CHRISLEYDON.COM

I’m assuming that by now readers to my blog have realised that I take writing posts very casually and only do it ever so often; mainly when I have something to talk about. Nothing has changed, as one can clearly see.

Last time I updated, Keyone Productions had been commissioned to produce two short promotional films for Bishops’ College. The first of these promotional videos was shot last week; this was the Year 6 induction week project.

The aim for the Year 6 Induction video was to create a video that showcased some of the highlights of the week; this video was then going to be shown to the children’s parents and eventually end up on the school’s website as a promotional video. Originally there were going to be two videos, one which would have been shown to the parents and a more polished version for the website. Instead of making two mediocre videos, I concentrated all of my effort on producing one fantastic video; which turns out is what they really wanted all along.

I have more stuff to talk about this week, but let’s leak it out slowly but surely. In the meantime, I leave you with the Year 6 Induction video.

The song used is “Kill The Lights” by David Usher, which can be found on iTunes and on the PodSafe Music Network.

Chris Leydon.

It’s coming up to a month since I last wrote up a post and placed it here, but so much has happened in that time and I’m here to tell you about it now.

As you may recall from my previous post, myself and Keyone Productions, as a favour for my father, filmed a High School graduation video in Gloucester. The school was Bishops’ College and the shoot went fairly well, not the best work we’ve ever done, but it will suffice; because of the work that we did on the Graduation video, we’ve now been asked back and commissioned to shoot two promotional videos for the school. I suppose you could see the Graduation video as the trial period, the thirty days are over… do you want to purchase the full package?

The first video will be shot in the beginning of July and centres around a Year 6 induction course. It’s a three day shoot with, what should be, some very interesting material. The second video is due for production in the next academic year, starting in September, and shall be a promotional video focusing on a typical day for a class in the school. Basic stuff, but if done in the right way there should be a fantastic result.

Those are the two things that I shall talk about today, I shall save the other stories for another time.

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.

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.

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.

God I’m happy, for today marks the end of torture that was the creation of my 3 minute film for Film Production Technology.

It’s been 12 weeks in the making and now it’s finally done, finished, finito; and trust me, it’s a good feeling to have. All of the ups and downs that I’ve had over the past few months working on this project can finally be laid to rest.

So without further ado, Ladies and Gentlemen, I present, for your pleasure, “A Crash Course In Polite Conversation”. The video is a short film highlighting the effect of modern technology on human interaction.

I’d love to know what you think of it,

Chris Leydon.

A Crash Course In Polite Conversation

So I’m on a train on my way back from the big city, otherwise known as London. I’ve had a rather busy week and a very busy weekend.

My week started off fairly simply, well I suppose it actually wasn’t. If truth be told last weekend we played a few pranks on our neighbours upstairs, they weren’t best pleased with this and so they retaliated by playing mind games, unbeknown to me, all through Monday. By the end of Monday, after my Film Tech lectures, I was incredibly mentally unstable and under the impression that I was going to be chucked out of Uni. This was not true. In the end our mental game playing neighbours came downstairs to our flat and told us all about the ruse; we weren’t best pleased.

Tuesday was a really good day for me. My first lecture was cancelled, but for the first time since I’ve been at Staffs I finally understood my Audio Processing lecture. It was a fantastic feeling and I’m really proud with myself.

Digital Image Production on Wednesday was as boring as ever but we’ve started on our first term project so I expect there will be some excitement soon. The rest of the day, however, was spent in intimate meetings with my Film Tech partner fiddling about with storyboards and pre-visualisation for our short three minute film. Everything went smoothly and I do believe that we have a really sweet project going on.

On Thursday, after waking up a tad late for Scriptwriting, I boarded a train with my trusty Mac and headed to London, to stay with my family over the weekend, for a party on the Saturday.

The London trip has really been a highlight of my week. I often visit London and so the attraction of going to the capital is usually lost on me, however this time I was attracted by the prospect of meeting up with some family members who I hadn’t seen for a few months, as well as attending the Leopard launch.

Friday was interesting. To begin with I helped out my uncle with installing a new bathroom (despite the fact that he is a sound technician) and then headed towards Oxford street for a bit of shopping.

Of course Friday was the launch day for the infamous operating system Mac OS X 10.5, otherwise known as Leopard. To celebrate this I donned my geek hat and headed to Apple Store UK Number one, the biggest Apple store in the world, situated on Regents Street. I joined the que for the launch at 5 pm, the store was due to open its doors as 6 pm (BST), but already there was a que going halfway around the city block. By 6 pm the que had elongated itself and had ended up looping around the block twice. I’m guessing that it’s pretty obvious that there are a few Apple geeks in London.

I must say that I met some fantastic people whilst waiting for Leopard, and when the time came we were very happy to have our special edition Leopard T-shirts and our hands on the most advanced operating system in the world. For those sad people who are interested in seeing some very blurred photos of the UK launch (they don’t allow cameras in store), I’ve included a link to my Picasa album at the end of this post.

Saturday evening saw me getting rather drunk at a party in the Bushy part of London. The party was for my cousin’s husbands 30th birthday and it turned out to be a rather fantastic evening (again photo’s included after post). I spent most of the evening talking complete bollocks and getting rather pissed with my favourite band of all time, Seeing Scarlet.

And now I’m on a train on my way back to Stafford, some week, and it only gets better from here on in.

Chris Leydon. 

Leopard UK Launch

Another week has gone by and still all I can manage to do is one post, but still I suppose that it’s better than nothing.

Last weekend I was kidnapped by my parents and taken back home for a few days, they were only supposed to pop up here with a receipt so that I could change my digibox. Going home was rather fun and it gave me time to think back over al that’s happened over the past few weeks that I’ve actually been at University for. It also gave me the chance to meet up with the fabulous Mr Cooper and record a few more Podzones.

This weeks lectures haven’t been that interesting. Film Technology, however, was quite fun. We were allowed to start experimenting with the Cannon XL1s and we were set a task where we had to create three independent shots and frame them correctly.

In Digital Image Production we were introduced to Photoshop and taught the basics. Needless to say that I was one of the few in this class who left early as we had, had a bit of experience in Photoshop. I did stay for the actual lecture and demonstration but when it came to replicating the demonstration I buggered off.

Audio Production, once again, seems to be a waste of time. I wont go into another anti-Audio Production rant but pretty much the same thing happened again as it has done for the past few weeks.

The Keyone Productions website has been down for most of the week as I’ve been redesigning and reprogramming it. I must say that it is indeed starting to look very good, especially with the new Flash players that I’ve installed. No longer do we need to rely on Google Video.

I’m extremely pleased about the news of Leopard, otherwise known as Mac OS X 10.5, which is basically Apple’s new advanced operating system. It comes out on Friday and I’m hoping to be able to pick one up at the launch party in London’s Regents Street. I’ll take a few photos of the event and post them up on my blog after I’m finished. I know it’s a rather geeky thing to be doing, but who cares?

Chris Leydon.