Thank you very much to all of you who were willing to support this very ambitious project at this early stage! It has, however, been apparent for awhile now that we’re not going to succeed in funding the entire production process for the pilot episode in one go. So much for the “frontal assault”! However, this doesn’t necessarily mean a failure for the project — we’re now switching to a more incremental process. We’re getting ready to announce a replacement Kickstarter campaign which at minimum will fund us just through: This campaign is currently going through the Kickstarter review process and will hopefully be launched in just a few days.
I’ve just made some updates to the front page for our Kickstarter ( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2144275086/lunatics-animated-series-pilot-no-children-in-spac ), including this fun video of a Baikonur gopher that the animation team came up with. We decided there needs to be a cameo in the pilot episode for these tiny furry folks near the space complex in Baikonur where Georgiana Lerner launches into space. So Cosmin Planchon modeled this gopher, who became “Lubo” (from the beginning of the Russian word for “curiosity”, любопытство). And I’ve worked it into the storyboards. 🙂 There might possibly be some other Internet video memes we’re riffing on here.
Want a sneak peek at the music we are putting into the “No Children in Space” soundtrack? We’re putting together a playlist on YouTube with some of the featured tracks (just two tracks so far, but I’ll be adding more to this playlist daily). ( http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL70E9944AD49E1D96 )
Here is a suite of three tracks by Butterfly Tea (“Rise of the Titans”, “Back to Adventure”, and “Andorria Main Title”) which will accompany the Soyuz launch sequence in the pilot episode: A few questions have been raised about this music and its licensing, which I feel I should probably answer here: It is my belief that focusing on the positive value of free-licensed work and providing artists with a revenue stream from that work will help to increase the perceived value of releasing under free licenses, and ultimately provide a wider pool of material for us to draw on in the future. As with many other aspects of the “Lunatics” business plan, this is all about sustainability .
We’ve been very overdue on creating a formal press-release for Lunatics and the pilot episode crowd-funding campaign, which is possibly one reason we have so far left to go. But it’s up now, so please come and have a look. If you know any news outlets that you think should cover Lunatics, please feel free to send them a copy of the press release. You may also notice we are featuring our interview with David Jordan of FundIndieFilms.com!
Lunatics creators Rosalyn Hunter and Terry Hancock were interviewed by David Jordan of FundIndieFilms.com ! In fact, we were the first interview subject for this very promising upcoming web review site for fan-funded productions.
Despite a somewhat hurried start, we are having a wonderful time at ArmadilloCon. This has been a good opportunity to get to know Daniel Fu (Character Artist) a little better in person, and to discuss our projects. It’s also been a great chance to present our work face-to-face and get some immediate reactions on it (pretty much all positive so far, which is good news!). It’s also been a good chance to get away from the computer a bit to work on sketching storyboards for the pilot. That’s a lot of fun once you get started! We’ll be here until Sunday, and then I’ll be back to work on production on Monday!
If you’re in town, you might want to come see us at Armadillo Con 34 in Austin, Texas (it’s at the Renaissance Hotel Austin ). Terry Hancock and Rosalyn Hunter will be there (we’ve got a small table reserved in the dealer room). Our character artist, Daniel Fu, is also going to be at the convention (although I haven’t tried to rope him into manning our table), so it’s just possible you might see him as well.
Three more renderings of components for the “Soyuz-SF” interior set. We are creating this set for our “Teaser Trailer”, which is also an animation test and an opportunity for our modeling team to practice working together on the project. This is the periscope (Soyuz uses a periscope for piloting because the Orbital Module is in front of the Descent Module — from which the pilot flies the spacecraft). ( Flickr Image) Completed main controls for the orbiter (These models are by Cosmin Planchon with display graphics by Timothee Giet). ( Filckr Image )
Two of the guiding principles in the writing for Lunatics are both rationalisn and optimism . We feel these are trends that a lot of modern science fiction media has strayed away from, and we feel it’s time to bring this more positive vision back to the field. “Darker and grittier” may have its place, but after awhile, it starts to seem a little excessive, and really it’s not as realistic as advertised. In the real world, bad things do happen, but there is also usually a very positive human response to those things, and we’d like to focus on that.
I get these questions a lot, so I’m answering it here and including it in the FAQ: (TL;DR version: “NO” and “PROBABLY, but with some qualifications”) IMAGE: Georgiana Lerner in the “Kazbek-Compatible Child Seat” for “No Children in Space”. The original Kazbek design won’t accommodate someone as small as a 7-year-old child, so the International Space Foundation had to commission a specially-engineered solution. Her spacesuit is also custom (derived from a US design) and requires an adapter (integrated into the seat) to interface with the Soyuz-SF life-support system. (Couch model by Sathish Kumar, character model by Andrew Pray).
We’ve just launched our second Kickstarter — this is the BIG one: we’re hoping to fund the production of the pilot episode for the series! Please come see and support us if you can!
