Special Edition Preview: ThatGameCompany

More on the Indie Game: The Movie Special Edition...

We spent some time in the Santa Monica offices of That Game Company. We spoke to Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago.  They shared their philosophy on gamemaking and the stories behind the making on their award-winning titles, (yep, that's a BAFTA award below in their studio), Flow, Flower and the upcoming, Journey.

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

Special Edition: Steph Thirion

Over the next few days, we're going to give you a glimpse into what we have in store for the Indie Game: The Movie Special Edition.

Like we've mentioned already, when filming Indie Game: The Movie we shot A LOT of content - 300 hours worth. We basically ended up gathering enough content for distinct two films - a dramatic doc following the making & releasing of games (which is the 94 min feature film) and a discussion doc on making games & game design.  There is a meaty blog post on the Why and How of the film's evolution coming one day soon, I'm sure....but not today.  Today is Special Edition talk.

The Special Edition will include the feature film, as well as new content, including stories behind other notable indie games, and discussions about games and game design. The stories in the Special Edition will be told individually and thoroughly, with the same polish and motion graphic treatment of the feature film.

Here's a sneak peek;

In one Special Edition segement, we feature Steph Thirion, an award-winning French/Portuguese game designer, programmer, musician and artist, now based in San Francisco, CA. Steph talks about his career change to be become a game maker, and he shares the story behind his iPhone and iPad game, Eliss - the inspiration, the process and the challenges.

Official Trailer Release & New Campaign

NOTE:  UPDATED BELOW

Hey Everybody!  Big day today.  Today, we are very proud to debut of the OFFICIAL trailer for Indie Game: The Movie.

Indie Game: The Movie - The Official Trailer

We hope you like it.  We hope it entertains, inspires and maybe even surprises a little bit.  We’ve kept pretty quiet on the specifics of what is and isn’t in the movie.  This is not part of master secretive marketing plan, we can assure you.  It is simply due to the fact that this film has been a moving target for us.  Actually scratch that, it’s been an evolving target.  We talked a bit about the process to get us to the film you see preview above in this post. 

 Which naturally brings us to announcement number two...

Join Us In Finishing the Movie:

We have started a new Kickstarter campaign in order to help properly finish the film.  Currently, we're done filming and have a very solid rough cut (actually 3 full iterations).  The finish line is wonderfully close and we're on target to have IGTM complete in mid-August.

So far, we’ve done everything ourselves on this project. The producing, directing, cinematography, editing, and writing for the feature film and all the web videos we’ve made during the process. But, now we need some help from others and support to get the feature film done right and taken to the next level, technically-speaking.

We're looking for help with the finishing costs of the feature film (audio, colour, and mastering) in order to make this movie the best possible version of itself.

To date, this project has been solely funded by the original Kickstarter campaign, website pre-orders and personal savings (often ill-advised in the film world :)   

If you like what you see in the trailer and on the website, please consider pre-ordering your copy today either through Kickstarter or this website (left hand column). These pre-orders are really help us make the film better.

And, if you’ve already supported us - thank you so much. The support of the community has helped with funds, but also creatively. It feels so good to know that people appreciate your work - which is a core element of the film as well.

Please pass on the trailer and tell your friends about the project. We hope to get a lot of people to see this film, hear these stories and learn more about indie games. Many thanks!

-James & Lisanne

Whoa. Goal Reached ... in 24 HOURS ?!?!

Wow.  We didn’t expect this. You guys are amazing. 

One week ago, with the film in a relatively good place, we started putting together a trailer for this film.  After 25 separate revisions and a huge guiding hand from Jim’s music, we ended up with something that we quite liked, and something that we thought others would like too.

We had no idea people would like it this much :)

It’s now been just over 24 hours since we launched the trailer and ‘Final Push’ campaign for the film.  What’s transpired has totally blown us away.  We’ve been completely taken aback, humbled and inspired by the experience.

In less than 25 hours, we were able to reach our Kickstarter goal.  The campaign currently stands at $36,493 from a very generous, big-hearted collection of 781 people.  Including the fantastic, super-supportive-from-day-one Jeff Lindsay, who we will proudly be taking his place in the credits as one of the film’s ‘Executive Producers’

It is near-impossible to communicate how grateful we are to you all.  It’s exceptionally gratifying to see how much the community wants to see this film made.  And we intend to do just that.

Question: You Hit The Target, Do We Keep Going?  

We hope so :)  It'll continue to make the film better and we can very much make use of any overage.  Plus, we always wanted the campaign to resemble more of a preorder drive than a donation campaign.  We've structured the rewards as such, and we hope if people dig the project, they'll continue to preorder their copy.

The total raised is already ear-marked for specific post production expenses, but money  raised beyond the goal mark will allow us to add to the production value and audience experience even further (tasks like adding items & flourishes that we thought we wouldn’t be able to, an extra trip or two to film a new special edition piece, etc)

All in all, we are going to be working on this thing and making it as good as it can be until they pry it out of our still-editing fingers on the way to the premiere.

Over the past 24 hours, we’ve tweeted & emailed  tons of ‘Thank You’s’ but it still doesn’t seem to do the trick for us.  

So, we are going to honour this fantastic demonstration of support the absolute best and most honest way we know how... 

...We’re going right back to work.

We’ll still be around to answer any questions, but we have a film to finish :)

Thank you to each person who we filmed/consulted with, the indie game community and absolutely everyone who supported us with their tweets, preorders, posts, kind words and inspiration.  It’s kinda been the best day ever

Thank You.

James & Lisanne

Music by: Jim Guthrie (!?!?)

We are extremely excited/proud/lucky to announce that the uber-talented Jim Guthrie, will be composing the music for Indie Game: The Movie!!!

We are over the moon that this is happening.  This is a HUGE development for the film.  Jim’s music is perfect and wonderful in so many ways for this project.  And we can already see the music taking the film to new beautiful and exciting places.  And of course personally, it is super inspiring for us to be working with someone as talented and all-around awesome as Jim.

In case you don’t know Jim, he is the composer/collaborator/muse behind Superbrother’s & Capybara's much-lauded Superbrothers: Sword and Swocery EP. (it is beautiful and magical - check it out now if you haven’t already!).  

You can check his soundtrack ('The Ballad of the Space Babies') and more of his great work on Bandcamp.

We are so happy.  Needless to say, this is very good for the movie.  Very very good :)