Ahoy! Nathan here with a much deserved update. Things are chugging along at EBEHQ. The mountain of tapes to review became a foothill and the already reasonably sized pile of notes and annotated transcripts and clips to pull became a volume of almost Harry Potter-like dimensions (but in some cases with smaller text) and continues to grow. Additionally, those notes are becoming littered with Venn Diagrams of nicely intersecting ideas and pretty much every day I come across a sound byte from some smart person that gets me psyched all over again. Granted, I'd be lying if I said I'd realized just how long this portion of the proceedings would take, but I've got no complaints as things continue to come together. Live and learn.

Other fun stuff: I've started keeping an eye out for animators that I'd like try to recruit for the animated segments of the film. If you're familiar with the Newgrounds community there are some obvious choices there but I'm hoping to offer some exposure to some lesser known talent in the community as well. I also had a contest on NG for some promo artwork for the film and this guy won. His User name is “Aigis,” he's from New Zealand, and he's awesome. (See art below.) I'm also making inquiries and kicking around ideas regarding the t-shirts that some pledgers are getting. I think I'm going to end up screen printing them myself because... well, I like making stuff. So they will probably all end up being a bit unique in some way.

So, lots going on. Thank you again. Back to it!

Howdy,
Little update here. I am currently enshrouded in my batcave/editing suite/Y2K bunker and things are going along nicely. Continuing transcription/capturing etc which is always a bit tedious as I pretty much have to go through everything in real time and then capture clips in real time, but it helps when the subjects are so interesting and this is exactly what I signed up for.
Recently in the can, interviews with Xeth Feinberg (web flash pioneer and all around nice guy)
http://www.mishmashmedia.com/
as well as, possibly my most “meta” interview, Yancey Strickler from Kickstarter.com.
http://www.kickstarter.com/
Kickstarter's a neat place. Very friendly. Very dotcomey.
That's all for now! (I said it was little.) Thanks again.

N

Greetings from the mid-west and the world of academia!
In the past few days I've interviewed some of the smartest people I've ever met, including Tim Bavlnka and Ted Freeseman from the Popular Culture Dept at Bowling Green State University and Jeff Bardzell and John Paolillo from the School of Informatics and Computing at Bloomington University. Hours of tape later I've gained additional insight into where some web culture and aesthetics come from, the history of the web as an entertainment and multimedia platform and where Newgrounds fits into that history, all from an academic perspective. I feel smarter for merely having been in the room with them. This more or less concludes the road-tripping needed for the film, the final handful of folks I'd like to talk to being largely located in Philly and nearby NYC. In the near future I'll be reestablished in Philly and resuming the review and edit of material!

So, I'm pleased to announce the launching of Kickstarter's first promotional tie-in video game!
My pals Sean McKenzie and Ajay Karat worked tirelessly and selflessly to create “Indie Jones” a fantastically fun mini-game on Newgrounds to promote the Kickstarter pledge drive, bring in a few more pledges in the 11th hour and otherwise raise the profile of the project online.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/546431

Please spend every moment your boss isn't watching trying to save me from being crushed by a giant boulder and pass the game around to all your favorite procrastinators. It is addictive.

We've already been frontpaged on Newgrounds and the Kickstarter Blog! (Thanks guys.)
http://Newgrounds.com
http://blog.kickstarter.com/post/1004651754/kickstarter-the-game

When you have a minute for more awesome, check out Sean and Ajay @
http://baconandgames.com/
and
http://www.devilsgarage.com/
I can't thank those guys enough.

Eight days to go, folks! Pledges can be made and prizes earned until midnight on September 1st.

And again, thank you. Be well.

Nathan

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/546431

Ladies and gentlemen,

So it looks like, unless something truly calamitous happens, the goal will have been met and things can proceed. (I will reserve celebration for the next 10 days however.) There are only so many ways I can say thank you, but I'll be coming up with more as things move along. (Many of them in the form of the delightful prizes you'll be receiving.) Any funds raised in excess of the goal will be put towards costly film festival entry fees and more of the nearly endless expenses involved with making a feature film. As they say, more is more.

I'm still looking for info about where you found out about the project (assuming I don't know you personally) and once the drive closes I'll be asking for mailing address and other particulars.
I'll be collecting a handful of final interviews in the fall which I've tentatively begun to arrange and you'll all be the first to hear about them once they're in the can (one of the perks).

There is also another super-secret, fun, promotional internet event for the film launching very soon that I'll post an update about in the near future! Watch this space.

Until then, be well. Thank you.

Nathan

Hey folks,
So I'm nearly half way there with 40 days still to go! Thank you so much to all the supporters EBE has amassed so far. I will do you proud. If you haven't seen it already, I've got a new tweaked trailer on the page, featuring John K, Lloyd Kaufman, and Nina Paley. Check back and take a look if that's news to you.

It's blowing my mind just slightly that I've got over 100 backers at this point. If I don't know you personally I'd love to know how you found out about the project. Friends? Family? Newgrounds? Kotaku? JJGo? Other? I'd love it if you'd post a comment on here letting me know where you heard, so I can better focus my getting the word out efforts.

Speaking of which, the most helpful thing you can do apart from your pledge is post this link everywhere you can. The more people check it out the more people might like it the more people might like to kick in a buck or two. Even if your friends can't afford to make a pledge (understandable in these troubling economic times) they can help by passing it on to others who might and they in turn to yet others who might. It's a numbers game. I'm pounding the virtual pavement.

TTFN. Thank you. Be well.

Nathan