IGTM Wins WestDoc PitchFest

Hey everybody!

We got some cool news to share! A little while back, IGTM attended the WestDoc conference over in Santa Monica. WestDoc is kind of a unique film/broadcast conference, in that it concentrates on documentary and reality show production. Documentary is usually relegated to being tagged on to other conferences and festivals, so we were really excited to attended a full conference devoted to nothing but docs (& reality tv)

The conference was great, we learned a lot and met some fantastic people (many of which may help IGTM in the future), but what was really exciting is that we submitted our project to be included in 'Pitchfest' - and we were accepted (beating out 50+ other projects).

PitchFest

Pitchfest is a competition in which you get 8 minutes to pitch your project to an audience of 200+ industry folk and panel of industry executives (decision makers at places like PBS, TLC, ITVS...we're talking heavyweights here). After your pitch, the panel tells you what they think. After all the pitches are done, the voting starts, and the winner walks away with great feedback, contacts and $ 5,000.00!

We went into the experience with our expectations pretty in check - we were happy just to get an audience with these people, and the competition was pretty stiff (a lot of very cool, very polished projects). So needless to say, we weren't expecting too much. But it turned out that the panel, and the audience kinda liked the project. In fact, they really liked the project. So much so, we won the whole thing!

The judges were extremely receptive to the pitch and the subject matter. None of the panelists were familiar with the indie games world. But, there were very much intrigued about the games and interested in the creative experience of the developers we're profiling.

We can't thank the fine folks at WestDoc enough - especially Chuck Braverman & Richard Propper. It was such a valuable experience.

As a result of the experience, IGTM is becoming a better project - garnering attention that we wouldn't have dreamt of when we first started this thing.

So in a way it changes alot in terms of scope and potential for the film, but at the same time changes absolutely nothing. In that we conquered the Hollywood competition, but still hopped back into the Toyota Yaris to continue our road trip, making the movie.

Up Next...

And on that note, we are on our way to Montreal tomorrow to meet Mr. Poisson and talk a little 2D/3D (no Yaris for this leg of the trip, instead it’s United Airlines: The Yaris of the Air!)

Update on Friday, October 1, 2010 at 3:20PM by J + L

After the win, we were lucky enough to be featured in a couple publications including Reel Screen and Playback. Thanks for the great articles, Emily Claire Afan!

Gear, Games & James

Hey Everybody,

We’ve been getting a fair bit of emails asking about our equipment and workflow.  Enough, that we thought it might be interesting to do a little post about what we’re using to make this film.

We are just at the beginning of a 3 month long road trip in which we will not be back home at all - which means...lots of gear to pack.

This is us packing...

 That video is a little misleading as the majority of our traveling will be in our trusty Toyota Yaris and not by plane (sadly).  In fact, we just logged a 33 hour driving stretch right before this video.

 This is the gear...

• Canon 5D Mark II Body (2)
• Canon 50mm 1.4
• Canon 24-105mm F4 IS
• Canon 24-70mm F2.8
• Canon 70-200mm F2.8 IS
• Canon 100mm F2.8 Macro IS
• Assorted ND Filters
• Vari ND Filters (2)
• Canon 5D Mark II Batteries (6)
• Canon 5D Mark II Chargers (3)
• Kingston 266x 32 GB CF Cards (6)
• Lexar 400x 16 GB CF Cards (2)
• CF Card Reader USB
• CF Card Reader FW800
• Zoom H4n (2)
• Rode VideoMic
• Sennheiser MKE 400
• Rode NTG-3 Shotgun Mic
• Shotgun Mic Accessories
• Sennheiser G2 Lav Pac
• Sony Lav Mic Set
• Lectrosonic Transmitter/Receiver
• Multiple Lav Mics (4)
• Rycote Softies
• Cool Lights 1x1 LED 600 Panels (2)
• Zylight Z90
• Small AA powered LED Panel
• V Lock Batteries (2) & Charger
• 5 in 1 PhotoFlex Disc
• JEM Lighting Harps (2)
• 500W 3200K Fluorescents 
• 18” China Balls (6)
• Manfrotto Tripod (2)
• Manfrotto Monopod (560B) / 701 HDV Head (2)
• Gorilla Pod 
• Lowel Lighting Stands (6)
• Grip Heads (2)
• Red Rock Micro EyeSpy Deluxe Rig
• GlideTrack 
• Kesler Slider/Pocket Dolly (not pictured)
• Gaffers Tape
• TONS of AA, AAA, D Batteries
• Extension Cords (2)
• Lots of wires and accessory pieces
• MacBook Pro (2)
• LaCie 2TB D2 Drives (4 ... for now)
• Seagate 1 TB GoFlex Drives (6)

That’s the majority of it.  Probably a bit of over-packing going on here. And I’m sure the gear list will slowly creep larger as we go.  But actually, for what we’re doing, this isn’t too crazy a list.

If you have any questions about what we use, feel free to give us a shout.  

I’m thinking that we’ll likely do a follow up blog nearing the end of the project.  A post that looks at what worked, what didn’t.  What we wish we had, and what we wish we left.

Sooo, That’s the Gear :)

Video: Adam Atomic talks Canabalt

Hey Everyone.

We have a new video that we wanted to share. Back in May we sat down with Adam Saltsman (aka ‘Adam Atomic’ of Semi Secret Software & Flixel fame) while he was grinding away at PegJam. We started the interview with the purpose of fleshing out game jams for a short piece on the event (see here), but we quickly segued into talking about Canabalt and larger gameplay topics.

Early this year, Adam was brought up to Winnipeg by New Media Manitoba to give a day long talk on iPhone development, the App store and, of course, Canabalt. Adam’s a great speaker and easily filled the entire day talking about his App Store experience.

One of the things I walked away with was an appreciation of just how much the simplicity of Canabalt belies the thought and intentional decisions put into it.

Case in point: It’s a one button game, and Adam effortlessly talked for six hours about making it.

So in talking to him at PegJam, we wanted to capture a taste of the conceit that a simple game done well is anything but simple.

Also, in making this video, we wanted to challenge ourselves and see just how far we could take and enhance footage from a single camera, 5 minute conversation, using just our editing wiles and access to the Internet.

And this video is the result...

(Note: We should mention that this is NOT a segment from Indie Game: The Movie. It's just something that we made along the way, that we thought you'd enjoy)

Indie SuperStar Asks Some Questions...

The guys over at IndieSuperStar / Dejobaan games  (of 'AAAaaaaAAAAAaAA' Fame) dropped us a line a few weeks wondering if we'd like to answer some IGTM questions.  Naturally, we jumped at the chance, and this very nice article was the result:

Indie Games and Indie Film Make a Sexy Mixed Baby

Big thanks to IndieSuperStar for taking an interest in our project and taking the time to do such a great article.  Check it out!

Some AAAAaaaaAAAA Goodness:

We're a Go!

Well, our 2 month Kickstarter campaign just came to a close.  What a fantastic response! we sincerely couldn’t have hoped for a better way to kick off the production of this project.

So, from Lisanne & James, and everybody on the IGTM team - thank you so much for your support and encouragement.

The past 2 months have crazed and quite busy.  They’ve been spent doing IGTM research, some preliminary IGTM editing and also clearing BlinkWorks’ slate of some projects that were still ongoing (committed to pre-IGTM).

Next week will see us back on the road.  We’re headed down to North Carolina to do some more shooting with Tommy Refenes of Team Meat.  Though, you’ve haven’t seen it yet.  We did a lot of shooting with both Tommy & Edmund while in Santa Cruz.  That initial interview made us want to go to Tommy’s home in North Carolina, delve a little deeper and get a visual sense of where Tommy’s coming from.  Super excited to make the trip (Found out in the 1st interview, Tommy’s funny as sh*t, which always helps).

After that, we’ll be swinging over to the West Coast to attend the WestDoc conference in Santa Monica, CA.  Which happens to be in the backyard of some rather interesting Indie Devs.  After the conference, we will definitely be spending the next couple of weeks in filming mode.

Through all of this we’ll be documenting, blogging and reporting back.  Expect more content once we get this filming-train-a-movin’  

But back to the original reason for the post:

Thank you again everybody for the donations, comments, kind words, tweets, posts, good vibes - all of it!  Thank you!