WE'VE RENTED A BOAT

Hola, Patrons.

Next week’s Digi FILMING should be interesting. Aside from an enormous amount of driving to get where we’re going, we’ve also rented a boat. Yes: us… driving an actual boat (not the boat pictured above).

I’ve written up about 5,000 words of research, which I will barely refer to in the finished episode. I like having facts on hand, and then not entirely memorising them; just giving a quick scan before the camera rolls, so that I inevitably lose my thread, or trail off, and it hopefully remains authentic and doesn’t seem like I’m acting. Because I’m not. Except when I want to appear like I am acting/presenting... and bad at it.

If that makes sense.

I don’t want to ever appear too slick. Which is good, as not being slick is very much our comfort zone.

DOING MY OWN RESEARCH

I’ve always loved doing research though. The vids we’re making at the minute play into that – I love that balance of absurdity and fact. For me, it’s so much more true to Digi than we have been in a long time; ground it in something real, give a few nuggets of actual facts, and then just treat that subject with irreverence and disrespect. Throw in the occasional ridiculous character. Walk the line of appropriateness. All that.

Exactly what I love doing about BYAMPOD too, funnily enough.

I’ve always loved planning journeys too. Always loved a road-trip. And I like telling stories. So there’s a lot about these episodes that are scratching an itch I didn’t know was there.

The Oxford and Hertfordshire videos we did recently were more just a collection of odd places, but going forwards we always want to have a reason to travel to the places we do. Finding the ‘story’ that can inform the journey is probably the biggest challenge.

I think we’ve found a great one for next week’s trip, though. It’s a contrast to the conspiracy stuff in the last couple.

A NICE LONG ONE

I don’t like doing multi-part videos, so I suspect it’ll be another long one. That hasn’t seemed to have hurt views on the Wiltshire video, but obviously we wouldn’t want to be putting out a video of that length every week. Hopefully that sits alright with all of you. I like the episodes feeling like more of an event. 

There is a possibility we may get more than one video out of this trip, though, given we’ve scheduled a few stops and activities which aren’t part of the main ‘story’.

I know we’ve said it already, but Sanja and I are stupidly excited about the direction we’re going in. This is probably the most excited we’ve been about the channel ever (or at least since Found Footage went out). 

I think this is where we’d have always ended up, but we never felt comfortable traveling as much while the kids were younger. We were mostly tied to staying at home. All of Sanja’s three girls are either about to go to uni or already out the other side, so they're finally more than old enough to look after themselves. That, and never figuring out the wireless lapel mics, was what held us back from doing more videos like these. 

MOTHER

The tricky thing is fitting the Digi filming in around my mum. 

Thankfully, my sisters are on hand to help with her care, but we still need to do our share of  looking after her, so we have to squeeze any trips we do in around being there for her. We're babysitting early next week, but going up to my daughter's late on Monday so we can put my mum to bed. Then driving up to our first mystery location early on Wednesday, then having to leave early on the Friday to come home and look after my mum again.

It's nice having a big family, but maaaaaaaan... It's hard being there for everyone, and still find the space your own stuff done. And have a life. 

It means that the filming days are inevitably long and packed, and somewhat frantic. There’s also cost. We’re not remotely rich, especially after the past couple of years, and travel isn’t cheap. 

Because of the distance, next week’s biggest expense will be fuel, but we’ve managed to find an affordable hotel that’ll off-set some of the cost. We do feel it’s worth it though. 

Aside from seeing the videos doing well by recent standards – and watching subscribers slowly, slowly tick up, even if it is glacial, is a relief after watching them going the other way for the past four years or so.

As I’ve said before, we won’t give up on desk videos entirely. I suspect, for the foreseeable, we’ll keep the desk for livestreams. It’s just, like everything else, finding the time. 

I still have to edit Digi Level 2. Don't suppose any of you are editors, who might be interested in helping out, and could give me a quote? Email digitiser2000@gmail.com if so.

PATREON

Now... all that aside, Patreon has had an overhaul. It is introducing a bunch of new features, including - I think - a Discord-like chat. I'm still wrapping my head around it all, but will try and explain the new stuff to you when we're back from our trip.

And talking of Patreon, I know I'm behind with replying to comments on here. I'll get to it eventually. Sorry.

That's it.

WE’VE RENTED A BOAT!!

Bye.

Paul