A Kickstarter campaign begins today for Video Games: The Movie, the indie documentary from Mediajuice Studios. The goal of the movie is to “entertain and educate people about the rich history, unique culture and exciting future of the video game industry,” and the newly launched Kickstarter seeks $60,000 to sustain the half-finished project through post-production.
Video Games: The Movie, not to be confused with the critically acclaimed Indie Game: The Movie, began life in 2012 as a crowdfunded project on indiegogo. It failed to meet its fundraising goal there by a significant margin (Mediajuice raised just $1,790 of its $107,550 objective), but director Jeremy Snead revealed in the fail funding bid’s comments section last week that he went ahead and shot the thing anyway.
Cash support at this point would go toward editing, music, narration, graphics, some remaining “key interviews,” and the acquisition of copyrighted archival footage from as far back as the 1960s. The Kickstarter paints all of this as part of the post-production, but much of it really falls under the umbrella of regular production. Don’t get too caught up in the language though; Snead seems to have laid some of the groundwork and the crowdfunding campaign aims to polish things off.
The film means to tackle “hot button topics” like video games and violence, games-as-art, next-gen consoles, and gaming stereotypes. Expect to see featured interviews with the likes of Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Gearbox president Randy Pitchford, former Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski, and gamer celebrities like Wil Wheaton, Chris Hardwick, and Alison Haislip.
“We have spent the past year gathering footage, speaking with industry founders, influencers, and pundits to get their take on what we’ve collectively created as an industry and where we’re headed,” Snead said in the press release. “We’ve amassed an amazing library of footage that we think will help bring the true story of the video game industry into clear focus. We’re now headed into post-production and are looking to the community to get us to the finish line. We are on Kickstarter to generate enough funding to create the type of film the video game industry deserves.”
“In the end, our hope is that this film will help further legitimize the industry and the culture to those who continue to disregard it without really spending time to learn about it,” he added.
