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Offline lifeschoolTopic starter

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From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years!
« on: February 28, 2015, 01:28:28 PM »
Hi, My name is Dan and I'm just an Amiga fan like you. I thought you guys might like to know that a new documentary is in production about the Amiga, and so I'd like to share the info this group shared on their kickstarter page. If this post is in the wrong place, of course feel free to move it. I dont work for these guys so I'm not spamming, honest.
 

Offline lifeschoolTopic starter

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Re: From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years!
« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2015, 11:28:20 PM »
This is what they wrote on their kickstarter page:

Introduction


Welcome to our Kickstarter  campaign to produce From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years! A 90  minute feature documentary that will explore the influence of the  Commodore Amiga and how it took video game development, music and  publishing to a whole new level and changed the video games industry  forever!

We used Kickstarter to fund our previous film called  From Bedrooms to Billions that told the story of the UK video games  industry from 1979 to the present day and we are turning to it again now  in the 30th anniversary year of the release of the Commodore Amiga in  the hope that you will support us once again to produce a film that not  only celebrates this fantastic machine, but importantly what it did for  the video games industry and development in general due to the many  ground breaking games that appeared on it. It  is the Commodore Amiga and the era it represents which will be the key  focus and the reason we have titled the film The Amiga Years!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu_wD_0xzvA[/youtube]

The Story

We  will start with the origins, design and release of the Commodore Amiga  and the impact it had when first released. From then we will look at  where the worldwide games industry was just prior to the Amiga’s release  in 1985 and then how, once released, the challenges developers faced  creating for a 16-bit machine while still in many ways dealing with a  thriving market for 8-bit machines. We will look at elements such as  what happened as 8-bit was surpassed? How did the development teams grow  and why? Who were the key developers and what were the key game  releases? How did the business itself change for developers and  publishers and did the issue of piracy truly harm this era?

The  Commodore Amiga reset the previous boundaries, the very exploration of  what was possible in itself led to an incredibly important and  pioneering era where skilled developers were able to strive for new  innovations, set free by this incredible technology. We intend to  explore what these innovations were and the people behind them.

By  the late 1980’s and early 1990’s many countries around the world saw a  new wave of developers entering the video games industry, joining many  of those original pioneers to work to push video game creation even  further. Games from across the world were now readily available  everywhere and the UK was suddenly becoming a real global player  emerging truly out of its original cottage industry roots of the 8 bit  era.

The demo scene was bigger and more influential than ever,  having honed their skills in the limited 8-bit days, new machines such  as the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST combined with a rapidly expanding  and emerging ‘internet’ saw ‘sceners’ thanks to demos among other things  playing a major, crucial part in helping to grow the overall interest  of programming and video games.

Musicians really began to  flourish, significantly boosted by the flexibility and power of machines  such as the Commodore Amiga and we will hear how some of the most  iconic soundtracks were produced still in the days before CD music was  truly available in home video games.

The Magazine Industry for  the video games industry saw a whole new breed of Journalist come  through, though technically still in its infancy the video games  industry did now have a few years under its belt with established genres  of game now recognised and understood. These Journalists were fully  fledged fans and consumers themselves who had grown up through those  early years, seeing firsthand as those early game styles became  established. This understanding made them hungrier than anyone to see  and report about innovation as they saw it and The Amiga Years! era saw  some truly incredible innovations.

Making the original ‘From  Bedrooms to Billions’ allowed us to establish links right through the  video games industry both past and present. We always treated our  interviewees with respect to ensure we covered as much of their career  as possible and The Amiga Years! will allow us to go out and add so many  new names to our interview list in our quest to create films that are  as thorough, entertaining, nostalgic, but importantly as balanced as  they can possibly be!



Look and Feel

Our  previous film From Bedrooms to Billions used an ensemble approach to  tell the story, there was no voice-over, just the interviewees  themselves guiding the viewer through combined with a large number of  accompanying visuals such as archive footage, photos, magazines and  music. We want to continue this style but in addition branch off a  little with some new ‘hands on’ sequences where there are demonstrations  of set-ups and techniques to really help add to the overall story but  also enjoyment for the viewer.

From a filming perspective we  shot in full 1080p and aimed for a very high standard of visual  production on From Bedrooms to Billions, as we were conscious of the  amount of archive and of course video game footage we would need to use  so we aimed for an organic ‘in the lens’ feel for all the filmed  interviews, adding no green screen or visual effects other than simple  name plates and grading to the shots so that when we did cut to game  footage or archive it gave it more impact. For The Amiga Years! we will  insist on the same, everything to look as crisp and slick as possible.

In  addition as a huge amount of our work goes on the researching and  sourcing of archive video, film and TV footage, photos, magazines and of  course games, so we will keep to the same standards we insisted on for  From Bedrooms to Billions, we want to produce something memorable and  this is 100% our intention with The Amiga Years!

Release

Our  plan is to turn the film around and release it for January 2016. From  Bedrooms to Billions took more time due to the huge amount of research,  contacting and sourcing of archive and interviewees. However for The  Amiga Years! we have a huge head start on that due to how much work has  already been done so we aim to film all our new interviews by September  2015 with an intensive post-production of 16 weeks to follow.

We  will keep our backers regularly updated on progress right throughout  production of The Amiga Years! providing screen shots, clips and early  sequences along the way in our 'Backer Zone' just as we did before. This  was actually a highlight for us during our previous campaign because we  thoroughly enjoyed discussing and sharing sequences in the 'Backer  Zone' from the film with our backers.

The Target

We  want to turn the film around in less than 12 months and we have no  intention of running further campaigns so therefore the £50k is to make  all of the film, to the highest quality and then deliver it to all of  you.

The money is needed to pay for all the new filming, the  editing, sound mixing and design, plus all the post-production elements  that give the film that extra edge of quality. In addition during the  creation of From Bedrooms to Billions we extensively researched film and  video footage archives across the world and discovered a great deal of  rare footage, we would like to pay to license in more of this footage to  help complement and tell this story as well as also licensing in some  commercial music to help us give a flavor of the times the film is  largely set in.

Our sole purpose is to shoot, edit and produce a  new, standalone film with its own identity and character, any previously  shot footage will strictly be unseen and new plus any archive footage  and photos we research and use will be the best we can find, and the  trailer we have cut is meant to just give a flavor of our intentions.  The era of the Amiga is incredibly important so The Amiga Years! will be  fresh and new, with an individual style befitting such a remarkable  period!

As with our last film Blu-ray and DVD authoring is  professionally designed and included, surround audio, DTS, in addition  professionally mastered, replicated, high quality printing and  packaging, all the elements you would expect from a high quality  physical product.




Risks and challenges

We  have been producing professionally produced documentaries for nearly 15  years. Our last two motion pictures 'Burlesque Undressed' and 'From  Bedrooms to Billions' were released all over the world. Though complex  projects involving a great deal of filming in different countries we got  them completed and on budget. We are aware of many of the pitfalls,  especially when dealing with budgets and schedules and we like to think  we don't compromise on quality.

Our previous film raised a lot  more on Kickstarter than we asked for so we put that extra budget right  back into the film and delivered an extra hour of content for 'all' our  backers. In addition we believe in running an open handed campaign, when  people write to us there is no corporation or person in-between, the  response comes back from us as our backers were (and still are)  incredibly special to us both.

See  Kickstarter Page Here
Pledge  on Kickstarter Here
 

Offline lifeschoolTopic starter

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Re: From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years!
« Reply #2 on: March 04, 2015, 03:13:14 PM »
Just a quick update on this:

819 backers
£32,613 pledged of £50,000 goal
65% funded - £17,387 to go
24 days to go

This has been a terrific first week.

PLEASE DO drop a note in the comments of the kickstarter page to give a big shout out to Amiga.org and the community. They are read!

Thanks a lot gang!
 

Offline klx300r

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Re: From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years!
« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2015, 07:28:48 PM »
hope it meets its goal. thanks for the update!
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Offline spaceman88

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Re: From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years!
« Reply #4 on: March 04, 2015, 07:44:35 PM »
Sounds interesting, would like to see it.
 

Offline Venkman

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Re: From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years!
« Reply #5 on: March 04, 2015, 09:49:04 PM »
If it's as good as their previous documentary, it should be very interesting.
Video game developer, former ZX81, C64 and Amiga bedroom coder, amateur astronomer, musician, graphic designer, Linux user and geek!
 

Offline Vlabguy1

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Re: From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years!
« Reply #6 on: March 04, 2015, 10:17:24 PM »
Quote from: lifeschool;785814
Just a quick update on this:

819 backers
£32,613 pledged of £50,000 goal
65% funded - £17,387 to go
24 days to go

This has been a terrific first week.

PLEASE DO drop a note in the comments of the kickstarter page to give a big shout out to Amiga.org and the community. They are read!

Thanks a lot gang!


Coolness..
 

Offline lifeschoolTopic starter

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Re: From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years!
« Reply #7 on: March 06, 2015, 08:56:22 PM »
Stretch Goals Announced!



Newsletter 6 March

Quote
Dear all,

Due to your incredible support our funding goal is insight after only 7 days! It is wonderful to know that so many people also share our vision in producing this film.

Thank you to all of you who have so generously supported us so far. We have therefore decided to announce some stretch goals so that you can all see our plan for where (should we exceed our initial target) we would use extra funds. The key for us is the production of more content, not just within the film itself but also in the creation of bonus content such as game makings of, extended interviews, and other individual features that add extra insight into the creation of the Amiga itself, specific games, soundtracks and further expansion into subjects such as the Demo scene, journalism and many more.

The extra content we produced for our previous film ‘From Bedrooms to Billions’ has proved very popular so the more funding we receive will only go into creating more content including licensing more archive footage and really expand on the material to make it the very best we can!

We have decided to keep things simple that any stretch goals we hit all backers benefit from, apart from a couple exclusive to the physical formats (DVD/Blu-ray) specific items like commentaries, photo galleries and the 12-page inlay booklet, but in all other cases everyone gets the same. Our core desire is we would rather make you as much content as you want to see, there it is only going to be one version of this project, so if you want us to ultimately make 5 hours’ worth of high quality, professionally produced content then please help us use these last remaining days to make that happen as our aim is to make a memorable and lasting feature film on the Amiga.

We've thought long and hard about the other items in the stretch goals and decided to think like collectors, what would we want? Therefore we decided to again keep it simple, unique but also high quality. The bouncing ball badge won’t be cheap plastic, but high quality, high shine metal, with a proper metal pin. The 4 x postcards will be high quality glossy A6 containing the original Amiga Years! concept art by Oliver Frey as well as the finished piece of art.

And finally what can we say about the Floppy Disc Beer Mat? Rare and double sided (of course). Well we call it a beer mat but it’s perfect for any types of liquid based drinking products as well of course water. We could employ an 1980’s style model to produce a photo of how to put a drink down on it but we have a feeling you get the point! The truth is it is something we want on our desk, same as the thinking behind the metal bouncing ball badge and post cards.

However ultimately, if funded we want to get on and make as much content as we can to the same quality as our previous backers would expect.

Please help us tell as many people about The Amiga Years! campaign and help us to make the most memorable, in-depth and lasting production we possibly can!

The key point to get across are elements such as the specially designed Oliver Frey cover will never be available again, as well as all the other backer only items we have available.

Please share the campaign's link whenever you can;

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1195082866/from-bedrooms-to-billions-the-amiga-years

Please help us raise as much as possible during this one single campaign and allow us to move forward from the start with the best budget possible to produce the very best film we can.

Thank you so much again for all your support and please take a look below at the stretch goals we have devised. Also on the main Campaign site you can see examples of the Oliver Frey DVD and Blu-ray cases and also the fantastic unique slip case!

Best wishes!

Ant & Nic
« Last Edit: March 07, 2015, 04:27:42 PM by lifeschool »
 

Offline lifeschoolTopic starter

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Re: From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years!
« Reply #8 on: March 06, 2015, 09:09:11 PM »
Yes, if this is half as good as their original documentary, it will be great.

There is so much to cover with the Amiga, just take the PD sector for example; from Alien Fish Finger to 9 Fingers; from Icon Paint to AmiDoom.  Just this one subject could take up a movie, but thats not to say Paula will be ignored, or live music and video, or games and business software, paint and simulators, and the whole subject of Amigas in the workplace - including running the U.S Cable TV networks, and operating the space shuttle.*  Whether any of this makes it into the doco is anyones guess.

* - They said it was because an Amiga could cycle a reboot in seconds while a PC would be still rebooting as the craft plummeted to earth. The Amiga was also small and compact inside the shuttle, and could output display to any TV or readout device.  Ok, I'm not saying Amigas ran the whole of the Space Shuttle!, just some of the important bits. ;) They also used Amigas in the Tracking centres and in Launch Control:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAPD9HA8Unw
« Last Edit: March 06, 2015, 09:12:42 PM by lifeschool »
 

Offline Oldsmobile_Mike

Re: From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years!
« Reply #9 on: March 06, 2015, 09:44:12 PM »
There were no Amiga's actually used *on* the space shuttles, but yeah.  Still a cool video.  :)

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Offline Vlabguy1

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Re: From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years!
« Reply #10 on: March 07, 2015, 01:00:20 AM »
Quote from: lifeschool;785903
Stretch Goals Announced!



Newsletter 6 March




DM sent.

Thanks
Rich
 

Offline alphadec

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Re: From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years!
« Reply #11 on: March 07, 2015, 11:48:13 AM »
What happens if you don't reach £50.000 ?
Amiga 4Ever
 

Offline lifeschoolTopic starter

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Re: From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years!
« Reply #12 on: March 07, 2015, 04:43:17 PM »
Latest update, and this is perhaps close to the end of the first week.

980 backers
£37,896  pledged of £50,000 goal
£12,104 to go to first goal.
  21 days to go

I dont think there is any doubt this will be funded.

Viva Amiga got $29,656 for their movie, this movie has already gone way beyond this.

The  movie WILL be made even if the current kickstarter doesnt hit the  minimum mark (somehow), as they can launch a kickstarter every 30 days  until they get the minimum cash they need, so thats no issue. :)

If they keep getting funded at the current rate, e.g. 38k per week, thats 152,000k in four weeks, and they are only asking £115k for a 5 hour movie!
« Last Edit: March 07, 2015, 04:53:25 PM by lifeschool »
 

Offline motrucker

Re: From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years!
« Reply #13 on: March 08, 2015, 05:05:48 AM »
You know I am behind you, and this project. Good to see you over here too.
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Offline lifeschoolTopic starter

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Re: From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years!
« Reply #14 on: March 09, 2015, 05:56:18 PM »
Good to see you mo. I put a new more movies into the lemon all-time classic movies database. I never thought my hobby thread would be so fun.

Speaking of which, we passed the first Sunday last night, and went over the 1000 backers!

Well done everyone. :D

Where will be three more Sundays, the last being the final day.

1,097 backers
£41,458 pledged of £50,000 goal
8.5k to first goal
19 days to go