CHRISLEYDON.COM

I love writing posts to my blog, I really do. Especially when I actually get a chance to sit down, lock myself away from the world and get on with it.

Over the past few months I’ve noticed that there are several breeds of blogger; those who blog about topics, those who blog for a living (and attempt to be journalists), and those who write about themselves. I seem to fall into the latter category, but then again what did you expect from a site called chrisleydon.com?

The last month has been very busy and productive for me. As you should be aware Keyone Productions has produced two videos for Bishops’ College in the past year; I received confirmation a few weeks ago that we’ve been commissioned to produce two/three further videos in the new academic year. This is fantastic news for a business as small as ours!

Whilst still on the topic of Keyone Productions, we’ve been approached by Mevio to continue to produce our video games show The Glitch. This time it would be in association with Mevio as part of their promotions campaign. If this goes ahead it would mean that Keyone Productions has two successful podcasts on the agreement, the other being The Podzone.

Moving onto the subject of Mevio and by UK default, BTPodShow, I’m pleased to announce that I’ve managed to gain an internship with them until September. I’m currently based in the UK, London, office for 30 hours a week. My roles involve, scouring the network for the best content we have, editing shows, monitoring stats, channel organising, spare hand and general bitch boy, or anything else they throw my way. I’m thoroughly enjoying it and will be rather sad when the time comes for me to leave. I’m proud and very glad that I’ve had the chance to be part of such a great team.

Chris Leydon.

I’ve been quiet as of late, mainly because I’m doing very uninteresting things. I’m currently working on finishing off a Graduation video for my father, but that’s pretty much all of the possible excitement that I seem to have.

The previous statement, I suppose, could be called a lie because I’m also working on several other ideas and projects that I have. I say several, I actually mean three. One I’ve already discussed, but the other two not so much.

Keyone Productions is about to go under a rebrand; not an extreme one, we’re not doing a PodShow, but a reinvention. Before hand we’ve been all about having fun and making short lived projects. Whilst this is all well and good, it doesn’t pay the bills. As a business we’re starting to move towards short serial internet based content, in which advertising can be sold. We’re going to monetize off of the fantastic stuff that we create. I personally don’t believe in charging for internet content; one it’s not a profitable business venture and two, I personally don’t like paying for my entertainment.

With that in mind, myself and various others are finalising the details for two new Keyone ventures. Both of them will be online video shows, that will be offered through a podcasting medium. One will be made solely by Keyone Productions, whilst the other shall be a joint production with another creative digital media organisation. I can’t say more than that at this current moment in time, but all shall be revealed soon.

Chris Leydon.

So its been two weeks at least since I last made an appearance. Last time we had contact I was coming up with script ideas, wondering whether to sign the new BTPodShow contract and working on my final assignments.

Well I’m pleased to say that I did indeed sign that new BTPodShow contract, which means that The Podzone is guarenteed for at least another two years. I’ve also been working a bit more on script concepts and I’ve finished University for the year.

Finished, completely finished until September, you have no idea how good it feels to say that. Ahead of me I’ve got one long summer of work, making money and enjoying myself.

In the meantime however, I’ve discovered that my web design skills are so fantastic that the new Keyone Productions site, only works on about 90% of the worlds browsers. Yep, it doesn’t work with IE… oops. My day today will be spent correcting that mistake. I’ve started to learn CSS and I’m hoping to implement what I’ve learnt into the redesign.

Tomorrow, as a favour to my father, myself and Nick shall be headed to Bishops College (Gloucester) to film their Year 11 graduation. It should be fun as we’ll have a multicam set up and various other bits of over kill. We know that a job such as this doesn’t require all of the trims that we’re putting in to it; but I’ve got to do something to keep me amused until September.

Chris Leydon.

Weekly posts it seems to be, at least that’s the feeling that I’m getting from the amount of posts on here.

Fairly busy week.My Internet & HTML Technology assignment deadline and exam were this week. the exam was incredibly easy, I scored 97% which let’s face it isn’t bad going really; the assignment as perhaps the trickier task of the two.

The assignment was to create a website based around the streaming technologies that the BBC use on their websites. I had to create the website from scratch using a WYSIWYG, if you know me, or have seen my work, you know that I’m fairly capable at this kind of thing. The hardest thing about this assignment was simply the content; the BBC don’t REALLY use that many different streaming technologies, at least not that many up to date ones. They still use Real Video and Windows Media for their news reports, as an example, instead of Flash.

In the end I used a theme that I created for v.4.0 of the Keyone Productions website and customised it to fit my needs. If you want to take a look at the finished site, head on over to www.chrisleydon.com/bbc - I’m quite happy with my work.

I have one more assignment and one more exam left before I finish Uni for the year, the exam is on the 28th of April and the assignment needs to be in by the 2nd of June. My final assignment is for Audio Processing; I have to create an original piece of music and then write a report on the process, pretty much the same thing as last time - apart from this time we’re using Reason instead of Cubase.

I’ve taken this weekend off from working; I know that this isn’t a good plan but I feel as though I deserve it. Next week I’ll be working on Reason and the technical report. If I have some spare time I might even pop around once again, write a post and give you an update.

Chris Leydon.

Well that was a fun weekend. I decided to take the weekend off and head back home; ’twas a nice and relaxing weekend, but not very productive. However, before I left for Worcester, I did launch the new Keyone site (v.4.1) I’ve had some good feedback from it, but make up your mind for yourself… www.keyoneproductions.co.uk

While the Keyone Productions site was down during the upgrade, I stuck up a test of the Keyone TV “Mogulus” channel. No idea if any of you have seen this service, but it is definitely worth a look at. Mogulus allows you to essentially create your own online streaming television channel, using content from YouTube or your own content which you upload. All, of course, for free - www.mogulus.com

This morning I received the marks and feedback for the Project Elements drama. In all they were very good; as a group we scored a 2-1 with a few pointers on how we could have improved the film. The plot was a little thin, but other than that it appeared to be alright.

No idea what’s wrong at the moment, but my typing and writing skills seem to be lacking today. As a result of this temporary lack of skills I shall bid you adieu.

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 »

Oh it really has been a long time since I was last year, in fact it’s a new year completely since my last post. I guess that this really shows commitment to posting.

So much has taken place in the last two months, so much in fact that I’m now going to take up precious minutes of your life telling you what’s been going on.

I’m now in my second semester at Staffs and the work is steadily increasing. I’ve had to hit “panic mode” several times this week, just so that I can get it all done in time.

You may remember that for my Audio Processing module I had to record a radio play and master it in Cubase. Well I’m very pleased to say that I have indeed finished this task and I’ve added it to this post for you to download. - UPDATE: WordPress is being a pain in the arse and won’t let me upload it, go figure…

The second term of the Film Tech module has proved most interesting. If you would care to think back a few months you might recall a little film I was working on called “A Crash Course In Polite Conversation”. That’s now over and done with and so it’s time to start work on a new project… Project Elements.

Project Elements comprises of two films, a documentary and a drama (based on the research that the documentary uncovers) both based on the key elements of our modern society. Find out more information at www.project-elements.com

There is more that I need to talk about but I need to organise train times for tomorrow and write an essay.

Chris Leydon.

Over the past few days I’ve started to feel regretful as I have been neglecting my blog for the past few weeks. However as we start to enter a new month and come towards the end of this year, I feel that it is pretty apt that I rekindle the old fire once again.

As you might have seen  in my previous post, I’ve been focusing a lot more on my studies, which is a good thing, but it shouldn’t dominate the rest of my life. With only less than two weeks left at Uni, my first term here is drawing to an end. Nevertheless the work still has to be done. By Friday afternoon I need to have a finished script, production script and a proposal. This shouldn’t be too hard, but it will be challenging.

I’ve started to dabble in Podcast imaging once again. This is a service that is offered by myself, where people pay me to create jingles, IDs, stingers etc for their show. The most recent show I’ve “imaged” for is the Chris Edwards Podcast. I’m going to put a link to a sound montage at the bottom of this post.

If you’d like me to create some idents for your show please drop me an email and I’ll get back to you.

It’s getting late now and I’m feeling rather tired so I’m heading to bed.

Chris Leydon.