This post first appeared on Ren’s Patreon page.

Today marks five weeks until we start shooting Ren Season Two!

The big news is that, after four or five days of auditioning in London, plus several Zoom sessions, we have cast many of our supporting characters – and most importantly our new Ren! We’ve yet to decide when and how to announce this, so you’ll have to wait a little while to find out who is the new Girl with the Mark.

Gradually we’ve been moving all the props Kate acquired during Born of Hope and Ren Season One to the studio, as well as gathering the wood needed to make the sets. At the start of April we plan to hold our first Making Weekend – details soon! – and begin construction in earnest.

Yesterday we had the first fight choreography session for the season, planning the start of the big ambush scene in episode 203. Ronin Traynor of IDFight gathered a team of fight performers who kindly gave their afternoon to help us visualise the fight in a set made of cardboard boxes (pictured above). We even managed to squeeze in a couple of extra auditions while we were there.

Producing a series like this involves quite a range of tasks. Just to give you an example of what I’ve been up to this morning:

– Connecting actors with our fight choreographer, Ronin Traynor, to arrange training sessions

– Confirming the use of Norton Armoury’s pieces again for the Kah’Nath soldier costumes

– Discussing who is going to make soft foam versions of that armour

– Arranging a van to transport props to our distant locations

– Advertising for crew

– Speaking to a potential editor for the series

– Checking the shooting schedule with some of the cast

– Compiling notes from the directors to send to our make-up artist, Becca Youngs

And this afternoon Kate and I are going to start storyboarding the horse chase using action figures!