Hi all!

I'm going to make one more appeal to those of you who backed this Kickstarter campaign to fund the pilot episode for Lunatics (or even those just curious enough to read the updates). Just because we canceled this Kickstarter campaign does NOT mean we are not going to continue to produce the pilot episode.

But we're going to have to do it in smaller steps and use the intermediates to attract more support. The first step is to get the audio production done: to record the voice actors and then add music, sound effects, and foley sound to make complete soundscapes. You can hear what that sounds like in our audio and blocking test for the teaser trailer (I know the video is a bit weird -- the characters haven't been placed and ths is just an OpenGL rendering, so it will look quite different when finished -- a goal I've put off until after we do the voice work now.

We are just at 32% with about 3 days left -- leaving $2864 to raise. That's actually feasible. We could do it -- if we get the word out. But the 24 backers who've already supported the project are clearly not enough.

I'd like you to consider that, even if you were mainly interested in the 3D animated aspect of this film, that we are still planning to do that -- we're just focusing on the next hurdle to getting that done, since we didn't evidently have enough pull to fund it all in one go.

If you're wondering why I didn't make this easier by putting a link on the front page of the project, that's simply because I lost the ability to do that when I canceled the project. Oops. I should've done it first.

But we are still alive as a project -- or can be with your help, ayway!

Thanks for your support!

Terry Hancock

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

If funded, this will support finishing the audio production, including voice acting, sound effects, foley, and music. It will also provide a simple 2D-animatic ("cut out style animation") to illustrate the performance, created by animator Timothée Giet (much better than my own sketchy storyboards!). This will require just $4235, which I hope is a much more attainable target than the $100,000 for the whole production (we've eliminated the relatively expensive process of 3D animation, which we will attempt to fund later on in a separate fund-raiser -- hopefully by then we will have a much higher degree of readiness and more people who know about the project).

As always, you can find out more on our project website at http://lunatics.tv.

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:

• Voice and sound production for the pilot episode
• Producing an animatic to illustrate this (and serve as an intermediate step in producing the fully-animated version)

This campaign is currently going through the Kickstarter review process and will hopefully be launched in just a few days.

This eliminates some of the riskiest and costliest parts of the episode production (3D modeling and animation) and focuses on steps we are ready to do right away, and the cost (at just over $4000) is a great deal more attainable (we'd be at over 40% of that goal if we simply transferred the pledges from this Kickstarter to the new one).

If you want to hear what kind of voice-production work we can currently produce, I can invite you to listen to the sound production for our "Teaser Trailer" (attached below). And of course, if you enjoyed the "Lubo" video I posted in our last update, then you've already seen some of Timothée Giet's animatic animation -- which is what's going on in the background of that shot with the Soyuz rollout (the gopher in the foreground is 3D animated, albeit very simply).

This new Kickstarter is on an urgent timescale -- just THREE WEEKS -- because this way we can complete it before we are currently scheduled to begin recording voices. This will allow us to avoid having to slip the schedule and possibly lose the opportunity to get all of the actors together at once to rehearse their parts.

I should mention that, although this clearly means a delay in when we can start 3D animation for the pilot episode, it does not mean we are giving up on fully animating it. It's simply that we are breaking this down into smaller steps, and giving ourselves more time to demonstrate our readiness for the 3D work as well as the worthiness of the story we're animating.

I will post a new update with the URL for the new campaign as soon as it is launched.

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.

Soyuz Launch Suite - Music by Butterfly Tea

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:

Policy Issues About Music Licensing

A few questions have been raised about this music and its licensing, which I feel I should probably answer here:

• Yes it is true that Butterfly Tea has also released a number of tracks (perhaps most) under the more restrictive CC By-NC-SA license.
• It is not legally possible to retract any CC license once it has been given. If an artist re-releases a work under CC By-NC-SA after publishing it previously under By-SA, it just means the work exists thereafter under both licenses (if free-licenses could be revoked, the result could be disastrous!)
• Theoretically, an artist could attempt to defraud the public by removing evidence of having released a work in good faith under a free license (I've written about this -- it does happen). It can also happen that the original release was fraudulent, in which case the work was never really free-licensed (this happens too!). However, it is standard procedure for us to collect basic evidence of the licensing for the works we use. Also, most artists are honest and wouldn't do this.
• In fact, I have contacted the artist in this case, so he knows his work is being used in "Lunatics", wished us luck, and gave us permission to use his PR photo. I am reasonably sure he does not object to this use! :-)
• I contact artists for several reasons. One of which is to get payment information for the artist to receive a share from "Creator Endorsed" sales of our work. We don't do that because we  have a legal-obligation to the artist, but because we have a trust-obligation to the fans who are buying merchandise with the legend "PROCEEDS SUPPORT THE ARTISTS". That is to say, it is a selling point for the work that we are going to share proceeds with contributing artists.
• I do not believe that supporting an artist who uses a mix of CC licenses by using only their By-SA works "encourages" the use of NC licenses. In fact, I think the opposite is true -- by providing income from By-SA works only, we are (if anything) encouraging them to release more material under that license.
• Even if it does not have this effect, however, I am not overly concerned. Many people do non-free work to pay the bills and release some work under free licenses. It's not my place to judge them for that. As far as I am concerned, we have enough in common once they've released a work under a compatible license. I don't feel that I also must evangelize them into being free-culture purists -- unless perhaps by setting an example to emulate.

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.

In fact, most of this also goes for the 20-odd artists whose work is represented in the "No Children in Space" soundtrack. In general, the response to my queries has been quite positive whenever I've been able to get in contact with the artist (not all of them have responded). Most artists -- especially the ones who've already released their works under Creative Commons licenses -- are fully aware of the amplifying effect of their work being reused and popularized in this way. So, they are generally happy to find out we're making use of their work.

I've run into only one exception to this, and that was possibly due partly to a language barrier. His work was not already under a By-SA compatible license, and he refused to change it, possibly on the grounds that we couldn't promise him it would not be used for "immoral" purposes (I can't promise that because once we've released it under a free license, we have no control over what the next person might do with it -- I could only speak for our own use of the work). I might have been able to resolve this with further negotiations, but I decided that it was better to let it go and replace the track (already done).

On the other hand, in three other cases, I got special permission to release works under By-SA as part of the "Lunatics" soundtrack which were not previously under compatible licenses.

In any case, I generally prefer to respect the wishes of the artist, even when there is no legal requirement for it. Another reason I contact artists is to give them a chance to tell me if the licensing information was fraudulent.