As I posted earlier, it’s clear that we are not going to be able to raise sufficient funds to take us all the way through production of the pilot episode on this Kickstarter. I will be canceling this Kickstart in just a few minutes. I’d like to thank those of you who supported this project with your pledges! If you would like to continue supporting our production, please consider backing our much more modest campaign to fund the next phase: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2144275086/lunatics-pilot-episode-voice-drama-and-animatic
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.
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 .
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).
Hi all! I wanted to let you know that we have launched the fund-raiser for production of the pilot episode, “No Children in Space”: Lunatics Animated Series Pilot – “No Children in Space” We really wanted to launch on Moon Day, July 20th, and we have. This is of course, the 43rd anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. We were working really hard to make this deadline (really important, because we actually advertised the date this time). So, I’m really happy we made it.
Finally! I can tell somebody… We now have six voice actors confirmed for the pilot episode, who will play the six series regular characters who appear in the pilot (Georgiana, Hiromi, Rob, Tim, Josh, and Anya — in order of apperance): Rob will be played by William Roberts . Hiromi will be played by Karrie Shirou . Georgiana will be played by our daughter Ariel after all (we reviewed auditions from a few adult actresses to be sure this is what we wanted to do — they were good, but a real child’s voice sounds much better, and Ariel did quite well on the audition). Tim will be played by Lex Quarterman . Josh will be played by Paul Birchard . and
