A Kickstarter fundraiser launches today for a new documentary mini-series examining the history of arcades and coin-op games.
Arcade Dreams from Rock Steady Media
Arcade Dreams is being produced by Rock Steady Media with Director, Zach Weddington at the helm and is planned to be a three-part series covering the past one hundred years of arcade and game development, from the earliest electromechanical amusements to the latest virtual-reality simulations.
Although the team have already shot hundreds of hours of 4K source material they still plan to shoot much more, both for the mini-series itself and for bonus material available to backers of the Kickstarter project.
As you can imagine, a century of coin-op gaming and arcade development is an expansive subject, so the documentary interviews many industry luminaries and gaming historians including Eugene Jarvis, Roger Sharpe, Gary Stern and George Gomez along with many more tracing the development of game design, technology, manufacturing and marketing.
The Kickstarter campaign is currently underway with a target of $95,000 before the closing deadline of 5th December, 2020.
To find out more about the documentary mini-series and the motivation behind the creation of Arcade Dreams, Pinball News spoke to Director, Zach Weddington and began by asking him about his history in both film-making and arcade gaming.
He told us, “I grew up in arcades. I was so obsessed, I used to sneak out of my bedroom window to ride my bike to the arcade at night when I was supposed to be in bed. Consoles are great, I had them all: NES, Sega Master System, ColecoVision, but they couldn’t compare to the arcade experience. I’ve never stopped going to arcades and always check out the local scene when I visit a new town.“
“I first started making videos when I was about 9 years old, beginning with claymation. The California Raisins were HUGE at the time! I began doing my own computer animation at age 12 using an Amiga computer. Through the years, I made thousands of commercials and videos of all kinds. Eventually I wound up working for Comcast in their Headquarters in Philly. After that, I struck out on my own…making
