Yes, this was bad. I was excited to see the film but after I saw the 20 minute teaser on YouTube he gave at some Amiga show I became concerned. It was a chaotic mess and I hoped he would work it out in Post but atlas he did not.
After seeing the entire film on Hulu these are my thoughts:
There was no structure to the film and he set no rhythm to the narrative. The pace was just chaotic.
The few Commodore people he had in the film gave little to no information that would have offered some depth to the film.
For films like this, the fans do not offer much in terms of substance to the heart of your narrative. People like Jeff Porter could have really anchored the film with insight into Commodore, the Amiga, and the rise and fall of the company. Sadly, there was very little of this here.
I do not know if the the filmmaker left that information on the cutting room floor or did not know how to ask the questions to get that information out of Jeff. It appeared that Jeff was outgoing and knowledge so I would have thought interviewing him would have elicited a wealth of material for a film like this.
We saw very little of Bryce Nesbitt which was also a shame, though, he seemed introverted so his interview would have had to be approached differently than Porter.
Dave Haynie was larger than life but he has been interviewed so much that you either have to find new material to ask him about or sprinkle his comments throughout the film (which they sort of did).
Tim Jenison was also in the film but haphazardly which is kind of a shame. When I saw him in another documentary (Billboards I think) he had a wealth of content to share which was great. I felt he probably had a lot more to offer which I hoped this film would tap into but again it seemed like a missed opportunity.
Finally, the "Computer Historian" was just terrible. He was really just a fan with a made up title. He got a few facts wrong and just gave poor credibility to the film.
If you look at successful documentaries you have people who play certain parts to a film like this: fans, subjects, eye witnesses, and experts. These mix together to create a symmetry to the narrative of the film. You go to your experts to give credibility to the fans or the eye witnesses. These experts are usually somebody with a title at a university or an established place of knowledge.
Without getting to deep, Ken Burns does a great job of this in his many documentaries.
In the end, it was an ok film made by fans for fans. I think many of us would like to see a more detailed documentary on Commodore and the Amiga. I realize that we should be grateful anybody is doing something like this and it is a labor of love.
-P
PS - One of my degrees is in film and I won the Sundance film festival with my first film so that is how I know so much about film...
