REVIEW TIME

Tomorrow Jade and I will review some of the action scenes for the first episode with our potential new animator. I am excited about seeing some of these scenes and finding out where the episode's progress is at currently. Our crowdfunding campaign is still running but we still have not had any new pledges yet. Soooo...... yet again I am about to add the link to this post and ask for your help in sharing our campaign and maybe even pledging! Help out this series by helping us to make money to be able to pay a composer to create some awesome theme music for the series! 

Pledge Me Link: www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/4674-kiwi-web-series-needs-music-composer

AASHA ORIGINAL ART & PLEDGE ME

Here's an original concept image of Aasha created by the talented Jade. She is still working hard to complete the first episode of the series and we are in talks with another possible animator to help with the work load. Still no more pledges on our crowd funding campaign but we still have 22 days to go before it closes. So, as I keep mentioning in my other posts, please follow the link and have a look at our campaign and please share it with everybody you know! Keep posted for more daily progress on the series as well as some more cool art work and screen shots!

www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/4674-kiwi-web-series-needs-music-composer

FIRST PLEDGE

We have finally received our first pledge on our crowdfunding campaign! The pledger is a mutual friend of myself and Jade and we very much appreciate his help! Our campaign still has a long way to go to reach our target but we still have quite a wee while before it ends. I will continue to promote and push our crowdfunding campaign and hope that some generous people will help us out! Anyways, I will leave you with the link to our campaign and another screen shot from the first episode! Peace out people!

Pledge Me Link: www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/4674-kiwi-web-series-needs-music-composer

WORK CONTINUES

Our crowdfunding campaign still has 24 days left and we still do not have a single pledge! It's a little frustrating to say the least but I am still hopeful that people will get behind our Pledge Me campaign and help us reach our target. 

The hard work continues on the first episode of the series. More animating is being done and we are looking at the possibility of expanding the animation team. Jade has a lot of work to get done for this first episode, so expanding the animation team would take a little pressure off of her. 

More progress updates will be posted daily, so keep coming back to check up on how we are doing. I will leave you with this group picture of Kahurangi, Aasha and Matariki and also the Pledge Me crowdfunding link! 

Pledge Me Link: www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/4674-kiwi-web-series-needs-music-composer 

SCREENSHOT - AASHA'S BEDROOM

Jade has been working hard on the first episode of the web series. We have all the dialogue recorded and Jade is animating the dialogue scenes currently. Below is a screen shot of Aasha's bedroom which shows her bed and bedside cabinet. Our crowdfunding campaign is still running but we are yet to receive any pledges and with 25 days left to go on the campaign there is still time to for people to pledge us some money. Check out our campaign through the link and help us to reach our goal!

Pledge Me link: 

www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/4674-kiwi-web-series-needs-music-composer

PARTICLES & LIGHT GLOW - VFX SCREEN SHOT

Sarah (VFX Supervisor) has been busy adding some awesome visual effects to the animation. This screen shot shows some light glow effects that she has added and also some particle effects. The particles are the blue dots that are floating above the glowing light areas. Some great work being done and much more to come!

KAHURANGI CONCEPT ART

This is a piece of original concept art of Kahu. Jade (animator/creator) is the artist of this piece and it is one of her original concept designs for the character.

Please remember that our crowdfunding campaign is still up and running. We need money to pay a composer, so that the web series sounds as awesome s it looks. Please follow the link below to have a look and keep watching this space for more updates on the series.

www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/4674-kiwi-web-series-needs-music-composer

SCREEN SHOT - VFX

Here's a screen shot from the first episode. Our VFX Supervisor has added the star in the background to make it look like a real star. This screen shot also shows the kind of lighting that is being used throughout the entire animation. The lighting is similar to chiaroscuro which is an Italian artistic term used to describe the dramatic effect of contrasting areas of light and dark in an artwork, particularly paintings. It comes from the combination of the Italian words for "light" and "dark". Keep checking out the blog for more updates and don't forget about our Pledge Me crowdfunding campaign! Follow this link to check it out:

www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/4674-kiwi-web-series-needs-music-composer

Character Biography: WHAEA WAHINE

Wahine is a Whaea and is the most powerful Atua. She has a cool, calm and collected personality and can hold secrets when needed. She is native of Hatana and was there when it flooded.

Crowdfunding Campaign: Plegde Me

Our crowdfunding campaign is up and running. We are trying to raise money to pay a composer to make us some epic music for the 'Mother' web series. A great web series needs great music, so follow the link below and help us out by pledging us some money and share it with everybody you know!

www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/4674-kiwi-web-series-needs-music-composer

Character Biography: MATARIKI

Matariki has lived in Arbiters Valley for years and was Wahine's apprentice. She is a highly skilled Atua and is sarcastic all the time. Teasing Kahu every chance she gets is her own personal pleasure. Matariki is Aasha's best friend and cares about her dearly.

Character Biography: AASHA

Aasha originates from Arunia but during the civil war there, was sent to Arbiters Valley where she has remained for some time now. Aasha happily lives in Arbiters Valley where she cares for Mikah as her own child. Aasha specializes and is powerful in Aggro but chooses not to use it anymore.

Character Biography: KAHURANGI

Kahurangi was born in the coastal town of Aranui. In his youth, he was an apprentice herbalist and alchemist at his local Temple. Kahu was sent to Arbiters Valley to serve at the Temple where he started working on a 'Book of Shadows' becoming a highly skilled Occultist in the process. Kahu is Aasha's partner and sees himself as Mikah's father.

Character Biography: MIKAH

Mikah is a young, inquisitive orphan child, born in Arbiters Valley to a Merc mother. Mikah enjoys reading tomes and is skilled at reading and drawing arrays. Mikah is raised by Aasha who cares for the child as her own.

MAKING A WEB SERIES

Making a web series has presented some challenges and has been an interesting process, so far. ‘Mother’ started off as ‘The Last Reward’ and was developed into ‘Mother’. The development had the added addition of Maori culture and art works as well as story developments changing the main storyline.

"Mother' is a series about a world where magic exists that is used by women but men can not use it. There are also different regions in this world that have conflict with each other. A woman called Aasha has an orphan child, Mikah, from a conflicting region and is bringing her up as her own. Aasha holds onto a secret that could potentially harm her relationship with the child. This season tells the story of how Aasha and Mikah came to be together and slowly unfolds the secret that Aasha has held close to herself.

‘Mother’ has actually been in the making for approximately a year and a half. Jade has been building the assets needed to make the web series. Over the past year and a half, she has designed all the characters and drawn orthographics for them. From these orthographics, she has modelled, textured and rigged all the characters that appear in the animation, as well as making some generic characters to be used as background characters. Jade has also modelled and created props and the environments (world) that will be used in the animation. Now that Jade has sorted all of that, she has started to animate the first episode which is labour intensive and time consuming. Ideally, Jade and I would like to have the first episode ready to accompany a funding proposal that we are also working on.

A friend of ours, Sarah Dewbery, has come on board as the VFX Supervisor. Sarah will be in charge of anything to do with visual effects in the project. She is a talented and conscientious animator and is great at what she does. Sarah has already started to sort out some of the visual effects and is making Jade’s animation look even more amazing!

As the producer, I have sourced voice artists for the project, posted on forums to advertise for voice artists, collected auditions, sent a glorious amount of e-mails, written contracts, set up Skype rehearsals, written proposals, sorted budgets and tried to organise social media sites to promote the project. I have listened to so many show reels for potential voice artists that by the end of it, all of them started to sound the same as all the ones I had listened to previously. Also, some people did not read the information that I had provided in the forum advertisements and also in the e-mails that I would accompany the scripts that I had sent. Listening to numerous show reels and people not reading things properly were two of the biggest frustrations that I had with the process of trying to find voice artists. On the bright side of things, the voice artists that could potentially fill the role that I was looking for, stood out like sore thumbs and made all of that frustration change into excitement.

Thankfully, we have finalised four of our voice artists and they are great. We have three from America and one from the UK, so rehearsals with them have been very interesting. Jade and I are in New Zealand, so there are a few different time zones to accommodate in a rehearsal. This usually results in Jade and I having to Skype call our voice artists at around 2 or 3am our time but given that it is our project, it is the sacrifice that we are willing to make. We are thankful to have the voice artists that we have because without them, we may not have a project.

We are currently writing a proposal to apply for funding from NZ on Air through their digital media web series fund. There is tough competition for this funding and we actually applied for the fund last year but were unsuccessful. Since then, we have developed the ideas and the proposal significantly and researched a lot of information to bulk up what we had previously. To help with funding we plan on launching a crowd funding campaign through Pledge Me. Approximately a year ago, we ran a Kickstarter crowd funding campaign and while we were not officially funded through Kickstarter, we were given the money that we were asking for through one sponsor, who gave us the full amount because they wanted us to succeed with this project. Our Pledge Me campaign will be to raise funds, so that we are able to pay a composer to compose the music for the series. Our target is to have the campaign up and running within the next two weeks. I will share the link on this blog when it is finally up and running.

So, everything is all go at the moment and as the deadline for the funding application gets closer, I  can only imagine that we will be met with more challenges. Fingers crossed that our Pledge Me campaign goes well and we get the money that we are asking for and hopefully that first episode will be able to accompany our funding proposal. Watch this space! Amazing things to come!