Making Movies | 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.

What have I been up to this week?

In some regards, this week has been fairly normal; in others wildly different.

Because, this week, I’ve been primarily focused on my upcoming film Boomers.

For those of you who don’t know, Boomers is a project I’m working on for Nebula. It’s going to be a feature-length documentary about Baby Boomers and the positive (and negative!) ways in which they’ve changed the world.

Work on the film began in earnest in the dying months of 2023. I’d pitched a couple of ideas to the creative team at Nebula, and this was the one they were really enthused by.

That kicked off a commissioning/greenlighting process which was probably incredibly speedy by “traditional” industry standards, but was fairly lengthy for someone like me who is used to making things in a whirlwind month or so!

I’ve now fully got the thumbs up to make the film, with a story editor in place to help me shape it and dates set aside to travel over to the US and film.

As such, I set aside some time this week to go back to all my notes and reading to try and find some shape for the piece.

It’s been really fun returning to my notes and remembering the fun film I first planned six or so months ago.

It’s also been fun to imagine all the bits I know longer thing are that good which I’m gonna throw out and all the new ideas I’m going to incorporate in.

It’s going to be a very busy few months whilst I’m working on the film and trying to make “normal” videos as well.

But, I feel really honoured to have this opportunity. It’s a big step up from my normal work and I hope I’m going to use it well and make a great film!

Wish me luck!

And outside of work?

Even outside of my work-related globetrotting, this year is pretty busy for me.

Lots of my friends are getting married, and this means a lot of weekend travel to stag dos and weddings themselves to celebrates.

This past fortnight, however, has been surprisingly relaxed.

We had a friend over for dinner on Wednesday and I found the time to cook a couple of spicy chickens on the barbecue.

(Which was a lot of fun and turned out really well; which immediately made me worry I was gonna get too into it and become a grill guy!).

This weekend, I similarly mostly read, ate, watched TV and drank a few quiet ciders.

Hopefully I’ve stored up some energy because next week I’ve got what I imagine is going to be a fairly hectic stag weekend coming up!

What have I been reading/watching/listening to?

Last weekend, my wife and I went to see Come From Away at our local theatre.

For anyone who isn’t aware of it, Come From Away is a musical based on the real-life story in which, on 11th September 2001, dozens of planes where redirected to a small town in Newfoundland following the attack on the World Trade Center.

That tiny town then found themselves in the position of trying to look after hundreds of temporary residents for a handful of days whilst the US airspace remained closed.

I’d seen the show before: once on the TV and once in London, and had asked for tickets for it for my birthday.

I genuinely think Come From Away is one of the best pieces of theatre ever made.

It’s maybe not the highest-brow piece of art, but it’s such a great ensemble piece with fantastic music and some brilliant, gut punching moments of plot construction.

The fact it focuses so much on acts of human kindness is also just really heartwarming.

I was a bit tired from travelling when we went to see it, but I had tears in my eyes multiple times!

If you every get the chance to go and see it, it has my wholehearted recommendation!

That brings us to the end of this week’s edition of the Friday Update. I hope you’ve found it mildly insightful.

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