Die UK-Spieledoku konnte in Hamburg begeistern
Wie in diesem Artikel angekündigt, war es am 11. November soweit: der Gaming-Aid e.V. und gamecity:Hamburg luden ins Abaton-Kino in Hamburg ein und präsentierten dort einen Kinoabend, bei dem Games- und Retrofans voll auf ihre Kosten kamen: Die Doku „From Bedrooms to Billions“ führte 130 Zuschauer in über zwei Stunden durch die Videospiel-Historie Großbritanniens. Im Rahmen der Vorführung gaben sich das Produzentenduo Nicola und Anthony Caulfield und Game Design Pionier Simon Butler die Ehre, Zuschauerfragen zu beantworten und Hintergründe des Films zu erläutern. Insgesamt verbuchen die Veranstalter den Kinoabend als vollen Erfolg. Die Erlöse aus den Ticketverkäufen gingen an den gemeinnützigen Verein Gaming-Aid, der Angehörige der Spielebranche im Falle von persönlichen Schicksalsschlägen unterstützt.
Als besonderen Bonus fand Anthony Caulfield noch die Zeit, sich mit Games-Career.com über die Entstehung von „From Bedrooms to Billions“ zu unterhalten. Das Interview in englischer Sprache wollen wir euch nicht vorenthalten.
Produzenten-Ehepaar Caulfield mit Stefan Klein von gamecity:Hamburg und Tahsin Avci von Gaming-Aid
Anthony, what inspired you to make this film?
We felt for a long time that this was an important part of British History that needed recording. We found that the britsh Broadcast and media establishments do not recognise video games as something worth celebrating. A remarkable and incredible period of our creative and industrial past has been overlooked.The british had a pioneering role within the shaping of the video games industry and we felt stongly that it needed to be told.
Where did you get all of the required information for making that film and how long did research take you?
We are fans of the source material, but the film required around 4 years of continual researching and refining to make sure we knew the story well enough to decide what could go into the film or not.
Have you been trying hard to get in touch with the old designers, producers etc. and get their support for your film?
No one was very tough to get, some were not but many were easy. However once news of the film being made got out some people even came to us.
What exactly do you think made the British games history so special?
We think is because it was so unplanned, it was a revolution caused by an enthuastic love for computers whilst also being heavily influenced by the arcades that were appearing all over the country. We had an obesssion, largely led by childern with no commerical interest, and certainly no formal coding training to emulate the arcades first of all. To get an exact match was of course impossible, but once those early coders started to develop their skills they let their imaginations run away and create games that they thought they would like to play. The British, to be honest are a bit crazy at the best of times, so put that together with coding skills and you get some pretty wonderful but strange games!
Gaming-Aid erhielt die Ticketerlöse des Abends
Which part of the British games history do you think is most important and why?
I know this sounds like sitting on the fence but to be honest it is all important. Documenting the failures is as important as acknowledging the triumphs otherwise we are not recording history properly and we can never learn from it. We have never wanted to seem like we are saying the British are the best games makers as that would not be true, what we are trying to say with the film is that we played a part in the founding of such a (now) large global business and in the UK this fact is just not known.
To realize the film from the idea to the final version– How much time did you spent?
The whole project took 4 years from when we decided we wanted to make it (June 2010), and once we had raised the first batch of money in May 2012 the whole project including filming and editing took 2 and a half years.
In this case the crowdfunding worked very well – Did you expect that? What are the reasons for the success?
Crowdfunding allows us to find a whole group of people that shared our passion and belief that this story needed telling. Also we came to believe that people also want to see well made films on subjects they enjoy, which in this case is the video games industry.
Game Designer Simon Butler im Film
What are the biggest learnings while producing the film – and managing the crowdfunding campaign?
Hard hard hard work! Then a lot more hard work. Running a crowdfunding campaign successfully is incredibly tough, you need to make sure you answer questions and handle it all very carefully so that you put your backers first all the time. On the whole we believe that our backers were happy that we took more time to create a longer, more detailed and overall better film than the one they originally thought they would be getting.
What kind of feedback on the film came from the games industry?
Still a little early to be sure but so far it has been pretty much postive from everyone.
FBTB was not your only film. What are your other film productions about? Do have experiences in other crossmedia productions or across different industries?
Nicola and I have worked in TV and film for over 15 years. Our original background was in comedy and music television and have scored a few domestic DVD number ones in the UK with our work with Pink Floyd, Jeff Wayne’s The War of The Worlds, Doctor Who and also our comedy documentaries for the BBC TV Series The Young Ones. We also had a movie out in 2010 called Burlesque Undressed that has been shown all over the world, including Germany!
Wir bedanken uns für das Interview, für einen schönen Abend und für das Engagement von gamecity:Hamburg und Gaming-Aid.
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