Board Game Doc

Screenings Schedule

2012-01-16T06:20:00.000-08:00

Official list of screenings for Going Cardboard: A Board Game Documentary.

1/4/2012
Berlin, Germany
Esperanto Screening

1/12/2012
MIT, Cambridge, MA
GAMBIT Game Film Series

1/19/2012
University of Maryland, College Park, MD
ThatCamp Games

2/8/2012
Berlin, Germany
Das FilmCafe

2/17 - 18/2012
(2/17 4PM; 2/18 5PM)
Los Angeles, CA
Orccon 2012 (Strategicon)

2/17 - 18/2012
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Game Summit

2/25/2012
Saturday, noon and 7 PM
Mansfield, MA
TotalCon

3/2/2012
Indianapolis, IN
Who's Yer Con

March 22 - 25, 2012
Vancouver, WA
Gamestorm

April 13 – 15, 2012
Chicago, IL
Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo

June, 2012
Belfast, Ireland
Q-Con

July, 2012
Aukland, New Zealand
Board Games by the Bay Con

View Going Cardboard Screenings in a larger map

Premiere Screening Night for Going Cardboard

2012-01-14T05:44:00.000-08:00

This past Thursday night was a huge milestone for the film - my first screening in front of a live audience of people I didn't know personally. The film had screened earlier this month in Berlin, Germany (also awesome given it's ties to German board gaming), but this was the first showing in the US, and also the first one I would be at, and it included a Q&A session afterward. Nervous does not begin to describe. The film is basically done at this point, but a public screening like this gave me the chance to observe audience reaction, and another viewing to assess the need for any final edits or tweaks.

The screening took place as part of the GAMBIT film series, put on by the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab. The theme was movies about gaming, and Jason Scott's Get Lamp was shown the following evening. The event was free to the public, and it took place in the swanky and iconic domed building at MIT. I got a little walking tour of the campus before-hand, which included a peek into the room where the screening was to be held.

Around 6:45 we started setting things up, and people were already filtering in at that point. A number of good friends I hadn't seen in ages came, and it was very comforting to know I had allies in the room. My editor, Jason Scott, was in attendance, as was Greg Lam, an indie designer who runs Pair-of-Dice Games and is featured in the film.

The audience starts to form

Before I knew it I was welcoming the audience and giving a totally noob intro, and then the lights went down and the movie started. I scuttled off to the back of the room to try and watch both the crowd and the film at the same time. I think there were 40 - 50 people in total, which felt like quite a lot. Finally, about 10 minutes into the showing, the constant stress and tension I'd been feeling for the prior two days melted away. People were enjoying it. They were paying attention, laughing at the right moments, and by the end of the screening, nobody had walked out.

The lights came up to a round of applause that I will totally never get used to but is an amazing feeling, and we dove right into the Q&A. The questions were good, there were plenty of them, and I think my answers were more or less on target. The Q&A lasted about half an hour I think, and then I got to chat with people for another half hour or so, and then a bunch of us went to Legal Seafoods to celebrate. It felt like such a perfect culmination of all the hard work over the past three years, and while that work isn't done quite yet (there's that small matter of a DVD to create, and a schedule of screenings to organize and publicize, marketing to be done, etc.) it was unbelievably gratifying and very much an "it all comes down to this and it was worth it!" night.

So the night before, I couldn't sleep due to nervousness. That night, I couldn't sleep due to cloud 9 syndrome. I woke up very tired but still thrilled around 5 AM the next day to get ready for work. One final surprise was waiting for me. A review was already up for the film! And it was a positive review! And it was thorough, and they'd clearly been paying attention and... oh what's this? This review was written by ANDREW PLOTKIN??? OMG! He's a major mind in the field of text adventures. I'd seen him at the screening and recognized him right away because he's in Get Lamp, and had gone over to say hi. It was already an honor just to have him there at the event, but then for the first-ever review of Going Cardboard to be written by someone like that? Too cool. Far, FAR too cool.

There is more work to do. There will be more screenings, and there will be more Q&A sessions, and doubtless more fun moments to come (and frustrations/haters/bad reviews/criticism too of course), but I could not have crafted a better premiere. The MIT Game Lab has my undying gratitude for making it all possible.

Island Fortress on Kickstarter

2012-01-04T13:13:00.000-08:00

Hey all!

So, I wanted to bring your attention to a particular Kickstarter by one Bryan Johnson, for a game called Island Fortress.

Here's the project on Kickstarter. It's got 11 days to go, and it's going well, but you ought to get in on it if you can. Why? Because Bryan plays a big part in my film, and after watching it, you will probably want to have seen his Kickstarter succeed. :)

And when will you be watching it? Soon, my friend. SOON.

Going Cardboard: A Documentary Trailer

2011-10-08T07:05:00.000-07:00

My editor/mentor/hero, Jason Scott, has been a busy guy. In fact, this week we've BOTH been burning the midnight oil editing for Going Cardboard. He's been working on the film itself, and my assignment was: do the trailer.

It was quite daunting at first. Trying to encapsulate the whole film into 2 minutes or so, and doing it in the fast-paced flashy way that trailers do is, I want to say, arguably much harder than making the film itself. Well, the rough cut anyway.

I knew conceptually what I wanted to do. I wanted it to start out slow and peaceful, and evoke the memories most of us have of playing board games as kids. Serene and nostalgic. And then, I wanted to kick off rocking music, and WHOAH, look at board games today! Rawwwr!

So I spent a few days searching for just the right music to do that while I started throwing bits of this concept together. It was quite a struggle, until I hit on exactly the music I wanted. I knew basically right away this was the right track. And once I had that, the rest of the trailer really fell in line. The final result has the feel I wanted it to. I hope you like it!

Going Cardboard Teaser from Lorien Green on Vimeo.

(here's the YouTube link)

Hair of the dog that bit me

2011-10-08T05:26:00.001-07:00

So, if you wake up groggy from a precious few hours of sleep after a late, late night session working on your documentary (and believe me, you pretty much look like this), what do you do? Grab a coffee and get back to work!

Last night after working on the trailer and reviewing Jason's latest cut of the film, I went a step further. I've got two bonus sequences (and a bit in the movie) that talk about Avalon Hill. Eric Martin was kind enough to loan me some early Avalon Hill games a few months back, so I have cutaway shots of those. But one sequence in particular talks about Avalon Hill's newsletter, the General. I didn't have supporting images for that one, and though one might argue, "It's just a bonus segment, it doesn't have to be as fancy as the feature film!" I wanted something.

Luckily, the crowd over at boardgamegeek.com came to my rescue. I reached out to two members there, and just my luck, one of them happened to have been a former Avalon Hill employee! They were both happy to help out (as were several other BGG members before them, for random images here and there).

Supporting assets MAKE a documentary. These guys will be credited in the film, of course, but when you're watching the film and its bonus sequences, you have Rodger MacGowan and Thom Denholm to thank for the great Avalon Hill images.

The latest on Going Cardboard

2011-08-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

Here’s the latest for you all on everything Going Cardboard.

First, I recently checked in with the Ninja vs. Pirate podcast to discuss board gaming and the film. You can check that out here:

http://ninjavspirates.libsyn.com/nv-p-6x10-going-cardboard-with-lorien-green

In the past month, the final proof for the DVD packaging (with Reiner Knizia's Shoot-Out board game insert) arrived, and it looks fantastic. Not to be out-done, the proofs for the components to the game arrived a few days later. Did I mention that the DVD comes with bits for the game? There are bullet counters, a D-20, two little cowboy meeples, and the cards you need to play, illustrated by the talented Mr. Rick Schmitz.

A lot of my current efforts are surrounding the Kickstarter campaign rewards. The first box of autographed board games has arrived, and the coasters, of course, which come in two designs created by my animator, Kerry Hutton.

This week I’m looking into the right shipping boxes to buy, for both the different Kickstarter tiers, and the regular retail shipping of the DVD. Editing is progressing on the film as well, of course.

Among other things, I’ve been working with my editor to select additional music for the soundtrack. I can’t be sure how long before I‘m actually holding the finished DVD in hand, but the many parts of this machine are falling into place to support that goal.

In related board gaming news, there’s this nonsense going on with a board game collector claiming a record collection size of just over 1,500 board games.

http://newssun.suntimes.com/news/6863421-418/lake-villa-man-wants-to-be-chairman-of-the-board.html

Needless to say, that’s not even CLOSE to the record. As per my teaser trailer of over a year ago...

Collecting Designer Board Games from Lorien Green on Vimeo.

James and Sheila Davis’ collection was hovering around 11,500. They’ve passed 12,000 since then, and THEY are not even the largest-known collection out there. What‘s up with that, Guinness?!

SPIEL fair expands to fill an additional hall for 2011 show

2011-07-23T14:00:00.000-07:00

I just received the SPIEL 2011 newsletter, and according to this:

Once again the steady growth being seen in the international games market will be reflected at the world's largest trade fair for social gaming. This year a further hall is being added to accomodate the increasing number of people who come to the fair. The additional hall (hall 7) will house the part of the fair where board and card games are exhibited. This will bring the overall total of exhibit halls in use at the fair to 11.

That's right. This one goes to 11! Those who have seen the halls know, this is a BIG addition. The halls are HUGE. If you've never seen them, well... you WILL, when Going Cardboard: A Board Game Documentary debuts. Which should be sometime this fall. Or at least this year. ASAP, believe me.

Notice, they are now calling it "social gaming" which I assume encompasses board and card games, as well as other tabletop games. Interesting way of categorizing it, though I would say video games are often social, too.

The latest

2011-07-04T08:58:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone is enjoying their 4th of July holiday! Just a quick update on things...

- The subtitle translations for German and Spanish have been completed. There are a couple others being worked on.

- Editing continues. I've seen some of the updated footage, and it looks GREAT! However, it's looking like the film will not be ready in time for PAX Prime. I'll keep everyone posted.

- The art for the DVD cover, board game insert, and the DVD disc itself are DONE, baby! If I haven't mentioned, the case will be transparent, so the inside cover art will show through when you open it up.

So what's left? Once the editing is done, there's that whole process of building the DVD menu and mastering the DVD. I'm both excited and fearful about that, as I think it represents the largest remaining hurdle/learning curve to getting this thing out.

Until next time, true believers!

The Legend Continues

2011-06-08T07:29:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share some updates about what I've been doing on the film, as it's been a while. Time flies!

As you know, the DVD comes with Reiner Knizia's Shoot-Out, a 2-player board game. I'm also pleased to announce that all DVDs will come with the components for Shoot-Out, rather than having to pillage them from some other game or buy them separately. A do-gooder from Games on the Brain put me in touch with a great manufacturer that helped make this possible. It's very cool to get a little taste of what publishing a board game is actually like.

You'll also be able to order the movie directly from GameSalute.com (even pre-order it once I get them the stuff they asked for). More on that soon, but these are the guys that hosted the Going Cardboard teaser trailer in their booth on the GenCon show floor last year, and I'm very pleased to be working with them.

The DVD inside and outside cover are in final draft stage, and looking beautiful. I don't expect to make any more changes to those, so they are just about ready to print. The movie itself is still undergoing polish, and has a ways to go there. I'm very pleased with what I've seen so far on that, and I'll keep you posted on an ETA as one becomes clearer.

It's keeping a lot of plates spinning in the air at once, but so far none of them have smashed to the floor. :)

The Legacy of T-Cat

2011-05-27T15:24:00.000-07:00

"My heart has joined the thousand, for my friend stopped running today." - Richard Adams

You may not want to read this one, it's not about the movie per se, but it is something I have to relate.

On Thursday, May 26, 2011 at about 6:00 PM, I lost my best friend and partner in crime, Toes. My cat. I think I've mentioned on this blog before that she'd been diagnosed with lymphoma back last October, and though they had operated to remove the tumor, it was likely only a matter of time. I thought that fact would help prepare me for when the day came. It didn't.

The tumor on her forehead had come back over the past month, and over the past week, her eye had swollen shut. I woke up yesterday basically knowing it was time. Her behavior had changed and she'd started hiding out in the basement. Pretty much the ONLY cue a cat will give you that they are in pain. So when I took her to the vet yesterday evening, I was not surprised to hear him in agreement with me that it was time. I said, "Just do it." I kissed her on the forehead and told her I loved her, and that was pretty much it.

I was fine for a while. But by last night I was not fine, and here it is Friday afternoon and I'm still FAR from fine. So I wanted to write this, to say as much as I could about what Toes meant to me. She was the reason I named my LLC "T-Cat Productions" and she's now my logo for the company, but there was so much more.

I had Toes for 11 years. She was really small, I called her Toes because her toes were so tiny. She talked to me and I talked to her. She rode around the house on my shoulders. Every single all-nighter I ever did for the film, she was there by my side. Or rather, getting in front of the monitor and interfering. She chattered at birds, and she loved eating yogurt. She either slept under the covers with me or in the crook of my arm, and would get so excited to know it was bedtime so she could cuddle. She was also just getting good with Maddy, my 5-year old daughter, to the point that she'd sleep on her too. She had no interest in escaping the house.

Here's a video of her I took while making the Hustream video presentation:

Note how she looks in the appropriate place where the action buttons would later be, and give you a direct look at just the right time. Yes, Toes had screen presence, she did, she was a natural!

And now she's gone and I wasn't prepared for how hard that is. I know I'll get through it, and she deserves some grieving, but right now there's a big empty hole in my life. I'll miss her. I wish I could have had her for another 5 - 10 years, even though I know it wouldn't have made saying goodbye any easier. I will never forget her.

Oh hai

2011-05-01T17:58:00.000-07:00

So as I sit here tonight trying NOT to think about the presentation to the board of directors at work tomorrow, it seems a good time for an update. So I start the tea kettle boiling, and think.

Last weekend I finished editing the film, and last Monday morning, left my baby in the hands of the US Postal Service to deliver to my editor. For editing. It was one of those momentous introspective moments one is conscious of, as I got in the car and drove away from the post office. Big milestone.

And I'm happy to report that the package made it safely. The film is now under the scalpal of a skilled documentary surgeon, and I'm thrilled about that. It also lets me turn to other moving parts in need of attention.

The inside cover art for the DVD package is done. It is a menagerie of board game pieces from various board games. According to my count, you will see bits from 76 different games. I did this for a number of reasons. First, it'll be fun for seasoned gamers to try and identify the different games included, and will be an interesting bit of eye candy for potential newcomers out there upon opening the DVD. I also like the parallel it presents to opening an actual board game box, revealing all the cool pieces inside.

I was able to get MOST of them back to their proper boxes afterwards, too. ;)

2011-04-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

What's been going on? What HASN'T??

There's the Kickstarter. As of this morning, 300% funded. CRIPES. Almost 300 backers, too. SPARRTAAAAANS! Oh, and 3 days to go. These metrics do appear in 3s they say...

That campaign brought a lot of attention to the film. For one thing, there have been interviews and writeups:

MTV Geek Blog
Cubo Magazine
IndieWIRE
Critical Gamers

I really need to get all those added to the website...

Now as for me, I was up till 2 AM again last night. This time popping in the final versions of 3 animations. Not actually editing really. After that, I made some tea and went downstairs to do the photograph for what will be the inside cover of the DVD. I think it turned out well, but I'll tell you more later. The basement is a MESS though. I told my husband not to go down there.

As I mentioned to the Kickstarter backers, a few of us have been toying with the #gamersgonewild tag on Twitter. Post something boardgamey and add it at the end to play along!

Bonus Footage Extravaganza

2011-03-25T06:41:00.000-07:00

I've been fighting with myself for a week now to get the next all-nighter in, and last night it finally happened. I made some changes to the main film, small changes, but in each case I felt like it made the sequence better... even though the film is now at 1 hour 35 minutes. I'm not worrying about that for the moment, though.

I added quite a bit to the Games in Education segment, it's quite the featurette now, because it turned out a lot of people had a lot to say on that subject.

And of course the Kickstarter rages on. I'm really pushing myself as hard as I can to finish this thing SOON, because all the other elements are starting to surface. Packaging, distribution, screenings at cons... all extremely exciting and fun stuff to work through, but I will feel much better about focusing on it when there's a finished film here.

I don't want to jinx things, but I have some pretty awesome bonus segments. Just sayin'...

Going Cardboard on Kickstarter

2011-03-12T04:44:00.000-08:00

It's been quite a week, I must say. I finally launched the Kickstarter campaign for Going Cardboard. This happened last Wednesday morning, which also happened to be my birthday. :)

For 15 nail-biting minutes, nothing happened. And then you board gamers did what you board gamers do - support our cause in spades! And within just over 24 hours, the project was fully funded, and it's... Still. GOING.

I am humbled, and deeply appreciative of all the support. I can't express thanks enough, and what was already an exciting time is now just surreal. This is a week I'll never forget. Mind you, life wasn't kind enough to pause during this. I had to take my car into the shop the first day, take the cat to the vet the second day, and then right into PAX East weekend. Holy action, batman!

There's still quite a lot to do, but now I will be sharing it with you as it happens, in greater detail than before.

So, thank you. I just don't know what else to say.

Dungeon Twister: The Experience

2011-03-07T11:46:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of crossing over that board games do into the realm of electronic gaming. There's Catan on the Microsoft Surface, of course, and the big 3 gateway games (Catan, Carcassonne, and Ticket to Ride) on consoles like the XBox.

Well there's another game that's made the crossover; Christophe Boelinger's Dungeon Twister. Peep this teaser promo for the game's debut on XBox and PS3:

There's a really cool and unusual story behind the making of this video, and you will hear that tale in Going Cardboard.

Spielbox

2011-02-05T11:06:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching what will more or less be the test screening version of Going Cardboard, and I have to say, it's almost done!

And while still basking in the glow of that feeling, I checked today's mail to discover my issues of Spielbox had just arrived!

They even sent a nice little tote bag. Spielbox, it's love at first sight! :) Those of you living outside Europe who have wanted a board gaming magazine, FYI, Spielbox appears to be now publishing in German AND in English (oooh, what a fun way to learn German if you're so inclined). Sure, it'll cost you, but it looks like a mighty fine board gaming magazine to me.

You can find out more on their website.

Unity Games 17

2011-01-29T14:41:00.000-08:00

Today I spent the day at the Hilton hotel in Woburn, MA playing board games amongst hundreds of like-minded and friendly individuals. This was where it all began for me, two years ago, as Unity 2009 marked the first big filming event for my documentary. It was neat in a way to be so close to the finish line, and to be able to return to this event and reflect on everything that's happened in those two years.

And to play games! That's something I haven't done a whole lot of since I started filming. I actually had the camcorder in my shoulder bag (just in case!), but it never came out, and I'm fine with that. Within 5 minutes of walking through the door, I was learning a new game, Sneaks & Snitches. When that was done, I got up to stroll around the room and get a look at things, and just barely made it to the back before I found myself learning 7 Wonders. And that's how the day went. Like pub-hopping, but with no hangover.

You know, in this whirlwind of filming, chronicling, and planning, I'd forgotten how much fun board games are to PLAY. Every game I played today was for the first time and I played for 7 hours straight. I didn't want to leave, either. :)

Today reminded me why I started this project in the first place, and now I'm ready to tackle editing again with renewed enthusiasm. HUZZAH!

BGG Auction for the Vasels

2011-01-26T06:46:00.000-08:00

One of our board gaming brethren, and a positive force to the board gaming cause, Tom Vasel (host of The Dice Tower) has suffered the loss of his infant son, Jack Vasel. I met Tom at Essen briefly, and have worked with him since (he is a part of the documentary), and my heart hurts for him right now.

You can get all the details in the Wired.com article, but the Board Game Geek community is holding a board game auction to help with medical expenses.

Please take a moment to check it out. This is someone who's given a lot to the community, and this is the kind of community that gives back.

The Latest

2011-01-26T05:47:00.000-08:00

As in 2 AM. Which is when I turned off the computer last night. I call it a semi all-nighter. My good friends from the KLF don't consider it an all-nighter unless it goes to the 3 AM Eternal.

Since making the first-pass 2 hour rough cut, I've been hunting for more visual assets, as well as taking footage of various games from my own collection to support the narrative. I also filmed a Catan gameplay session the other night.

Last night, the primary goal was to integrate that play session, which I did. I integrated some cutaways, too, and before I knew it, it was 2 AM.

and look... MORE lembas...

2011-01-14T23:07:00.001-08:00

It's 2 AM right now, and tonight my can of Amp and I have trimmed the film down to 1 hour and 48 minutes, from 2 hours. This pass consisted of the low-hanging fruit; the easiest trimming decisions.

The next pass will be harder. It's likely that entire segments will have to go (to the bonus section) to get it down to 90 minutes or so. Granted, it doesn't HAVE to be 90 minutes long, but there's no question it can be tightened up more from where it is now.

Tonight's editing session would have been more productive if I hadn't spent the first hour of it in a panic looking for my notebook. No worries, I'll make up the time tomorrow after we get back from swimming lessons! :)

Night time is the right time

2011-01-09T19:43:00.000-08:00

Here it is, Sunday night, and another all-night editing session is officially happening. I've already been at it for almost 3 hours, cutting, moving, and tightening the timeline, and I've got the film down to under 2 hours. A lot of bits just got moved to the end of the timeline, where bonus footage lives on in all its glory.

Right now, I'm rendering the film out in 3 parts for reviewing purposes. Burning it to DVD a couple days ago turned out to be immensely helpful, so I'm looking forward to this second pared-down iteration. The Flight of the Conchords Robot song is playing on my iPhone.

Oh man, I still need to update the website! And launch Project X this month. It may be the middle of winter, but things are heating up here in Studio B!

You're gonna need a bigger boat

2011-01-08T09:20:00.000-08:00

As I write this, I'm also burning a rough (ROUGH) cut of the film to DVD so I can watch it places other than my computer, and let my editor review it. Naturally, the minute that's done, I will immediately start making changes. That's just the way it goes.

Last night I started thinking for the first time that I might make this a 2-DVD set. I might need to. I have to talk to some of the guys I know that have been through this, and see what they have to say on the matter. I do gather that it'll make using Amazon Createspace possibly out of the question. Mind you, if I can cram all my bonus clips and the movie onto one disc, I will surely do that, BUT... I'm not sure I can. :)

You know, now I'm going to update the website. It needs it, big-time.

All-nighter Number 3

2011-01-05T22:26:00.000-08:00

As penance for not posting in so long, I'm in the middle of an all night editing session. My trusty T-Cat is co-piloting in the chair next to me. I think Vegas is more tired than I am, it has just frozen three times in a row, so while I give the hard drives and the editing software a break I thought I'd update the blog. If they think this thing is over, though, they've got another think coming...

So I haven't been utterly truant; I was working on something during November and December, something in support of the film, but not precisely the film itself. I will be launching "it" this month, so you'll see it quite soon.

The main body of the film is now at 2 hrs. 20 minutes. It's going to get bigger before it gets smaller, but the narrative is semi-solid. Much work to be done now integrating cutaways and supporting elements. And the harder part, deciding which snippets are boring for a viewer when I find them all interesting.

OK, Vegas, Venom, and Deadpool... in the immortal words of Sting, "break's over!"

Into the night

2010-11-07T07:42:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update, yes, the all-nighter happened, I logged a total of 7 hours of editing time yesterday, and was at it until 2:30 this morning (technically 1:30 because of the time change, not quite sure yet how I feel about that).

I made some BIG changes last night, I actually axed a rather significant segment that I'd taken for granted would be in the film. Last night though, I realized it was disrupting the flow of the story, so I moved it over to the bonus section as a featurette. I believe the body of the film is at about 2 hours 30 minutes right now, with about two hours of bonus clips lounging around in very shabby form.

What I don't comprehend is why I feel so totally awesome this morning after a night with about 5 hours of sleep. Maybe I should do it again tonight!

o.O

I can haz time?

2010-11-06T06:59:00.000-07:00

Work's been incredibly busy the last month or so, but this morning I had the urge to edit, so I fired up Deadpool and Venom, and started in.

About 15 minutes later, the kids are up. "Mama, I need you! Mama come here!" Why do they need me? Well, as it turns out, a toy commercial of utmost urgency. Interrupted.

Go back to work, 30 seconds in, interrupted. "I need you to draw Iron Man." Then its time for breakfast. Five minutes of work go by. Then more interruptions. I doggedly refuse to turn off Vegas altogether (Vegas, my editing software, that is, not New Vegas, my beautiful lovely game that I've had no time to play) but this is getting nowhere fast. You need to really settle in and concentrate to do serious editing. And now I must draw the Hulk...

Moments like these are frustrating. You can't blame them, they're kids. They miss me during the work week and I miss them. They don't care that the last month and half has seen the majority of Saturdays taken up with birthday parties for their daycare friends, or that every weeknight is completely filled by cooking dinner, giving them baths, and homework, and putting them to bed. By the time all that's done, I'm usually too tired to think about anything but a pillow. And you can't fault them for it. But it is maddeningly frustrating, right now I want to say "Leave me alone for FIVE MINUTES! I'm trying to make a MOVIE here!" but can't. I'm walking the tightrope over personal time and guilt about wanting personal time.

OK. Now that I've got the whining out of my system, a thought occurs. My husband is spending the night at a friends' house tonight. When 8:30 rolls around, when the kids are in bed... OMFG, it's ME TIME!

And me time tonight is going to be... an allllllllll nighter.

But I'm still not turning off Deadpool and Venom. You never know, maybe I'll get an hour in somewhere between now and the next toddler birthday party this afternoon.

September update

2010-09-24T15:29:00.000-07:00

The lack of posts here is a strong indicator that I've been spending every spare minute working on the documentary, for both August and September. So far this month, I've logged about 25 hours of editing, and have also recently filmed two big interviews. Let me tell you about those.

Myriad Games

I drove up to Myriad Games in Manchester, NH, shortly after GenCon to interview the store owner, Dan Yarrington. This is the second games store that Dan has opened in the area (the first located in Salem, NH), so he's doing something right. Dan's wife, Sara, is an educator, one that uses board games in the classroom. I got to interview both of them in Myriad's spacious Game Parlour.

Dan's a big believer in professionalism and providing a service by helping guide customers to the right game for them. If you're in the southern New Hampshire area, I highly suggest you check out his store. It is beautiful and inviting, the staff are friendly, and the game room is really nice.

Boardgamenews.com

Eariler this week, I also drove up to Concord, NH to interview Eric Martin, editor of boardgamenews.com. Eric is largely responsible for my having discovered this hobby in the first place; it was his game group that my husband first attended. Eric's also been interviewed for Kevin Tostado's Monopoly documentary, "Under the Boardwalk," So he's gaining a reputation as quite the board gaming authority these days. :)

One of the topics of our conversation that really struck me was when Eric spoke about games as an art form. Just as movies, music, and books are not always written with the goal of pure entertainment, sometimes games are about something more than just "fun."

Today I had the afternoon off, so I did a bit of editing work, but then got side-tracked capturing portraits of all my existing interview subjects. This task had to be done, anyway. Here are some samples:

Friedemann Friese, the designer of Power Grid. He's awesome, and yes, he kinda looks like Dexter Morgan with green hair.

Nick Kellet, designer of GiftTRAP and also awesome. Those games in the background are phat loot obtained from Essen earlier that day.

And just what is Dungeon Twister designer Christophe Boelinger saying in this shot? You'll just have to wait for the documentary to find out!

What's next? More editing (tomorrow, to infinity, and beyond). And once the full narrative is in place, have someone else edit it, smooth out the rough spots, color-correct, audio-correct, all that good stuff. Lots of work yet to do, but 95% of the filming is done, friends!

August in review

2010-09-01T15:26:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update for those interested. After a 3-day "vacation" doing editing, and then the infamous all-nighter, I started working on the movie almost every night, for an hour or two each session. Word of advice: slow and steady wins the race! It's better, at least for me, to do a little bit more frequently than marathon sessions. I'm happy I did both though, for sure.

All told, I logged at least 35 hours of editing work during August. I have a rough cut of the first 10 minutes of the film. And probably another 10-15 shaping up nicely right after that part. Large segments are coming together, and a coherent progression of discussion is emerging. That's exciting.

But August is gone, now. Oh, hai September! Let's get to work. Now I'm thinking about what I can do for something trailery or promotional in October (Essen season) since it's unlikely I'll be ready to release by then.

Alllll night long

2010-08-13T00:18:00.000-07:00

Hour 1, going through the Mark Kaufmann (Days of Wonder) interview.

Heated debate at dinner about editorials vs. documentaries has made me very awake (but with sore throat). All to the good.
Fruit punch NOS provided by Justin is enabling lots of editing! Does that make Justin an enabler?
Even though I can't really pay attention to it, listening to "She Does" by Collective Soul and loving it.

Hour 2, Mark Kaufmann continued

Mark talking about word of mouth and distribution channels, and that designer games don't really belong in Wal-Mart in the first place, because in order to hit the right price points, the quality would have to go way down. And kids, we don't want that, right?!
Whistling to Collective Soul "Fuzzy." You know, at first I didn't like this album. It's growing on me. Like this fruit punch NOS...
Saving the timeline. I've been bitten by not doing so before...
Oh, right, right! Stand up break... BRB
Time to switch it up... "Nine in the Afternoon"
Can I just tell you what a joy it is editing on a widescreen monitor vs. the laptop??

12:30 AM

Sleep, I laugh in your general direction!

1:00 AM

Now at bat, the Christophe Boelinger interview from Essen. I love this guy! The hottest French game designer/rapper/extreme sports enthusiast in the entire film, guaranteed! He's sort of got the Viggo look going.
Just put a jacket on. This is not August weather at ALL. How refreshing.
I think I smell a skunk outside.

1:38 AM

hmm, is this train slowing down? Inconceivable!
Starting up the interview with the Lamont brothers (Shear Panic, Snow Tails, Savannah Tails)

2:30 AM

What? What? Whut? WHUUUT????
T-Cat wants to know urgently, "Mistress, what are you doing up?" I tell her, "Not now, the Lamonts are talking about Ostrich-racing!"
Film timeline is currently at 4 hours, 37 minutes including bonus material
Eyestrain

3:00 AM

Finished the Lamont interview, got all the segment marker snips back where they belong
I think that's it. I hope this counts as all night...

Proper execution of an all-nighter

2010-08-12T06:36:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about doing something I've never done before.

Friday night, the kids are going to be with the grandparents. I'm in the mood to edit, but I can't take any more time off work just now.

I'm thinking of doing an all-night editing session. Yes, true believers; an all-nighter. And I want it to be a flawlessly executed all-nighter in the classic style. I somehow got through college without ever learning this art. The closest I have been to it was a Sunken Temple raiding session in WoW that went till 2 AM. /shudder

So what do I need to do here? How late is Starbucks open, I wonder? Is it dangerous to mix cappuccino with Amp? Should snacks be involved, or no?

The planning has begun!

Editing Marathon Day 3

2010-08-06T13:49:00.000-07:00

Uh, where am I? What YEAR is it?

Processed the following:

Added the pre-Essen "People's Choice" Awards ceremony, featuring Jay Tummelson, Donald Vaccarino, and Matt Leacock and others
Guido Teuber interview. Awesome
Alex Yeager (Mayfair Games) interview - great speaker, had a good overview of the industry and where it's gone. Also awesome.
Klaus Teuber interview - a triumverate of awesome!

Just enough time to shut down now. I planned on doing so an hour ago, but anything but a full court press just seemed like the wrong way to end a 3-day editing extravaganza...mission...quest...thing.

The latest runtime for the film (and this is a meaningless number of course) is I think 2 hours and 45 minutes or so, not counting bonus features.

Tons and tons more to do, but from here on out, I will be grabbing every spare hour of time I can wherever and whenever I can, to do it. I've been doing so, to a point, up till now, but let's just say... @#$%& just got real!

Essen Vittles

2010-08-06T05:48:00.001-07:00

One of the things that struck me while wandering the halls at Essen was that I was hungry. Borderline starving. I'd been full-tilt filming so intensely, running from one interview to the next, eating was pretty far down on the priority list. When I finally did force myself to address this bare necessity, though, Essen was there for me.

First, there were the bulk candy bins. This is another indicator about how kid-friendly the event is, Haribo has at least two massive tables filled with bulk candy. It's like a scene out of Willy Wonka (the original).

I passed that up, though, for the Snack Point, a stand about the size of a Starbucks in a mall or airport, alive with sizzling sausages and all manner of good food. I got a curry bratwurst there, and it was anything but bland. They probably thought I was an idiot, there with my camera filming the sausages, but my job as an indie servant is to bring you the sights and sounds of the moment (even if I have to look like a fool to do it).

On one of the following days, I found mushroom goulash at another stand, and it was truly the best mushroom stew type thing I've ever had. I would be hard-pressed to make something as good at home. It was only made better by the combination of being ravenous and expecting far lesser fare at a game convention. Oh, and I do believe the goulash stand also had beer. Not something you'd see at an American convention, especially one that welcomes children, right? If there was one in the US that was this kid-friendly, of course...

I forgot to get a good shot of the crepe stand, which was a silver volkswagen-style van serving crepes out the side. I didn't get to try one, but just, Hello!?! A crepe stand at a game con! FTW!

OK, back to work! Live from Editing Marathon Day 3, this is... me.

Editing Sprint Day 2

2010-08-05T13:58:00.000-07:00

Day 2 is drawing to a close, and I'm feeling it. After a poor night's sleep (humidity makes me a sad bunny), I didn't really dive into it until 10 AM. A wasted HOUR, shame on me. Time is precious.

Here's what I got through today:

Started with the display shots from the press room at Essen. This was a big quiet set of rooms that had a bit of an echo, but were relatively quiet as far as space to be found at Essen goes. The Donald Vaccarino and Nick Medinger interviews are shot here.
...which led to the creation of the Agricola header banner at the top of the blog. Hey, call it a warm-up exercise! :)
Most of the day was spent pulling good cutaways from the Essen floor footage. This included an interview with a German convention-goer, some focus on the various concessions stands (will do a separate entry about that in a minute) and an interview with Markus Welbourne of JKLM Games (publishers of Huang Di and Tulipmania 1637)
Chainmail bikinis.
Found the footage of the life-sized foosball table they had set up in the kid hall, as well as a Star Trek-style game where kids tried to knock each other off pedestals with big nerf staves (Riker and his Dad played this if IIRC)

Feeling pretty tired right now, I think pretty close to the way I was feeling around Essen day 2, when I filmed a Blair Witch parody about being lost. I *may* let that footage see the light of day sometime.

Tomorrow, I still need to shuffle the segments, and bring in the Matt Leacock (Pandemic) and Nick Kellet (GiftTrap) interviews. Oh, and the Klaus and Guido Teuber interviews, because now I have a spot in mind for where to put those. :)

Going Cardboard at GenCon

2010-08-05T07:15:00.000-07:00

All you lucky Gen Con 2010 attendees, make sure to swing by the GameSalute.com booth there! It's booth 929, and in addition to all the other board gaming news and interviews you'll find out about there, you may just catch a glimpse of the Going Cardboard teaser trailer. On the show floor. At Gen Con. /squeeeee! :D

Big thanks to the great folks at Myriad Games in Salem and Manchester, NH for making this possible. You'll be seeing them in the film!

Editing Extravaganza Day 1

2010-08-04T16:09:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day in my 3-day "vacation" for the purpose of editing the film. I've done Saturdays here and there, an hour after work here and there, but nothing before like this. It would figure it's the first day of a humid heatwave, and that there's no air conditioning in the diningroom.

I think I got a lot done. I went through the full interviews I did with Corey Konieczka of Fantasy Flight Games, and Nick Medinger of Funagain.com. An awful lot of both these interviews is great material, but for the first pass, I'm just throwing in the segments that are good in the sections they roughly belong in, and will edit that down later.

Here are some of the other things I hope to do in the next two days:

A quick trip to Walmart to get a shot of their game shelves for cutaway material - maybe
Go through the Essen footage and get the shot of the concessions stand, as well as the life-size foosball table with kids, and the conversation I had with the designer of the marijuana-themed game there
Reconnect with Christophe Boelinger, and my contact who runs the gamer cruises
Change the order of some of the sections in the timeline. I wrote them all down today in their current order, and some shuffling needs to be done
Flesh out the Scott Nicholson segment about Libraries, and integrate the ALA convention footage
Integrate Gordon and Frasier Lamont footage from Essen interview - I wonder if I can get stock footage of ostrich racing...
Set up black backdrop in the basement, and start filming shots of various board games

That's by no means everything that needs to be done, just some things that jump to mind. I ended the day by re-watching the closing and credits, which are among the closest to finished bits. The momentum by the end of the day seems good, and will hopefully grow tomorrow.

My two hard drives, Deadpool and Venom. :)

It's going to take a lot more than three days to finish this puppy. Things I still need to film but will have to wait for another time (in the near future) include:

Catan gaming night - You guys know who you are ;)
War of the Ring collector's edition unboxing and playing segment
Interview with Myriad Games - a local Salem, NH gaming store with a newly opened second branch in Manchester, NH
Interview with Eric Martin of boardgamenews

There are some additional segments I'd do if I had more time and funds, but I've hit the point where I have to realize that I have "enough" and that I could go on filming indefinitely if I let myself. And besides, what would that leave as far as material for Going Cardboard: The Revenge?

The latest Catan build for MS Surface

2010-08-02T12:18:00.000-07:00

Several improvements over what was shown at Origins. Read more here.

Murphy's Law

2010-08-02T06:13:00.000-07:00

So. Last Monday, I requested 3 days off from work next week to edit the film. The following chain of events then took place:

Tuesday: My guerilla doc filming hero, Anthony Artis, posted that his "Indie Film Bootcamp" seminar was now available for purchase on DVD. I order it without a second thought. Much love for this guy, his advice is practical and inspirational. One day I will go meet him to say thanks.
Friday: A late-afternoon development arose where I suddenly had the chance for my teaser trailer to be played on the show floor at Gen Con. But I would have to convert it to a different format than the wmv it currently existed as, and fast.
Friday night: Started on converting the trailer as soon as I got home, but had a lot of trouble for some reason, including low memory notifications and all sorts of other weird issues.
Saturday morning: Woke up, turned on the computer, and a partition was corrupt. Supposedly this had a simple fix, but the restore disk was password protected (WTF, Dell?) and shut off after 3 attempts. Nutshell: Computer effectively dead.

Luckily, all my footage is on external hard drives, as is the Vegas Movie project file. Those were fine, though they are also backed up. At the stroke of 10 AM, I hustled the kids into the car, and peeled out of the driveway for the local Best Buy. By 3:30 PM Saturday, I was setting up a new computer, a PC this time, that had so much going on compared to my old laptop, it literally had special system memory allocated JUST to laugh heartily at its own power. Like Captain Hammer. For about half the price.

By 9 PM Saturday night, I was emailing my contact with a link to the finished teaser video. I'll talk about that later if all goes well; I'm not superstitious, but I never go into detail about something this good until it actually happens. Don't want to jinx it.

Sunday dawned bright and beautiful! I cracked into the Indie Film Bootcamp seminar, which had arrived in the mail on Friday, and started getting super-inspired. Look out film, you are about to be edited with a vengeance!

Especially since I have ideas for three more documentaries after this... but one thing at a time. I believe it was Porkins who put it best when he said, "Stay on target. Stay on target."

PS - I am going to try to get the laptop fixed, but this new PC can render footage about 6 times faster than the laptop. It was something I needed anyway, but was trying to gimp along without. How silly of me.

Why boardgames are awesome

2010-07-21T14:11:00.001-07:00

I caught this presentation, posted on the BGG community:

You can't stop progress

2010-06-24T12:34:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday, I spent a good 3 hours editing. I played with the end credits and outtakes sequence (putting the cart before the horse a bit, I know, but I'm having fun with the end credits!) and integrated a bunch of quotes I'd filmed at the Lobster Trap event just after Essen.

This editing session was unexpected, actually. I'd been feeling a tad uninspired about doing any work on the film that week. Inspiration ebbs and flows on any long-term project like this, and I was definitely in an ebb.

Then somebody gave me a little push, just by saying, "Oh, no plans to work on the doc at all this weekend?" (in a sort of taunting way, very much on purpose). Sometimes, all you need to get back to feeling creative is that small push to dive in and get back into it. And now I'm feeling re-inspired, and back into it!

So thanks for that push. :)

Catan Settling on the MS Surface

2010-06-18T12:35:00.000-07:00

This just in: Catan for the MS Surface will be at Origins, June 22 - 26 (next week)!

VERY exciting news, I've been hoping to see Catan playable on the Surface since the first time I heard about the technology.

UPDATE: Here's a video of Catan Surface in action:

Interview on The Little Metal Dog Show

2010-06-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

I recently got the chance to have a lovely conversation with Michael Fox, host of the brand new Little Metal Dog Show, a UK gaming podcast. We had a fun conversation about indie documentary and the designer board gaming scene. And on top of it, Matt also interviews Pandemic's designer, Matt Leacock, of whom I'm a big fan. (Hi Matt!) In the podcast, Matt talks a bit about his latest game, Forbidden Island.

As you try to get back into the rhythm of another work week, you ought to don those headphones and give this a listen. It's just shy of 30 minutes, and it's 30 minutes well-spent, I say!

Download Episode 3 of The Little Metal Dog Show here.

Loads of Progress

2010-05-22T13:34:00.000-07:00

Not only did I spend Tuesday in a fervor of editing, I also just spent most of today (Saturday) doing the same thing, and boy am I on a roll!

A pretty good segment about Monopoly and the "Ameritrash" concept has coalesced, as well as some more outtake bits for the credits roll (I just really love those). I added material to the segment where people talk about community, and cut in the story of the rise of Unity Games. I integrated a bunch of the Z-Man interview from PAX, as well as the Geek Nights boys, who are very good at stating things in a provocative and intelligent manner.

I added the cutaways I shot of the Microsoft Surface D&D demo to the tech sequence I'm working on (all about the board game port-overs to Xbox, iPhone, iPad, etc.).

Oh, and last Thursday, I ran home for lunch to do a Skype interview with Michael Fox, the creator of the new UK gaming podcast, Little Metal Dog (I'll let you know when that's live). I don't know if the interview paired with taking a vacation day from work to edit had some kind of catalyst effect, but things are moving forward a great deal faster at the moment than they have been in the last couple months.

It could also be the hemp brownies I bought at Lull Farm this morning...

Homework

2010-05-18T06:24:00.000-07:00

Guys, today is a full-out day of editing. I will report back tomorrow and let you know what all happens! :)

Happy 8th Birthday Days of Wonder!

2010-04-30T15:14:00.000-07:00

Days of Wonder, the designer board games publisher that brought us games like Ticket to Ride and Small World, turns 8 today.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

PS - You can try out Ticket to Ride free online at their website, here.

Just a cool Catan commercial

2010-04-28T08:51:00.000-07:00

PAX East btw

2010-04-12T06:44:00.000-07:00

PAX East was a couple weeks ago, and I couldn't go there and NOT film. Things I filmed there for the movie:

The Dungeons & Dragons demo on the MS Surface. I think Eurogames on the Surface would be a lot of fun, especially since you wouldn't need the DM driving the game forward like you do with D&D (granted, the interface to do that looked pretty cool if rather technical). I will have a section in Going Cardboard about technology and board games, ports to platforms like the XBox 360 and iPhone, so I wanted some footage of the Surface in action. It lends itself especially well to board gaming, I'm sure we'll start to see Eurogames on it soon. And I still really really want to own one, $15,000 pricetag be damned.
Zev of Z-Man games was in attendance, so I did an interview with him. I'd been bummed to miss him at Essen, and life doesn't hand you second-chances like this very often. Or maybe it does, because while we were chatting, who meanders over but...
Rick Thornquist, creator of boardgamenews.com and currently finishing up a book about Infocom games. He did not escape uninterviewed.

I also recorded a board game panel called Beyond Candyland. I was lucky enough to get a follow-up interview with the panelists, Rym and Scott, who host the Geek Nights podcast show I mentioned in my last blog entry, great insights and a unique perspective on the hobby, you'll definitely be seeing them in the movie!

Geek Nights podcast FTW

2010-04-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

One of the best things that came out of PAX East for me was meeting Scott and Rym, the dynamic duo behind the Geek Nights podcast series. These guys were hosting 3 panels at PAX East, but the one that caught my attention was "Beyond Candyland," really the only panel discussion about designer board gaming.

Since they were in town for the whole week after PAX to also attend Anime Boston, I actually got a chance to sit down and interview them. These guys seem to know something about pretty much everything geeky and/or cool, and an awful lot about game theory, which was a subject I hadn't heard anybody talk in depth about. Bottom line, they had an interesting perspective, are fun to talk to, and are just all-around cool guys.

The Geek Nights podcast is divided into 4 themes. From their About section:

Mondays: Science & Technology
Tuesdays: Gaming
Wednesdays: Anime, Manga, and Comics
Thursdays: "Anything goes"

If you haven't heard of GeekNights already, check it out!

Going Cardboard teaser clip

2010-03-25T08:41:00.000-07:00

This week I've put together a teaser clip for the board game documentary! In this segment, people talk about collecting games.

The segment includes footage shot during Unity XV, and the 2009 Gathering of Friends, all of it was very early-on in terms of development of the story (and really, finding out what the story WAS). It was in many ways the "discovery" phase, which is why I frequently asked the question, "What is the size of your board game collection?"

This makes for a good first teaser, because it's a concept accessible and interesting/fun to both the non-gamer and the die-hard gamer. There are currently several segments close to this level of finished, but last Saturday, this one just wound up being the one that came together and felt "right."

Hope you like it! Stay tuned!

Affording a soundtrack for an indie documentary

2010-03-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

It may be putting the cart before the horse (or it may NOT be) but I've been thinking about soundtrack options for the film for quite some time. A site that I've used for unrelated projects at work is musicloops.com (we used their content as the background music for our eCards). This site is run by Partners in Rhyme, and their compilation sets of royalty-free music had caught my eye as an affordable possibility for a film soundtrack.

I'm leaning towards upbeat and happy music, both because I like it, and because the film's overall mood warrants it. I haven't settled on anything specific, with the exception of a closing credits song. I keep coming back to this track by Dan Gautreau as my closing score. Take a listen, for the creepy audio watermark if for no other reason. :) This track just feels "right," and the fact that it has continued to feel that way is a sign to me that maybe it is. For me, it captures both the "keep on keeping on" vibe of the independent designer as well as the friendships and good times of designer board gaming.

There's another option in the mix, though, a member of the board game community who also happens to be a composer is interested in collaborating. I welcome the expertise of course, and anything that benefits the film the way an experienced film score composer would is worth serious consideration. If I can make it work out, I will, because I also really like the idea of involving people who care about the hobby in the process. I'll talk more about this once things are confirmed, I don't like to jinx myself as a general rule (which is why I didn't talk about the fact that I was interviewing Klaus Teuber at Essen until it actually happened!)

Anyway, I welcome thoughts about the track sample above. Upward and onward! :)

Heading to PAX East next week

2010-03-17T07:59:00.000-07:00

PAX East is next week, in Boston, and I'm both excited and frantic about it. At first I was just going to attend for fun, but of course, the documentary bug wouldn't let that stand, especially not when there's going to be a panel on Sunday about Designer Games by the folks who do the Geek Nights gamer podcasts. And the MS Surface demo going on there, not to mention the Catan tournaments...

How can I not film? :) I just can't not. This does, however, turn it into work instead of leisure. Oh well. I can rest in 2011.

A real editing session

2010-02-19T13:18:00.000-08:00

This past Monday, I got 4 straight hours of editing done on the film. The main focus was a segment with Donald X. Vaccarino and Jay Tummelson talking about how Dominion came to be, and three little "outtake-style clips that would go at the end of the film, during or after a credits roll.

Next Friday, I am taking a day off to do even more. I'm also talking to a composer from the board gaming community who could be doing the score. It sounds promising, and I would welcome his technical expertise!

Merging Board Games and Electronics

2010-01-26T08:28:00.000-08:00

A group at Queen's University in Canada is taking some serious steps towards merging board gaming with electronics to produce a compelling potential experience. See the demonstration below.

This isn't the first time anyone's thought about board games including an electronic component (Space Alert has a fun CD audio element, for example) but it's certainly the most interesting and cutting edge implementation I've seen, and it looks like it would be SO MUCH fun to play.

What kills me is, these guys were demonstrating the technology at MIT yesterday. If I'd only known, I could have interviewed them, and since I've already got a lot of discussion about board games on tech platforms like the iPhone or XBox, it would have been a nice addition.

Update

2010-01-24T13:05:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, I drove to the American Library Assocication conference in Boston, MA to interview Scott Nicholson, of the Board Games with Scott podcast series.

Scott brings a lot to the game table. Not only does he do the podcasts, as a professor of Library Science at Syracuse University, he's also heavily involved in getting librarians to add board games to their lending programs. Oh, and runs a large annual board gaming event one of the nights of the main ALA conference. He's also recently crossed into designer territory himself, with the 2009 release of Tulipmania 1637.

It was a wonderful interview, and I've since transcribed and loaded it into my digital treasure trove of stuff.

This past week, I also became acquainted with Myriad Games in Salem, NH. I'll be heading over there at some point to get a store owner's perspective, and to film a game night, which they run regularly.

There aren't very many more interviews needed. I fussed around some with footage, but I didn't get much done in the way of editing the last 2 weekends. I'm going to make a schedule with deadlines, it's the only way I can really dig in. But I'm thinking about structure. There's going to be a segment about electronics and iPhone ports, and one about Catan, one about collection sizes and the collecting bug, oh, and maybe I'll include a snippet of Essen in the film, you know, just for kicks... ;)

Books for board game designers

2010-01-14T06:21:00.000-08:00

@2boardgames posted a link this morning to an amazon.com Listmania list of "Books for Board and Card Game Designers."

The list is pretty thorough and includes books on the history of old-school board games as well. Worth a look even if you aren't designing.

Editing in Studio B-2

2010-01-09T05:17:00.000-08:00

I started editing the intro for Going Cardboard a couple weeks back, and while I managed to post the fact on Twitter and Facebook, I neglected to mention it here. D'oh.

And clearly, the kids' spidey senses just went off, because now they're fighting and crying...excuse me one minute...

Back. See, this is what makes editing a challenge here. It's not just that I'm on the learning curve when it comes to HOW to edit (I watched my Unity Montage the other day just to remind myself that I can do it though). And it's not just that I have like 50 hours of footage, yet still a few key pieces yet to obtain, and I have to keep mental track of all of it. On top of that, it's the fact that really the weekend is the only time to do this, and the kids are home, and they do have an uncanny knack for interrupting me the minute I sit down at the laptop.

This phase, more than any other, is bringing out the inherent challenge that is trying to make a documentary as a mom. I'll figure this out, but I may start affectionately referring to them as "my little monkey wrenches..."

So anyway, I started editing with the intro, not because I'm going sequentially, but because I had a good idea how I want it to look and what I want it to do. And more or less, I got the first 30 seconds to do what I intended. Which is cool!

Hold on, they want ice cream...they know they've got me over a barrel here...

At the moment, the movie begins with some text on screen about Essen. One thing that impressed me about Essen was the constant roar of humanity generated by 150,000 people. It was like being at the ocean. It was also a nightmare for filming interviews, but nonetheless, it was part of the experience. So I wanted to capture that somehow, and the way I'm doing it at the moment is to kick in the audio of that ambient roar as the text is displaying, and fade in to one of my crowd shots (still) as the noise reaches a peak. Sort of like they do when they cover rock concerts. Then, as abruptly as possible, I have it cut out to darkness and silence. The part I'm working on today is where it transitions into people talking about playing board games as kids.

So in a nutshell, the intro so far gives the viewer a preview of where things will be headed later in the film, but in a more static way that doesn't really give it all away (and I have Jason Scott to thank once again for the initial idea of how to do this, because at first I had NO intention of showing Essen right away). Sort of "this is where it is today" and then cutting off in a way that should feel like, "But HOLD ON, now. How did we get there?" And then the story begins.

This stuff is actually harder to explain than to DO, wow. :)

New Alan Moon interview on Nerd News

2009-12-16T15:39:00.000-08:00

Nerd News posted an interview today with Ticket to Ride designer Alan Moon. It's a good interview, including some insights on how important the major industry awards like the Spiel des Jahres are to board game designers:

I like to say that winning the SdJ for ELFENLAND got me back to zero. Winning the SdJ for TICKET TO RIDE made me successful. ELFENLAND enhanced my reputation to the point where it made it easier for me to be a game designer and sell future prototypes. TICKET TO RIDE has become a staple and its sales are allowing me to enjoy other things in life. Before ELFENLAND, there was definitely pressure to design a game that would sell a lot of copies. Now there is no pressure, just the continuing desire to design another big hit.

Many of the industry people I've spoken to point to the existence of the Spiel award as a big part of why board gaming is a bigger deal in Germany than it has been in the States. For one thing, it incents designers to produce both innovation and quality. For another, it has given the mainstream media there a reason to cover the genre to a much greater degree than we've seen here in the past. That part, at least, seems to be changing, though the primary angle seems to be that "board games are great in recessions because they're cheap." This clearly does not refer to designer board games, which are NOT cheap.

Thanks to Boardgamenews.com for the heads-up.

Special When Lit pinball documentary coming soon

2009-11-21T04:44:00.000-08:00

Just came across an update on a geekumentary I started following some time ago. Special When Lit: A Pinball Documentary just got a writeup in the Australian site Filmink.com.

Special When Lit is the definitive story of the rise and fall of pinball as told by the fans, collectors, designers and champion players from across the globe. Shot all over the world, though predominantly in America, by London-based Australian filmmakers Brett O'Sullivan, Clayton Jacobsen and Emily Rickard, and edited in the UK with the final sound mix completed in Australia, the film truly is an international production with worldwide appeal.

TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball set the bar pretty high, but I'm happy to see another contender, and look forward to watching this movie. That's the nice thing about documentaries; there can be 2, 3, 4 of them on the exact same topic, and all covering sufficiently different angles and with different approaches such that they don't exclude one another. That's why I don't mind when I hear rumblings that other people are working on designer board game documentaries, and in fact, welcome it.

11 days to go for a very worthy cause

2009-11-10T06:37:00.000-08:00

I don't think I've ever pushed a cause online. This cause deserves some pushing:

When he's not saving Geocities and computer history itself, he's making documentaries. And when he's not making documentaries, he's making videos for MC Frontalot. If we, the people, "hire" him, he will make us stuff that will be good to have.

To put it another way, before I'd ask you to fund MY project, I would ask you to contribute to Jason's work. Without his mentoring, advice, and generosity, I wouldn't even be DOING my movie.

And, I'd really like to watch Get Lamp, his second documentary about Infocom text adventures. His time is much better spent working on that then some silly day job.

Oh, and...if you don't help, @sockington will probably starve to death.

HURRY!

Seattle Times board games article

2009-11-09T10:08:00.000-08:00

It's raining, it's boring — what to do? Let the games begin

A co-owner of Blue Highways Games shop in Seattle talks about the unplugged world of board games, just in time for soggy weather to chase us all indoors.

As a schoolboy, Scott Cooper would sit with his buddies at recess, back to the wall, arranging marbles in patterns meant to entice passers-by. Like a carnival hawker, he'd invite kids to knock his marbles out of bounds. If they missed, he took their marble. If they didn't miss, they got his. "At an early age, I learned how to do cost-benefit analyses," Cooper says....

Just pointing this out as another small sign of encouragement that the media is paying more attention to the designer gaming hobby.

It's the Weekend...

2009-11-06T09:05:00.001-08:00

As it turns out, that's exactly what it means. I'll be firing up the cameras again for another round of interviews this weekend!

Now, things really are winding down, I swear, but there are still some specific questions that need answering by specific people. So film, I must.

Great UK article about Essen and board games

2009-11-04T06:23:00.000-08:00

Big game hunter: The search for the next Monopoly

(Now, while they had to go and use the Monopoly tie-in as usual, one thing we have to keep in mind is that as designer board game fans, it's hugely old and cliche at this point, but to a newbie, that's an important frame of reference to draw them in. Just saying. :)

This was a really good and lengthy read which captured some of the flavor of the Essen fair. This was one of my favorite parts:

By the third day of the fair, games lovers are sprawled across the floors and into the aisles, playing card games, war games, party games, puzzle games, family games; two-player games, four-player games, six-player games; games set in the Wild West, games set in the Far East, games set in the Caribbean; games set in the Industrial Revolution, games set in the Bronze Age, games set in the Middle Ages (games fans are especially fond of the Middle Ages); games about hospitals and police stations and factories; abstract games, about nothing but the game itself. There's a game that involves one player trying to build a Jenga-like structure from wooden blocks, while their opponent bashes them over the head with an inflatable club. It's called Argh!Tect.

They mentioned how all the local hotels, like the Jung, open up banquet and meeting-type areas during the convention, so that players can come back from a long day of gaming and buying new games and continue to play all night long. I experienced this, and it was one more thing that caused me to think, "This couldn't happen in America in a million years." I was hanging out unsupervised in the hotel's kitchen with Martin Wallace and his wife, Eric Martin, Anthony Gallela, and some other great people just chatting, fine German beers in hand. In the room next door, designers and gamers were playing their new games on into the night. So cool. If there were any strangers in the group, I'm sure they didn't feel like strangers for long.

The article also does a dynamite job of summing up the designer board gaming hobby itself, both the designer's side, and the collector/player's side. BOTH sides are wonderful worlds, and there's a lot of cross-over, not surprisingly, as game enthusiasts hatch ideas for games they haven't seen yet, and go on to be designers themselves. This industry is one of the few where, at least currently, such a dream can be realized.

Catan for iPhone is here

2009-10-28T07:53:00.001-07:00

Mine's downloading this very minute. :) You can read a review on CNet, but, I mean, it's Catan. You should just get it.

There are a growing number if board games making the jump over to the iPhone. As a development platform, it sort of mirrors the indie element of the current designer board gaming scene, because an independent designer can learn the ropes of iPhone development, submit an app, and almost instantly be selling it on the App Store.

There's a version of Werewolf designed by Kory Heath, as well as 3 Reiner Knizia apps - Poison, Robot Master, and Knights of Charlemagne. Poison is one I really like as a board game, so it'll be interesting to see how it makes the translation over to iPhone.

Weird, Wild Stuff

2009-10-25T06:52:00.000-07:00

I'm back home from Essen, and I don't even know where to begin. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen, a world different than the Origins or E3s that I've attended. For one thing, it was big, airy, and brightly lit. For another thing...it was BIG. It is the largest in the world, literally more than 10 times the size of our conventions. I don't think I've gotten such a workout in all my gym time this year combined. If you're thinking of attending, I recommend training for it. :)

All in all, I conducted over 14 interviews, including:

Nick Medinger (Funagain.com)
Matt Leacock (Pandemic)
Nick Kellet (GiftTRAP)
Gordon and Fraser Lamont (Snow Tails)
Reiner Knizia (Lost Cities, Poison, LotR: The Confrontation, and a few hundred others)
Klaus & Guido Teuber (Settlers of Catan)
Donald X. Vaccarino (Dominion)
Christophe Boelinger (Dungeon Twister)
Mark Kaufmann (Days of Wonder)
Alexander Yeager (Mayfair Games)

I barely ate, and barely slept. I saw amazing sights, from a life-size foozball table to chainmail bikinis and finger-skateboarding. I got lost for a couple hours, had the best beef and mushroom stew I've ever tasted from one of the food booths, and thronged with the mass of humanity traveling the halls. The sound of the crowd was on par with Niagra Falls.

It was a surreal sort of wonderland, and I already want to go back. As I was sitting at the airport terminal, the following song struck me as a fitting farewell:

Goodbye Song - Yo Gabba Gabba!

Twas the night before Essen

2009-10-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

I leave tomorrow night for the annual SPIEL fair in Essen, Germany, home to the Spiel des Jahres award, also known as the "Academy Awards of the designer gaming industry."

I prefer to talk about interviews for the film once I have them completed and in-hand, so I won't jinx myself by listing the ones I've got lined up for this week, but for even a casual designer board gamer, they'll ring a bell when I do. :)

I've spent the day getting the equipment organized and packed. There's no cutting corners here just because its millions of miles away; in fact, specifically because of that, I've got more to bring than I did for the Ohio gathering. I need outlet adapters, backup lighting options, and so forth. Another thing that's new this time around is a few yards of nice fabric. You never can tell what you'll be faced with for interview space, so I feel much more secure bringing my own impromptu backdrops. It's yet again more weight, though.

At some point I'll get to packing clothes and other non-necessities. I'm not planning on bringing back any specific games, but I'm trying to leave myself as much luggage space as possible, just in case. Oh, who are we kidding? Something like 500 new games debut at Essen each year. There's no WAY I'm not coming back with as many as will fit in my suitcase!

It Has Begun

2009-10-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

Last Friday night, finding myself kid-free, I sat down at the diningroom table, and started editing. Actually taking pieces of interviews and splicing them alongside pieces of other interviews, to create a coherent and entertaining stream.

And it was fun, really fun! Making rudimentary sequences in Vegas Video is easy. Adding in the cutaways, supporting images, and proper blendings, that makes up the actual learning curve.

Then on Saturday, I took a trip down to Boston to visit Greg Lam, owner of Pair-of-Dice Games. It was a great interview. I say that a lot, I know, but it was! I had a blast, and we even went on a trip to one of his sources for game materials, a little Asian grocery store nearby. I got to play a heated 3-person round of his Chopstick Game. And then, to top it all off, we went down to a little shop that makes good bubble tea, and I had my very first bubble tea! Two of them, actually, a Thai tea and a lychee version. They were excellent.

Sunday had me back on the laptop editing footage, working on a "couples that game together" type segment in addition to the "collection sizes" sequence I did Friday night. Both will be expanded as I gather more interviews, but already, one could almost say these segments are looking like a film.

All this stimulation resulted in horrible nights' sleeps both nights, since my brain just would not shut down. Can't say I mind, though, I'm on a roll!

Going Cardboard on Kickstarter

2009-09-30T14:02:00.001-07:00

I recently created a profile on Kickstarter.com, a site for independent projects in search of funding.

Check out the Kickstarter page! Warm and enthusiastic comments are as welcome as donations.

They recommend a video be attached to the project, and I agree, 100%. I'll see what I can do about that! :)

I have no idea where this will go, but it reminds me of a story:

A man down on his luck prayed to God every night for a break. "God," he'd pray, "please let me win the lottery!"

Night after night he'd make the same request, but every day, he'd come home roughly as penniless as the day before.

One night he just couldn't take it anymore. "God," he said, "have you forsaken me? Why won't you answer my prayers!?"

And a booming voice replied, "Would you BUY A SCRATCH TICKET already????"

Catan for iPhone

2009-09-30T06:12:00.000-07:00

At long last, Catan for iPhone!

New Offerings From Catan Include Catan for iPhone & Free Catan Browser Game

The highly anticipated Settlers of Catan iPhone game, an exact replica of the original board game, is almost here! Intuitive controls will allow you to manage your settlements with ease – but do you have what it takes to beat the clever AI opponents? Each of them challenges you with unique tactics. A comprehensive tutorial will be included to allow those who are new to Catan to get into the game quickly. In addition, organized and in-depth stats will offer valuable insight for players of all skill levels.

This is set for launch in October, not sure of the date, but I'll be getting it. Doesn't sound like it will have multi-player, but the nice thing about iPhone apps is, they can evolve over time. For now, I can't wait to be able to play Catan on the go!

Safety First

2009-09-29T06:13:00.001-07:00

I'm about to start editing.

But first, safety. Each time I flip the switch on that external hard drive, that precious home to the fruits of many hours' labor and the sum total of Going Cardboard's assets, there's a teeny chance something might go wrong. It's a very small chance, mind you, but editing's going to have me flipping that switch a lot more often. So, before I embark, time to back up the data.

It's already hundreds of gigabytes, and while hard drive space is not THAT expensive, it isn't peanuts. Luckily, a friend had a great recommendation for how to economically back up large amounts of data: this handy, dandy SATA HD Docking Station!

It slices, it dices, it lets you plug bare hard drives in and throw data right onto them.

I bought this thing quite a while ago, but last night it finally came out of the packaging, along with a bare 1 TB hard drive (wow, so heavy). It's not just plug and play and that's it, but the setup walkthrough in the manual was crystal clear, and in minutes I had a new hard drive up and was copying footage to it. I'm going back to newegg today to add a review, because it was a great user experience and they deserve it.

An interview with Wired!

2009-09-21T12:23:00.000-07:00

So Jonathan Liu over on GeekDad was intrigued enough about this documentary thing want to find out more. And boy, did HE get an earful! :)

Lorien Green: Geeky Mom And Documentary Filmmaker is “Going Cardboard”

Lorien Green is a GeekMom: she’s got two young kids and her geek credentials include meeting her husband through Magic: the Gathering and her love of “geekumentaries” like “King of Kong.” Plus, she’s a sucker for zombies. She decided to combine her love of board games with her love of documentaries and is currently making “Going Cardboard,” a “geekumentary” about board games and the people who love them.

I did an e-mail interview with Lorien about “Going Cardboard,” board games, and her desire to be a Cylon. I also have the audio of a follow-up phone interview, where we talk more about board games, zombies, and juggling a full-time job, parenting, and shooting a documentary. Listen to it here.

You know, I never really thought of myself as a GeekMom, but when HE says it, it sounds kinda cool! I mean, I guess a Mom who makes her kids sing Frodo of the Nine Fingers as T-Pain...or doesn't really have to MAKE them...which is even more incriminating...

New Family Night Centers at your local Walmart

2009-09-10T14:09:00.000-07:00

I've been disgustingly busy at work for the past month or so, but the following article just caught my eye:

Walmart Adds 'Family Night Center' in All Stores for Creating a Night of Activities...

BENTONVILLE, Ark., Sept. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Responding to moms' rising
interest in more affordable entertainment activities at home, Walmart is
featuring a new "Family Night Center" in all stores this month. The area aims
to help customers find new ideas for memorable family time activities and
savings on popular items from Hasbro and Disney among others in a convenient
"one-stop" area.

Now, at first I thought they meant they were actually setting up tables for people to come play at, and that was a LOT more intriguing than the reality. This is just another marketing tactic to push their existing products for people to buy and take home.

It mentions that board game sales are up 10% for the first half of 2009 vs. the same time period for 2008. I like that Walmart is putting a focus on board games as a family activity, but I question how much of that sales bump was a result of Chutes and Ladders vs. Catan and friends, who, at least in this article, have been left out in the cold like Sneetches with no stars on their bellies.

What's it going to take for designer games to get an invite to the party? They're certainly more mainstream than they were even just 6 months ago, in my opinion.

The first SPIEL newsletter

2009-07-29T06:18:00.000-07:00

Late last week I received a letter in the mail addressed to "Frau Lorien Green," which could mean only one thing; this was a missive from Essen! Sure enough, it was the first newsletter, a welcome message for the press.

And it was entirely in German.

Luckily I have a friend at work who is fluent in German, and she was kind enough to translate it for me. I'm making efforts to learn German before I go, and I was encouraged to see that I could pick out an awful lot of what this newsletter had to say, but certainly not enough to effectively read it.

I've been working hard at scheduling interviews for Essen, and so far things are looking good for some time with Reiner Knizia (Poison), the Lamont Brothers (Snow Tails), as well as reps from Funagain Games and Days of Wonder. In addition to the Essen plans, I'm juggling scheduling some follow-up interviews with two local independant game designers, and trying to figure out how to get to some folks in DC and NY state that I'd REALLY like to interview.

And the Funagain Photo Contest - I've seen some great stuff come through from that, nice work, all! Definitely a number of shots I'll be including in the movie. Keep them coming, the contest runs through August!

The Funagain Photos Contest

2009-07-22T06:33:00.000-07:00

The cool people at Funagain.com have launched a contest for Going Cardboard! Send in pictures of your family gaming (either old games, or designer games) for a chance to have them included in the movie AND a chance to win a gift certificate:

Funagain Games is teaming up with the makers of Going Cardboard (http://www.boardgamemovie.com/), a documentary currently in the making about modern day board gaming, to bring you a photo contest. Entering is simple and you can win a Funagain $50 gift certificate. We're looking for 2 kinds of photos:
Childhood photos of your family playing board games
Pictures of modern-day designer board gaming.

There are 2 ways to enter:
Upload your photo and a caption of what's happening to our Facebook page(http://www.facebook.com/funagain).
E-mail the photo, your name, and a caption of what's happening, to photos@funagain.com.

If you have a picture, send it in! I can't wait to see them. Big thanks to Funagain for their support of the documentary!

Board games based on movies

2009-07-14T05:55:00.000-07:00

I just read a blog entry on Flavorwire on a great topic, board games based on movies, and how they often suck. Just like movies based on video games...

Sometimes, of course, they don't suck. Sometimes somebody cares, and makes a really GOOD game to go along with a really good license. Fantasy Flight does a great job with licensed IPs, and because I interviewed one of their designers, and because they made the Battlestar Galactica board game I really like, and because in my former life I worked on The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online, this is an interesting topic for me.

However, what really got me excited about this blog entry was ZOMBIES. Bloggers, if your content is rich in zombie references, you will rise to the top of the geek SEO pile. Within their list of good board games based on movies was my all-time favorite movie...Dawn of the Dead (the original, though the remake wasn't bad). Are you kidding me? There's a Dawn of the Dead board game and I didn't even know it? And it's GOOD?

This classic ’70s game proves that sometimes the best things in life involve nothing more than a maps and some pieces of cardboard — things like pretending to be a murderous zombie terrorizing humans in a mall. Ah, sweet childhood.

Wait, this gets better...

you can download it free.

Oh yeah. This day just got off to a great start. Not to mention, the large Dunkin Donuts coffee on my right, and the NOS my "friend" Justin just dropped off to my left. Hang on, this could get rocky...

Carcassonne coming to DS

2009-07-13T06:45:00.001-07:00

Just saw an article on Destructoid announcing Carcassonne for the Nintendo DS.

Catan has also been announced for the DS.

These two are the widely hailed "gateway games" for the hobby, so the question now is, how much further into designer gaming will Nintendo venture for DS titles? And...which board games would make for a good port over to this system?

What's going on

2009-07-11T05:38:00.000-07:00

So when some time goes by without a blog post, one has to assume that either nothing is going, or...everything is going on. I assure you, it's the latter in this case.

Since my last blog post, the following has happened on the documentary front:

Filmed a game day event, the day before the 2009 Spiel des Jahres award winners were announced. Congratulations to Dominion on that! The Intrigue expansion has just been released, that's gotta be nice timing for them. :)
Started listening to possible music tracks to license for the film (including some songs that are actually about board games)
Started formatting dialog notes into spreadsheet form (this will be important when I start cutting together segments, which should start SOON)
Started posting more on BoardGameGeek. It's hard not to feel like an interloper, though I've lurked there for a long time
Bought the plane ticket for Essen

Oh, and Going Cardboard got a mention on a Polish website called Games Fanatic. The blogger for Transparent Language's Polish Blog was kind enough to translate:

Lorien Green chose a different medium to popularize board games - she's making a movie titled "Going Cardboard." It's supposed to show the phenomenon of modern board games and its subculture. The film includes a game review, meetings with ordinary players, extraordinary designers and visits to the most important international events (Essen). The filmmaker takes her subject very seriously - you can visit the website of Going Cardboard and read the blog. The work on this film has been going on for 4 months already and it's scheduled to finish fall/winter 2009. The film should be available on DVD in winter 2010. It's a long time away, but it just goes to show you the scope of this project.

Some of the big impending to-dos include getting some images up from the interviews I've done, and possibly some teaser clips. Many more interviews yet to shoot before Essen rolls around. It's going to be one busy summer. Stay tuned. :)

Just not what I had in mind

2009-06-29T06:06:00.000-07:00

Hollywood is banking on the idea that film versions of Monopoly, Candy Land will be box-office hits.

Reportedly, directors as notable as Ridley Scott and Peter Berg have respectively signed on to big-budget versions of Monopoly and Battleship, and there's even a version of Candy Land in the works. No word yet, though, on the Steven Spielberg adaptation of Chutes and Ladders....

I love the Tim Curry Clue adaptation, but not as having anything to do with the game, just as a fun whodunit comedy. I just don't see this working with Monopoly. Unless it's just their clever way of marketing Wall Street 2...and why not just do another cool submarine movie, like Das Boot? Why's everything gotta be "tied in" these days? Doesn't it virtually guarantee a mediocre movie?

This will be Super Mario Bros. all over again.

Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary

2009-06-26T06:06:00.000-07:00

A documentary about makers of documentaries (thanks to Anthony Q. Artis for the heads-up!). How fourty filmmakers became filmmakers. Granted, I've got a huge bias going here, but this film sums up so eloquently why I couldn't resist making my own.

You can find a bigger version here.

TILT is now on Netflix and iTunes

2009-06-23T06:07:00.000-07:00

(cross-post from keepingmycool)

I've waited for this day for a long time. TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball is one of my all-time favorite documentaries, but it hasn't been widely available. Until now! TILT can now be found on

AND

It doesn't matter if you are a pinball fan or not; I wasn't a big pinball person when I first saw the film. The story told by TILT has got everything a documentary is supposed to have; interesting facts and beautifully illustrated background history, interviews with key contributors (like the guy who invented putting flippers at the bottom of the play field), and a story with an endearing human element to tie everything together.

Trailer for "TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball" from Greg Maletic on Vimeo.

Also check out Greg's Vimeo channel, there are some very cool additional clips there.

If you use Netflix or iTunes, go check it out IMMEDIATELY, and don't forget to add the bonus DVD to your Netflix queue. It's got some really great extras. Just do it, have I ever steered you wrong before? Swing by here and let me know what you think afterwards, and if you'd like to buy a copy to own after that, you can get it on the official website.

Going Cardboard: A Board Game Documentary

2009-06-20T05:05:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a website!

Oh, right, and...a title! Going Cardboard is the artist formerly known as board game doc. Of course you know this means I need a new order of business cards. :)

So check out www.boardgamemovie.com when you have a second. It's a work in progress, but I won't deny I'm stupidly excited.

Designing under a licensed IP

2009-06-17T06:21:00.000-07:00

Last week, I had the good fortune of sitting down for a discussion with Corey Konieczka, a designer for Fantasy Flight Games. His latest work can be seen in the Battlestar Galactica board game (for which the Pegasus expansion was just announced), but he's also designed for a number of heavy-hitting licenses including Fantasy Flight's Starcraft, World of Warcraft, and Lord of the Rings board game titles.

Corey represents yet another point on the designer spectrum. He works with a team, and frequently with the interesting pros and cons that come with designing under an existing intellectual property license. This makes for yet another interesting angle on designing, and it was a great interview.

It was also the first real chance I've had to "dress the set." I was able to set up the Battlestar board game on the table, which makes for really nice context.

Next up? A board gaming barbecue weekend!

Small World design contest

2009-06-04T14:26:00.000-07:00

Days of Wonder Announces Small World Design Contest

Days of Wonder has announced the Small World Design Contest in which aspiring game designers can create and submit their own custom additions to the new hit board game, Small World. Central to the game are the fantasy-inspired character races paired with special powers enabling them to conquer the Small World board maps....

Documentary Storytelling

2009-05-23T07:39:00.000-07:00

Anthony Artis mentioned this book during a recent Double Down Film Show podcast. I've been struggling with the plot for my documentary, so I ordered it right away.

It's a big book, no-nonsense walls of text and not interested in pictures. And within the first 10 pages it had me thinking about documentary structure and storyline in ways I had not been before. That didn't necessarily make my job easier, but I felt like I was back in college studying for an actual course, and learning at that level.

With my subject, I'm not lucky enough to have a storyline with an obvious main character, a quest, adversity, and a pre-ordained event path. Movies like The King of Kong, 10 MPH, and Spellbound have that part easy; they are tracing events leading up to a bigger, defining event - a big tournament, the end of the cross-country segway trip, and the National Spelling Bee.

I had a progression of events in mind for the board gaming documentary, bigger and bigger board gaming events leading up to the industry's biggest, but that's not a storyline.

However, now that I'm thinking storytelling, about how to best convey what's interesting about my topic, ways to tell that story are easily coming to mind. I've just finished the first draft of a plot outline, and though I know it needs work, it's really exciting to actually have that in hand. It's a big step!

Board gaming in China

2009-05-21T07:42:00.000-07:00

Just caught the following article:

Board Games Become Popular among Jiangxi White-collar Workers

Board games, a type of content-rich social games first introduced in Europe and the United States some thirty years ago, have recently gained popularity among white-collar workers in Nanchang of east China's Jiangxi Province.

Local website jxnews.com.cn reported Tuesday that the board games have become a new alternative to the tech and computer lifestyle popular amongst well-paid working locals, who are now often opt to play after their work....

You can read the whole thing here. I love that picture.

10 MPH

2009-05-15T12:10:00.001-07:00

The intro to this documentary really hit home. They wax about spending 8 hours a day in cubicles and letting go of your dreeeeeeams, maaaaaan...I hear ya, bro!

Only, I actually really like my day job. And for my film, I don't have the "money guy" putting up $20k (which may be just as well, as it turns out)...or an idea guy, or pretty much anyone but me and my brother and a couple awesome friends, I'm not quitting my day job, or moving to Colorado to ride cross-country on a Segway from Seattle to Boston...FINE, it's not that eerily similar. But I DID see somebody riding a Segway down my street one day...and this is a cool little documentary.

"An idea is like a seed. It can grow to be a beautiful flower...or it can grow to be a huge-ass weed." - J.fred

What Lies Beneath

2009-05-12T06:06:00.000-07:00

So it might seem like there hasn't been an awful lot going on here since the Gathering a month ago, but I'm being the proverbial duck paddling like crazy below the surface of the pond. Above the surface, I'm sniffling and sneezing, my first introduction to the wonderful world of allergies, and I'm like the 4th person I know who's getting hit HARD with them this season for the first time ever (I smell a horror movie screenplay, or at least a really good X-Files episode)...but I digress...

Here's a little status update on the project:

Transcribing. I still need to go through all 20+ hours of footage from Ohio and jot down notes on what is said throughout it. That'll also help move along the...
Storyline. I have settled on THE way I want the film to open, which is something I was really struggling with. I have the bones sketched out, and even though I already have over 30 hours of stuff, I'm maybe 30% done. The good thing is, I know this because I actually have a pretty good idea what a lot of the stuff I still need to shoot IS. I've also got a book called, Documentary Storytelling on its way from Amazon, looking forward to checking that out.
Website. I'm working on the content for a dedicated website, which will include a survey. One of the unsatiated needs I have right now is for basic facts about designer board gaming in the US. Unless you're lucky to be filming the most awesomest character study documentary ever, you need some facts and figures. Oh, and I LOOOOOVE the design of my new website. It has the same color family as my business cards, and just feels "board game" to me.
More interviews. I'm in discussions with a few imminent interviews. I don't have a concrete schedule set up for them yet, but it'll happen.

It's really hard, not being able to do this stuff full-time, and it's times like these, when there are so many elements needing to be worked on, that I feel that acutely. In fact, I was almost feeling burned out a couple weeks ago (I blame the allergies), but now I just feel like I need more free time.

So yeah, things are going well, and I am getting better at this stuff with every single interview. I'm sure I'll talk about that on the director's commentary... :D

Designer starting young

2009-05-11T07:37:00.000-07:00

Just came across an article about a 12-year-old kid on a quest to design a board game:

Pittsford student creates board game

...The Calkins Road Middle School seventh-grader started his own company, The Alert Mind, and created Grid Greed — a math board game — through classes with the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA!) at the University of Rochester that started in September....

OK, so this isn't really the style of board game I'm focusing on, but who's to say this kid won't get there someday? I just wanted to give him a hearty "You kin do eeeet!" and hope he finds out about all the cool designers I've already met and have yet to meet in this genre.

T-Cat Productions

2009-05-04T06:37:00.000-07:00

So last week I made an off-hand remark to a friend about really needing to get an LLC (Limited Liability Company) going. It had been mentioned on an episode of the Double Down Film Show podcast, and I'd looked into it briefly, but assumed it was intimidatingly technical, and was therefor procrastinating.

Intimidatingly technical? Not so, said my friend. He'd actually created one himself before, and knew all the ins and outs for filing the two simple forms NH state law requires for this.

So before I knew what was happening, I was filling out the forms and mailing them. And on Saturday, the confirmation came in the mail. And just like that, T-Cat Productions, LLC was a reality.

Other than making one feel cool and official, and preventing people from suing you directly over anything that happens during film production, LLC status allows you to claim expenses incurred during your project as business losses (i.e., they are tax deductible). Naturally your profits will also be subject to taxing, but given that I am 100% confident I will have expenses, and somewhat less certain about seeing a profit...sounds good to me! Since I've decided not to seek external funding or grants, this is the next best thing.

As for where the name "T-Cat" came from, it has a long and illustrious history. It all started with my cat, Toes, who was often referred to as T-Cat (by me). When I first started playing Rock Band, I named my character T-Cat because of that. She was all attitude and high-up pigtails, and her aviator sunglasses completed the look. My daughter LOVES T-Cat, when she wears sunglasses she says she's T-Cat, and when she wants her hair in pigtails, she asks us for "T-Cat hair." T-Cat the Rock Band star has become a legend in our house.

The original T-Cat, Toes, has recently been diagnosed with mouth cancer, and she won't be around for much longer. That pretty much sealed the deal. T-Cat Productions. What else was I gonna call it?

BrettSpiel board game blog

2009-04-29T06:16:00.000-07:00

Google alerts threw me a really great blog today by Brett Gilbert called BrettSpiel. I admit, part of why it caught my eye was because the entry was called, "Coffee Morning." That's a phrase uttered frequently and fondly (with just a hint of quiet desperation) at my house. :)

One of the posts he made a few days ago included a clip of Reiner Knizia talking about his game design philosophies. I'm very glad to have seen this, thanks Brett for talking about it! Here it is:

Not sure how I will keep up with the pace of entries here, but since the ones I've sampled so far are well-written and fascinating, I figure I'll manage.

Another recession-centric article

2009-04-23T06:06:00.000-07:00

Board games get new life in tight times

According to an Associated Press report and figures from simplyfun.com, board game sales have risen while most other non-essential item sales have declined. There was a 5 percent increase in January and a 6 percent in February. In fact, since 2006, there has been an overall 13 percent increase in board game sales, the AP report stated.

..."Anytime that people want to save money, next to books, board games give you the most bang for the buck," she said. "They don't need batteries, they're portable, they can be used over and over again, and there's something different about them every time."...

I would argue that board games are WAY ahead of books as far as bank for the buck. Unless you're borrowing from the library, which isn't fair because that's free, and besides, more and more libraries are having board game events.

Catan cakes

2009-04-22T08:04:00.000-07:00

I have always been enamored of the pac-man cookies that I've seen from time to time online. Space invaders, too, those are fun.

But now, now I have a mission made clear to me by @allenshull. I must make Catan cakes.

In fact, I must do whatever it takes to host a huge gathering of board gamers at my house for a day, for the sole purpose of serving...Catan cakes.

7 brilliant documentary character studies

2009-04-21T06:44:00.001-07:00

Or at least, the first one is brilliant enough to make up for any shortcomings in the next 6. I haven't made it that far yet, but the first one is so excellent, I couldn't wait to share:

The article is called 7 Great Documentary "Characters" and it's one more reason I wish I got The Documentary Channel.

One thing I have to say: Billy Mitchell may not be quite the villain he was edited/portrayed as in The King of Kong, but he IS undeniably an interesting character, so I think it's OK that he's included here.

For love of the game

2009-04-21T06:06:00.000-07:00

Indian lawyer turns IPR into a board game

The rules are simple. Players start by choosing one industry, represented by a pictographic card, out of four options—automobile, pharmaceutical, food and beverages, and information technology—depicted by a car, a drug, a drink and a computer system.
Each product has a portfolio of 15 unique intellectual properties associated with it marked on the cards...

OK, so it doesn't necessarily sound like a game I'd be interested in, but I applaud the fact that this guy was passionate enough about the subject to work for 2 years on a board game about it. Especially since, as the article points out, board gaming is not currently a part of India's mainstream culture. “Here, there are only cards and gambling.” From what I've learned thus far, that kind of passion is what being a board games designer is all about.

Further, he's not in it for the money, and plans to make the game available free to anyone who can't afford it, and make a free online version as well. And ironically, for a game about intellectual property, Mr. Anand has made his game open source. So, if you don't think it sounds compelling, give it a spin and make some changes! :)

Miami Herald notices the trend

2009-04-20T09:48:00.000-07:00

Fans pass go, collect European versions

...European-style or, more specifically, German-style board games have recently been gaining traction in the mainstream American market. With a sophisticated blend of strategy, chance and social interplay -- and higher-quality pieces made of wood rather than plastic -- these board games from across the pond have generated legions of serious gaming fans....

I don't really have a lot to say at the moment other than, "Holy cripes, another one..."

Live from Studio B

2009-04-20T08:35:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, Studio B was more a place of thought than action, but I did manage to make some important progress on a couple fronts. First, I made a decision on a website style for the impending dedicated website for this project. It's a pretty template, with the same rich browns and solid colors that I gravitated to for my business cards. It's all subjective and somewhat arbitrary, but these colors just feel "board gamey" to me. I'm an old-school HTML'er and not a whiz with Flash web templates, so I'm going to have to get somebody to help me customize this template, but I'm sure it'll get figured out.

I added more notes to the project notebook, including some thoughts about a couples and friends segment (I was surprised at how many couples met through board gaming, but really, why not?), and also some ideas for putting a big survey out to gain some interesting data on dedicated board gamers.

Board games are popping up regularly in the news, with a lot of media focusing on the "budget-friendliness" of them in "these tough economic times." They're clearly not talking about dedicated designer board gamers when they say that, at least not from what I've seen of the average size of a Thought Hammer order. The following article is more about non designer-games, but it's still encouraging people to game, and that's what counts.

Board games come back in a big way

“What do we get out of it? Sometimes useless knowledge,” said brother Nicholas DiGesare, 29. “It saves a lot of money, too. Movies are so expensive. Spend $20 on a board game, and then all chip in for food. It becomes easy to have a good night, rather than going out.”

Now that staying home is even more in vogue, board games have become a preferred form of entertainment for many families who would rather talk than text.

I think just as significant as the economic aspect is that "rather talk than text" part. I love eye candy as much as the next technophile, but with big screen tv, iMax 3D, iPhones, Nintendo DS, and computers, computers, computers...sometimes it's nice to do something that doesn't run off a power source.

Here's another article, about a different economic element of board gaming; the board game version of a Tupperware party?

City woman plays games for work

...After deciding to become a consultant for SimplyFun, she started hosting game parties, where guests play the games and have the opportunity to buy the ones they like.

“Since I love games so much, I could talk about them and get excited about them,” she said. “You don’t really need me to tell you anything because you’ll like them.”

She said she’s recently been able to get approval to show her games to Stillwater Public Schools....

Again, not really designer board games, but mostly designer board gamers seem non-judgemental about these things. I just think it's good that classrooms are open to this sort of thing. Good for the hobby in the long run, and good for the kids too. :)

More board gaming in the news

2009-04-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

There was an article yesterday by Marc Charisse in the Evening Sun, Video games have no monopoly on fun.

This one was basically a response piece to Andrew Curry's Monopoly Killer article, but with some interesting additional facts of its own.

Ironically, the electronic revolution that nearly killed board games over the last quarter century has given them new life online, allowing people who own the same game to play in real time over the Internet. And as modern economics provoke a reexamination of our lifestyles, board games are making a comeback in the United States....

You can read the entire piece here.

Two recent articles

2009-04-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

In case you missed them, there were two recent articles about designer board gaming in the mainstream news media:

Masters of the (Tabletop) Universe
New York Times - ‎Apr 3, 2009‎

THEY tumbled in at 7:30 on an icy Friday night, collecting in the eat-in kitchen. Handshakes and the usual opening pleasantries. They were nine: eight men and a woman. They had a lot to do — build medieval kingdoms, manage beer gardens and construct galactic civilizations. If they had any energy left, they would cure the world’s deadliest diseases.

and, as I mentioned before, this big feature piece from Wired Magazine:

Monopoly Killer: Perfect German Board Game Redefines Genre

UPDATE - I got in touch with Andrew Curry, and a neat bit of info is that the picture above is of Klaus Teuber and his son, in their backyard. :)

In 1991, Klaus Teuber was well on his way to becoming one of the planet's hottest board game designers. Teuber (pronounced "TOY-burr"), a dental technician living with his wife and three kids in a white row house in Rossdorf, Germany, had created a game a few years earlier called Barbarossa and the Riddlemaster, a sort of ur-Cranium in which players mold figures out of modeling clay while their opponents try to guess what the sculptures represent. The game was a hit...

While the idea of someone playing Catan in their backyard in the grass is kind of amusing, I must admit, we have taken it with us on camping trips and had a BLAST (I'll have to dig up that photo).

Nice to see Wired and NYT talking about designer board games! Some people I've talked to felt that the Times' piece made fun of the hobby in a way, but if so I think it was good-natured fun, and I still feel it paints things in a positive light.

For real

2009-04-12T13:33:00.000-07:00

I just finished transferring over all the taped footage from The Gathering onto the Cavalry hard drive. I've been simmering ever since I left there for there airport as far as storyline, incorporating that footage, and what elements I yet need.

As they've stated on the Double Down Film Show, you really should have a dedicated website for a project like this, and not rely on gmail and blogger. Don't get me wrong, they've served their purpose thus far, and from a purely functional standpoint, you could easily get away with using those free resources clear to release. However, there are more elements at play than pure functionality.

And that's why a real website is coming soon. :) Stay tuned!

Back from interviewing

2009-04-09T09:16:00.000-07:00

I've returned from the most recent filming expedition, the Gathering of Friends, which I attended Saturday night through Tuesday morning (and by that I mean like 4:30 AM Tuesday morning, which is when I went to bed...for an hour and a half, before getting up again.)

I saw and heard many interesting and wonderful things, and met many interesting and wonderful people. There were board game designers and industry notables as far as the eye could see, making it a pivotal few days for the documentary, and an opportunity I was not going to squander. It was hard, because there were so many games I'd never seen before, even many prototypes, and I really needed to NOT play them. I made 2 brief exceptions, for The Resistance, and Fits. It was probably a valuable little break, I rationalize. :) All work and no play..., as they say. But for the most part, I stayed focused.

At this event, you need to check your sleep needs at the door. These guys are here to game, and they do not stop gaming. I never found the main room completely empty during my entire stay. The closest it came was once around 7 AM, when less than a dozen people were to be seen, but that lull didn't last long. This made it much easier to amass interviews than in most traditional settings. I think I wrapped up one interview around 10:30 PM, then went downstairs to a packed gaming floor to continue filming.

The interviews included designers Alan R. Moon (Ticket to Ride), Friedemann Friese (Power Grid), Stephen Glenn (Balloon Cup), Kory Heath (Zendo), Peter Hawes (Heads of State), and Jay Tummelson, founder of Rio Grande Games, to name a few. And I do mean a few, there were many other people I talked to, though not ALL the ones I would have liked. It's time to start a page listing all of the interviews I've done, and I'll be doing that soon, so keep an eye out!

Sincere thanks to everyone at the Gathering who took the time to talk to me, and help out with advice and additional introductions (and food, thank you for the FOOD invites). You were the greatest bunch of people one could hope to meet!

Cramming

2009-04-03T11:29:00.000-07:00

Back in college, cramming was one thing I prided myself on NOT doing. I would spend hours reviewing organic chemistry chapters, weeks ahead of the test (and still get a C, organic chem's way of being funny with the symbol for carbon). Last night started to feel a bit like cramming, though in a fun way, because I started packing!

By the way, have you heard about The Documentary Channel? It fills me with joy. Granted, I'd be more full of joy if I were a DISH Network customer (they have Pizza: The Movie!), but I recently started conversing with @TheDocChannel on Twitter, and she mentioned that some of the stuff can be seen online at Sling.

The first thing I watched there was an indie documentary about a moonshiner. While not my typical geek fare, this was a crisply-filmed documentary with beautiful imagery and interesting characters. I paid close attention to things like interview framing and out-take shots, as I sit here trying to get back in the filming mindset after a month away from the dv. My plane leaves in less than 24 hours for what is without question one of the most important filming sessions this doc will have (the other being Essen). Jason Scott had some great timely advice as always to allay my stage fright nerves.

Oh, and if you haven't checked out the April edition of Wired Magazine, there's a GREAT article about the rise of designer board games in the United States entitled, "Monopoly Killer."

Thanks to Anthony Q. Artis of Down and Dirty DV for the link to the online version! While I don't think it's entirely fair (I actually kind of liked it as a kid), and even though it really isn't an "us" vs. "them" situation, Monopoly seems to be the poster child for everything wrong that designer board games do right. Somebody has to take that bullet, I guess, because we need an easy way to boil down the complex simplicity that is the designer games genre into something quick that will click with people when you try to explain in a single sentence.

More gearing up

2009-03-28T12:03:00.000-07:00

There seems to be no end to the stuff you need when you're making a no-budget movie! This week's need list included the following:

DVD burner, for backing up the data
DVD-Rs, 50 of them to start with
portable charger for the VIXIA, because the last thing I need at the Gathering, where every second of footage counts, is to sit out camera #1 so it can charge its own battery
A couple more packs of mini DV tapes - brings me up to about 48 hours of blank tape, which may or may not be enough

Now I'm working on packing logistics. By this time next week, I'll be on a plane. Good lord.

The saga continues

2009-03-07T07:06:00.000-08:00

Here we are, enjoying another Saturday live in Studio B! This episode is sponsored by Yappy's Dog Treats.

Last week I paid a visit to Bryan Johnson, a board game designer who's about to see the release of his first published title, Huang Di, published by JKLMgames.com.

This time my camera man couldn't make it, so I was running the equipment setup and the interview solo. That's a challenge, but it was easier than I expected. Just a note that if you are having to do this stuff solo, you kin do eet.

Up next, preparing for the Gathering of Friends in April.