About this project
The Commodore Story - Changing the world 8-bits at a time
£48,990
1,230
Welcome to our Kickstarter campaign to produce The Commodore Story - Changing the world 8-bits at a time Blu-ray plus The Chiptune Story - Creating retro music 8-bits & 16-bits at a time and the 150 page Printed Book.
ADD £5 to your pledge to UPGRADE TO HARDBACK BOOK
ADD £5 to your pledge to get ONE PREMIER TICKET £10 for two etc.
Donate optional £3 extra to your pledge to get PREMIER DOWNLOAD fly on the wall of the event.
In this nostalgic film we will be interviewing an extensive range of ex-Commodore & Amiga engineers and staff, games makers, magazine publishers and Commodore user stories from past and present.
We already have over 30 collaborators and rising including Commodore & Amiga Legends Leonard Tramiel, Dave Haynie, Michael Tomczyk, Greg Berlin, Randell Jesup, Hedley Davis and Ronald Nicholson with more to come and games programmers, 8-bit music composers, Commodore book and magazine authors.
We will update the campaign as new contributors are added.
GOING GOING GONE -TREASURE CHEST WON...
UNLOCKED £40,000 EVERY single backer will get...
David Pleasance Commodore: The Inside Story Audio Book download - The whole story chapter by chapter read out by Dan from The Retro Hour Podcast.
UNLOCKED £35,000 - Double Blu-ray extra documentary The Chiptune Story - Creating retro music 8-bits & 16-bits at a time
Unlocked £32,500 - Extra 50 pages added to book plus free download of our last feature film DeVoid
Unlocked £30,000 Limited Edition AMIGA T-Shirt design released + Stickers of both T-Shirt designs
Limited edition (max 100) AMIGA T-Shirt design will be released for £15 to existing backers. Sizes - S M L XL XXL XXXL - will get size order at end of campaign.
Stickers of Commodore and AMIGA T-Shirt designer will be sent to all backers (Download version of stickers also).
Unlocked £27.500 Documentary will now be shot in 4k with all downloads upgraded to 4k
Unlocked £25,000 Stretch Goal - Limited edition custom Commodore T-Shirt
Limited edition (max 100) this T-Shirt design will be released for £15 to existing backers. Sizes - S M L XL XXL XXXL - will get size order at end of campaign.
Unlocked £22,500 Stretch Goal - Blu-ray Special Features.
Extra 45 minutes of special features will be added to the Blu-Ray including additional interview footage not included in main Documentary.
Unlocked £20,000 Stretch Goal - Book upgrade to 100 pages full colour
The book will be upgraded from 50 page to 100 page full colour gloss finish with facts photos and interviews from the documentary as well as the extra behind the scenes journey making of The Commodore Story.
Unlocked - £19,000 Stretch Goal - Multi language CC and Subtitle support
We want The Commodore Story to be as accessible here is the Close Caption for (hard of hearing) and Subtitle languages we will support.
English German French Italian Spanish Portuguese Turkish Swedish Dutch Danish Norwegian Finnish Japanese NEW! Greek Polish...
We will also interview people in there native language and add to special features on Blu-ray.
Unlocked - £18,000 First Stretch Goal - First 9 C64 Video Lessons from 64Bytes.com
64 Bites is a series of short video lessons that can teach you how to program The Commodore 64!
Get the first nine episodes for free!
Unlocked - £17,500 Video Diary Updates
We hit 100% before the deadline of the 9th March and so we will upload regular Video Diary updates of interviews, Behind the scenes and progress to ALL current and FUTURE BACKERS.
Special Backer Only Offer
As a special backer only offer we will double up the Blu-ray Disc and/or the Book an additional £10 or £20 for both.
SO...
If you pledged £25 or £30 for the Book or Blu-ray you can get an additional Book or Blu-ray by adding £10 to your pledge.
If you pledged £35 or above for the Book and Blu-ray you can add £20 to your pledge and get an an additional Book and Blu-ray disk. Also you can add just £10 to get an additional Book or Blue-ray just message Book or Blu-ray once you have pledged.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE STORY
The Commodore Story is a cram packed 2 hour documentary film that will take us through Commodore's evolution from the 70's to the 90's from the PET, Vic20, C64 to the Amiga and beyond including the very rare C65 and the wave of new Commodore related products that are hitting the market today.
We are going to publish The Commodore Story on Blu-ray and will also be creating a 150 page book featuring photos and interviews from the documentary.
Commodore does not get the recognition it rightly deserves and often get overlooked by Apple and IBM. The Commodore Story aims to put this right and prove how important Commodore was in the computer revolution. We will give the real story of the demise of Commodore but will also focus on the positive influence Commodore has given to the world over the years.
Our production house WavemStudios will produce 'The Commodore Story'
https://twitter.com/WavemStudios
https://twitter.com/Retro_Nostalgic
Is Commodore making a comeback? We will be investigating why we fell love with our home computers and why after decades Commodore interest is still alive and kicking.
We look forward to your support and pre-orders of the blu-ray 'The Commodore Story' and printed book.
We Need You - do you have an interesting Commodore story to tell, we are looking for contributors to share there nostalgic stories of what they did with the Vic20, C64 or Amiga what they are doing now and how Commodore influenced there lives.
Directed by Steven Fletcher - IMDB http://www.imdb.com/name/nm7760385/
I started on the Vic-20 worked programming commercially for the C64 and C128, (carpet design controllers), and also worked commercially on the Amiga using it to build a concept video security system.
I know for me Commodore helped the direction of my life and is a big part of my history.
Meet some of the Commodore Legends taking part
Leonard Tramiel
Leonard Tramiel is son of Jack Tramiel founder of Commodore and worked at Commodore during the early years helping with the development of the PET with Chuck Peddle and will have some great stories to share of the Tramiel years.
Dave Haynie - Chief Engineer Commodore/Amiga
Dave started work for Commodore in 1983. After Commodore acquired Amiga Dave was the primary engineer working on the A2000 and with his team created the A3000
RJ Mical - AMIGA LEGEND
Bil Herd
Michael Tomczyk - Marketing Strategist and Assistant to the President (Commodore founder Jack Tramiel)
Michael Tomczyk was Marketing Strategist and Assistant to the President (Commodore founder Jack Tramiel) between 1980 - 1984 after Jack Tramiel left Commodore.
Tomczyk was responsible for marketing the first home computer he named the new Commodore computer the “VIC-20”
David John Pleasance - MD Commodore UK Ltd
We are very happy to announce Commodore Legend David John Pleasance will be featured in The Commodore Story.
David became Managing Director of CBM UK Ltd but started many years earlier - he joined Commodore UK in June/July 1983 to a newly created position, CBM Sales Manager in large english distribution channels.
In October 1983, was promoted to National Sales Manager for consumer products (VIC-20, C64, etc.).
1985 to 1989, was responsible for the marketing and sales for the entire series of Commodore and Amiga products in the english retail sector.
1989 I was promoted to Director of Sales and Marketing - Commodore UK.
June 1990, became CEO of Commodore Electronics Ltd, based in Basel, Switzerland, making reports directly to Mehdi Ali, the CEO.
January 1992, Was appointed Vice President of Commodore USA reporting directly to Mehdi Ali.
January 1993 took interim roll of General Manager CEL before returning back to the UK.
March 1993, Was appointed Managing Director of CBM UK Ltd.
Greg Berlin - Director High End Amiga Systems
Worked at Commodore for 13 years.
Started 1983 developing disk drives for plus4 and ended up being the Director High End Amiga Systems.
Managed the design team for development of Amiga 3000 and 4000 series personal computers.
Worked with chip design group to architect full custom chip sets (GARY RAMSEY).
Responsible for the development of Amiga peripherals.
Pic thanks to The Guru Meditation https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYt9E2d_GCrPzquW-5MZwmQ
Randell Jesup - Lead engineer on the Amiga OS
Member of the core AmigaOS team and OS group lead at the end. Primary responsibility for AmigaDos, disk drivers (SCSI, IDE/ATAPI, ramdisk and floppy), and filesystems. Rewrote the Disk OS from BCPL to C/ASM. Also worked on networked filesystems, CDROM filesystems, high performance SCSI device drivers, SCSI device qualification, and other hardware drivers.
Hedley Davis - Senior Design Engineer
Design lead and project manager for number products including but not limited to the A3000 computer, the A2024 hi-res monitor known as the "Hedley Hi-Res" monitor, and the 1351 mouse.
Ronald Nicholson (Amiga Hardware Lead Designer)
Ron was Amiga employee #11 and listed as inventor on the original Amiga 1000 system architecture patents.
Ron also one of the engineers that designed Amiga’s custom chipset “Lorraine”.
More Commodore Legends coming soon...
Meet some of our early collaborators
Dr Kenny McAlpine - 8-Bit computer music expert.
Kenny will be our resident expert on all things computer music chip related.
"I started off with a Speccy and a ZX81, which is where I started to learn to program, and started getting into computer music. I moved on to a C64 around 1987, quite late in its life, before getting an A500 (the Batman pack with FA18-Interceptor), Christmas ’89 (I think). That was when soundtracking and digital music really took off for me."
Making Music Dance to a Different (Chip) Tune | Kenny McAlpine | TEDxAbertayUniversity
My pal’s modular synth, which uses a couple of SIDGuts modules
Bill Behrendt - Junkbox Junkie
Bill was contracted to write a book of games for the C64 - 'Conquering The Commodore 64 Kingdom'. Part of my goal with that book was to make sure it had sound effects. I spent some time developing code to help out in creating SID sounds that would be something other than the beeps and warbles which most games had at that time. So my game about pirates began by playing "Sailor's Hornpipe"
Created book 'Music & Sound For The Commodore 64'. The code for all the creation of sound effects came from the rudimentary code I developed for 'Conquering'.
Paul Bridger - Amiga fan/user 80s & 90s
Paul is a huge fan of the Commodore scene but most importantly the Amiga 500/1200/CD32. Paul has a huge passion for the music that was created on the Amiga and what better way to show his passion by snapping up to work alongside one of the most prolific games composers that included the Amiga games as well as other machine platforms. Paul was able to work alongside with one of his favorite composers, Allister Brimble becoming Executive Producer. He helped to market the album throughout its success on Kickstarter, build/design the website and gain testimonials from industry veterans and fans, securing commercial airplay on radio for the title track Assassin and being interviewed by various online support including The Retro Hour podcast. Paul also went onto to direct, produce and star in his own documentary based on Allister Brimble which also has an impressive line up of industry veterans and fans of Allister. He has also worked with retrowave group, Synthatiger and Andre Neumann producing music videos and is set to work with Peter Connelly famous for his music work on some of the Tomb Raider games, Watchdogs and The Crew.
Mark Knight - Games music and soundscape composer
I was in the Amiga demoscene during my teens, and in 1992 started working at Mindscape at the age of 19 as in house composer....
He started out writing chiptune and module file music in the Amiga Demoscene and began his games industry career as a composer in 1992 working at Mindscape. He joined Codemasters in 2007 working on their DiRT, F1 and GRID franchises since 2014 has a split role as a sound designer and composer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Knight_(sound_designer)
The Retro Hour Podcast Boys
Thanks to Dan and Ravi for talking about The Commodore Story documentary and yes the documentary will include the Commodore65 !
You can listen here - http://www.theretrohour.com/scott-adams-the-father-of-adventure-games-the-retro-hour-ep59/
Listen to all the podcast but they talk about the project about 15 mins in - ENJOY
Dan Wood B.A (Hons)
has worked in broadcasting and online media for many years. He has a huge passion for classic computers, especially anything with a Commodore or Sega logo on it.
Youtube Channel youtube.com/techguruuk
Ravi Abbott B.A (Hons)
works as a sound engineer and visual arts technician.He’s worked with contemporary art and technology for Arts Council England Projects such as The Culture Cloud and The Prediction Machine.
Youtube Channel youtube.com/the4mula
Michal Taszycki
Supported Commodore 64: a visual Compendium (Second Edition).
Michal runs the site 64Bites.com and offers a series of short video lessons that can teach you how to program The Commodore 64!
Anthony Clarke
Lived in the UK during his Games Development period but now lives in Australia.
Started in electronics / 6502 / Ohio Superboard and then onto the Oric-1 writing some of the first commercially available games - Light-Cycle & Hopper.
move to the C64, went to Statesoft and there we did the conversion of Frak64! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frak!) from the BBC.
Andrew Fisher - First Commodore 64 in 1985
Andrew wrote for Commodore Force (incorporating ZZAP! 64) as Professor Brain Strain in the technical help column.
Andrew also wrote for several issues of Commodore Format, including game reviews and the regular clubs column.
Martin Grundy - The Commodore Kid
I was an obsessive Commodore kid in the 80s starting on the VIC-20, before moving onto the Commodore 64 and then the mighty Amiga. It was the C64 though that was the centre of my childhood universe and pretty much everything else revolved around it.
Been a collector since the 90's, collection includes include a Vic-20, C64 and an Amiga as well as a handheld Grandstand Astro Wars and a Sega Megadrive. I also have 100s of C64 games and a few for the VOC and Amiga - blog here - www.commodorekid.blogspot.co.uk
Gregory Cherry - Lifelong Commodore enthusiast
Warren Pilkington
Wrote The Tip Zone tips section for Commodore Zone fanzine from 1995 to 2001.
Mark Barrett - Brit Bloke in the USA
Got first taste of the C64 when I was about 6 years old. A friend of mine had a Vic20 and a C16 so I got to taste a little of those too.
During a session with Bionic Commando a good friend of mine invited me to his house to see an Amiga 500 in circa 1985. He demonstrated "Batman the Movie" and like many, my jaw hit the floor. I begged my mum to get one and I was fortunate that I did. And even though I graduated to an A1200 I still had (and still do) a fondness for both.
The Retro Museum Leicester
The Retro Computer Museum is a registered charity (Charity registration no. 1146912) based in Leicestershire, UK - dedicated to the benefit of the public for the preservation, display and public experience of computer and console systems from the 1960's onwards.
Always over 40 machines fully hands on we pride ourselves on being the Retro Gaming Centre of the midlands.
Trevor Dickinson - Co-founder A-Eon creator of AmigaOne
Trevor Dickinson has had a long and successful business career and, as a Business Angel, has investments in a diverse range of companies covering many industries. However, his hobby and passion is the Amiga computer. He is an avid Commodore and Amiga collector and, as the co-founder of A-EON Technology, has worked tirelessly to help to keep the Amiga dream alive. Although he has a particular fondness for the Classic AmigaOS and AmigaOS 4 he is also interested in all Amiga-inspired flavours including MorphOS, AROS & Icaros Desktop and Amiga emulation under WinUAE, AmigaForever and AmiKit. In recent years he has even begun exploring the wonders of Linux, especially when installed on next-generation PowerPC Amigas systems.
Mark Turner
Hey this is Mark (Retrograde) from the immortal c64 podcast. Been a commodore fanatic since getting my Vic 20 (with 16k, awww yeah) but the real love affair started with the c64. I started the podcast as I had been listening to other podcasts that did chiptunes, but had died off. Had always wanted to get more active in the c64 scene, so from the ashes of my old website.. Immortal C64 was born.
Paul Kubiszyn
Credited with four commercial game releases on Commodore Format cover tapes and three self published games. Author of over 65 pieces of SID music, and numerous magazine articles. Responsible for many public domain demos, utilities, and disk magazines.
Active scener from 1993 to 1998.
My website: www.studiox64.com
My much used C64 Sprite Ripping utility: http://www.studiox64.co.uk/c64ripr.php
My C64 Sid album: http://www.kubi.co.uk/chemical-rock
Pawel CZEPO - C64 Enthusiast
The 8-Bit Guy
David is an all-around fan of 8-bit computers and retro technology and a fellow first computer VIC-20 owner. Commodore computers were always his first love, and often the focus of his YouTube channel, the 8-Bit Guy.
The 8-Bit Guy David Murry The 8-Bit Guy David Murry David is busy developing a Commodore 64 version of the VIC-20 game he produced called Planet X1 back in 2009.
Planet x1 for the Vic-20 Planet x1 for the Vic-20 The new game will be called Planet x2 and we will be going behind the scenes to see game development in action as well as finding out more about The 8-Bit Guys Commodore heritage.
Commodore - a quick journey in time...
Commodore was founded by Jack Tramiel in 1954 as a typewriter repair service.
1955 Tramiel moved Commodore to Ontario, Canada.
1970's Commodore Business Machines entered the volatile market for calculators and digital watches
1977 designed by Chuck Peddle, the PET entered the market around the same time as the Tandy TRS-80 and the Apple II.
1981 Commodore introduced the VIC 20, sold for about $300.00.
1982 Sales reached $305 million - Commodore 64 became the best selling computer in history.
1983 sold nearly 22 million units, the company took in nearly $681 million.
1984 the Plus/4 pioneered integrated software in ROM.
1985 Commodore introduced the world's first multi-media computer, the Amiga 1000.
1992 the company launched (CDTV).
1993 Commodore lost $357 million.
1994 May, the beleaguered company closed its doors forever.
WavemStudios will be involved with the entire documentary from camera equipment to logistics and handle the full post production of 'The Commodore Story'
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm7760383/
Risks and challenges
WavemStudios is an established production studio listed on IMDB http://www.imdb.com/company/co0565127 and have successfully funded and produced Kickstarter Projects in the past including a feature film now playing on Amazon Prime Video 'DeVoid' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5556532/
We will be doing full production, editing, soundtrack and sound mastering.
Questions about this project? Check out the FAQ
Support this project
Funding period
- (60 days)