IGTM Goes to TIGJam!

PegJam Logo designed by the talented Marlon Wiebe (feeblethemighty.com)

A couple weeks ago, we attended TigJam:  Winnipeg (aka: PegJam!).  The Jam was spearheaded by Infinite Ammo’s Alec Holowka, who describes it thusly...

Basically: Bunch of game developers get together, bring their laptops and work on whatever project they feel like.

New projects will be born, long-lasting friendships will be formed, skills will be gained – epic levelling-up! – and little or no sleep will be had…

It’s just sort of awesome.

 It is all sorts of awesome.  It's rather intense in nature, filled with some serious work, good vibes and decidedly devoid of any serious sleep.  An exhausting cocktail that shouldn't necessarily add up to a great way to spend a weekend - but does.

It's really such a simple idea (put like-minded people in a room and let them create)  that pays huge dividends in terms of learning, camaraderie and inspiration.  Game jams really seem to showcase the community, skills and general attitude of indie scene at its best. 

We attended with the intent of making like a game dev a little bit (embedding ourselves - Diane Fossey style!), doing some work on our own projects, meeting some cool people and, of course, doing some filming.

We wanted to create a little piece that aimed to capture the spirit of the event.  Something that touched on the games, the people and the vibe.  Above is what we came up with...

[NOTE: We should point out that this is NOT an actual or intended part of Indie Game: The Movie.  Simply just a short film that we made along the way that we thought you'd enjoy]

So many fantastic people we’re there (many more than we were able to feature in the video).  Click here to see a full list of who made it out.  Also Chrissy Chubala snapped a whole bunch of great photos of the Jam - very worth checking out. 

If there happens to be a Jam (be it TIG or otherwise) in your area, we highly recommend checking it out.  Speaking as a self-employed filmmaker, who spends countless hours in computer-based solitude, the event is the perfect antidote to the frustrations of an often lonely profession. 

Thanks so much to Alec and Chrissy for organizing, Fortune Cat Games Studio for hosting, New Media Manitoba for supporting and everybody else for letting us hang out and watch 

We have a lot more material that we want to eventually post from the weekend.  So expect some more PegJam Goodness down the road!

Music for the video was used with the generously permission of Ergo Phizmiz (www.ergophizmiz.net)

Update on Friday, June 11, 2010 at 2:43AM by J + L

Alec wrote a really nice post on the event over at infiniteammo.ca.  Some nice insight into the Jam, Alec, the city of Winnipeg and all the connections in between.  Check it out here.

Other Shorts About Indies

Hey there,

So, while we're working away on a video (maybe videos) about TIGJam Winnipeg, we thought we'd share some other short films* we've made about indies over the past year.

Here's a story about the Debreuil Brothers of Miami, Canada (yes there's a Miami in Canada.) They started out at the birth of Flash making animations (for big clients like Fox Sports and Seame Street). Now, they've put their service work on hold to follow their dream of making games for the XBox. You can read more Robin programming stuff here and Sandy's comic strip here.

We've also filmed with the team from Complex Games, led by Noah Decter-Jackson and Adrian Cheater. Great guys, great heart - some cool stuff from them should be coming out soon. Follow them on Facebook.

Now, Chris Chuckery doesn't make games, but he does do some pretty cool art. Chris is a prominent comic book colorist who has coloured almost every major comic you can imagine (inclu. Spiderman, X-Men, Star Wars, Green Lantern and much more.) His company's name is Frogrocket, and here's his blog.

And, if you haven't seen it, here's the film we did on game developer, Alec Holowka of Infinite Ammo (Aquaria, Paper Moon, and the upcoming Marian).

*All these shorts were part of a 45 min documentary we made for New Media Manitoba, our local new media association. They gave us an amazing opportunity to make films about some great artists, and from that experience, this doc idea was born. A Big Thanks to New Media Manitoba a) for giving us an outlet to create  b) existing. We're really lucky to have an organization like that here in Manitoba!

Serendipity, Opportunity and the Power of Asking...

With 'Indie Game: The Movie', we are aiming to not only to make a fantastic film about games and game makers, but we also want to open up our filmmaking process and share, as much as we possibly can, with viewers. In the hopes that talking about our experience can hopefully help, in some way, other filmmakers, game developers, and any other freelancing/indie creative types.

So, in that spirit, here is the story behind how we got ourselves onto 'The Electric Playground'...

Last week we were in Vancouver filming at an advertising firm for a client (a BlinkWorks gig booked pre-IGTM).  We had to be at their offices at 9:00 am, and enlisted a Google search to help us narrow down their address.  Google had ‘Dossier Creative’ listed as being on the third floor of their building.  However, in reality, the firm was located on the fourth floor (imagine that:  Internet information being wrong).

But, we trust the big G, (why wouldn't we?) and in doing so, directly headed to the third floor and started roaming the hallways.  We couldn’t find the client, however, we did spot a familiar name nonetheless.  A door with this familiar title on it:Sooo, immediately our mind starts working: 

1. We're big fans of Electric Playground.
2. They report (daily) on Video Game Happenings and
3. We just happened to launch a Video Game Movie a few days prior.

Maybe we can make something happen here.

But, we do have that little matter of that client job.  And we’d rather not do a completely cold call to some obviously very busy people (we’ve been involved in news, this is never a good idea).  So, we head to the client to do our job, but on the way do a ‘soft’ reach out using the great connector:  ‘Twitter’.  We sent out this little feeler...

To which, Victor Lucas (Show Host & Creator) promptly responded, with this:

So, when everything was finished with our client, Lisanne popped into the EP offices, told them our story, they seemed to dig it, and pretty soon this interview was happening...

A huge thanks to Victor Lucas, and the Electric Playground gang for taking an interest in our story and carving out some time to do an interview.  We really, really appreciate it.  They’ve been producing a great program for years now, and if you haven’t checked it out - do so here!

Some Lessons for a Documentary (or game) Production?

The whole experience was lovely and a pretty good example of chance leading to real opportunity.

Firstly, serendipity can be a powerful thing.  Countless small decisions and seemingly insignificant turning points can lead to very real opportunity.  Opportunity that you must be able and willing to recognize when its presented.  Without going all 'The Secret' on you, the interview above was a direct result of opportunity caused by the most random of circumstance.

Secondly, it NEVER hurts to ask.  People like helping (in general).  News programs need news.  Any organization putting out a news program every day has a lot of time to fill, and needs content.  And if you can help provide them with content, if things are a good fit, they'll often be extremely welcoming!

And If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.  Of course, asking works much better when it’s an educated ask - and you know that you are a pretty good, win-win fit for whomever/whatever you are asking.  Promotion is crucial for any endeavor, be it a film, game, charity, whatever.  Quite often that promotion can occur just by asking the right people, in the right way at the right time.

If you look back far enough, the decision to do Indie Game: The Movie is the product of Opportunity, Random Events and Passion (plus a thousand other things I’m sure). It’s creation was certainly a mix of all that, and its future success will undoubtable be as well.

Thanks again Electric Playground!  

And thanks to whomever is responsible for the incorrect address being listed on Google!

(oh, I should mention:  No client work was harmed in the making of this interview.  In fact, I’m happy to say, we rocked our shoot that day :)

'Indie Game: The Movie' on 'The Electric Playground'

Super excited about this recent bit of news - IGTM is featured on EP!!!

An interview Lisanne did with them made it into 'the Rundown' for the May 27th broadcast.

Watch it here

(we're featured at around the 2 min 15 sec mark).

Thanks so much to Victor Lucas and the gang over at EP for having us on the show!  We really appreciate it! You guys rock!

The way the interview happened was a lovely bit of serendipity, that makes a nice lesson in indie film self-promotion.  We talk about the experience (along with some behind the scenes footage) in this post.

Unrelated:  Last weekend was spent at TigJam: Winnipeg - a really great experience.  Met some awesome people, and shot some video that we plan to share soon.  So, new stuff (beyond us talking about IGTM) coming soon!

IGTM & IA on CBC!

With the launch of Indie Game: The Movie, we've been fortunate to have a lot of really nice things said in the press and have a number of generous invitations to tell our story (listen to us spend the hour with TigRadio here).  

One really fun experience was going on our local CBC radio station to talk about the film and the fundraising process.  We brought our cameras along and thought we'd film & share the interview. 

A couple interesting things about that interview. Firstly, we have Edmund saying 'shit' on public radio (hehe), and, yes, BioShock and Halo are used (by the host) as example touch points in an indie game discussion - we only had 3 minutes, so best to just let that slide.

Overall, not too much new IGTM info in the interview.  But what was interesting is that one of the main topics for the segment was to be a discussion about our Kickstarter experience. Which, at that point, was at $ 10,000.  However,  TWO minutes before we went to air, we get an email from Kickstarter congratulating us on reaching our goal - thanks to a $ 5,000+ donation from Ken Schachter of Trapdoor.  The news totally took us aback, flustering us a tad for the interview.  But, hey, if you're going to get flustered - that's the way to do it!

Also stepping up to the CBC mic was Alec Holowka of Infinite Ammo.  He writes quite eloquently about the experience here.  The interview is definitely worth a listen.

Big Thanks to CBC Winnipeg, 'Up to Speed', Margo Watt and the intrepid Ruth Shead for having us on!  We hope to back talking IGTM once its done.