All or Nothing
Here’s a bonus Thursday edition.
Firstly, I wanted to mention that I’ve written an article about Michaelmas - which is this Sunday - for Seen and Unseen. It’s about where the Archangel Michael has gone, and why we don’t want to bring him back, even though there are dragons everywhere.
Don’t worry. I’ll be writing some completely different about Michaelmas for tomorrow’s lunchtime instalment.
And here’s the second thing:
I can’t speak for Jesus by saying that our Lord would have loved Kickstarter. But I’ve got a case.
In the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 14, verses 28-30, Jesus says:
“For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’”
We want to finish what we started. We’ve got characters, drawings and a story. We reckon we can build something brilliant. So we’re using Kickstarter, a crowdsourcing platform which makes creative projects possible. In that sense, it makes the impossible possible. Or the highly improbably slightly less unlikely.
The idea is that you state your proposition and invite backers to join you. In our case, it’s a pilot episode of a 22-minute animated sitcom called Jazz Cow. Our reluctant hero, a sax-playing cow, leads a group of artists, poets, and misfits in resisting Big Tech guru Dr Popp and his world of algorithms and fake filters. Jazz Cow is old school.
So am I. And I’m writing it. It was John Lumgair’s idea. And he and his team are poised to animate it. We’ve got some BRILLIANT vocal talent lined up which has just been announced. I’m really excited about it. But we need help to build this thing.
Getting funding for this sort of thing is really hard – and so making a pilot will dramatically improve our chances of getting a series commission from a streamer or something. John and I don’t have deep enough pockets to fund a pilot. That’s where you come in.
If you like the idea and want to get on board, please do. Become a backer. You can get involved at all kinds of levels and there are goodies, sneak previews and extras for those that do.
It’s going to cost £20k minimum. That’s what we’re trying to raise. So what happens if we ‘lay the foundation and are not able to finish’ because we’ve only raised £10k? Nothing. You pay nothing. We get nothing. The production isn’t funded – and Jazz Cow remains a pipe-dream. Or sax-dream. It’s all or nothing.
There’s a window for us to raise the funds. We’ve just opened that window. And we’re going to be rattling the tin for another 30 days. When time’s up, we count up the pledges, and if we’ve hit our target: bingo. We make a pilot.
At that level we can afford a full audio pilot, that will sound amazing, plus five minutes of full animation.
If we can bring in £40k, we can make 10 full minutes of animation. (It’s REALLY expensive. Even with AI and all that stuff). So that’s a stretch goal. And we can animate the whole thing if we get to £60k. Wouldn’t that be amazing?
But if we can’t hit that baseline of £20k, it’s a no-go.
So. Would you at least do me the honour of going to have a look at our Kickstarter page? I would be immensely grateful if you could consider kicking in. And you won’t be charged a penny until the project hits the target and we know we can make something. That’s the magic of Kickstarter.
If not for me, do it for Jazz Cow. He’s so cool. (We know. Cows are girls. My dad was a dairy famer. But Jazz Cow is a cow dude.) And don’t just do it for Jazz Cow. Do it to stop the awful Dr Popp who wants to take over the town – and your phone. And that will not end well.