Thank You to Our Backers
October 2, 2023
I wanted to take a moment say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who pledged their support for I Adore My 64. At this point, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll reach the minimum 80% of our total funding goal. However, we remain deeply grateful for each person who stepped forward to express their belief in and support for this project. At this moment, we don’t know exactly what the next step will be but we hope that the C64 community will continue to walk the journey with us.
To be continued...
Sincerely,
Jeff Schaap
Producer and Director, I Adore My 64
Orlando, Florida
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I Adore My 64 is a film honoring the Commodore 64, the best-selling home computer of all time and the community that continues to keep its legacy alive.
Currently, the preview of our film features interviews with:
Bo Zimmerman
The 8-Bit Guy (David Murray)
Anthony Becker
Leif Bloomquist
10-Minute Film Preview
It's been a long journey (see the Production Updates section for all the details) but we're gratified to have released a ten-minute preview of the film. This, we hope, will not only help potential supporters understand the approach and style of the film but also demonstrate its high production values.
With this preview in place we're now working to expand our social media presence and following. This will help the film have it's best chance of getting funded when we launch our fundraising campaign.
Concept Teaser Trailer
It's been said that the victors write the history books. Names like Apple, IBM, Atari and Tandy are well known as the titans of the earliest days of the home computer wars. However, the lesser known Commodore 64 is, without question, the single most influential force in the birth of the market. The impact it has had on millions of people continues to be felt today.
Other films have focused on the history of Commodore and the main figures in the company itself. By contrast, I Adore My 64 will feature people within the communities that continue to keep the Commodore 64's legacy alive and well today.
The Film's Storytelling Approach
The film will intertwine a series a of vignettes about individuals who have been impacted by their intersection with the Commodore 64. Collectors, hardware developers, video game and software engineers will all share their personal stories about why they came to love this unique machine. While some historical information will be presented for the benefit of the uninitiated the film's primary focus will be on the community that exists around the Commodore 64 today and their undying commitment to it. It will not be a biographical film but a love letter to an incredibly influential piece of technology that was decades ahead of its time.
About the Filmmaker
A passionate visual story teller with over 25 years experience Jeff Schaap grew up with the Commodore 64 as his first home computer. From playing video games to programming and creating homemade videos much of his youth was spent interacting with his Commodore 64 and later a C64C. During his college career the video editing system he trained on was a NewTek Video Toaster based on the Commodore Amiga 2000.
Today, Jeff continues his work as filmmaker having shot in some of the most remote parts of the world. However, he also relives his youthful enthusiasm for the Commodore as he collects, repairs, restores and resells Commodore 64's and related hardware. Some of Jeff's previous film work can be seen here:
Shooting on location on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska
Latest Production Updates
For older production update click here.
September 30, 2023
Tonight, we had a live stream appearance on Bil Herd's YouTube channel to talk about our the film. As a surprise, in the middle of the show, Bil brought in Albert Charpentier, one of the main engineers on the Commodore 64! It was a shock and great honor to get to speak with him!
September 23, 2023
This past Saturday we were honored by being asked to appear on the Commodore Users Europe Livestream show hosted by Sebastian Eggermont. We had a great time discussing the the development of the film and the legacy of the Commodore 64. There were a few other speakers as well including Marc Dendooven (EL Dendo) presenting his pl/0 compiler in BASIC on C64, Jessica Petersen introducing her game PET Light Cycles, the Gekko Amiga Emulator by Gennaro Gekko Coda and Sven Petersen with his PET CBM diagnostic clip. Our portion is at the 37 minute mark and can be seen here.
Join the community that is making the film happen and visit our campaign site!
September 22, 2023
Another day, another show appearence! Last night we were really honored to present virtually at a meeting of the Toronto PET Users group (tpug.ca) to talk about the film and our fundraising campaign. It was particularly great to reconnect with this group because their annual Commodore show, The World of Commodore was featured in the 10-minute preview of our film. In addition Leif Bloomquist, a TPUG member, was also present and appears in the preview. After our presentation was complete Leif showed off his new MEGA 65 which was really cool. Watch TPUG's YouTube channel in the coming days for a recording of our stream!
Join the community that is making the film happen and visit our campaign site!
September 18, 2023
We have another appearance under our belt! Tonight we had a great conversation with Scene World podcast. They are also the creators of the Scene World Disk Magazine. This digital magazine can be viewed on a Commodore 64 via emulation or original hardware. An international crew of retro computer enthusiasts staffs this effort that is helping to keep the C64 scene alive. Watch the episode here!
Don't forget to visit our campaign site and help bring this film to life!
September 16, 2023
We were honored to be asked to be a virtual guest at the 2023 World of Retro Computing 2023 that took place in Kitchener, Ontario Canada. We joined other special vistural guests including Bil Herd, Dave Haynie and Jeri Ellsworth! We had a great conversation with organization's found Justus Jurica. We had a chance to discuss the tremendous impact Commodore and the 64 had on the home computing industry as well as the inception of I Adore My 64 and the journey we've been on to get to where we are today. You watch the interview here.
Join the community that is making the film happen and visit our campaign site!
September 2, 2023
We're T-minus 3 days to launch! It's hard to believe it's almost here. We're busy working behind the scenes with last minute tasks that will ultimately help bolster the campaign's success. We've initiated a giveaway for a C64 DTV joystick for one of our first 50 backers who donates $25 or more.
We've also been asked to be a guest on the world's biggest retro computer podcast, The Retro Hour Podcast. It's an incredible honor. We'll be recording the day of our launch, September 5 and the episode will be released Friday, September 8. We hope this will really inject a lot of awareness and excitement into the campaign.
The podcast has been released and you hear it at this link!
September 5, 2023
We launched the campaign!
It's hard to believe that something that a film that was only a dream 3 years ago has finally reached the point of being a fundable project. The journey getting to this point has been longer and more difficult than I had ever imagined but, here we are. My hope is that the C64 community will catch the vision for this film and we'll see an out pouring of support.
August 21, 2023
It's happening!! We've got the green light! Our fund raising campaign with Seed & Spark for the production of the film has been fully approved! We're launching our 30-day campaign on September 5th! Visit our campaign site before the launch and follow us!
August 13, 2023
The "pitch" video for our I Adore My 64 - The Film has just been completed! This is the last component we needed to get our campaign approved on Seed & Spark, the platform we've chosen to help raise funding for the film. We'll be making an announcement about the campaign's launch very soon! Stay tuned!
July 25, 2023
WE HAVE A WINNER!
Congratulations to Chris Pottroff (right) for being the winnner of our drawing for a free, vintage original Commodore 64! He and his son are really into retro computers, consoles and of course, games for them. We hope you guys adore your 64!
July 18, 2023
We're in a significant phase of the project. Specially, winding up, in earnest, to launch our fund raising campaign. As I had learned from others, long before ever attempting to build an independent film, it is a lot of work. No, I mean a lot.
Some very key decisions are being made some that will certainly affect whether the project ultimately gets funded. One of the most major being that we've decided not to run our crowd-funding campaign on Kickstarter. After all my research, I could probably an extensive blog about it but, I'll spare you the details. To cut to the chase, rather than being lost in the ocean that is the Kickstarter platform, we've decided to cast our lot with Seed & Spark, a smaller, film-targeted platform that has a whopping 82% successful campaign rate.
Not only does S&S focus on independent films but it also provides a lot of education and personalized feedback so that your project has a much better chance of succeeding. In fact, you have to meet certain requirements before you are even allowed to launch a campaign. Presently, we're full bore into prepping our campaign and meeting those requirements.
There's some risk involved with selecting a smaller platform but ultimately, we're hoping this will be the decision that gets the project funded instead of shelved.
June 13, 2023
We're adding more videos to our YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@iadoremy64film as we continue to prepare for our Kickstarter launch. This series, which is essential short clip from the interviews we capture is being called "FastLoad" in homage to the well known Epyx cartridge. This allows potential supporters to see more of what's in store in the final film. We hope to produce at least one "FastLoad" for each of the four interviewees that we've captured so far. We've also created even shorter version to post to our Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/iadoremy64film).
In other news we have made contacts with other potential interviewees and had them agree to an interview if we get funded. The momentum is building! We were also excited to see that the views of the 10-minute preview have reached almost 69,000 views!
May 31, 2023
A quick word about the focus and scope of the film.
We've received a good number of legitimate questions, through various channels, regarding the film’s focus on figures in North America. We want to be as transparent as possible about our intentions while recognizing that developing a film always has a degree of fluidity to it.
Every film production wishes they had more time, more money and could do bigger and better things. This one is no exception.
However, early on in the development process we recognized that it was important to set realistic, attainable goals that set the film up for success. Toward that end, we made a conscious decision to limit our efforts to people we can interview, in person, within the USA and Canada. We would love to be able to explore every facet of the Commodore community in every corner of the world. But, doing so would mean raising the project to a monumental scale that would only serve to doom the effort to failure before it started. Even if we could raise enough to fund a film that covered the C64 scene globally, the time, effort and human resource required to build it wouldn't be manageable. Everyone involved has full times jobs, families and regular life to balance.
With that said, depending on the funding we ultimately raise and the opportunities that present themselves, there remains the possibility that we will expand outside of those bounds. Regardless of the locales that the film features, we hope the global C64 community will deem it an effort worth supporting. If the film is successful enough the door could open to additional films specifically featuring other parts of the world. Who can say what the future holds!
May 26, 2023
One month and I'm absolutely floored. When we released the 10-minute preview I hoped that in the first month, it would reach 5,000 views on YouTube. I thought I could consider it a decent success if it did. As of today, it's been posted for a month and exceeded 60,000 views; far outpacing any video I ever created both professionally and personally. It's definitely a shot in the arm as I look toward the launch of a Kickstarter campaign to fund the rest of the film. It's also a testimony to how much the Commodore community wants to see this film made.
Oh, and I'm having way too much fun creating these social media ads. We've created a drawing for a free, original Commodore 64 breadbin and had more than 500 entries! The drawing will take place July 1, 2023!
April 25, 2023
Finally. As I write this, I'm rendering what I hope will be the final revision for the 10-minute preview of I Adore My 64. We hope to gather community feedback on it and move on to the Kickstarter campaign. Hard to believe this moment is here after so much work. It took far longer than I anticipated but the day has finally arrived.
March 30, 2023
Aaaaaaaaannnnnd action! Actors... in all my years of producing film I've not spent a lot of time working with them. But, the film preview (and final film) is definitely going to employ them. They'll be used mostly to recreate scenes that the interviewees talk about.
This past Monday we shot with our first actor. Well, second if you count my daughter (who is obligate to participate but she does love it). This young man, who is a classmate of my daughter's, did a great job and took direction really well. I was able to get his shots integrated into David Murray and Anthony Becker's segments and they look great.
On another front I am still working to research and understand all the details of running a Kickstarter campaign. One of the things I've discovered is that the tax implications of having a film funded can be very complicated. I spoke with a tax advisor earlier this week and he is helping me to understand the best way to handle the funds and minimize what I pay in out in taxes.
I am hoping to have news about the target date to for the Kickstarter launch soon!
February 13, 2023
I'm closing in. The Kickstarter preview of the film is about 90% complete! I have an Excel sheet of fixes and enhancements and am working through them. The preview, which is comprised four segments, each featuring one of the interviewees, is coming in at about 9 minutes and 30 seconds. That's longer than I had originally thought and am gratified that I've been able to complete this much,
I've also begun doing more intensive research on running a successful Kickstarter campaign. I'll need to create the campaign, finalize the amount I am hoping to raise, set reward tiers and other details. Another very important decision is exactly when to launch the campaign. I definitely don't want to do it during spring break when people are on vacations. That's something that Kickstarter highly recommends that you not do. In any event, it's really amazing to have come this far and be preparing for the funding phase!
COPYRIGHT © 2023. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I ADORE MY 64 - A HOME COMPUTER DOCUMENTARY