Specialist Subject Study

PROPOSAL And TREATMENT

Proposal

For my documentary, I plan to make it about the history and global

rise of the world-famous game “Minecraft”. I plan to talk about the
first launch of the game back in 2011 and its early development in
2009, and how the game has expanded graphically, technically and
through the growth of the huge fanbase over the years. The game
was originally developed by a small games company called Mojang,
which was ran by the founder Markus “Notch” Persson, who owned
the games IP for 5 years, until he sold it to Microsoft in 2014 for $2.5
billion. Over the years Minecraft has updated its textures and
graphical capabilities to be as up to date as it could possibly be, to
maintain interest with the fanbase. Minecraft’s textures for its blocks
are always being changed and updated to look more realistic as
technology and available software gets better. The artificial
intelligence in Minecraft is also being changed and improved over
time too, such as the intelligence of the animals and enemies that
can be found and defeated throughout the games many biomes. The
Minecraft fanbase is probably the biggest video game fanbase in
history, with the game picking up billions of views worldwide every
year on platforms such as YouTube or Twitch. In 2020, the game
picked up over 200 billion views just on YouTube alone. Minecraft
has over 1 trillion views on YouTube making it the most watched
game ever on the platform. I want my documentary to begin right at
the start of Minecraft’s history, talking about Mojang and about the
founder of the game, and how the games popularity increased over
the years, and make its way all the way up to the current day with
the latest big updates from Microsoft, the games current owner, and
how the new ownership of Minecraft has changed the game forever,
and how the fanbase reacted to the sale of their beloved franchise.
Key Resources

The key resources I will need are a microphone for the voice over,
this will need to be of high quality and will need to be reliable, as a
bad microphone can ruin or negatively affect the production of the
documentary. I will use Adobe Premier Pro for the editing of the
documentary and to build the video together, as this is one of, if not
the best editing software available on the market at the moment.
The studio in the college can be used for the interview pieces of the
documentary where I will ask various questions to some people
about what they think of the game, and its changes over time. I will
also use the internet, where I will find and use some clips and pieces
of visuals from the game will be used to support it. I will also sample
and use some audio and music from the game to be used in the
background too, as the creator of the music in Minecraft, allows
people to use his work in their content, as long as it is credited in the
corner of the clip. This will help as it will bring the atmosphere of the
game to my video.

People I Plan To Interview

I will probably interview my friends as it will be easier for them to

answer my questions, as I know that they are knowledgeable about
the subject and will be able to give a detailed answer about their
opinion. The questions that I will ask them will be related to the
history of the game, and what their opinion on some of the changes
that have been made over the years are, such as their opinion on
whether Minecraft being sold to Microsoft was beneficial or not for
the fanbase. I will also ask questions such as “do you think the game
will continue to grow at fast rates or do you think it will start to lose
interest from the developers?”. These interviews will be important as
it will give the viewers a look at some opinions from people who play
or used to play the game, they will also be important as it will show
different views on what people think about the games history, and
what people think about the original developers cashing out and
abandoning the fans for a big company to take over.

Treatment

I want to start off my documentary by talking about how Mojang, the

company that made Minecraft was created, and the year it was
created. I will also talk about Markus “Notch” Persson, the founder
of the game, and how he contributed to the creation of Minecraft. I
will then explain how the idea for the game “Minecraft” first came
around and how the team at Mojang went about creating that vision.
I will talk about the software that the company used, and how much
they spent making the game during development. I will also mention
when the game was first in development and how long it took to
become a stable playable version, for example version 1.0 or older.
After this, I will probably go on to talk about the first public updates
made to the game, and the changes that Mojang made during them.
While I am talking about all of this, I will show and play clips, audio
and screengrabs from the early versions of the game, to give the
viewers and the audience a feel for what the game looked and
played like back in that state. My next sequence will probably be
about the early 2010’s, when the games popularity really started to
grow rapidly, I will talk about the updates and news brought to the
game, and how these updates changed the game. I will show how
the game has grown to become famous on other platforms such a
YouTube, and other streaming platforms and websites, and will show
the number of views per year in this timeframe. While I am talking
about this, I will do the same as the previous sequence, and will
show clips, gameplay and footage from this era of Minecraft. This will
show the audience how the game has developed, both graphically
and technically, and will give them a view on how the game changes
over time. The next section of my documentary will also include
updates, additions and popularity, but will mainly focus on the
business side of Minecraft and its relationship with Mojang, as in
2014 the game was sold to Microsoft for $2.5 billion, heartbreaking
the majority of fans worldwide. I will also talk about how this has
started the downfall of the fanbases connection to the original
founders, and how the fans reacted to the sudden change of
Minecraft and its future. Next, I will talk about the next major update
that was brought to the game, and how it being an update from
Microsoft will affect its impact on the fanbase. I will show the update
and will talk about the year it came out, and what it added, also the
fans reactions to it. This will also show more Minecraft gameplay and
cinematics. Then I will move on to the more recent Minecraft
changes from 2017 and upwards, I will talk about updates, graphical
changes, changes in the fanbase and the popularity of the game, and
new features that Microsoft implement into their newly acquired
game. I will also talk about a new event that Microsoft holds known
as the mob vote or the biome vote, these allow the fanbase to come
together to vote on which new A.I or explorable biome that they
wish to see in the next big update. This allows the players to get
what they want and keeps them happy. After I have finished talking
about the latest versions of the game, and how it is performing on
the market, I will begin talking about the games transition into the
Esports industry, and how it created a genre of game that is played
worldwide by most gamers today. This is the Battle Royale genre,
which involves players looting equipment and fighting to be the last
player standing. The original form of this is from a Minecraft
multiplayer game mode called Hunger Games, which takes
inspiration from the Hunger Games film trilogy and incorporates it
into a playable Minecraft game mode, which went on to be used as
inspiration for some of the biggest games of our time. I will finish the
documentary by explaining Minecraft’s importance to the gaming
industry, and how it would be very different without the evolution of
the game, and the fanbase that comes with it. If I still have time after
all of this, I will show a small collection of clips added together to
create a small montage, showing the quick transition from the
original versions of the game into the game it is today, going from
major update to major update, demonstrating the massive difference
the game has made, from version 1.0 in 2009 all the way up to 1.20
in 2023.