UPPER TIERS EXCLUSIVE: HALLOWBEAN BEHIND-THE-SCENES

The filming of most Digi videos must appear pretty shambolic to anyone looking on.

It’s sort of baked into our process now; we start with a loose idea of a structure, we have some elements we want to fit in along the way, sometimes we’ll know how we want it to end, and there’ll be some props that we know we’ll feature… but between those points it’s pretty much improvised.

It’s why I was so lucky to find Sanja, and get to collaborate with Paul and Eli, for whom that way of working suits. They’re able to totally trust in that process, and that it’ll all be alright once it’s put together. We laughed in the car the other night about how we’d invested in an autocue for Digitiser The Show, and that it lasted ten minutes before I ditched it.

To be honest, it’s much how I used to write Digitiser for Teletext back in the day. It was rare to sit down with an idea fully formed. Much of written Digi was a stream-of-conscious improvisation, which would then be refined with an edit.

When I’m doing my day job, there’s much more planning and forethought, but the reason why I feel modern, YouTube, Digi is still part of the Digitiser brand is because of the way it’s made, and the bits of my brain that I’m using. It feels exactly the same to me, just that one is written and one is on video. I get why people found it jarring when we stopped covering video games, but to me ‘Digitiser’ is simply a way of doing things. I do love watching our videos back, because I'm normally as surprised as anyone by what happens.

Obviously, I also have to be the character ‘Mr Biffo’ (or Beanus, or Action Man, or Third Bird) in most of the videos. Early on, I didn’t feel comfortable as a performer, and felt like I was struggling every single time, but the last few years, especially since working mostly with Sanja, I’ve found my voice.

I sometimes regret that the on-screen Mr Biffo is so shouty and grumpy and pompous, and indignant about everything – because there are those who think that’s the real me – and yet that’s just the way he’s developed. I can just be ‘him’ on autopilot now, and accept that he’ll usually be the butt of jokes.

I’m also at ease enough now that I actually enjoy becoming the other characters. Five years ago there’s no way I’d have felt confident enough doing a whole episode as Action Man. Which, if you haven’t watched that recent ep in the woods – and not many have – please do. It’s another favourite.

THE REAL ME

Weirdly, I’m much more the real me in what we’ve shot for Digi Level 2; a lot sillier, and lighter.

But anyway, I’ve now been doing this long enough that I can now be ‘Mr Biffo’ without having to think about it, which means I don’t have to concentrate so hard on my performance, and find it a lot easier to simultaneously plan the episode. It’s all quite subconscious still, despite that.

This sort of suck-it-and-see (hello!) approach to filming is magnified to the power of ten when we’re filming on location, because we never know precisely what we’re going to see, or stumble across, that’ll inspire some nonsense.

Basically, we try to film as much as possible, and then I piece together some sort of semblance of form, or story, in the edit. We had something like three hours of footage from the Halloween episode shoot, which I managed to get down to a tight 40 minutes.

I think anyone who is a bystander to Digi’s on-location episodes would find the process alarming.

Hats off those we’ve collaborated with on them – Ashens, Ryan Livermore, and this time the lovely Dan. I think it appears completely and utterly without structure. It even feels that way to us at points, but the whole time my brain will be plotting it through for the edit. All I need are the moments – the stuff in-between can be jettisoned.

It’s also probably, in its own way, intimidating to be surrounded by me, Sanja, Eli and Paul, all doing our thing, because we’re basically just throwing everything at the wall, and seeing what sticks. 

I used to feel massively swept away whenever I worked with Paul and Eli, and it even can still happen if I’m not feeling on top form.

THE OUTSIDE

But yes. It can – and does – appear utterly chaotic and disorganised to outside eyes. Not least because we forget to warn people about how we do it. We just usually show up and get started immediately with no preamble or brief.

As Dan commented to us at one point “Did you think just turning up at a sweet shop would be enough?”. But it was enough. Hallowbean is one of mine and Sanja’s favourite ever episodes – and there’s also going to be an extended version of it on this week’s Cheapshow, where you get the POV of Gannon and Eli.

In truth, the episode was probably even less thought-through than usual, chiefly because I’ve not exactly had a lot of time or brain-space to plan over the past month, but I knew what I wanted to get out of it. The biggest challenge, oddly, was shooting a video at the same time a podcast was being recorded. When we’ve done that before it has been outside, and been a lot easier to navigate, but here we were in close quarters.

Oh, and I literally grabbed the knife from the kitchen as we left home. Nobody knew I had it. I like that – not telling anyone, not even Sanja, what I have planned. I like reactions to be real, because I truly believe that an audience can smell fakeness. Beanus is meant to be scary. I want everyone I’m filming with to be at least a little on edge.

And they were.

But for now, here’s another almost 50 minutes of us finding our way through the episode, through outtakes, deleted scenes, and behind-the-scenes bits.

Biffo’s Brain tomorrow night, for those who are eligible.

And we’re doing a joint Halloween live stream with Paul and Eli on Monday.

Paul