Release is Imminent! | 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.

Apologies that there’s been a bit of a gap prior to this one. As often occurs, the mammoth task of editing my upcoming video meant dedicating all my work hours to that and this got put on the back-burner a little.

What have I been up to this week?

This week, I’ve been putting the final touches to the edit of my upcoming video on COVID-19 vaccine inequality. I’ve been mostly digging through banks of archive footage to find the right clips to bring the topic to life on screen. This aspect of the process can often be quite tiring as it’s quite a repetitive and fiddly task. With this video currently running at around 1 hour and 20 minutes, it’s also been a lot of work given that, where many creators have a lot of shots of them talking to-camera, I’m always really keen to include as many cut-aways to interesting footage which helps to illustrate the topic being discussed as possible.

There’s obviously always lessons to be learned and, as ever, there’s plenty of things I’m going to be taking away from this process to inform the next one(s). That being said, I’m pretty pleased with how the video is looking. I’ve described it to a couple of friends as a “documentary” rather than a “video essay” which might be me being a little pretentious and overly self-confident but I’ll let you all be the ultimate judges of that!

This time around, I’m drawing on a little bit of extra help with editing some of the audio, syncing music and designing the thumbnail for the video (see below!). Without that support, I don’t think I’d have been able to make such a long video so quickly, but it does mean that I’m currently waiting for a couple of bits to be tweaked before I can do a final export of the video. As soon as they do and are signed off, I’ll get the video out for Early Access for supporters at the relevant tiers!

This one’s been a real passion project and I can’t wait to share it with you!

And outside of work?

Normally, the period in-between filming and releasing my videos is a bit of a blur. In the past, I’ve tended to block out everything else in my life so that I can just focus on getting the video edited and out as soon as possible. As I knew this video was going to take slightly longer to edit, I also knew that I was going to need to pace myself a little bit more. As such, I’ve managed to find a bit more time to decompress and relax in between editing this time around.

Perhaps the most extreme relaxation I’ve managed to squeeze in was last weekend when I went for a spa day with my partner. I’d bought her a voucher for her birthday last month and we finally got to go on Sunday. It’s one of those things that I’d probably never choose to do of my own accord but that, when gently encouraged to go, I actually really enjoyed! Super relaxing!

What have I been reading/watching/listening to?

Since I last wrote one of these updates, I’ve been to the cinema a few times, seen a handful of plays and tried out a few new TV shows. It’s been a while since I’ve told you about a book I’m reading though, so…

I’m currently reading bell hooks’ Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. I read a bit of hooks’ work before but this one had been sat on my shelf calling out to me for some time. I knew that hooks is a really engaging writer and so was looking forward to trying out more of her work; at the same time, it seemed like a good opportunity to read outside of my usual, default areas of interest. So far, I’m finding it really fascinating; brilliantly written and really insightful in documenting/analysing the experience of black women in America.

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

I’m really looking forward to hearing what you all think!

Thanks as ever for your generous support!