We have just switched over to a smalle Kickstarter campaign to fund just the production of the voice cast (with sound effects, foley sound, and music) and a 2D animatic created by Timothée Giet based on storyboards by Terry Hancock. Find it here: http://kck.st/RTCwZs
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
Later today, we’ll be announcing a new (replacement) Kickstarter campaign, which will fund just the next step production, which is making an animatic and a full-cast voice productio (i.e. we’re going to focus on the sound production first). Check here at lunatics.tv for the link!
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!
