An Englishman in New York | The Friday(ish) Update

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Friday Update, in which I give a little insight into what I’ve been up to for the past seven days.

I’m writing this week’s edition of The Friday(ish) Update from my desk in Plymouth, whilst trying to reset my body clock back into UK time, after a week-long trip to New York City.

The initial reason I was there was for the world premiere of my debut feature film Boomers.

The screening was very exciting!

It took place at the IFC Center in midtown Manhattan and we had a red carpet, a Q&A, and a lovely drinks reception afterwards.

I got the chance to meet some fans of the channel and to hang out with a bunch of creators I hadn’t met previously.

It was somewhat terrifying watching the film on the massive cinema screen in front of everyone. My hands were incredibly clammy throughout!

But people were incredibly gracious and kind about what we made!

I feel very privileged to have had the experience of not only having got to make such a massive project but to also have got to premiere it in New York and share that day with such cool people.

Of course, there was another deeply important historic event(!) taking place in America last week… the US election.

As soon as I knew the premiere was likely to take place around the time of the election, I knew I wanted to stick around to watch the vote take place and the results come in.

I originally had a plan to make a video about the election—although we didn’t quite get the footage we’d have needed to get in order to make something worthwhile—although it has been very useful to have been there for a future project.

Nevertheless, it was fascinating to be around for.

I may not have a direct stake in US politics, but the country’s powerful position in the world means it shapes many of our lives despite a distance of thousands of miles.

After a bit of wandering around New York for the day—including bumping into some very enthusiastic Trump supporters outside Trump Tower—I ended up heading to Rockefeller Plaza.

The Rockefeller Center is home to NBC’s news channels and so the relatively small space at the foot of the tower had been transformed into “Democracy Plaza” for the night.

There were large screens showing feeds of MSNBC and CNBC’s election results broadcasts. And everything was lit up red, white, and blue.

Like many, I had been expecting to leave the Plaza with little idea of how the election might turn out. I had been expected it to be some days before it was clear who was going to win.

As you probably know, that was not the case.

I hung around for a good few hours, at which point it became clear that Trump was going to take it.

The self-selecting audience that had turned out to watch MSNBC on the big screen was mostly disappointed about this. However, there were also a decent number of Trump supporters around too.

I’m sure everyone’s got many thoughts to process about the election and what comes next, but it was certainly fascinating to get to voyeuristically watch some small portion of it take place on the ground.

How Trump’s return will factor into future videos and reporting remains to be seen. But we’ve got a lot of fun projects coming up!

Thanks as ever for your generous support and I’ll look forward to updating you more next week!!