The Campaign has ended :(
Thank you very much to our 68
Contributors! We really had a good run, but we aren't finished yet! This
money will help us get started, but anyone who missed the opportunity
to donate can check out our own Support page at http://www.galacticbattles.net/donate.
Keep notified by checking out our Blog - http://www.galacticbattles.net/blog
UPDATE (September 4th, 2015. We just finished filming! Check out our update video here - http://youtu.be/ih8RAO7pJxU)
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Short Summary
Hi. My name is Nick Romick. I’m the producer of the non-commercial Open Movie Project, ‘Galactic Battles’.
The film is technically classified as a Fan-Film, and features
ships and characters from Star Trek, Star Wars, Mass Effect and Halo.
This mashup film will pit the franchises against each other, as well as
build alliances with each other in one intense inter-galactic battle. We
are going to take this one step further, by introducing live action,
including the Mass Effect character of Commander Shepard being played by
Mark Meer.
This project means a lot to me and the Project Team, as we love Sci-Fi,
Visual Effects and are very passionate about what we do. We have put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this project so far, and we plan on putting a lot more into it.
We currently have a team of about 20 artists, 2 sound designers, have cast several actors (including Mark Meer from Mass Effect), 1 dedicated
screen-writer, 2 social media coordinators and many more. Everyone working on the project is working on passion (for free), which is the reason we are able to produce a movie-quality film for a minimal budget.
With the help of contributors like you, we can finish this project on schedule. We have plans to continue regardless of budget, but our current schedule needs money right away. If fully funded, this project will be complete by the end of 2015. (We've really planned this out)
Once complete, we plan on releasing this film free-to-view on YouTube and Vimeo.
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What We Need & What You Get
We've come a long way so far, and we just need a little more money to finish strong! As this is a
non-commercial, open source collaborative project, we have little
source of income. Our sponsors have given us some pretty amazing free
hardware, software, meeting and studio space, but we need your help to
bring up the production value.
We are looking for $5,290 (modified budget) to help this project succeed. This money will help cover the costs of the following major expenses:
- $2,000,000 Film Production Insurance
- Green/Blue Screen Studio rentals
- Costumes
- Crew Food
- Software Licenses
- Flights & Accommodations for our celebrity / cosplay actors
- Custom Props (although most sets will be digital)
Other additional (smaller) costs may include such things as web hosting, Facebook advertising, Google Drive Storage fees, etc. but we have been able to handle these expenses ourselves so far.
We're excited to offer the following exclusive perks for our backers:
- Limited Edition Concept Art & Storyboards
- Galactic Battles Backer T-Shirts
- Galactic Battles DVD / Blu-Ray discs
- 3D Printed ships from the film
- Limited Edition 5" GB Master Chief / Commander Shepard Statue
- Tickets to the 2015 Galactic Battles Launch Party (Vancouver, BC)
The funds will go immediately to the most necessary costs (Film Production Insurance, etc.). If the project is not completely funded and does not meet it's goal, it may impede our objectives, but we will complete this project. Our team has put too much work into this to allow it to fail!
Any excess funds (stretch goals) will be put towards increasing the production value of this film, and may even spill into making a sequel (Yes, we are already excited about a sequel)
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The Impact
Every Sci-Fi fan out there must have at least once wondered who would win in a multi-franchise space battle, if it ever came down to it. Our goal for this film is to bring that idea to reality by working on a collaborative visual effects project that is of the same quality as major motion pictures today. A lot of our artists work in the film industry currently (on major motion pictures), which gives us an advantage with workflow and quality.
Risks & Challenges
We started this project in late 2013. The project started out pretty slow, as there weren't many artists, and we were all new to the pipeline process. We have since been able to develop a industry-grade pipeline process, pick up new members, fans and sponsor support along the way, and build a concrete plan and schedule for the finalization of this film.
The challenges we have at this point are to be able to schedule all of our actors and be able to get them all together in one place at one time to shoot the film. We also need to synchronize this with our studio bookings.
We're working diligently with our sponsors, local studios and our artists and actors to solidify a plan to execute this project seamlessly. We have brought on many people with years of film set experience, which will help ensure a successful film shoot.
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Other Ways You Can Help
Can't directly fund our project? That's fine! What's really important to us, is getting our name out there. This exposure helps us bring in more fans, sponsors and enthusiasts in general.
If you aren't able to give us money, help spread the word! Exposure helps us just as much! Use the IndieGoGo Share Tools, and help get our name out there! Blog about us, Tweet about us - anything you can do to spread the word, helps us tremendously!
We would love to get as much press and exposure as we can get with this project. Even once completed, our goal is to try to get as many people as possible to be familiar with this project.
You can find more about the project at
http://www.galacticbattles.net/blog and you can take a look at our
feature in the Digital Tutors blog at
http://blog.digitaltutors.com/galactic-battles-exclusive-interview-artist-nick-romick/. Also, if you are interested in knowing more about our meetup group,
information can be found on our website at
http://www.vcga.ca or our
Meetup.com page at
http://www.meetup.com/VanCGMeetup.
How Galactic Battles won't get sued for Copyright Infringement
There has a been a bit of speculation lately about this project being
sued or shut down, but there are a few reasons that this will not
happen. It’s natural to doubt projects like this, but hopefully this
will quell some of the doubt that a small few have:
1. This is deemed a “Fan-Film” and is covered by the Canadian
& U.S. Copyright Laws (Fair Dealing & Fair Use Clauses,
respectively)
Everything we do is not-for-profit and
covered under the ‘Fair Dealing’ clause, as outlined in the Canadian
Copyright Law – whereas existing copyright works can be incorporated
into new works. The clause actually permits the non-commercial
dissemination of the new work. Of course, the new work must not have any
substantial adverse effect (financial or otherwise) on the original
work. The American Copyright Law, ‘Fair Use’ clause is very similar (and
even slightly less restrictive)
2. We are not making any money from this project.
Yes, we are running an IndieGoGo campaign
in order to raise some money for production costs, but NONE of the
artists, directors, producers or actors are receiving any monetary
compensation whatsoever. This started as a fan-film, and will continue
to run as one. Any excess funds that we receive go into future open film
productions.
Because we aren’t selling anything that
is branded as any of the aforementioned franchises, our “stern’s” are
covered. The non-legalese term for this is “Fan-Submitted Art”. Even
t-shirts that have a very obvious ship design or character are
considered fair use. For more information on this, please refer to the Canadian Copyright Act – ‘Fair Dealing’ clause. Additionally, you can read this article if our nonsensical ramblings haven’t already confused you enough to believe us.
3. We have been in contact with the companies that own the I.P. for these franchises.
We have been pretty open with the fact
that we are doing this project. In fact, we have reached out to the
franchises to make sure everything is cool. Because of the Canadian and
U.S. Copyright Laws, we are covered, but we like to be on everyone’s
good side.
Oh. And this is literally a quote from an email from the Director of Xbox to our producer, Nick Romick, regarding this very project – “As long as you are following our Content Usage guidelines and this isn’t for commercial use, then there should be no issues.“
4. Remember Red vs. Blue?
Red vs. Blue (created by Rooster Teeth) was a completely fan-made show that used video captured directly from the Halo game. Microsoft even made changes to their Content Usage guidelines to accommodate such productions (it’s good for their PR)
Meet the Team
| 3D Artists |
Storyboard / Concept |
Editing |
| Shayna Banaag |
Cecilia Daude |
Paolo Kalalo |
| Paul Cole |
Wenyu Jiang |
|
| Sam Eichner |
Gabe Lung |
Audio |
| Aaron Fung |
Set Narathipphatthara |
Shawn Bishop |
| Jonathan Fung |
|
|
| Daniel Gomez |
Effects |
Cinematography |
| Jose Garcia |
Harsh Mistri |
Jared Thomas |
| Brandon Huang |
Ritchi Varty |
| Dan Kim |
Guido Zanni |
| Gary Lewis |
|
| Christine Lan |
Compositing |
| Eugen Mihalicka |
Steve Des Roches |
| Paul McGregor |
Niki Papp |
| Leela Petrie |
Calvin Romeyn |
| Tristan Rettich |
Erik Werlin |
| Fred Smith |
|
| Siggy Sigmond |
|
| Paulo Welter |
|
Cara Yu
|
|
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Sponsors
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