Mike Jelves: BA Hons Media Production with Video Production

Mike Jelves

BA Hon Media Production with Video Production, 2004

Let’s be honest working with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant is going to look good on anyone’s CV. Mike can now add them to his resume after producing a series of podcasts for The Office: The Opera. The videos have been a huge hit on Facebook and YouTube, and helped to raise £3.5K for Comic Relief.

The Office: The Opera, the brainchild of Anne Chmelewsky, was brought to life in 3 months. Initially a final year project, Anne decided to go into production as a way of ‘doing something funny for money’. The first performance was one week before Comic Relief night.

Mike, who works with Anne at the Apple Store in London, brought his film making skills to the project as a way to publicise the project. As part of the production company Jellyfielders (Mike and fellow alumni Chris Suffield and Louise Camish) he already has several production credits to his name.

The first 3 months of the year was a frenzy of activity for all involved to prepare The Opera for performance before the March 13 Comic Relief deadline. And Mike was there to document it all. Later he was invited to the Comic Relief night and met many A-list celebrities back stage. A series of 12 podcasts were released through Facebook and YouTube and have been seen by over 10 000 people.

Plans are now afoot to take The Opera to a larger audience in August. Meanwhile Jellyfielders will soon follow-up their initial full length feature film, Together, with the release of Legend of the Alleyman (a B-Movie spoof) later this year. The soundtrack featuring several Luton bands is already available.

Profile added May 2009