Map Men Series 3... coming VERY soon....

Someone commented on a video the other day saying “Where are you? What happened to you? Why no new videos for ages? Are you dead?” I phoned and told her she can pick up the phone to her son whenever she likes (a ha ha ha ha ha) but, if we can be serious for a moment, the time has now come for a very long overdue update on how Map Men series 3 is coming along.

The writing stage is now over, and we’ve moved onto the filming stage. So far we’ve done three full days (which equates to about 8 seconds of footage), so it’s all well underway.

Eleven episodes in one go - doubling the total number of Map Men episodes in one fell swoop - is the biggest project we’ve ever done, and so much more cumbersome and unpredictable than we ever could have predicted. It reminds me of an interview I once saw with famous animator Nick Park. Apparently, when they made Chicken Run, their first feature film, they complacently imagined it’d be just like making three Wallace and Gromits, which they were already really good at, but it turned out to be a completely different beast with loads of unforeseen diseconomies of scale which left them in a floundering stress. That’s basically what we’re experiencing, and the comparison is a totally fair one, because if you add up all our episodes (including adverts), series 3 of Map Men has almost exactly the same running time as Chicken Run. 

Does Chicken Run still stand up? I haven’t seen it in years! I remember loving it at the time. Are we now due a 20th anniversary remaster, where they make it HD and digitally add go faster stripes on all the chickens?

Anyway, I thought I’d share a cheeky making-of photo with you… the QI elves very generously loaned us their office space for a few minutes to film a sketch. We were very excited to meet them, cos we’re huge fans of their show and podcast. See if you can spot, when the episode comes out, the QI easter egg we’ve hidden in that scene!

And now, here’s the news that matters… at this current rate, if all goes well, the next Map Men episode is due in….
 

***** mid-November 2020 *****
 

…and you, of course, because I like you the most, will see it at least 24 hours before everyone else, allowing you to add comments, questions and complaints, all of which I’ll be able to aggressively respond to. 

I don’t think I thank you enough for being my Patron, but I’m so super grateful from the bottom of my heart to you. None of this would be possible without you, and you’re so super nice for doing it. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Stay tuned for more news, and $10+ patrons, stay tuned for extra special behind-the-scenes stuff coming very soon indeed!

Thank you and goodbye in that order, 

Jay