MrBiffo
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REALITY CHECK
🕑 Added 2023-08-02 09:00:58 +0000 UTCIt’s only Wednesday, and I’ve already crashed back to earth with a bump.
On Monday, I spent six hours up at A&E with my poor old mum. She’s fine, but she recently had an infected foot, and after a trip to the GP on Monday morning for a check-up, it was thought best she get it checked out at the hospital. Not really ideal when I was running on empty after those months of Digi Live prep, but we err on the side of caution!
Then yesterday, I learned that due to an accounting/budgeting error, the day job work I was relying on for the next couple of months has been taken away from me.
The show has cut two episodes from its run as they’ve gone over-budget, and mine – being relatively early in the process - is one of them. This is despite having already signed a contract and spent ten hours driving up to Newcastle and back the week before Digi Live…
It's yet another financial blow, but at this point I’m getting used to scraping by, and I’m more wearily annoyed than panicked. After recent years it feels a bit like I’d made the mistake of returning to an emotionally abusive ex-partner, who assured me they’d changed and still loved me, but who – after a few months of being lovely – slipped back to their old ways.
TV is just brutal. It’s why writers are striking in America – because they’re trying to avoid a situation that’s simply the norm in the UK. It’s deeply dysfunctional and chaotic, and you’d have to be mad to put all your eggs in that basket.
I have to say though, I did have a moment of wondering whether it was The Universe doing some karmic rebalancing after giving me such a special weekend…
KARMIC
Fortunately, I’ve still got Fiverr work waiting for me, and I’ve actually missed doing it in recent months. What it might also mean is that we have go back to thinking about how we earn a living.
We have this amazing Digi community, and we know you have our backs, so at the minute we’re not ruling anything out. That might (or might not) include a modest crowdfunder to make Found Footage 2. IF that happens – and it’s a big if right now - it won’t be until after Digi Level 2 is finished, and the rewards have been shipped.
Incidently, we’ve watched back our footage of the Digi Live Weekend, and it really is great. My favourite shows we’ve done by far.
We will be making them available to watch online, but – frankly – due to a combination of lower-than-hoped-for ticket sales, and the above work/income blow, we might (at least at first) need to put it behind some sort of paywall. I don’t like doing that, but needs must, and we have to be sensible. We’ll probably put one or more segments out for free on the main channel though, and make other bits and bobs available to Patrons.
Talking of such things… we’re really looking forward to getting back to regular Digi eps and BYAMPOD. We’ve been away far too long. Now that the live weekend is out of the way, we can finally get Digi Level 2 finished as well. The 30th anniversary year continues!
Lastly, if you’re a Biffo’s Brain Patron, we’ll be doing a Zoom tomorrow night to debrief on all things Digi Live. It’ll be good to catch up with you all. Link to follow.
Comments
Paul Rose (Mr Biffo)
It's probably now that we should be thinking about it!
Katie Rootham
Really sorry to hear about work, that's really crap of them to cancel the shows, hope you're all ok though, including your mum. I love Richard's idea of crimbo merch, some cards and some shiny Lemon Eyes baubles, they would go great, with the Marillion one's on my tree, think about the merch they do, Digi messender bag, Beanus beanie hat, that would be cool. 🎄😍 Anyway, don't let the bastards get you down, after such an awesome weekend, take care you two and can't wait to see the deleted bits from the weekend Xx 😘
Richard Lyth
Is it too early to start thinking about Christmas merch? I'd definitely buy a Digitiser calendar, and you could also put out diaries, Christmas cards, tree ornaments etc. (Don't know if you've tried that in previous years?)
