Editing Extravaganza Day 1

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

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

Murphy's Law

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

I caught this presentation, posted on the BGG community:

You can't stop progress

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

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

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.