I was hired by ININ Games to produce a documentary for their latest publishing project , NatsumeAtari's Shadow of the Ninja Reborn! A series of interviews, one of which was with a developer that's been in the industry for decades with this being their very first appearance - very cool!
The process of putting this together involved a lot of learning on the fly, because this was the first time I: edited a documentary in a different language, worked with international collaborators across 4 different time zones, and had to pass legal certifications for various elements of the project.
The process of putting this together involved a lot of learning on the fly, because this was the first time I: edited a documentary in a different language, worked with international collaborators across 4 different time zones, and had to pass legal certifications for various elements of the project.
The interviews were conducted by multiple parties, including Kamila Yusuf who was a brand and PR assistant at ININ Games, and her colleague with the team in Japan. Footage was captured by a member of NatsumeAtari's team, and they did a great job getting some high quality (both in fidelity and ability) gameplay.
I was responsible for editing together these disparate elements, as well as writing and doing voice over for interstitial segments to help connect the different interviews and direct the story of this project. The interviews with the developers were conducted in Japanese, so I had to handle these using subtitles (they wouldn't pay for my Japanese classes 😔) which was very challenging. The team member that conducted the interview was helpful in ensuring I didn't fudge up any sentences, but I also used some translation services to make sure I was maintaining the structure of what they were saying.
Like I said, part of this project also required passing multiple legal checks with the NatsumeAtari legal team in Japan. A lot of particulars needed to be met, which involved passing many, many versions back and forth with the team to ensure everything was being done properly. This was a very eye-opening process for me as most of the documentary and content work that I've done has been a bit looser, even though I do my best to ensure proper attribution and acquisition is being adhered to on my end. It turns out this stuff really matters! Who would've guessed!
Overall, I'm elated with how this turned out! Muscling through those more challenging periods of authorization was incredibly worthwhile as I now feel a lot more confident in my ability to communicate what is needed to ensure a certifiable project with fewer legal issues. There was stuff I didn't even know we needed to think about, and that could only come from an initially uncomfortable experience like this.
