PECHA KUCHA NIGHT WINNIPEG

Courtesy of Luc Desjardins, At First Sight, www.at-first-sight.caLast Thursday, we went to a very interesting event called PechaKucha Night, put on by the Manitoba chapter of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (another GDC acronym confusing our world). It was a fascinating evening that featured speakers from different creative backgrounds to talk about their craft. 

One of the game developers that we plan on featuring in the documentary, Alec Holowka of Infinite Ammo, was giving a talk. We decided to bring along some cameras and take a little video.

Note: This is not a part of 'Indie Game: The Movie', simply a nice short talk that you might be interested in.

PechaKucha is a night that's celebrated around the world. (As the site explains, the name comes from Japanese term for the sound of “chit chat”.) All PechaKucha presentations are delivered in a unique way - 20 slides every 20 seconds for each speaker - keeping things moving and interesting.

It was a particulary fitting that we attended PechaKucha on that specific night, because a few hours beforehand we reached our funding goal for IGTM. It was wonderful to celebrate with local Winnipeg creative folks! And, of course, Alec - the dude that partly inspired this whole thing. Full-circle.

MAKING SUPER MEAT BOY

Some of you may have noticed a second video in the IGTM collection, 'Making Super Meat Boy'. This little piece features Edmund McMillen's super talented wife, Danielle. She's the creator behind the Meat Boy (and Bandage Girl) plushies. (You can see more of her amazing work on her blog - http://danielleorama.blogspot.com/.)

When we shot this sequence, we weren't exactly sure where it would go or how it would fit.  We did know that we really liked the idea of watching a tangible Meat Boy get made from scratch.  We thought this spoke, in a very visual and beautiful way,  to a few things about Team Meat and Indie Development.

Obviously, there is a lot of skill, time, creativity, concentration and, above all, love going into Danielle's creation.  In watching Tommy and Edmund work, you can't help but see the exact same combination of all of those elements.  

After talking with the guys, it became abundantly clear that Super Meat Boy is much more than a fun, joke-laden, platformer to those guys - there is some huge emotional investment in the project.

Another thing that we thought was just lovely beyond words, was the simple fact that Danielle was making a plushie Meatboy (which helps support SMB development) eight feet away from her husband, who was working hard on the digital one.  The scene painted just such a clear picture of the important role family & friends play in creative development.  Everyone needs support in one form or another.  And this was a brilliant example of that.

...of course, this is all after-the-fact justification.  At the time that we shot, we just knew it would look cool and had a hunch that'd it be useful :)

So we began cutting together the piece as a thank you to Danielle for all our their hospitality, but then as we were cutting, we quickly realized that we were looking at something a little more than a stuffed toy being made.  And it became a nice, little, visual poem that we thought would be fun to share.

To top it all off - Danielle was nice enough to give us that Meat Boy in the video! Here's the little guy in his new home here in Winnipeg. 

Indie Game: The Movie on TIGRadio

Hey all, 

It looks like we're going to be on TIGRadio this Sunday night talking about IGTM.  Should be a fun time.  Hopefully we can shed a little more light on the project and maybe answer some questions that might be out there.

If there is anything in specific you'd like us to answer or address, feel free to post in the comment section and we'll try to mention it.

Talk to you Sunday!

Update on Sunday, May 23, 2010 at 9:47PM by J + L

Tig Radio came & went.  Big thanks to Tommy, Ben & Matthew for having us on! 

Hopefully, we gave a little more insight to what we're planning.  But, if you have any big questions that need answering, drop us a line either by email or in the comments section, and we'll do our best to answer 'em.

Missed the broadcast?  Check it out below.  And of course, tune in next week for a TigJam Winnipeg broadcast here.

Thanks again!

More Generosity...

A stranger just gave us $9,000.

Giant thanks to Ken Schachter of Trapdoor http://www.trapdoorinc.com/!

He pledged $5,500 about 2 hours ago, helping us reach our goal of $15,000. Then, now he has decided he wants to offer more, no strings attached.

Big thanks to Ken and his belief in our project! It means so much to us.

Whoa.

Lisanne & James

You All Just Made a Movie Happen!

Wow.  Indie Game:  The Movie is an official go!  We are making the movie.

What an insane 48 hours!  The indie community is a strong, powerful thing.  We are in shock, but not surprised (if that makes any sense).  We knew that if the community wanted to see this film made and liked where we were taking it, they would respond.

...but reaching our goal in 48 hours?

Did not expect that.   At all.

From the bottoms of our hearts, thank you so much!  This is going to be a great film, a great experience, and hopefully something very worthy of all your generosity & support shown to date.

Sooooo.....  Where to now?

This means we have enough funds to travel to the places we intended to travel to.  Our goal of $ 15,000 was always meant to get us out the door and indeed ‘Kickstart’ this project.

This $ 15,000 is going to allow us to drive across North America and gather the footage we need to gather.  It is our plan to pair the money with personal investment and other potential sources.

At this time, we have sixty-some days to go in fundraising on Kickstarter (we honestly it would take much longer to get to this point).  We have met our goal and that is so so great.  But, exceeding the goal means, with every dollar, the film will get THAT much better.

Naturally, $ 15,000 is a modest budget for a feature film project - one that, of course, we have plans to add to via other sources.

But with every donation or DVD pre-ordered through Kickstarter, our film gets stronger, our argument to further funding sources gets stronger and this project continues to grow.

So, to every one considering pre-ordering a DVD, T-Shirt or just donating, rest assured that your money is going towards making this film better.

And to everyone who has donated: 

THIS FILM IS HAPPENING BECAUSE OF YOU!

Sincerely, with much much gratitude,

James & Lisanne

(James is writing because Lisanne is crying in a corner ... in a good way:)