Crowning Glory | The Friday 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?

By the time you’re reading this, the third and final episode of Treason Fest 2023 will (any calamities aside) be out in the world for all to see!

The decision to mark on this mini-series project was a fairly last-minute one. Staring at my plans for what was originally going to be a single, long-ish video, it seemed obvious that there were clear “breaks” in the script that were more substantial than the usual section breaks in my videos. I was worried that the final product might end up feeling like three or four videos awkwardly stitched together.

As such, after a bunch of long conversations with various people, I decided to take the opportunity to experiment with a slightly different way of making and releasing videos.

It hasn’t all gone swimmingly. We initially had hoped to make four videos and have ended up with three. Towards the end of making the second episode of the series, it became clear that making three videos without myself or my editor Georgia both burning out and never wanting to make a single video ever again was just going to be impossible.

Even after scaling-back from four videos to two, it’s still been a lot of work. The plan to produce these to tie-in with the coronation ceremony meant that, other than writing to Buckingham Palace to ask them to push the ceremony back, there wasn’t much we could do in terms of changing any deadlines. There’s gonna be a lot of sleep to catch up on over the next week!

I think, however, that hard work has been worth it. The response to the videos has been lovely with lots of people noticing the additional thought and budget we’ve been putting into our production values lately. While we’re definitely going to be going back to the “norm” of longer, single-focus videos for the next few projects, I’m definitely interested in trying out the mini-series format again in the future!

And outside of work?

This week, I’ve been getting back into the swing of my running again. After I ran the London Marathon last autumn, I had a knee problem which meant taking a month or so off. Since then, it’s been a very slow build back into being able to run for more than very short, slow distances.

This week really felt like I was back in the swing of things. I managed a speed session on Tuesday, a bunch of slow, easy runs and a 20km long run on Saturday. That last one was particularly special since it was a gorgeous day. Being able to run longer distances like that means I’m able to run out to the grounds of a stately home near where we live which is a bit nicer than running around the city centre.

I’ve got a few half marathons lined-up over the coming months so hopefully this puts me in good stead for them!

What have I been reading/watching/listening to?

Over the past week or so, my partner and I have been watching The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon Prime. I’ve been aware of the show for a while and had generally heard good things but was always put off by the absolutely horrible font it uses. Nevertheless, the other week, my editor Georgia was praising it and so I decided to give it a go and it is great!

I only later realised that it’s made by the same show runner as the Gilmore Girls which, when you notice it, you do begin to notice all the time. Not only does it have a similar focus on family weirdnesses but it also loves to do introduce all kinds of little situational gags which I love. Also, the costumes are absolutely amazing!

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!!