Sven Harvey takes a look at the documentary film
Funded by a Kickstarter campaign in 2013, From Bedrooms to Billions is a documentary film charting (primarily) the founding of the computer game industry here in the United Kingdom and showing how it led the world, prior to the switch to it being a videogames industry instead.
The documentary is mainly made up of talking head footage made up of excerpts from interviews with some of the pioneers of the British industry, conducted especially for the film. The interview snippets are constructed together into time frame segments (for instance all the parts of the conversations about the Sinclair ZX Spectrum are together) and intermixed with some vintage footage, advert scans and even newspaper clippings.
Most of the detailed exploration of the creation of our industry is during the 1980s, from the ZX-80 on to the Commodore 64, with a brief section on the Amiga and ST. It then goes on to explain how the move to the consoles, as Commodore and Atari floundered, divided and conquered the British games development community, because everyone was compelled to pick a side between Sega and Nintendo, before Sony swooped in and took the likes of Psygnosis and Millennium under their wing, while Ocean and Gremlin were merged into Infogrames.
Anthony and Nicola Caulfield are to be congratulated on having the bravery to get this project done, and I must say I didn't expect the film to be quite as engrossing as it is. I don't think I have come across any short or feature length film that is mostly just interview segments that has grabbed my attention quite so well. Admittedly I have a keen interest in British computer and videogaming, but the interview snippets have been woven into a great narrative depicting the industry development, and I simply didn't want to stop watching, even though from the point of view of an Amiga fan (more than prior home computers), I was slightly disappointed. The presentation of the disc and menus is as you may expect from any main video label.
This 'Special Edition' version includes a second disc with extended interview footage presented just in interview form including, of main interest to Amigans, Peter Molyneux on creating Populous, Martin Edmondson on creating Shadow Of The Beast, Mike Montgomery on creating Speedball II and Jon Hare on creating Wizball and Sensible Soccer.
As with the majority of the film itself, these bonus interviews are high-quality recordings and are a fantastic insight into some of the most important game developments. The price may be a little high for some, but for a film with a small pressing run, it isn't actually that bad, especially when you realise some mainstream films on Blu-ray actually retail at £25.
Though perhaps a little lighter on the Amiga content as I would personally have liked, this is about the genesis of the UK development scene and industry. Also, a further film, From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years has been successfully funded on Kickstarter and is on its way. I would also love to see things come full circle with a more direct follow-up, perhaps called 'From Billions To Bedrooms', charting the resurgence in smaller development teams and one-man outfit, which are once again developing British content for iOS, Android, PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita.
If you have any interest in the British computer and videogame market, you'd probably enjoy this thoroughly, and I highly recommend it!