Pretty soon we’ll be fund-raising for the pilot for Lunatics, and we’d like to be able to offer both a standard definition version on DVD and a DRM-free high-definition version. Since Blu-Ray is a very, very closed format, we decided to tr to create a new option with “Lib-Ray”. We’re about 74% of the way to funding that development on Kickstarter, but we’ve just got 5 days to make our Kickstarter goal (or we won’t get any of that). So we could really use help, either directly, or by telling anyone you know who cares about free-culture, independent film, and/or user freedoms with multimedia. …
I have just created the… As mentioned before, the content is not complete (and yes, I’m even behind where I said I was going to be, but I’m starting to catch up now). But I have versions of the Concept Art Poster in SVG, PDF, and various wallpaper/desktop sizes. I’ve also got the first 44 pages of the Artbook, including all of the character modelsheets, and the introduction which talks about the planned series format, business model, production schedule, and so on. The original SVG model sheets for each character are also available. More will be coming very soon! Also… Please check that your name is listed correctly in the backer credits.
I am working very hard on this right now! 🙂 I have laid-out / typeset 44 pages of the “Pre-Production Art Book & Writer’s Guide”, which includes an introduction addressing series format and production schedule, and all of the character model sheets. The model sheets and some of the plans will be printed in color, by the way, as I found a print-on-demand publisher who can print a book with just a few color pages (as opposed to charging the color rate for the whole book). To make up the cost difference from pure black and white, I’ll be printing the text parts of the book a bit smaller in two-column “journal” format (still nicely readable, I think).
This week I got most of the open questions about the soundtrack music settled. The only problem is that 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.
Today I sent out the rest of the survey forms to those of you who are getting physical rewards. The actual rewards will probably be ready to go out in about two weeks. I’m starting to work on typesetting and publications stuff, although I still have some of my part owing on the original art. I made a small error in the surveys — I had originally intended to create a separate blank for how you’d like your name to appear in the credits. But I forgot to include this question. So, if you want your name to appear differently than in the “Name” part of your address (or if you wish to remain anonymous), please send me a private message with the name you want us to use.
I took a little time to spiff up the website, which was looking a little neglected. I also sent out queries to some of the musicians whose work I am hoping to relicense under By-S for use in our soundtrack. So far I’ve gotten one positive response, and one slightly unclear one. But I’m optimistic.
Today I came across a news report abou the status of “Freestyle” in Blender, which reminds me of the animatio style issues I’ve been contemplating for Lunatics since the beginning: just how realistic will we want the graphic style of the series to be?
We’ve crossed a pre-production milestone — the modelsheets for the eight colonists (our main characters) are completed. Daniel is now moving on to the artwork for secondary characters. This puts us on schedule for our (recently slipped) delivery goal of early May.
