The (Belated) Friday Update

Welcome to Friday Update Number 2!

Wow, only the second instalment and I'm already apologising for lateness. Oh dear. I think that probably serves me right for trying to launch something new during my filming and editing weeks though!

A quick content warning: In the final section of this Friday Update, I mention an incident of gun violence. I don't go into any real detail and there's no images but, if anyone wants to skip out on that bit this time around, I completely understand.

What have I been up to this week?

As many of you will know from the Behind The Scenes post a few days back, last Wednesday I filmed what will be my next video. The location this time was a friend's shed in the middle of the Devon countryside. I managed to barter use of the shed for the day in exchange for letting the friend keep the boxing punch bag that I use in the video; in reality this was quite handy as my house can get a little cluttered with all the old props from videos hanging about!

It wasn't quite as early a start as last time round (the Countries video I was on location and filming by 5pm to make the most of the sunlight) but I was still on the road fairly early—one thing with filming out in the sticks is that you have to be prepared to get stuck behind tractors and/or cows!

Now, I'm usually quite self-critical with each aspect of my work, but I'm really pleased with most of the shots I got. I think they look pretty decent and that they add an extra layer of fun to the video. Filming days are always pretty tiring. It can be a pretty tough 8 or 9 hours of shifting around kit, adjusting lights and then trying not to stumble over my words when actually filming! Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun trying out a few new techniques and, again, am really pleased with the results.

Ever since filming, I've been editing, editing, editing. The editing portion of my process is somehow always the most stressful. It's often just outright frustrating. People often think of it as the simple, final part of making a video, however editing each sequence can take a long, long time. Today, I had my head down from 8:30am to 6pm and, when I checked how much of the overall video I'd edited, it was only 5 minutes!

That being said, I think taking the extra time to make sure it flows is worth it and I'm really pleased with how it's looking. Hopefully, by the next time I'm writing one of these, I'll have much, much more of the video under my belt!

And outside of work?

Editing can be pretty all-consuming. It's weeks when I'm editing that I'm most likely to be the terrible friend/family member that asks to rearrange plans because I've got too much to catch up on.

That being said, a couple of my friends have their wedding in a few weeks and had the legal ceremony over the weekend. So I did go down and join them and their family for a celebratory yet casual pub lunch on Saturday.

Also, I got the second part of my vaccine!

What have I been reading/watching/listening to?

Over the past week, I decided to start giving audiobooks another go. I used to listen to quite a few audio books whilst driving to teach seminars. Whilst I don't have to drive that far at the moment, I am running 5 days a week in preparation for a 10K race at the beginning of next month and so thought I'd try and keep myself entertained with an audiobook.

So, I've loaded up my copy of David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years onto my phone and have been re-listening to that. I'm pretty sure I didn't quite make it to the end of this one last time around but I adore Graeber's way of introducing the reader to ideas—I find he is able to be incredibly accessible yet never in a way that requires "dumbing down". I'm really enjoying this one.

What have I been thinking about?

As those of you who live in the UK will likely be aware, on Thursday there was a mass shooting in Plymouth. Five people were killed by a man who evidence would suggest had been radicalised into a violent, misogynistic worldview by incel forums.

I've lived in Plymouth for my entire adult life. Before that, I lived just outside and travelled into the city to school each day. I didn't know anyone who died on Thursday personally, but many describe the city as being a bit like a big village—there's rarely more than a couple of degrees of separation between anyone.

So, this has obviously been occupying my mind quite a lot over the past few days. I don't even have all that much that is coherent to say about it just yet. Had it been a bit further away, I think I'd have lots to say about online radicalisation (particularly given that some of that appears to have occurred on YouTube) but, when it's 15 minutes from your house, I think it's hard to think of anything other than the desperate sadness of it all.

Apologies for ending that on a bit of a sad note. However, that brings us to the end of the Friday update!

I'll be cracking on with more editing over the next week and will have the Early Access version up as soon as is humanly possibly.

Thanks as ever for your generous support everyone! Tom