Kickstarter Begins for Documentary on the Pokémon Video Game Championships
Looking to follow the footsteps of esports documentaries like Free to Play and The Road to Worlds, To Be the Very Best will cover the path of some of the best players in the Pokémon Championship Series as they aim for the title of World Champion. Coordinated by 2x US National Champion Wolfe Glick (Wolfey), the feature length documentary will focus on stories from players like Aaron Zheng (Cybertron) and Ray Rizzo (Ray) but also interviews from all members of the community done during events. To Be the Very Best‘s goal is to showcase the strength of the Pokémon community and the side of players you might not get to see during a tournament match or on stream.
To ensure a quality production, To Be the Very Best will be directed by Emmy award-winning Dan Karlok (Law and Order) with advising from Matt Weaver (Jiro: Dreams of Sushi, We’re the Millers, Rock of Ages). By using Kickstarter, the team hopes to harness the power of the community to create something that can give a boost to the competitive side of Pokémon the same way The Smash Brothers did for the competitive side of Super Smash Bros. Melee.
About the Author
Firestorm is one of the co-founders of Nugget Bridge and the Community Manager for eSports Tournament Platform Battlefy. He has been playing Pokémon since 1999, competitively since 2007, and attending tournaments since 2010. He lives in Vancouver, Canada with a degree in Interactive Art & Technology + Communications. You can follow him on Twitter at @rushanshekar.
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Already pledged ;3! Hopefully they crush their goal!
awesome!!! I love it.
This is something everyone in the VGC community needs to pitch-in for. I’m hyped about this myself.
Awesome can’t wait!
Sounds Great! glad ill be able to contribute. Good luck to everyone involved
Shoutouts to Wolfey and all those involved in the project. I think a film like this was long overdue in the Pokemon community and I’m looking forward to seeing the final product!
This is an amazing idea, If we as a community can get behind this it could be amazing for VGC, can’t wait to see how this pans out, and will definitely be contributing 🙂
Amazing. I’m extremely excited for this.
Looks great! I pledged what I can.
Awesome! I think something like this will really help expand the pokemon community! I’m looking forward to it, and will be contributing when I can.
this is amazing! I am definitely backing this 100%
Wait, how long is this gonna be? Is it Smash Doc length or shorter than a short movie? (Supporting regardless.)
I heard some rumblings about this idea at the end of the summer, and was curious if it was going to happen.
Might be time to finally actually pledge to a KickStarter that I support 😛
Hopefully I’ll be proven wrong but I’m slightly sceptical of the project. It’s an amazing idea for getting the word out about VGC and documenting the goings on within the community, don’t get me wrong. One thing that set off alarm bells though was that the Kickstarter’s aims seem to not be touched upon in the video alongside it which seems inconsistent; going over player’s achievements and making out to a wider audience that these players are good is fine but I worry the video will be more ammunition for players who are included within the video to just say “how great they are”; I don’t think this community needs more elitism than it already has so that will need to be handled carefully. Also there’s no travel plans to go outside of America which could mean the wider Japanese, Australian and European metagames aren’t touched upon outside of Worlds which makes up a portion of the community. Regardless of these points (which I hope will all be proven wrong) I wish everyone involved the best of luck on making this successful, and I hope you do get funding for it if the intentions are honest
I think a documentary would be cool, but vgc as a whole is too young for it to have one yet… imo. Unless if they have one now and then another in like 5 or so years from now to show how far we’ve come.
Thanks for all the enthusiasm guys! This is a project that I think is extremely important for the VGC community, and having all your support really means so much. I’d strongly encourage you to back this project, as without support we won’t be able to make the film, and to encourage your friends to back it as well. I think there’s a lot of good that can come from this, and I’m super excited to be working on it.
Hey there! So we actually had a longer version of the promo video that did exactly what you were talking about, but it seemed repetitive with the Kickstarter description so we shortened the promo video. I’m really sorry that you feel the community is plagued by elitism, but let me stress that making these players look good so that we have something to brag about is not at all our goal. I know personally that I’ve been a critical hit or a flinch away from defeat in some of my biggest victories, so from my perspective it seems a little silly to get a big head from all that when I know how close I was to defeat. As I stated in the description, I would love to travel to players outside of America, but this takes a lot of funding, so it isn’t included in the base goal. I really want to include that travel, but I don’t want to jeopardize the success of the entire project by adding a significant amount to the Kickstarters base goal. I hope this addresses some of the concerns you have about the film, and I’m always happy to answer questions!
Many of the best international players will be at world’s anyway. That’s only so few days of filming though xD
Let’s make this happen!
I just need to get a prepaid credit card on then I hope to donate a reasonable chunk
Yeah, as previously stated, I really do hope other regions get covered. Anyway, this seems like it could be amazingly successful, and could bring more players to VGC. Also, I guess if the stretch goal isn’t reached, you could try get ahold of the players online and skype with them? Not as effective, but could work if you wanted to interview people from different regions and don’t reach the stretch goal.
Our first modern World Championships were held in 2008. League of Legends and Dota began their World Championships in 2011.
True, I guess I was thinking that a documentary for vgc would be more in terms of its history rather than other factors such as the actual path to worlds.
He was just referring to the year of the first VGC Championships as a reference point. 2008 to now is 7 years of world class competitve history to cover, compared to the 4 of the MOBA’s he mentioned.
Yeah I know, shoulda read the kickstarter before posting. That was my b.
I think this is a great idea I think if this pans out it can grow the community.
Still don’t know if you can reach the goal. I hope you can, but 50,000 is hard to get to.
Best of luck
Firstly, this seems like a great goal. So may good things can come out of this. Your co-contributors are all talented and you will have a wealth of experience. It’s good to see something like this get out there and I will do my best to spread the word.
I myself will put money onto my account and will pledge some of my money.
Why is the delivery set at December 2016? Will it incude Worlds 2016 material too? Editing the film can’t take a year…
Editing alone, well all of post-production can take months to complete. Since this is planned to be a feature length I belive then yes that date sounds pretty reasonable.
How about “The Smash Brothers” by EastPointPictures?
Imagining something like that for the game I love, I would say “YESHHHHHH”
Sounds like something, I’d enjoy watching.
I would love for this to go through! I would chip in if I could…
Thanks for reassuring me and I’m glad you replied to my comment! I wasn’t saying that I thought the people in the promo video were specifically elitist by the way (although I did phrase that badly so I apologise), I was saying that many people who could potentially be filmed will use the project as a podium which wouldn’t be healthy for the community, or to introduce newer players. Still this is a great thing, even just as a documentary for how VGC has evolved throughout the years (I still remember the dreaded single elimination qualification system, now we have Premier Challenges, Regionals, Nationals and a swiss format to make everything fairer)