THE DIGITISER2000 FRIDAY LETTERS PAGE

It's over now. You can return to your normal lives. Mr Biffo's Found Footage has reached its climax, and there will be no more. At least for the time being...

Thanks to everyone who took the time to say something nice about it. It has made me realise that what's important isn't money or success, or getting the show seen by millions, but that the people who love it - however few of them there are - really, really love it. And that I do too. So, with that in mind, job done.

Over the next couple of months, I'm going to be developing what comes next, and then at some point in the first quarter of next year I'm going to pass around the begging bowl once again, and see if we can fund something bigger and better and even more ambitious, using everything I learned this time around. 

I might've written for years, but this was my first time directing, or doing anything remotely like this, so I feel ready to take it to the next level. Having so many of you on board has been one of the joys of doing this project.

​Speaking of begging bowls, if you want to help me out as I write over the coming months - and keep Digi going to something of a regular daily schedule - you can support me over at Patreon, or make a one-off donation via PayPal.

If you'd like to appear here, or you've something you'd like me to give some attention to in our occasional Plug Zone, please send your filthy emails early to this place here: digitiser2000@gmail.com

WOWZERS IN HIS TROUSERS
Wow! Just... Wow!

In 20 minutes not only did you give FF a satisfying yet ambiguous ending, you made me care about Molotov, and that's without mentioning the aesthetics which put the new multi million dollar Star Trek to shame.

It seems almost wrong to single anyone out, but Chris Jerden-Cooke's scoring was sublime (as were his songs throughout the whole series).

Mr B - well done sir!

My theory on the ending is that Molotov made it into our universe in 1993 (as on the tapes) and spent 10 years tracking down his daughter and setting up CERN LHC to prevent dimensional travel to our universe.

​Once he succeeded he decided to get rid of the video evidences as it was the only thing that could reopen the portal. As long as no one ever finds the footage and puts it on the internet we'll be fine...

Not to worry, if Brannigan 7 ever invades... We Rise!
Grae

Thanks for singling out Chris J-C's score. As far as I'm concerned, he has been as an important part of FF as I have. And cheers for the rest of the nice words, Grae. Means a lot to me.

If current plans continue in the direction they're heading, your theories might yet be addressed...

GLYN'S GLEANING
1. Is there any significance to the present order of episodes in the FF playlist? I note that it's now The Awakening, Christmas Special and then Pilot.

2. Was the tape that Andy's character (Molotov?) put inside his armour one of the FF tapes or is it now canon that there has only ever been one tape?  Or was it a separate tape entirely and if so what was it?

3. How does the finale fit in with the in-universe concept of what we're seeing having come from tapes bought at a carboot sale?  Is the finale a direct, clear broadcast from Xenoxxxverse to ours?

4. Is there more than one Mr Biffo?

5. Is Mr Biffo's Found Footage also a show within Xenoxxxverse? Thus explaining why the intro is on each episode and why it is we get Xenoxxx overlaid "Signal Interference" in Manorak.  

6. Is the Future Kids section of Biffovision actual time travel or a Xenoxxx projection of what the future will be like?  I quite like the idea of "Yeah it'll be pretty terrible, but still: Funtron 9 will be out!".
Glyn Heaviside

Bloody hell, Glyn! I'm not going to give anything too major away, but...

1. Nope. Hadn't even noticed they'd changed position.

2. Doesn't need explaining, but good spot...! Again, you might get your answer next year.

3. In all honesty... it doesn't really. Consider the preceding episodes to be the longest pre-credits sequence in history.

4. Well... it's a big multiverse...

5. Nope! "Mr Biffo" put the title sequence together for the purposes of showcasing the footage.

6. It's probably another one of those weird songs that are on the tapes...

BUM HOLE
Now that Found Footage is over, there's a bum-shaped hole in my Sunday evenings. Callously ignoring your needs, and those of your family living in a crumbling prop-stuffed house, you must do more at my behest. MORE.

Please, the Digitiser 2018 Calender. Go for a Found Footage theme, then you can re-use screen grabs and behind-the-scenes photos, rather than fuss with fresh Teletext funnies.

If you're feeling really kind, or want to charge more, throw in some Xenoxxx stickers. Or a perforated sheet of The Man's Daddy's cracker jokes.
David Walford

We've left it a bit late to do the calendar, due to being quite, quite busy. Which is a shame, as the Digi 2017 calendar was my favourite bit of merch we've ever done.

Also, we'd need to pay to have them manufactured up front - and, frankly, I'm broke. Same reason we've not done Found Footage t-shirts, which is also a shame. I know there's always the possibility of pre-ordering, but that is always a bit of a faff. 

One of the goals for whatever we put together next year is to avoid spending quite as much of my own money, and enlisting somebody who can help us budget properly before we get started...

WRITE OFF
Loved the finale, and the write up on Monday. I'm going to miss the Monday write ups just as much as the episodes, I think.

Regarding the "hero bum", in the fiction of the show, do all the bums have the ability to bare their teeth like that? I know the actual physical props didn't.

What does Lord Brannigan-7 really look like, assuming that's a mask and a chest plate that he's wearing? And the hospital workers under their masks for that matter? Does Xenoxxx (and its workers) come from another dimension? I admit I got lost on this point.

Much love,
John Veness

I think, yes, all the bums can bare their teeth like that. You would've seen more of the teeth in the Finale if we'd had - yes - more time.

Lord Brannigan-7 did originally appear in the Finale, in the first draft. And he was to feature more in the series... but then I decided I liked him being a bit more distant - like The Emperor in the first couple of Star Wars films. I can confirm, however, that it is indeed a mask...

Those - including your good self - who paid for a Finale script on Indiegogo will get an early version of the script so you can compare it with the finale version.

ACE IN THE BUMHOLE
The Trojan Arse Protocol was ace. Barry Norman gave it 5/7.

When the poseable arses and other figures are released by Kenner® should I open my purchases or shove them up the attic for about forty years?

Your humble servant,
Jabberwoc

Pfffft! Never, ever, keep your toys in their packaging. They're toys, for pity's sake! They're meant to be taken out and played with and lovingly fondled.

8 STEPS PROCESS
​I have important questions:

1 - Who is your favourite member of the pop group "Steps"?
2 - What is your favourite "Steps" song?
3 - Which member of "Steps" would you like to go to Legoland with?
4 - If you could touch a member of "Steps" on the knee, which member would you chose?
5 - If you had to be trapped in a room, say your attic, with a member of Steps for 3 weeks, which member would you choose?
6 - Which member of "Steps" would you like to face in a fight to the death?
7 - Would you like to see my signed poster of Lisa from "Steps"?
8 - Classified.
Chinny Hill

Yeah, ta for that, Chinny. Hey - if you want a calendar, Chinnyhill is doing one. Details here.

100% PROOF
Really enjoyed seeing Found Footage take shape and develop into something extraordinary, and I’m very proud to have played a small part in helping you create a 100% proof Paul Rose production.

Across the series and the finale there’s so much variety and it’s never failed to surprise, delight and amuse. It’s been fantastic; bloody well done, mate!

As a backer, I’ve also really enjoyed getting the insightful updates and sneak previews - you made me feel special, appreciated and beautiful.

I started reading Digi2000 as an old fan but after going on this journey and witnessing first hand your generosity, inclusiveness and getting a sense of what a wonderful human being you are - I’m a new made fan! 

The Trojan Arse Protocol is incredible, but at the same time it feels disconnected (intentionally different, I know) from the main series. For what it’s worth, I think FF would make a great mini series (2/3 episodes) and that by incorporating the finale into the main episodes you’d end up with something more dynamic and ‘easier’.

I backed this show with a sense of owing you one for all the times you made me laugh and I got a great return on my investment.
DEAN

Cheers, Dean. Don't know about being a wonderful human being, but I'll take the rest of it! The inclusiveness was as much for me as anything. I like the feeling that there was a community around Found Footage, and that we were all pulling together to make it happen. I couldn't have done it without the support of so many of you.

Yeah, the Finale is jarring... but I guess that was slightly the intention. It's in keeping with the series in that a lot of the sketches are about juxtaposing two things that don't usually go together. Such as, for example, putting something as puerile as farting bum-monsters in something which otherwise appears to be quite a high-end sci-fi movie. We had to nail it as a quality production in order to make the one joke work.

So, yes, juxtaposition was my intention - though incorporating it into the series more would be difficult, as I don't know if we have enough material to spread it throughout. I like that it's just a little, almost standalone, bonus thing at the end.

GAMING MILL'S LETTER
It's just dawned on me that I used to know a lot people that are now dead - oh, I didn't kill them or anything. There's my dad, all four of my grandparents and several lovers. Honestly, nothing to do with me (especially the lovers).

That being said, I was playing Space Invaders via emulation earlier - it is pretty shite which made me think of dead people.

I am not fit and strong and that is all.
Gaming Mill.

Well... yeah... thanks for that cheery note, Gaming Mill.

NUGGET OF TRUTH
Is a goujon just a chicken nugget gone wrong? 
Mikey

PS. Please don't mention this to Goujon John as I am legitimately terrified of him and his high-pressure goujon sale techniques. 

Goujons and chicken nuggets are entirely different things. Never make this error again.

NOT GOT AROUND TO IT
Not got around to watching the last couple of FFs, quite busy with some diy in the bathroom, I went on to YouTube but got distracted by a game review of Shadow of Mordor, then a thing on Disney re-writing history, then I watched some videos on draining a central heating system, couldn’t find a video for combi boilers only pressurised or gravity led systems, hopefully because combi boilers are easier, still I’ll find out this weekend when I try & reroute the radiator pipes.
Barry

Evidently, having so much Found Footage has been a lot for people to consume. Part of me wonders whether it would've been better to have staggered the release a bit more across the year, or whether I should've edited them down to ten minutes each.

Though another part of me thinks that would've been making concessions to the audience, when I was trying to make something that sort of took on a life of its own. If that makes sense.

WRESTLEMANIAC
I don’t know what a Trojan Arse special is but on Nov 4th Kat Von Kaige is gonna feel the sting in the ring when Pablo with Caramita lay the smack down on her admittedly rather nice buttocks region.
Alastair Foster

Sexist.

ANOTHER ACE IN THE BUMHOLE
Now that it's all done and dusted, what do Pete Ace and the other actors think of this project you pulled them into?

How did you go about getting those amazing tunnels?! Was there a lot of bureaucratic nonsense involved?
Kris Carter

Pete Ace (Goujon John) has seen the series - though I'm not sure about the finale yet. He didn't say anything to me directly, but did refer to me as a "creative genius" in a review. I've not shown it to any of the other Fiverr actors other than one of the voice-over guys (Seaman Shane, Twelveish Presleys - and others, and he loves it).

The Tunnels were really easy to get, though not so easy to find. I approached a ton of different places - we were at one point close to filming at an indoor paintball centre in South London - some of which got back to me, some of which didn't, and some of which needed a lot of paperwork doing (because they were owned by the Ministry of Defence). 

I kept returning to Drakelow Tunnels online though, and they seemed the most perfect for what we needed. They weren't the cheapest option - and over-running every day added a ton of extra expense - but all we had to do was turn up and pay. 

There were issues with the damp and lack of power points, but I think the end results speak for themselves. The good thing is that if we do more filming next year then I've already scoped out a bunch of locations.

BLOWING MY TRUMPET 
I'm sure lots of people will be praising you with trumpets this week, and I'll add my voice to the congregation thus: Found Footage was a compelling work. Well done.

I would have said this sooner, but I've binge watched it over the past couple of weeks as I've actually found moments when I wasn't working. In retrospect, I've been through a lot of the discussions on the Brannigans Vortex FB group. This made it clear I hadn't been watching as closely as some others. (Hello, Glyn).
 
A few thoughts on FF and TTAP (in the style of a very short clickbait listicle):

1: I thought Brannigan's Vortex was going to be revealed as a portal to an afterlife or previous existence.
2: I'm a bit upset that Kenny and Yuri Masters don't appear to have got their own series yet. I mean, come on, that demo reel was better than most things on E4.
3: Being a naughty sausage, I downloaded FF and TTAP from the internet in a mildly clandestine manner to watch at home on my CRT TV. I found FF to have a lot more menace when not on a computer where popups for "MyHungryGrandad" would keep coming up. Perhaps because of this viewing method, some of the dialogue from TTAP was a bit muffled with all the other effects and background going on.
4: I'm still not sure what I make of TTAP. I found the first few minutes of explanation quite overwhelming and had to watch it a few times before I took it all in. I don't know quite what I expected, but (particularly with the ending) it felt like a precursor. When it finished, I was quite surprised that nobody came to sell me ice-cream before the main feature began.
 
I hope the above is constructive enough for you to not hurl rocks at me again. I genuinely admire your creativity and look forward to whatever you do next, after you've had a rest.
Jopijedd off of the Twatter.

The sound on the Trojan Arse Protocol was a pain to get right, and YouTube compressed it further frustratingly. Some of the dialogue is deliberately muffled - or meant to be a bit subliminal (I can think of at least two instances where I purposely buried it in the mix). If some of the rest isn't up to muster, that's down to my limited skills, and not being able to afford a professional.
​
I'm intrigued that a lot of people seem to be saying that they were confused by TTAP, given that I thought it was easily the most accessible bit of Found Footage. Maybe it was that juxtaposition again...

QUALITY PRODUCTION
1. I was impressed by the scale, production quality and coherence of the FF Finale. While I enjoyed it greatly it was completely different in style and tone from the main FF series. Was it always your intention to end it that way or did the idea ferment during the process?

2. Other than having a larger budget and anything that is directly related to that, what would you have done differently with the finale? 

3. Often when people claim an old game is better than a new one, especially in its own series, it is due to nostalgia. I contend however that by any measure, Civilisation 4 is the best of the series. Are there any old games that for you are genuinely better than a later version and you still play now?
​John Whyte

I always had the intention to do something in FF that was sort of post-apocalyptic, and felt a bit more high-end, but it was going to be a "movie" that would drop in and out across the episodes, and not necessarily connected to the overall series narrative. 

I think as I went on, I really wanted to do something that was an antidote to the glitchy stuff - in all honesty, I wanted to prove - mostly to myself - that I was capable of making something that didn't look rubbish. 

2. Hmm. Well, yes. Sort of. All of it has to do with the pre-planning. I might've written a simpler story - as I've stated previously, we had to drop a lot of the script for time, and then reconstruct it afterwards in a way that still made sense. So, a simpler script that was easier to film in two days. I also would've liked a third shooting day, but that would've put me further in debt.

It also probably wasn't sensible to try to make such an ambitious short film while simultaneously putting together a six-part comedy series...

3. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is that I prefer Halo 2 to the later ones.

MR TOAD'S WILD RIDE
So that was Found Footage, then. What a wild ride through the bum-fac(et)ed hinterland of your psyche it was. I thought I'd wait until the end of the run before writing, because, frankly, any letters I sent you about it would pretty much be raging fawn-fests praising FF's gloriousness.

And nobody needs to see that every week. I'm sure we can all stomach one at the end of the series, though.

First of all, massive bloody great congratulations to you. What a gargantuan achievement FF, and especially the Finale, have turned out to be. Whether you can fully appreciate it in this moment, still so close to it, I don't know - maybe it'll sink in as time passes. But you should be proud - it's a really special thing you've made, and each episode has been the absolute highlight of my week.

Put the magnanimous 'we did this together' notions to one side for a moment. That may be true in certain ways, and it's great that you felt a camaraderie, but never forget how you birthed this beast from nothing - and now it lives, fully formed and fecund, with its own continuity and universe(s). That's no small thing, and you should allow yourself a moment to bask in it.

Found Footage will have a life beyond all of us who witnessed its emergence, and it'll grow in surprising and fascinating ways from here on out. Who knows what it will lead to and influence in years to come?

Each episode was more engrossing than the last, and I completely lost myself in the Finale. It did more in 15 minutes than many blockbusters manage in 2+ hours, and you weren't exaggerating when you talked about how good it looks. Every ounce of effort spent in those tunnels wound up on screen - and the detail in the sets was astonishing. I'm so happy that you got to revel in that creativity and really indulge yourself in such a rewarding way. You can tell how much you were enjoying it.

Also, the Vortex opening and the giant bum coming out is about as iconic a moment as you can get - it'll undoubtedly be one of my abiding memories of the series!

And as for memories - you've given us some genius ones. The Wozniak Song still gets stuck in my head at random intervals, and every time I do a tea round at work I picture myself as the Tea Prancer.

Also, while I mention work, I have tried to get my colleagues to watch, and I thought I might have a convert at one point, but it's been a tough nut to crack. I guess you've found the same.

But no matter. We were here when Found Footage happened - in all its inspired, majestic lunacy.

Whatever your next project ends up being, I am absolutely on board in any way I can be of service, and should the Goujon Army need to be mobilised once again, I know we'll come through for you.

Hail Found Footage. Hail Biffo.
Chris

Ah, man. Thank you. really, really means a lot.

NAH-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NAH-NA-BATSMAN!
​So Found Footage had nothing to do with former West Indies wicketkeeper/batsman Jeff “Goujon” Dujon. Seems moderately surprising.
 
Are you going to do a review of Gran Turismo Sport? I only buy games based on your reviews.
Chris Dyson

No plans to review Gran Turismo sport, mainly because I always found those games so damn dry, and there are loads of games coming out that I'd much rather spend time with. 

LOVELY
​Massively hearty congratulations to your good self, Mr B, for the utterly lovely splendidness that is The Trojan Arse Protocol – and a whopping great "Hurrah!" to the assorted nifty folks who helped to make it happen. You couldn't have concluded the series in a more stylish and satisfying fashion, and I suspect I speak for everyone when I say this: "Encore! Encore!"

The stars of the show all did a magnificent job – seeing Violet and Andy together again on screen was a delightfully geeky treat, and despite the short time we were in their company, the central trio really made us care for their put-upon characters.

Visually, the whole thing is stunning – even with just two days to get everything in the can, the location footage all looks beautiful, and AJ Jefferies' CGI is the sumptuous icing on the super-tasty cake. The bit where the vortex opens above Xenoxxx HQ is spectacular, and deserves to be shown on an IMAX screen to a breathless audience.

Chris Jerden-Cooke's soundtrack, meanwhile, is something extra-special, and elevates the production to a level I hadn't anticipated. I went into the finale fully expecting to enjoy it, but as the credits rolled I actually found myself getting a wee bit teary, which is largely down to the emotive wistful-hopeful ending theme (in conjunction with Andy Wear's impressively touching final moments).

​I was genuinely sad to see it all end, but simultaneously cheered by the note of optimism that brings the story to a close, and I've since replayed the credits several times just to enjoy the music again. Brilliant stuff.

I'm keenly looking forward to the Found Footage DVD, with all its behind-the-scenes extras. One quick question: Who was it that played Lord Brannigan-7, with his...erm...highly distinctive features?

Many, many happy thanks for taking us on such a fun ride, Mr B. It's been a blast, and I shall be excited to discover what your next project turns out to be!
Matt Smith

Lord Brannigan-7 was, alas, played by me. On the day I first donned the costume, I hadn't warned everyone else... and my step-daughter was horrified when she first saw me, as she thought I was running around in the nuddy.

Anyhow... anything I do next year, I'm hoping both AJ and Chris J-C will be coming back to once again lend their spectacular talents. One of the big joys of FF has been getting to work with such talented people, and showing them off to a new audience.

AJ and Chris are also putting together some special stuff for your ears and eyes which will give a further glimpse into the creative process.