This week we reported on the news that The Rubber-Keyed Wonder documentary had a new collectors edition to pre-order. The upcoming documentary, that focuses on the story of the ZX Spectrum, is produced by Gracious Film founders Nicola and Anthony Caulfield. Fusion speaks with them about the project and what it means to them and the wider Spectrum fanbase.
On details about the new collectors edition, Nicola and Anthony explain that “this box means a lot to us because we put it together with Sir Clive Sinclair’s son Crispin (who will also be signing each one) and a great deal of thought went into each item. The USB Cassette tape will contain a bunch of short documentary style films about many classic games for the Spectrum told by each specific creator, the one-off CRASH Magazine is set to be very special with some amazing guests contributing and all the other items in the box have a special meaning, even down to the metal poster of Practical Wireless Magazine from 1958, something from the very start of Clive Sinclair’s career, where before being known as an inventor Sir Clive was essentially a technology journalist!”
Speaking on the documentary itself the pair said “our new documentary on the ZX Spectrum is called ‘The Rubber-Keyed Wonder: 40 Years of the ZX Spectrum’. We initially decided to make it because we had previously made a film about the birth of the British Video Games Industry 10 years ago and in that film we could only briefly touch on the ZX Spectrum, but deep down we knew we wanted to expand more and cover how significant it was that 40 years ago affordable computing was made available to pretty much everyone. It allowed them to bring a computer into the home and once you brought the computer into the home it was down to you!”
“Like any other tool it’s what the user does with it that matters and the ZX Spectrum was designed to have a very low barrier to entry, this is why many children, not just adults started to tinker with one. It was at least easy to get started with it thanks to well designed hardware and a basic programming language as well as a manual that was written to draw you in rather than just present you with a wall of technical detail. Many games came out because of the Spectrum and our film does go on to show how many different types of games there were and how an industry grew because of it.”
The documentary also features Sir Clive Sinclair. “One element that has surprised us while making the film is the story of Sir Clive Sinclair.” Nicola and Anthony explain. “His love for inventing started many decades earlier which saw him designing tiny radios and amplifiers before creating the world’s first pocket calculator before eventually moving into home computers with the ZX80, ZX81 and then of course the highly successful ZX Spectrum which sold more than 5 millions units across the world. All of this we cover in our new film which will be available in the summer this year. The Sir Clive Sinclair’s element of the story is another reason we are so proud of the Deluxe Collector’s box which as I said we have been able to put together with his family.”
Fusion would like to thank Nicola and Anthony for their time. You can still pre-order the collectors edition until the 14th of April.
