Filming Done and onto Editing! | The Friday(ish) Update

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

As a quick update, the April Patreon Q&A has now been filmed and edited—I just need to find a moment to upload it and make a thumbnail etc., which I’m planning on doing tomorrow!

What have I been up to this week?

This week, I made the very final touches to the script for my upcoming video about think tanks, before proceeding with filming it!

This time around, I’ve made use of my studio filming set-up which some of you will remember from many of my videos; particularly those from a year or so ago. Following a recent trend in which it’s taken me longer and longer to put together each video, I was keen to go for something simpler this time around to enable me to get the video out sooner! I’ve got so many ideas for videos that I’m excited about making over the coming months that it made sense to just eliminate some of the extra work that comes with finding locations etc. (particularly given how much of my videos end up being given-over to archive/stock footage).

Part of me is keen to build a “gallery wall” type thing with lots of posters etc. in my office that I can then film in front of (I think that might be slightly more interesting than just having the blue background). Nevertheless, I’m always interested in hearing feedback—maybe folks will really miss having some kind of location!

I think the resulting footage is looking and sounding pretty good. Now to have a rummage through the archives to see what footage I can find to bring it to life!

And outside of work?

I didn’t manage to squeeze in much outside of work this week. As I mentioned in my last Friday Update, I moved some of my work days around last week so that I could spend some time with some family who had come to stay, which meant that I actually ended up working through most of Easter weekend. That being said, I did manage to get out and do some running whilst we’ve been having a slightly unexpected patch of good weather here in South West England!

I always find my runs are quite good for giving me time to step away from the project I’m currently working on and to imagine what future videos I might work on. I arrived back the other day with around five potential video ideas—although I doubt they’ll all make it to production!

What have I been reading/watching/listening to?

This week, I began reading Half-Earth Socialism, a new book by Drew Pendergrass and Troy Vettese which Verso Books (who published the book) kindly sent me. I’m not particularly far in just yet but have found what I’ve read so far very interesting. The book is about the climate emergency and a potential solution to that emergency. It opens, however, with a creative narrative which imagines what the 2050s might look like if we continue on the path we’re currently on which I thought was a really interesting way to open the book. They’re also apparently putting together a companion game for the book which sounds like a cool idea.

As I say, I’m not particularly far through the book just yet, but it is nice and short which I’m always a fan of! Particularly given that some of the books I’ve got lined-up to read for my next video are pretty hefty! But, I’ll let you know some more substantial thoughts when I’m a bit further through!

That brings us to the end of this week’s edition of the Fridayish 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!!