Critical Review
Indie Game: The Movie
Directed and produced by Lisane Pajot, James Swirsky and released in the UK in june 2012. it follows the journey of several independent game developers, as they live and breath there dream of developing there own game for the biggest contract of there life (to be sold on the Xbox live arcade). However there dreams turn to nightmares as they face there own personal demons as well as the high demands of major companies and of there own fans. What makes this documentary sticks out for me is that these games are some of the most popular games ever sold on the XBLA system (XBOX Live Arcade) and possibly some of the most popular games in the world, with such Game Tittle as Super meat Boy (Edmund McMillen) and Braid(Jonathan Blow). First of all it gives insight in to what it takes to make a successful game and what the issues are with being your own producer and doing all the work a normal team of about 20 people do. Another feature that makes this stand out is that they go really deep into the game developers life and look at why they make games and its not the obvious stuff of making money or fame some of them its the only way they can express them self and it relates with deep seeded personal issues as with supermeat boy the creator would doodle in lesson and some of those doodles became the inspiration behind his greatest realise to date. also to some of them the game is there life and with some of them like the creator of Braid (seen as the best selling indie game on the market). he created it as a art form and he now struggles with life after the games reales and the fact people don't understand the concept of his idea and just see a fun game with odd controls. but the really out standing point of this documentary is seeing someone not make it and fail for the time being to seem Fez is a game that only just got to reales but during the making of this documentary he was in production for over 5 years with several re designs and during the first play of a demo at a game convention it crashed. to see this man fail in his life ambition brings the whole film down to a level we can all relate to as we have all failed at some point in our life. This is possibly one of the best documentaries i have seen simply because how they show a world we don't know and shows people who are often seen as loners and outcasts as people desperate for human interaction but don't know how to get it.
C4 Documentaries - Gypsy Blood
Filmed by award-winning photographer Leo Maguire, this documentary was filmed over the span of two years and follows the life of two different Gypsy families and follows the violent traditions that some travellers pass on to there sons.
I was a bit apprehensive of this as i am use to the way "my big fat gypsy wedding" represents the travelling communities. So i was expecting the normal representation of them being rude, thuggish, stupid individuals. However I was surprised on how there ethics system works they only fight to resolve disagreements , well in the case of these two families. The fights are controlled so no foul play is used so its just a straight up fist fight no pulling hair kicks or grapples. It showed a side of the Gypsy community that I wasnt aware of like how tightly knit there families are where a name isn't just something your given it is something you live up to and respect. It was a well shot and well constructed documentry with one segmit having a lot of traits of a photo essay.
Media Storm: Remember These Days
Walter Backerman is a third generation Seltzer man, he follows the same route that his farther and grand father took delivering and taking Seltzer bottles for recycling. To him its more then just a business its the embodiment of his life but even then he knows the life he leads is a rare one as younger generations have got into a habit of disposing and up grading. This short documentary/ photo essay is beautifully shot as we have come to expect from media storm using both stills and video to show how this man lives in an ever changing world. It shows us how he got into the business he left to law school and worked for his dad when he was ill, both his father and grand father both wished better for him but he decided to follow the foot steps of his dad and grand father and doesn't regret it to this day. Like his father before him and granddad he doesn't want his kids to follow in his footsteps. Its hard to believe that he loves his jobs and provides for his family yet he knows that his business isn't going to last much longer and with out a form of pension or other income he fears for the future and thinks he will be working for the rest of his life.
Order:Pale Blue Dot
This short animated documentary is a visual representation of the famous monologue by Carl Sagan called “Pale Blue Dot”. The pale blue dot comes from a photograph of the same name taken in 1990 of planet earth. The image was taken from voyager 1 from a record distance of about six billion kilometers from earth. On completion of its primary mission the craft was commanded by NASA to turn its camera around and to take a photograph of the earth across the void of space. Only lasting about a minute and half it has traits of a poetic documentary as it’s an artistic take on what Carl Sagan famously quoted. Being an animated documentry makes it stand out among documentries as there isn't very much of them out there and it can be questioned if they are really a form of documentry since it is animated and animation is traditionaly used for fictiional plots and storys.
