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From Bedrooms To Billions is not only a walk down memory lane, but also a well put together documentary where all the topics follow one another in a coherent manner. And after you’ve watched this once, you’ll have to rewatch them to see all the game clips again.
There’s so many programmers and videogame designers including the ones that stood out for me:
- Archer Maclean (Dropzone, IK+)
Peter Molyneux (Populus, Bullfrog Studios)
Jason Kingsley (Rebellion, Tiga)
Bruce Everiss (Imagine Software)
Jeff Minter (Llamasoft)
Jon Ritman (Match Day 2, Head Over Heels)
John Heap & Ally Noble (Imagine Software, Denton Designs)
Martin Hollis (Goldeneye N64)
Raffaele Cecco (Cybernoid, Equinox)
Nigel Alderton (Chuckie Egg)
Malcolm Evans (3D Monster Maze, Trash Man)
Mark Healey (Little Big Planet)
Eugene Lacey (Computer and Video Games magazine)
Jim Bagley (Midnight Resistance, Cabal, Red Heat, now working for Special FX and Rage Games)
Philip Oliver & Andrew Oliver (Dizzy)
Geoff Crammond (Revs, Sentinel)
Nick Pelling (Frak!)
Martin Galway (Videogame musician)
Martin Edmondson (Shadow of the Beast, Driver)
Ian Livingstone (Fighting Fantasy books)
Mel Croucher (Deus Ex Machina)
Andrew Hewson (Hewson Consultants)
Dominic Wheatley (Domark, Eidos)
Steve Wilcox (Elite Systems)
David Jones (Magic Knight series)
Stuart Fotheringham (Software Projects)
Peter Harrap (Monty Mole series)
Kevin Toms (Football Manager, Addictive Games)
Dino Dini (Kick Off 1 & 2)
And although I didn’t see Doom & Quake creator John Romero amongst them, sadly, we do get some input from the one and only Matthew Smith, creator of Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy!
I watched this film first and the extras first as a download, where there’s no menu or chapters, so to speak, nor any subtitles. I later watched the Blu-ray Special Edition. In both cases, the picture is presented in the 16:9 and in 1080p high definition, and is as sharp as you’d expect for a modern documentary, shot in HD. Any archive footage obviously isn’t in HD, but you would expect that.
The sound is in DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 on the Blu-ray, and Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby ProLogic) on both there and download, and it’s mostly interviews and footage of great videogames from the past. Of course, the ZX Spectrum games sound best to me 😉
The Blu-ray contains 22 chapters and subtitles in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. The main menu shows the packshot with rolling 1s and 0s, rather like The Matrix, and both discs in the Special Edition also contain an initial “Start” menu, which is what all great games have! 😀
Then, after around 2½ hours of videogame chat, if you want more of that, there’s a full-length audio commentary from Anthony and Nicola Caulfield, plus Archer McLean, Jeff Minter and Shahid Ahmad.
And then there’s the following interview extras which make up around the same full running time again! Note that if you’ve bought the single-disc edition of either the Blu-ray or DVD, you’ll still get to see the Matthew Smith‘s interview about Manic Miner, and David Braben‘s Elite interview (short version), but the Special Edition of both will provide the full set of extras and they are an essential watch, so I highly recommend the investment. Note that the interviews aren’t subtitled, but some of these them are chaptered on the disc, depending on how long they go on for.
- David Braben: Creating Elite (short version) (7:47)
- David Braben: Creating Elite (extended version) (31:20)
- Fred Gray: Making Music for the Commodore 64 (10:14)
- Geoff Brown: U.S. Gold signing off on Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker (3:11)
- Geoff Crammond: Developing The Sentinel (8:10)
- Geoff Crammond: From Super Invaders to REVS (8:46)
- Jeff Minter – Making Games & Sheep in Space! (3:29)
- Jez San – Teaching Nintendo 3D on Nintendo & the Super FX chip (7:27)
- Jon Hare – Creating Sensible Soccer (5:50)
- Jon Hare – Creating Wizball (3:39)
- Jon Ritman – Creating Head Over Heels (4:31)
- Martin Edmondson – Creating Shadow of the Beast (7:57)
- Matthew Smith – Creating Manic Miner (6:28)
- Mel Croucher – Creating Deus Ex Machina (18:24)
- Mike Montgomery – Creating Speedball 2 (5:41)
- Peter Molyneux – Creating Populous (15:45)
- Peter Harrap: Creating Wanted: Monty Mole (3:26)
- Rob Hubbard: Composing for the Commodore 64 (9:47)
One of my favourites is Mel Croucher talking about creating Deus Ex Machina, partly becausue I tried to play it when it was released and I didn’t really get it. Now I can understand what it was about. I like how Mel says that he figured by the late ’90s, the technology would’ve advanced such that everyone would be able to also create their own interactive games, but how none of that happened. The full gameplay, starting with Side 1 Part 1, has been uploaded to Youtube here .
From Bedrooms To Billions is out now on Blu-ray and DVD, as well as download, and you can buy them at: Frombedroomstobillions.com
You can also check out the BBC Breakfast interview with Anthony and Nicola Caulfield below.
BBC Breakfast interview with Anthony and Nicola Caulfield
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FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
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| OVERALL | BUY IT! |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 150 minutes
Year: 2014
Distributor: Gracious Films
Released: Out now
Chapters: 22
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: DTS HD Master Audio 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0
Languages: English
Subtitles: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Format: 1.78:1 (16:9)
Directors: Anthony Caulfield and Nicola Caulfield
Producers: Anthony Caulfield and Nicola Caulfield
Screenplay: Anthony Caulfield and Nicola Caulfield
Music: Aidy, Anthony Caulfield, Stephen Caulfield, Stuart Connolly, Ben Daglish, Stewart Dugdale, Max Hall and Rob Hubbard
Interviewees:
Shahid Ahmad
Nigel Alderton
Nick Alexander
Chris Anderson
Mike Austin
Pete Austin
Jim Bagley
David Braben
Gary Bracey
Tom Bramwell
Geoff Brown
Martyn Brown
Simon Butler
Raffaele Cecco
Charles Cecil
Mark Cerny
Rod Cousens
Geoff Crammond
Mel Croucher
Antony Crowther
Ben Daglish
David Darling
Dino Dini
David Doak
Rich Eddy
Martin Edmondson
Eugene Evans
Malcolm Evans
Bruce Everiss
Mark Eyles
Paul Finnegan
Stuart Fotheringham
Oliver Frey
Matt Furniss
Martin Galway
John Gibson
Julian Gollop
Fred Gray
Dawn Hallybone
Bill Harbison
Jon Hare
Peter Harrap
Phil Harrison
Mark Healey
John Heap
Andrew Hewson
Martin Hollis
Dawn Hollywood
Rob Hubbard
Miles Jacobson
David Jones
Mark Jones
Roger Kean
Martin Kenwright
Jason Kingsley
Eugene Lacey
Richard Leinfellner
Ian Livingstone
Rupert Loman
Archer Maclean
Fergus McGovern
Steve Merrett
Jeff Minter
Peter Molyneux
Mike Montgomery
Simon Nicol
Ally Noble
Andrew Oliver
Phillip Oliver
Chris Orton
Andy Payne
Nick Pelling
Gary Penn
David Perry
Ste Pickford
Julian Rignall
Jon Ritman
Jez San
Matthew Smith
Ian Stewart
Peter Stone
Kevin Toms
Steve Turner
Tim Tyler
Bob Wakelin
Andy Walker
Mo Warden
Dominic Wheatley
Steve Wilcox
Jon Woods
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.