Radio Presenter (Wire FM, The SRA Selector), Producer (Key103). Studying TV & Radio. Love music & talking about it, countryside, kayaking, cycling, gigs & rum.
Expect lots of the above on this blog...
I never knew so much intricacy was required in dentistry! Connor and myself have spent the afternoon with my mother and the dentist she works with, Martyn Amsel, filming a series of short demonstration films that explain how they execute 'four-handed dentistry'.
Watching the procedures happen is quite flummoxing, there's quite some skill required to pull it off so smoothly. So hopefully we've captured the essence of the treatment rather nicely, we'll get the videos up soon.
They'll be really useful films for any trainee dentists or university students, anybody particularly keen on seeing how dentists and nurses can sing from the same hymn sheet and work together better.
Was a good fun afternoon - really relaxed and went really swimmingly, practically no technical gremlins like I have entertained in the past (perhaps they got killed off by the surgery's anti-bacterial forces).
Our first podcast is now out! This week we've got music from ahab then interviews/music from Liam Blake and Frances Mitson who are both friends of The Source - a really exciting start to our series! The interviews are just snippets from the full length pieces that will be played out on our show in January on Shock Radio!
Hope you enjoy, click the iTunes link below to make a cheeky download. We'd love you eternally if when you get to iTunes you subscribe and enjoy the best of The Source as and when we serve it up! Thanks.
Hope you've had a lovely Christmas. What a great time of the year - it's been a most enjoyable yuletide, let's raise a glass to 2011.
This is just a flying post, I'm off out in a second - I'm finding this transition period from Christmas to the New Year really disorienting, I have no idea what day it is. In fact, my phone is still stuck in Boxing Day. It's been reading 26th December all day.
Well, unlike my phone, I've moved on and I'm back to working away. I've come up with a programme idea for a Uni assignment and it's now just a matter of writing that up into a proposal.
Got some very exciting things ahead in 2012, even this coming January is going to be great. My whole aim for the new year it make it better than 2011. But seriously, how the heck is that going to happen. I've had an absolute blast this year, what a fantastic 12 months with some great people.
Highlights:
Just submitting an awards entry, never mind anything else- just submitting something!
A new 10-3pm Radio Show every weekday daytime on Banbury Sound and Touch FM, awesome!
Hosting the Godiva Festival main stage!
Fairport 2011 couldn't have gone any better
Hearing UB40 (in particular Kingston Town) live at Fairport
Our lads holiday in Bulgaria
Finally handing in my ICT coursework
A day at V-Festival, revelling with the Essex faithful
Getting into Salford Uni
Seeing Bon Iver, Coldplay and City & Colour in my first semester at Uni
Experiencing 'Beth/Rest' live
Surviving and thoroughly capitalising on my first semester in the promised land of Manchester!
First visit to MediaCityUK
First Costa at MediaCityUK
First proper meal cooked at Uni
Driving my beloved car round Manchester and then an epic journey down to Bath to film the Liam Blake documentary
Sharing all of that with a truly magnificent group of friends and colleagues.
Found this cool little site called Playlistify to make that, yes you get a big fat advert, but when you play each song you get the music video along side it! However if you want to listen without it then find the raw playlist on Spotify - Christmas Treats. Just stick it on shuffle! Enjoy!
Coldplay on Sunday was one of the best gigs I've ever been to! It's very hard to rank 'best gig' because when you've got Coldplay in the mix along with Bon Iver, City and Colour and John Mayer, who can possibly win?!
Coldplay was a different spectacle to the others, whereas those venues were trad venues, this was an arena, the MEN Arena to be specific, and it was more of a show.
Sophie and I had awesome seats, which was nice because standing up through The Low Suns, Marina & The Diamonds and Coldplay sets would have been torturous! Set with hot-dog, wine gums and beer, we watched a really nice outfit, The Low Suns, whose lead singer was very Jarvis Cocker in style. Then Marina was fantastic, we're not sure about her new silver/grey hair.......
but for performance she was superb- played some more emotive, less full-on songs, Obsessions and her new one Starring Role were stand-out.
Coldplay were a different class though. For starters, the crowd were given remote control wristbands at the start of the gig, as soon as they came out, each one lit up different colours and the whole arena looked like a mini galaxy. The most incredible vibe.
It was incredible, the whole thing. Something I'd recommend anybody does - go and see a gig like that. Chris Martin is one of the most exciting and unpredictable front-men I've ever seen for a band, during one song he just stopped playing and said he needed to change his guitar, it didn't sound right! haha!- what a maverick.
Can't get over how good Mylo Xyloto is, went out and bought it the day after the gig. Paradise is still stand-out song, purely because I love the happy elephants.
Been a really busy but good fun week - started with a hilarious Monday in the Radio Studio doing our magazine programme assignment. It was a good laugh, our show had a Christmas theme! Most of our time was spent decorating the studio
It's getting quite hectic now in terms of getting assignments finished and ready to hand in - so instead of going out as much we've been cooped up inside working away! The projects are time-consuming, at times tedious, but on the whole quite interesting. One of the pieces is about convergent media, so this is part 1 of a Remix Theory video that I found really cool!
However on Wednesday, pushed work to one side and we indulged in an amazing Christmas roast dinner in the flat!
Sadly I was in charge of yorkshire puddings (which I only remembered to cook as we were serving up!..) and I bought some frozen sprouts too. They tasted disgusting.
Actually, I got some mince pies too.. and since the Spar lacked any regular ice cream, it was mince pies and vienetta for puds. That's something I'd heartily recommend.
Did I mention the Big Dawg Westwood was in da house earlier this week! Quite a fun afternoon in the SU having a drink or two and enjoying Westwood host his 1Xtra show - had a chat to the DJ, they had been setting up since 8:30, an amazing amount of kit!
Been listening to the new Olly Murs album a lot this week, really good - if you see it in any shops, it is worth it. Quite summery to be honest.. but that's just Olly's vibe isn't it, very festival!
In terms of radio I've been hooked to XFM - the music I've heard there this week has been amazing! Had a lot of Tower FM on this week too.. They are local for nearby Bury & Bolton - but I'm really missing local radio so I'm indulging myself in that at the moment.
Now, it's Saturday - just got back from the studio after recording some links for our new podcast. It's fantastic to be experiencing a different genre of radio - specialist music here. My Shock Radio show is called The Source, and I'm working with Producer Anthony on the show and he's putting together our podcast which is called The Source: Pre-Drinks.
We're warming you up with clips of the interviews we've recorded ready for next year when the show goes live. It was an okay afternoon.... the studio wasn't working particularly well! But we got some stuff recorded, and tomorrow I'm off to see Coldplay with Sophie, so things are going amazingly.
I'm in such a great place at the moment that I'm actually keen to get cracking with my essays tonight. What the flip?! Time to put the kettle on...
I've been so busy to post anything of any interest here for so long! Sorry - do expect a nice blog this weekend maybe - for now can I tempt you with an acoustic version of Beth/Rest?
Lying in bed still, it's been months, absolutely months, since I've laid in till this side of midday.
Never mind! I'm having a chilled out wknd, last couple of weeks have gone so quickly they've blurred. Also, another out of character thing to do was completely turn my music off on the way home from last night's gig- gave me an opportunity to mull over what is actually going on in my little world.
Talking of last night- a great quaint gig in Tysoe, good laugh and a nice little earner.
I get paid to play amazing music to people! How did I stumble into that one!? Very grateful. Ended the night on Muse - Uprising, winner winner chicken dinner.
Setup all my kit in the living room earlier- did take up some space but Mum was particularly keen to keep the lights show for good!
Time to get up and go and watch some more Christmas lights been turned on in Banbury.
It's practically Christmas time in Manchester. The German market is in town - giving the whole town centre a lot more warmth and festivity. I did have a little browse the other day, all I could smell was ginger every now and again and sausages.
If you've not seen it, it's basically a load of wooden log cabins with shops in - selling all sorts of ornaments. There was one stall with the largest collection of snow globes I've ever seen! Whoever placed that order should be reprimanded.. it's similar to Anthony acquiring 1000 business cards with the word Editor spelt wrong. How the heck they're both going to get rid of cards and globes alike I'll never know.
It's been a fun week actually, we've released the Liam Blake video which is doing very well - Pretend TV are in the process of uploading it to their channel, we've had good feedback and lots of publicity.
Also, Anthony and I have been back in the Radio Studio! With quite a high demand for studio time at the uni, we've had to come in extra early to get a good few hours to ourselves. So in essence we've been doing a breakfast show.
Producer Anthony hard at work there. We're calling the show The Source - new music that will change your life. Look forward to hearing that on air in the new year.
I'm at home this weekend which will be nice. DJing tomorrow night then meeting people for coffee and beers in between. Sunday is Banbury xmas lights switch on - wonder if it will be like last year.... Banbury Sound are there which is nice, a good time to catch up with some friends.
Finally, our mini-documentary is ready to go! Thanks for your help, love and support through production, we've had a right laugh and a good fun time making it.
Hoping its the first of many projects like this, for now it's my pleasure to present our You & Other Stories Explored film:
Hope you enjoy! Please share with all your mates, we're really trying to let as many people know about Liam and his fantastic music as possible.
Currently sat on a train, tapping away on my phone, and you know how much I hate typing on this thing. Just left Manchester Picadilly, I have a Costa latte, baguette and a bag of general tat for Sheffield this weekend- in my pocket I also have 6 copies of Liam Blake - You & Other Stories: Explored, DVDs of the mini music video documentary we finished last night. Also in that pocket I have a Booths pen, some stickie notes and my marbles, which I found last night after I lost them whilst editing this week (metaphorical). Deep coat pockets eh.
I've just finished listening to Radio 4's Media Show podcast with Steve Hewlett. I listened to 2 of those shows: one that delved into the Levison enquiry and the other gave an incredibly insightful look at MediaCity's impact on indie producers and it also examined the state of BBC local radio vs commercial local. Bauer MD Dee Ford's interview was so informative, great to hear that. Also nice to hear Alex Connock featured - he gave a fantastic talk at Salford University in MCUK last Monday, very interesting look forward to how TV is adapting to the future. Got so many notes.
That's one of the very perks of being based at the heart of the Northern media landscape. Great talks and opportunities. An interesting stat that Connock mentioned in the podcast was how 90% of northern media comes from Manchester as opposed to Leeds, Newcastle etc...v interesting, Peter Salmon's piece on that podcast was inspiring too. Manchester is the place to be, so what a lucky boy I am, having a laugh every day, working hard with some great people in an enthralling place and I'm not letting the chances slide by.
You'll know if you read this blog that I've been working tirelessly on this mini documentary music video with Liam Blake with two friends of mine. The piece has been filmed by Sebastian Padget and edited by Anthony alker. Directly the result of Anthony pointing out Liam playing in Cafe Nero and then me developing a contact that bequeathed an opportunity for us. Thus, an incredible chance to put our skills to the test and for my hair to grey slightly with the relentless stress a producer endures. One of the most exhilarating projects I've been involved with and I'm so proud of what we've created.
It's also reinforced a few things. This was my first true stab at Producing something properly. The Leatherat music video for my Media Studies A2 project was a great process but imagine how good it could have been with more extensive pre-production, inc location scouting, story boarding properly, creating a shot list that could actually be followed strategically. The process was 'ad libbed' in reality, with chunks of the video being the product of spontaneous filming. Then editing was mainly done with a vague storyboard.
This project was different. I planned it thoroughly, I shot-listed, drew up a production schedule, risk assessed, detailed the locations, journeys and scene details and I used a brilliant programme called Celtx- which really has so much functionality in Pre-production, it almost makes you feel guilty if you 'don't' fill out the various planning forms. I thought I'd do it all properly, including production and post. What would be the point in doing a similar production process to the Leatherat video?- I'd learn nothing new. As it happens, I have picked up so many new skills and I feel enriched as a result of doing things properly.
Back to the reinforcement point- doing this project and producing it properly, has reinforced my deep love of Radio. Yes, I had a great time, learnt a lot and I would do it over and over again, but it doesn't ignite the same driving passion as I get when I do radio work.
However, I went with some mates to go and watch Celebrity Mastermind be filmed at the MediaCity studios the other day, I watched the production team work so professionally and with such coolness. There was not a hair out of place on any of the crew, everybody very composed and I heard the director and producers on talkback in the floor managers ridiculously loud headset and they were having a right laugh. Great vibe. Inspiring.
Very much looking forward to showing you the finished product. Tomorrow I'm at Sheffield Xmas lights delivering the DVDs to Liam and his manager, and it will be on YouTube very soon...then, it's time to implement everything I've learnt over the last couple of weeks about social media. Time to go viral!
I've spent the last week in rigorous pre-production all leading up to last weekend, where we filmed Liam Blake in Bath. Really fun weekend, as filming always seems to be. Very creative and amusing few days in the exotic South.
The video should be finished soon, editing is moving along swimmingly. Here's our behind the scenes footage:
Hopefully this serves as a kind of soupçon, a taster, an amuse-bouche of what our final video could look like!
Sat on the train, leaving the shire again and heading back to the promised land. Today has been ridiculously chilled out compared to last week.
As you know if you’ve been keeping up with this blog, on Friday Seb and I drove from Manchester to Bath to film with musician Liam Blake all this weekend for a new docu-style music video.
As a small taster of the video we’ve done with Liam, look out for an exclusive session video later this week.
We spent all of Saturday in and around Bath, filming some incredibly crisp and professional video and I’m excited to put it all together with Anthony on Final Cut this week. It’s been a fun production process:
Take a look at some of the blogs from earlier this weekend to get a really good idea at what we’ve been up to. We left each other mid-Saturday afternoon when Seb, Liam and myself were just leaving a specialist coffee shop after a productive morning.
From there we shot some nice film from a prime position on the canal bridge, then took a good 30minute hike up a hill (or small mountain maybe a more appropriate term) to a spot where we could capture Liam playing a song and doing an interview with the whole of Bath in the background. It’s a beautiful place but my god it’s got some hills. Steer clear if your handbrake is not keen on hill-parking. Despite Liam’s incredibly gracious and welcoming hospitality and motivation for the project, I hated him for the hike. But the shots reimbursed the hatred, so Liam, it’s all cool.
It was considerably easier wobbling back down that hill on the way home.. a sledge would have been very useful mind… Having said that, Seb nearly did slide down, and that little stumble is on camera ;)
By Saturday evening, the culmination of a mad week of pre-production coupled with the intensity of filming meant I couldn’t even speak whilst I drove home. I was shattered. I just put Chris Evans podcasts on and let his enthusiasm fill me with more. As soon as we arrived at my house, we had a cuppa Charlie then into town for a well-deserved pint or two with some more amazing people.
Great to catch up with all my best pals in AKA, a venue where we’re going to try and get Liam to play around Christmas time. Talking of Christmas, as soon as this edit has been finished this coming week, my next big project will be the Christmas tree decorations, the buying of a wreath and the intake of roasted chestnuts. In fact this evening the taxi driver who drove me back from Picadilly had one of those textured, valour steering wheel coverings.. I know my car is down south, but just for when I'm back I may invest in one with some festive embroidery.. may as well get some leather Alan Partridge driving gloves whilst I'm at it...
For now though, I’m well in the mood for a Turkish bath and massage, but such as life I’ve just spent a 3hr train journey with the new Florence & The Machine album, some podcasts and a wealth of satisfaction seeping through every crevice of my body knowing production has been ticked off the list. Roll on post.
We're in town, it's gorgeous sunshine and we've enjoyed a great morning of filming! We're currently sat in a specialist coffee shop, Seb went for an outrageous black filtered somatra coffee (to be honest, he doesn't know what he had, neither do I, it could have been anything). I went for a flat white guatamola 'kicker'. It was okay... well complimented by some carrot cake.
I don't know what I think of all this specialist stuff to be honest, it's hit and miss... and it came in a cup the size of a thin bull, which is good because if I had to drink a large Nero's mug of it I'd be awake till next week.
We started off the morning with the most incredible cooked breakfast at Liam's place, then moved into town at around 11am where the sun light was fantastic. We've been blessed by the weather today, lovely rays - Seb's been able to catch some sun flare in the camera so it's got a real autumnal vibe.
Started with some busking outside a nice quaint little pub, then moved on the 'the circus', which is a plantation at the top of town where you'll find 5 or 6 oak trees in a circle, forming an enclosure where we composed another performance sequence and we've done an interview piece there too.
Was a really nice stripped back performance from Liam, sounds superb. The great thing about that enclosure is that it has a strange acoustic.. so when Liam's performing there is around a seconds worth of reverb, so the whole song sounds so much more embodied and full.
There's 2 more locations to shoot at, then we're done for the day and it's back on the road. For now, back to the coffee.....
I've had this blog post in draft for a few days now but I've not got round to finishing it. Every time I sit down with the laptop and try and scribble some words down, another thing to do pops up.
Still, it's 8:20am on Saturday morning, really pleased with how well we go on yesterday at The Fat Fowl shooting Liam.
Let me just explain what's happening so we're on the same page. Basically, I'm producing a new music video documentary about Liam Blake - what music/artwork has influenced his latest album and where he's drawn his inspiration from.
The last week has been filled with pre-production. The amount of phone calls and emails I've been doing has been ridiculous but I wanted this to be as real-life as possible. It's been draining, exciting and relentless. I've been on edge and I've felt tense all week! Such as the life of a producer, this is hardcore.
This is technically a professional project we're doing for Helium Records, Liam's label, but next time it could and hopefully will be, a corporate job. However, what this does give us is an opportunity to work with some fantastic people with mutual interests on a great project in the exotic south.
Seb and I have travelled down to Bath and we spent yesterday shooting our first film sequence for the video. We filmed a quaint little gig he did at a restaurant called The Fat Fowl in Bradford On Avon.
It's a lovely tapas and jazz bar.. never even knew those kinds of places existed but the owners were lovely and Liam's gig was excellent as well. To start with we encountered a whole world of issues with the lighting. From what I've learnt so far there's two fundamental things that you just cannot change in post-production: lighting and focus. Seb's cutaways were lovely shots, but ridiculously dark and playing them back on the laptop showed us just how unsuitable they were.
So, a quick jog up the steepest hill in the world. Seriously, if I go outside in a bit and my car is not in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the hill I'll be doing well! Picked up some more lights and jogged back down.
With those lights set up it did make a big different but there was still some more improvements to be made.
Cue, another jog to the car.
When we'd finally got all the sound rigged up and the lights in place, we had achieved a warm and dramatic look. Really pleased with how we used the stupid amount of kit we've got to sort it all out - the end result on the video is nice and high-quality. Bullseye.
Today we're aiming to be in Bath by 10am so very shortly we'll pack the car........ahh how lovely, Liam's just come in offering a cooked breakfast...isn't that incredible.
We're staying with the most hospitable people in the world. I told Seb to pack some food and other crap just incase we felt like we were encroaching on Liam and his wife, but it's turned out to be far from that, they're the loveliest people and the house has such character. Even though we did fill it with far too many bags.
Last night when we got back in, I had two of the thickest slices of toast with, well, it tasted like actual raspberries on it, not jam. Seb had scrambled eggs on (the same) toast (the same thick granary bread, not the same slice, jam and eggs, weird man.. c'mon).
Seb also got a really cool mug for some late night coffee.............ahh maybe that's why I couldn't sleep. My brain was buzzing, mentally storyboarding what we've got so far.. As yesterday wasn't, today could be deadly.
Currently I think Seb is getting some nice shots of the early morning ambience upstairs and outside. I need to make a move because Liam's gone out the shop and I need to look after the coffee.
Like I say, this blog's been in development for some time now and I've had to change the tenses of most verbs here just so it now reads current.
For some reason I've embedded this Bon Iver video so there seems no logical reason to remove it. This is from some guy who felt it would be wise to video record the whole gig. Fortunately we saw it in it's entirety at Birminham O2 last Wednesday.... there are some life experiences you treasure and every moment of that gig was special to the n'th degree, with this song illustrating how magnificent his voice is.
We're at the services after a good 2hrs of travelling. Left Manchester ahead of schedule at 3pm and with the help of radio 2, the Beatles and some pretty bare motorway, we're sat enjoying 1000 calories of..well it's not crap but certainly something close.
Means eta a Bath should be around 7pm or something like that.. Good news! Looking forward to Liam's gig tonight..it's at a quaint little restaurant that do lots of tapas and twinnings tea and other fun stuff like that. It's also a jazz cafe so we can do our filming then I can have a proper chill out after an intense day. might even have a twinnings tea.
For the time being I go burn off those calories behind the wheel now..
Seb and I are embarking on a big project with Liam Blake, a musician signed to Helium Records, producing a short interview based music video in Bath. So exciting, been building up to this for weeks! We're looking his latest albums' influences and what has inspired Liam's music.
This is the first video blog of our production journey!
Follow our progress: @sirchaddy / www.louischadwick.co.uk/blog.php & @TheStandOutBoy
When we get editing next week, check out @anthonyalker for some more updates on progress. We'll be posting regularly for the next 2 weeks I imagine.
Let battle commence, let's go win some awards!.....
Big love to the bloke who missed the whole gig for filming it on his camera...... but for me, Beth/Rest followed by Skinny Love marked the best 10 minutes that's ever graced my spectacle at a gig.
There's been an awful lot of activity on this blog recently, hope you've been enjoying the posts, videos, audio etc. Be lots more on the way soon as projects get finished.
I've been crafting the production schedule for the new project I've got on. Working with Seb Padget and Anthony Alker on this one. Seb's AP and Anthony's helping with the editing. It's an interview based project with Liam Blake - means a busy week prepping, storyboarding, shot-listing and travelling!
This is the main focus of the video - a fantastic new animated music video. Through my project we'll try and convey how various pieces of artwork have influenced the music- notice this video looks very similar in animation style to The Snowman.... ahhhhhhhh yes all will be unveiled soon.......and we'll chat about Christmas a bit later...
Perfect way to describe it is how Rolling Stone have summed it up:
"Blake (Incidentally, a Briton) sounds like Gary Barlow with a cowboy hat"
The project is really exciting and opens up lots of doors. I can't wait for the travelling, a 3hr30min trip to Bath means I get to drive my car again! My plan is.. I'll drive to this Bon Iver gig on Wednesday, then drive on up to Manchester, meaning I can make a full journey down with Seb in my car with some proper mix-tapes and podcasts on! It's been so long since I've made a playlist for a journey!
Bon Iver. Yes, finally seeing the genius this week. Can't wait for this:
Talking of mix tapes and playlists.... the latest playlist I've made is called Northern Life - Manchester and it contains all the amazing songs I have attributed to this new Northern life! Check it out, you'll feel northern. Want a brew?
I've not planned a project so thoroughly for a while. Tight production values! Hope it all pays off, should be a fantastic journey!
Life's not just about work though, aside from this project and the exciting radio shows I've got coming up and uni work etc, there's been lots else happening here.
Went to see a band called The Rifles on Tuesday night.. my first gig at Manchester Academy3 - you know what.........the sound was pretty poor. I like the album tracks but live- very distorted and too loud. At dinnertime the following day I'd just got my hearing back.
The following night I went to see Charlie Simpson at Academy2 - a much better venue with amazing sound. And the sound was truly incredible - Charlie was an outstanding act, one that really shocked me really.
I knew he was good but seriously, the instrumental on the end of Riverbanks was so chilling and passionate I got goosepimplebumps. Watch this video all the way through, absolutely incredible, I promise. Mad stuff. Also really enjoyed the support acts- particularly Gabrille Aplin.
I also had a gig booked for The Travelling Band, who I saw at Fairport, but I got my dates wrong and it clashed with Charlie so Anthony went along to that one. He said it was pretty good.
Then this weekend has been relatively quiet, spent Saturday night at Heaton Park for the Fireworks and the fun-fair - lovely photograph of one of the rides above. Was adequate... rarely see good fireworks. Nothing quite beats new years fireworks.
Came home from the fireworks to enjoy one of the most satisfying things on the telly. Match Of The Day, in the flat, coming live from Salford studios. 10minutes down the road. How inspiring. I see Chelsea are still struggling though... 3 points sure, but by no means safe as houses yet.
Highlights of the last week or so:
Malteser Trail Mix
A new purchase from the Apple store...
My Pingu DVD arriving
My Gingerbread latte at Costa
Singing Merry Christmas Everyone on our wander through campus. That was inappropriate, given it's November 7th.
I'm so excited for Christmas. I am buying a tree in the next week or two, and seeing as I'm not at home, there'll be no beads this year Mother, tinsel all the way. I'm also buying some Turkish Delight and some more festive knit-wear.
