DID YOU SEE IT?

Did you see our new channel trailer? We didn't have time to do any filming this week, but putting that together was a damned good use of a morning. And long overdue. I could've made it five times as long, frankly, but I feel it's a pretty good representation of what the channel has put out over the years.  

Suffice to say, going through it all demonstrated two things to me... Firstly, how much we've done, and secondly how much of it is good. Yeah, we veer all over the place in terms of what we might've covered, and not all of it will be to everyone's taste, but all of it - the Minis, Digi The Show, Found Footage, Lost Footage, Digi Deluxe... feels so authentically Digitiser. 

I've been a touch stressed in recent weeks what with one thing and then the other things, but I needed this reminder of what we've achieved. It gave me a big lift.

One of the most frequent criticisms I got when I started making videos is that Digitiser doesn't work as well on video as it does in writing. I think this is partly because everyone reads things with their own voice. 

Writing is quite a personal thing for the reader; they can interpret it through the prism of their own internal actors. I think people expected on-camera me to somehow talk like written me  - as they read it - but I knew I couldn't do that. I surrounded myself with people who I knew could help me embody the feeling of Digi. But, as time has gone on, and I've become more comfortable in the role of on-camera person, I hope now if you go back and read some old Digi you're able to read it in my voice. You'll be able to see that written Biffo and actual Biffo aren't that different. 

But really, Digi was never about the words for me as such - it was more a spirit. Putting needless tangents inside something that is otherwise intended to be informative. Not caring about rules. Taking left-turns, constantly being surprising. Weird characters, who are sort of intended to be a bit rubbish. It's all meant to be anarchic and slightly dangerous, and we kind of don't care about being sloppy. We give ourselves, and by extension you, the permission to not be perfect. And to be who you are, warts and all.

Putting this trailer together, I'm happy to say it's so evident we've captured that spirit. Which at one point I didn't even think was possible. I'm SO proud of what we've done. Yeah, I wish I could've got the sound and picture better earlier on, but we got there in the end. We might not be the biggest channel ever, we might be struggling to hang onto subscribers, we might not be to everyone's taste, but we're utterly, 100%, real, and true, and authentic, and pity those people who don't get it. 

God, I love our channel so much. 

Plus... it doesn't feel quite like anything else, to me. I think that is in part the people I've chosen to feature on there. I don't want to sound all Get Off My Lawn, but I do think the fact we're incapable of going the overly-polished, slick, typical twenty something YouTube influencer route, is kind of our strength. We're not all a bunch of kids desperate for fame and views. We're middle-aged people dicking about and being ourselves. And that extends to most of the guests we've had on, as well as my regular co-hosts.

And, as ever, it's a massive, massive thank you to all of you. When you're talking about crowd-funding, we literally couldn't have done it without you. Aside from helping to pay for all of it, your support in every sense has helped me keep the faith, keep plugging on, even during moments when I've wondered why I should be bothering. I love that so many of you seem to love the channel as much as I do. 

Covid has obviously hit us in terms of what we're able to do, but this year alone we've put out tons of Digi Minis - even if they have been stripped-back somewhat - but you've also had Lost Footage and Digitiser Deluxe, with the broader production values. Heck and now a podcast, which I'm also loving.

I'm hoping that we'll continue in this vein; the Minis being the bedrock of what we do, with the occasional limited run of something else a few times a year. What that something else might be... I dunno yet. That's the joy of it; allowing myself to be surprised by the direction we take. 

I'm already starting to get a bit twitchy, and feeling like it's time to do something again in the Found/Lost Footage ballpark. Something new. But we'll see. I'm also looking forward to getting some familiar faces back on, when we're able. 

If you've not seen it, go here and remind yourselves of what you've made possible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cggYS9PfSHg