This week I got most of the open questions about the soundtrack music settled. The only problem is that I opened a new question too. I also started a (mostly separate) Kickstarter project for the “Lib-Ray” video format, and I probably need to explain a little how that connects to Lunatics.
Cleared all the music (then uncleared some…)
There were four musical artists I needed to contact to clear licenses on the soundtrack I’ve been setting up for the pilot episode. From these, I got an enthusiastic “yes” from three of them, and a very long amount of dithering that dwindled to a “no” from one. I should emphasize that all of the really important/significant music has been cleared.
The one track I had to ditch has been removed, and I’ve been trying different alternatives to replace it. I think today that I’ve found the one I want to use, which is actually just a different part of a track I used earlier on — it makes for a nice “reprise” effect this way.
I was nervous about asking Elaine Walker from Zia about the use of the title track, which is obviously a very important track, even though I have spoken with her before and she’s been pretty open with releasing her music online over the years. However, she was very positive about it, and she’s even doing a remix of the track for us herself. She also offered to let me use additional music from her past work, which is fantastic. Naturally, I decided to go have a look, and as a result, I’ve made a few additional changes to the soundtrack.
One of them involves getting permission from another artist (oops), though, and so I once again have one track in question. This isn’t that much of a hold-up, though, since I already had music for that part of the episode — it’s just that this track would probably improve it considerably, and we’ll change the way that sequence was cut to fit the music better if we can use it. Hopefully I’ll know soon.
Lib-Ray Kickstarter Launched May 4th
The Free Software Foundation has been billing May 4th as “International Day Against DRM”, and it seemed like a particularly auspicious day to start a Kickstarter for a non-DRM high-definition video format. Blu-Ray video disks have some pretty aggressive DRM features which are not only annoying for free culture producers and fans, but they also add extra expenses. So, I’ve been wanting to come up with a good way to release “Lunatics” in high-definition that didn’t involve Blu-Ray.
In the end, I decided to invent a standard, based on open standards for video and menu systems (Matroska/VP8/FLAC for the former and HTML5 for the latter).
A few of you may be thinking, “Hey! But you haven’t delivered on the first Kickstarter!”
This is true, and I’m a little embarrassed about that. I would prefer to have waited until I completely finished before starting the next one. On the other hand, this is mostly a separate project (if it succeeds, it’ll be almost like having a “day job” for awhile, which would be useful), and it did seem really appropriate to launch it on the 4th. I also had decided I was not going to put the same level of effort into promoting this Lib-Ray Kickstarter — if people want it, I’ll do it, if it fails, so be it. Gauging interest is part of the point. So I decided to go for it.
Finishing Up Pre-Production
We are of course finishing up the work on the Pre-Production stage. Daniel Fu is almost finished with everything we contracted him for — which is what this Kickstart was really about.
Rosalyn has finished a lot of the character sketch material that will go into the Writer’s Guide, and that’s mostly just waiting on me to typeset it for the book. She keeps fiddling with the script, but in general, that is actually a good thing. It does get better as a result.
Sadly, I am woefully behind on some of the parts I personally promised to do.
(Bad director! Do your homework!)
I have got the Moon shuttle lander just about done now — this is an Inkscape drawing with about 60 layers! I need to add a few finishing touches and then add the rest of the shuttle to it as well. The colony floorplan is done, except for a few rooms on the “support” level. I’m actually considering the possibility of leaving a couple of “blank” areas just in case we need to retcon something I forgot to include.
The biggest lack has been in creating the actual Blender 3D models for animatics. I hope to get to that soon and then finish the storyboards
and create a story reel. I may have to cut back a little on what I promised on these, or else delay the data disks a little longer to include them (but then I can send the other stuff out earlier).
On the other hand, I’m actually far ahead of where I expected to be with the soundtrack. The music is just about all cleared (and even if I don’t get the extra track mentioned above, I already had that sequence planned to different music).
I was also contacted by an actor, and having spoken to others, I now think it will be much easier to cast than I originally imagined. Turns out, actors like to act. Who knew?
So there may be some areas with a little less than expected and others with a little more than expected on the pre-production rewards.
I’ve also had a better chance to observe other projects on Kickstarter (such as The Tube and Amanda Palmer’s new album project), and this is affecting my strategy for Lunatics. I no longer think it makes sense to go through another intermediate stage. Instead, we’re just going to run a big Kickstarter to pay everything needed to finish the pilot episode. I now think this is more likely to succeed.
As a result, I will probably simply be trying to raise enough money to pay the Blender animation people — I’m still doing the math, but it looks like we’ll be able to pay for some “remote interns” to work on either a full-time or half-time “stipend” while being able to work from their own homes. In some ways this is not as cool as getting everybody together in one place as they’ve done on the Blender Foundation’s open movies, but in other ways, it’s much nicer. So, we’ll probably get a different group of people, but I think we’ll be able to find talented people who will really like it.
This means less of me trying to talk people into doing stuff for free, which is a big relief.
Upcoming Announcements
Well, you’ll be the first to know about this: I’m preparing announcements to go up on the site opening up both voice casting and applications for 3D Blender animation interns to work on the modeling and animation. These will be appearing in the “Support Us” block soon, and I’m going to have to ask for your help to get the word out to the right people. There are going to be some interesting challenges there, which the announcements will explain.
All-in-all progress is pretty good.
