Special Feature: Team Meat Audio Commentary

Here's a fun little extra that is in the works...

We are super happy to announce that Edmund and Tommy (Team Meat) will be doing a bonus audio commentary track for the film.  We're super excited to have this happen.  If you've ever listened to Tommy & Edmund on various podcast, interviews, etc.  you already know that they can be quite entertaining.  

However, that aside, the film will definitely have moments that beg for a bit of 'follow up' from the subjects.  Hopefully, this will provide a bit of that.  To that end, we'll definitely be after others in the film to do the same, but this is something that Edmund & Tommy volunteered to do - so we thought it's enough of a lock to announce.

Should be good...

Special Edition: Alec Holowka & Derek Yu

Hey everybody, we're continuing to bring you a glimpse into the Indie Game: The Movie Special Edition.

The Special Edition will include the feature film, as well as stories from many other game developers, including Alec Holowka and Derek Yu, the team behind the Seamus McNally award winner, Aquaria.

In the SE, Alec and Derek speak honestly about the challenges of creating a game and discovering its strengths as you go. It's an inspirational story about the creative process and collaboration.

We also hear from Alec's journey to make his new game, Marian. And, we talk to Derek about his upcoming XBLA title, Spelunky.

At one point, nearly every piece that will be included with the Special Edition was marked as being in the main film.  This piece in particular was really hard not to include.  Basically, it came down to what is the eternal bane of many filmmakers - time and pacing.  This story needed breathing room to do it justice, and the film needed to be markedly shorter and more quickly paced.  It's cuts like this that make us so thankful that we decided to go all out on the S.E.  It'll be a very good piece :)

You can Preorder the Special Edition via PayPal or our (soon-to-be-ending) Kickstarter.

 

Special Edition: Jason Rohrer

Another Segment that will appear in Special Edition version of Indie Game: The Movie...

We went down to Las Cruces, New Mexico to film with game designer and programmer, Jason Rohrer (Passage, Sleep is Death, Inside a Star-filled Sky) and his family. He talks about the origins of his games, his game design process and his take on story-telling in games.

On a related note, here's a fascinating story about Jason's latest creation - it's not in the film, but damn, we wish it were :)

You can Preorder the Special Edition via PayPal or our (soon-to-be-ending) Kickstarter.

Special Edition: David Hellman & The Art of Braid

Another preview of the Indie Game: The Movie Special Edition...

We filmed with the creator of Braid, Jonathan Blow, as well as the artist, David Hellman. In the Special Edition, David gives us a more detailed look at the art of Braid. We take look at his process, from concept to completion, and get insight into the thought and themes in Braid.

If you want a vibe for the kind of stuff we'll be talking about.  Check out David's fascinating posts about the creative process behind Braid's Art.

You can Preorder the Special Edition via PayPal or our (soon-to-be-ending) Kickstarter.

Hanging Controllers; Looming Questions

"So...what’s up with the SNES controller?  They know that’s not indie right?"

When videos from the film get posted elsewhere on the Internet, invariably the comment thread gravitates towards the fact that we prominently feature a Super Nintendo Controller, hanging from power lines and twisting in the wind (people also seem enamoured by the display of varying facial hair, but that’s a different post :) 

We thought we take a moment to tell the story of how a dangling SNES controller kinda accidentally became the defacto image for the film.

Back Story

Early in 2010, in our hometown of Winnipeg, we were walking down a backalley shortcut to grab breakfast.  In the alley, we came across a couple of hanging Nintendo controllers, thrown up on power lines in the manner of old sneakers.  We immediately recognized it as a rather unique and striking image.

In our heads we imagined a scenario of bored 11 year old creating a kind of accidental 8-bit (or in this case 16) graffiti/public art.  It could easily been a set of 20 somethings on their way to the beer vendor.  But in our mind, it was something a little more magical.

Around this time, we were strongly considering, but hadn’t made a decision, doing Indie Game: The Movie.  But, we were close enough to almost doing it that I came back later that day and filmed some B-roll of the hanging controllers just in case it might be useful in some way.

Fast forward a couple months, and we're editing together our first ‘proof of concept video’ (Edmund’s Aether video).  We needed some nice visuals to open the piece with, and we needed to be able to place a bit of a text-based preamble on.  The hanging SNES controller fit the bill perfectly.

At the time, it was actually doubly appropriate. In an earlier iteration of the video, Edmund discusses how he was a SNES fanboy growing up.  So, the nostalgic imagery of sneaker-like hanging discarded controller was unbelievable spot on.  In the end, that section of the video was cut, but we still enjoyed the imagery and what it could mean in the context of a film about independent games.

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