channel form. The format change reflects the brand’s new competitors “YouTube” and “Revision3“.

October 19th, 2008.

Mevio’s “Channels” offer their users a way to watch online content they love, in a format that combines old and new media. The video above provides the best explanation of Mevio’s Channels, but I shall attempt to describe them now. Like classic media, you can watch the channel from start to beginning; but like new media you can jump in an out of the channel wherever you want to. Each channel has its own theme and host, who provide insightful links in between shows. All of this, combined with the fantastic content on offer, places Mevio as one of the best places to watch online content via the web.

Each channel, from my understanding, will have their own website. The Mevio channel with the most love and attention, at the moment, is TeXtra; which of course takes its name from the popular PodShow podcast of the same name. TeXtra is a combination of lots of high quality technology based show. New episodes of these shows are presented to you daily, by one of the enigmatic hosts. Check out the TeXtra channel over at www.mevio.com or www.textranetwork.com

Although this is a contradiction to one of my above statements, I am no longer the Mevio intern.  I received a message on Monday 13th October informing me that my services were no longer required. The Mevio finance department would not extend my contract. I’m not bitter about this fact, just slightly disappointed that I can no longer work with the fantastic team there. I loved my time as the BTPodShow Intern and I would love to work with everyone at BTPodShow and Mevio again; my offer will always stand.

Chris Leydon.