Digitiser TV is moving forwards...

So, I thought I'd tell you a little more about where we're at with the proposed Digitiser YouTube show, as plans are moving forwards.

The aim is to make something that's rather more accessible than Found Footage - but still imbued with the spirit of Digitiser. It'll effectively be a magazine show, with the emphasis on retro gaming, but we're not intending to ignore more recent games. Also: special guests! And - yes - you can expect a bit of Digi-esque randomness in there too, but not at the price of making it challenging to watch.

At the moment, it's looking as if it'll be fronted by myself and Barshens/Cheap Show's Paul Gannon. Paul is clearly very funny, and I had a laugh with him at the Found Footage premiere. Plus, he knows his old games.

In all honesty, my contribution is the part I'm most anxious about. While I'm fine on stage in front of an audience, or talking on a podcast, I hate being on camera. Like hate it. I don't think that whole "Hey, guys - welcome to the show!" thing is very me. I'm far too old to be trying to become the next big YouTube sensation, but - as I've been told multiple times now - there's no doing a Digitiser web series and getting away with not being in it. Which obviously there isn't. So I'll have to suck it up. Matron

However, I managed to teach myself how to edit and direct for Found Footage, so I'm hopeful that with a bit of practice I'll find my way, and learn how to forget the camera and just be me.

We're going to be looking at other online gaming shows to see how they do it, and try to find a way that makes this unique. Not to steal, but because we don't want it to feel or look like anything else. That's obviously a tough ask, and we need to do it without just making it weird for the sake of it, but if we want any chance of it standing out then we can't just be another me-too show. 

We have a vague date of end-of-March to film the first block of episodes (though that might change) which means we'll probably have started making the show before the Kickstarter (which I'm planning for the end of Feb) comes to a close. That's not ideal, obviously, but we've potentially got a loan of studio, sound and camera gear for then, so it'd be daft to turn it down. I suspect anyway that a lot of the budget will be needed for the elements that'll be added after the main shoot; cutaways, music, editing etc. In a lot of ways, FF was a dry run in terms of me playing with the toolbox. Now I need to learn how to focus that into something that's just a little less mental. 

Unlike FF, the plan is to budget this properly! At the moment, I'm seeing it as a run of six, which'll be paid for through Kickstarter. However, depending on how well it does, I may - somewhere down the line - look at it being a more regular, ongoing, part of the Digi family, and sort of roll that budget into Patreon. But we'll see. That's a way off yet. Also, I've some ideas for slightly bigger scale features - things I've always wanted to do in my ideal video gams show - but they're depending on how much we raise. So, we'll see.

Anyhoo. There you go. Update for you. Bye now!

Paul