A Not-So-Brief Sundance Debrief
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 4:36PM 
Hey Everyone, we’re due for a bit of an IGTM update.
Disclaimer: The post below is a bit of a solid wall of good news. It's a bit silly. We want to share, but we also acknowledge that it's a crazy amount of good stuff and can come off as a bit much. There's also been equal amounts of struggle, stress and sleeplessness, but that'll be another post. We're pretty damn proud of this little film and feel like sharing the positive, so here we go....
Lisanne and I were talking the other day and realized that, at some point, our lives crossed some line somewhere and started resembling a fever dream of sort. Like, if you were to talk to versions of ourselves twelve months ago and described what is currently going on with the film - Sundance, HBO, the overall reception - it would have sounded like the ramblings of a crazy, delirious person. We wouldn’t have believed you. Not at all. But here we are about to write a post talking about those exact things. The last month has truly been insane.
We have been exceptionally fortunate with the way the film has been received to date. We couldn’t be happier with how things are going. People are connecting and identifying with IGTM in ways that we always hoped and dreamed they would.
They’re seeing IGTM not just as a film about creating video games, but as a film about creating anything. The process of pouring everything you have into something and putting it out into the world and seeing what happens.
The film is really connecting.
Thank you for making it happen and thank you for your continued support. The film has had a near-embarrassing whack-load of good fortune the past little while. And rather than write about each piece individually, we thought it best to share the bullet points and you can check out whatever you might find interesting...
- On Jan 20th, 2012 - We publicly premiered the film. It was a surreal, exceptionally strange experience, that we’ll have to write about more later. Here was our first review.
- As Sundance went on, more and more reviews came in - ALL saying really nice things about the film. We’ve collected all the reviews here. Here’s a collection of our favorites: IndieWire, AICN, Jeff Dixon and Turnstyle.
- The film was optioned for the basis of a fictional HBO series by Scott Rudin - the producing force behind ‘The Social Network’, ‘Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’, ‘Moneyball’ and nearly everything Wes Anderson. (Note: The resulting series is not slated as a sitcom). As if Sundance wasn’t enough, this is where we firmly fell into ‘fever dream’ territory. We couldn’t be more excited to work with Mr. Rudin, his team and HBO on the project.
- We knew that Sundance was going to be busy, but we really had no idea what a marathon of film exhibition, promotion and business it was going to be. Every minute of our 10 day experience was scheduled. Filled with interviews, meetings, showings, panel discussions, and the not-so-occasional party. We did a ton of interviews talking about the film. Including CBC’s Q (a dream for us!), Turnstyle/Huffington Post and the Film Stage. A full list of various media chats can be found here.
- Pixar directors Brad Bird (The Incredibles, MI4) and Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 2&3) called Indie Game: The Movie one of their favorites of the festival!
- Kevin Smith gave us a shout out in a blog post talking about his innovative approach to film distribution. He words in this post, and prior, speak very loudly to us and help form our eventual distribution plan for IGTM.
- As a teen, I read a lot of entertainment/filmmaker magazines. Not the gossip rags, but the ones that had actual articles & the like. The Feb/Mar issues of these magazines always offered a peek into the seemingly strange otherworld that was Sundance. On Sundance day 6, one of these magazines that I adored as a kid (sounds silly, but true), Entertainment Weekly, snapped our pic :) Weird. 15 year old James is beside himself.
- Indie Game: The Movie was announced as an official selection of the South by Southwest Film Festival. We can not wait.
- On January 28th, Indie Game: The Movie won the World Documentary Best Editing award at the 2012 Sundance Award Ceremony. Editing within documentary is a pretty powerful, pretty important aspect - likely even moreso than other genres. It was by far the most challenging aspect of the process. We could not be happier and more honoured to win the award. We had done such a good job convincing ourselves that we weren’t going to win anything, that the award was absolutely pure shock.
- To cap the Sundance experience off, the film landed on multiple ‘Best of Sundance’ lists: Check it out here, here, here and here.
- We recently announced three Sneak Peek shows: Winnipeg, San Francisco (GDC conference) and a Hometown preview with Team Meat in Santa Cruz. More dates will be coming soon.
A Distribution Update: At some point, we’d like to write extensively about the Sundance experience from an independent filmmaker business standpoint, we think there is a lot of interesting stuff to share. Stuff that’ll certainly benefit other filmmakers, but also could help independent game developers as well. But that’ll have to happen later.
What we can say is that we had A LOT of meetings at Sundance, and we received a lot of interest in the film. Of the potential offers, all were flattering, some were good and some were horrible but there wasn’t anything that jumped out as being a great fit for this film. The process isn’t over and we’re still considering certain things and looking for partners that fit and make sense.
We’re new to this high-stakes world of distribution and have made a film in a firmly independent way - not because we have anything against the industry, establishment or ‘the Man’. But rather, everything that we did, we did because it we could acheive ourselves as a small team of two, it made sense for the film, our process and the spirit of the project. We’re attempting to follow those same instincts with the film’s distribution. It’s served the project well so far...
But, here’s what we can tell you in broad strokes of the film’s distribution. Please keep in mind that things are changing & evolving daily, and that everything is subject to change. Here’s the basics. The film will be going on a festival / screening tour (mostly in North America). After the screening period, we’ll be looking to release the film digitally, in an organized manner, as soon as we can. The digital release will then be followed by the DVD release, which will then be followed by the eventual Special Edition release (we are still shooting material for this).
All preorder people will receive access to the film on Day 1 of digital release. In other words, if you are a Special Edition preorder person, you don’t have to wait until S.E. release to see the film. That would be rather unfair and not make any sense. We try to be fair and make sense as much as possible :)
Well, this has been a fairly info-heavy, long post. This feels like a good place to wrap it up. Thank you again for your support and for helping make this happen. If you have any questions, shoot us a comment, email, tweet and we’ll try and answer as best/as soon as we can.
Take Care,
James (& Lisanne)
Reader Comments (7)
Any preliminary dates for the release of digital version? As in, Spring, Summer, this year?..
We're holding off making any estimates just yet until we are very very sure.
Right now, things are still moving around quite a bit and the thing we definitely want to avoid more than anything is setting expectations and then having to change dates. I know it's a bit frustrating not to have any date, but we are working to make it happen as quickly as (reasonably) possible.
Once we have the date set, we'll definitely be letting everyone know.
Sorry I don't have any more detailed info, - but thanks for writing in!
-James
Thanks for the reply :).
Can't wait!
Glad Sundance went so phenomenally for you guys, I'm sure deserve all of it!
If you're screening tour brings you over to the UK (I already sent you screening request for the BFI) and you guys need any help from somebody over here I'd be happy to lend a hand (I'll fetch coffee or do anything!) to make it happen.
Good luck with the tour.
Nik
Hi :)
I have a question about preorders : I pre-ordered the digital copy but now I'm really interested in the Special edition, is there a way to upgrade my order ?
Thanks, and - you must hear that a lot- I can't wait to see the movie ! :)
@Striki
First up: Thanks so much for the preorder!
Secondly, yes. we can (happily) upgrade you to the Special Edition. We've been finding the easiest way to do this is to have you submit the cost difference (in this case: $69.99+6.99 - 14.99 = 61.99) via the 'Donate' button in the indiegamethemovie.com/shop section.
The donate button is at the very bottom of the page. Please include your original order number and let us know you want to upgrade in the notes. Once we receive the upgrade, we will make the changes on our end and send you a confirmation notice.
It's a bit cumbersome, but we're finding that the simplest way for us to do it :/
Thanks again for the support - and thanks so much for the interest in the S.E.
We'll be working to make it work every penny!
Take Care,
James
Congratulations guys!
I'm very happy to hear that Sundance went very well for you guys! It also makes the small support I gave through Kickstarter all the more worthwhile :)
I think after this, you should make a documentary about the making of indie documentaries - called Indie Game: The Movie: The Movie. :P
But seriously, great work , and I hope both IGTM and your future films can see even more success!