Homework

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!

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

PAX East btw

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

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

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

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! :)