First reactions to Jobs movie trailer

June 24th, 2013 2:59 PM
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Filed under History, Mainstream coverage, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak;
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There was an occasion last year where I wrote a blog post for Apple II Bits but, prior to clicking "publish", realized the subject had a broader appeal. The same thing happened today when I started writing about the new trailer for the Steve Jobs film. Previously we saw only a clip of the movie, resulting in mixed receptions. Now that a two-minute trailer garnered two million views over the weekend, has public reception to the movie changed?

Find out by reading my Computerworld blog — but you can watch the trailer here, or see the film in theaters on August 16.

Conflicting personalities in jOBS movie

January 28th, 2013 10:33 AM
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Filed under History, Mainstream coverage, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak;
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Last week, Gizmodo posted a clip from jOBS, a biopic of the life of Steve Jobs. In this scene, we see Ashton Kutcher of That ’70s Show as Steve Jobs and Josh Gad of The Book of Mormon at Steve Wozniak.

Like Gizmodo reporter Jesus Diaz, I had an initially positive reaction to this clip. I liked his disparate the personalities were, with Woz taking the time to greet a co-worker while Jobs is more interested in furthering an agenda. I liked that only one of them had an inkling of the revolution they were about to launch. And I liked that Jobs appeared to be taking advantage of Woz, which struck me as consistent with what I know of Jobs.

With that in mind, I shared the post on Facebook. It wasn’t long before other Apple II enthusiasts shared observations I’d overlooked. "Kutcher isn’t trying to pick up any vocal mannerisms… I’m sure the script is great, I liked the dialogue I heard in the clip above. I just think the actors they got are sub par in their delivery," wrote Marty Goldberg of the Electronic Entertainment Museum. Added Atari historian Curt Vendel, "If they are going to do something based on real characters, then they should actually try to nail it down better… I think iJobs is going to crash and burn because of the lacking of strong character portrayal." Even Apple II veterans Mark Simonsen and Don Worth were unimpressed.

One of my favorite comments came from Apple II game reviewer and programmer Brian Picchi, who suggested the best person to play the role of Woz is Woz. Gizmodo must’ve agreed that Woz would have some insight into Gad’s character, as they published a follow-up with Woz’s thoughts on this one clip. He was quick to point out that the scene featured in this clip never happened, though he points out such factual accuracy is unnecessary — the film is a dramatization, after all. More important is how untruthful the personalities are:

Personalities and where the ideas of computers affecting society did not come from Jobs… A more accurate portrayal would be myself in the Homebrew Computer Club (with Steve Jobs up in another state and not aware of it) being inspired by liberal humanist academics from Berkeley and Stanford and other places speaking of these high social goals. I decided then and there to help them reach those goals by designing a computer that was affordable. I gave it away to members of this club to help them. My goal was not money or power. In fact, when Steve came down and came to the club and saw the interest, he did not propose making a computer.

Will the film fail as fully as Vendel suggests? Probably not, I think. As Jason Scott added in the Facebook thread, "Spoiler Alert: This movie is not for vintage computing nerds."

jOBS — which has official presences online, on Facebook, and on Twitter — comes out April 19 from Open Road Films. It is not to be confused with Sony Pictures’ bigger-budget adaptation of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs.

Bill Budge & John Romero on the 6502

March 19th, 2012 9:10 AM
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Filed under Mainstream coverage, People;
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Bill Budge has been a programmer extraordinaire, from the early days of his Pinball Construction Set to his more recent work with Sony and Google. Now he gets to pontificate upon those experiences to Jason Scott as part of 6502: The Documentary.

This preview joins the previous footage of Joe Grand, as well as this video of KansasFest 2012 keynote speaker John Romero:

Jason the documentarian explains:

These are untouched clips … right out of the camera and rendered out for you. I will probably tweak, push and pull for the final works, but I wanted you to see, clearly, the quality of image and sound you helped me achieve, and maybe even start to see how these subjects might play out. I have a very long way to go, but it’s happening, for real, and you’re seeing it. Thanks so much.

Did you not preorder your copy of 6502? Jason will be at KansasFest 2012; maybe he’ll take your money then… or just put you in front of the camera for his next film!

6502 documentary preview

January 26th, 2012 3:05 PM
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KansasFest 2009 keynote speaker Jason Scott recently ran a successful Kickstarter campaign that earned him $118,801 (minus fees) with which to fund three documentaries on tape, arcades, and the 6502 processor. His first investment with that money was some new A/V equipment: a Canon 5D Mark II Camera, multiple Canon L lenses (24mm–70mm, 50mm, 70mm–200mm), Lowell Tota lights, a H4N recorder connected to a Seinnheiser microphone, and a Cinevate Atlas 30 slider dolly. Using these purchases, he shot some test footage about a typewriter.

More recently, Scott interviewed Joe Grand of the Discovery Channel series Prototype This! about SCSIcide, a cartridge-based game he released in 2001 for the Atari 2600, which uses the same 6502 processor as the Apple II. Whether this 23-second clip will appear in Scott’s final documentary remains to be seen — Grand isn’t listed on the current cast list — but it’s the first preview we’ve had of a documentary that’s not due for release until December 2015.