What would you do if you had only one minute to live?

The award-winning animated short One Minute Fly is about a fly that is born with a very limited lifespan - one minute - in which it tries to achieve everything that makes a life worth living. If you haven't seen the film yet you can watch it on its YouTube channel or here:

Since 2008 the film has been screened at several animation festivals and inspired millions of people ever since. Your encouraging comments have convinced me, the creator Michael Reichert, and my team to pick up the original story and present our new project to you: The One Minute Fly Show.

The One Minute Fly Show is a fast-paced, life-affirming and motivating YouTube series about 6 other unique flies, who have only one minute to live. In their urge for a life of fulfillment they are quite similar to us humans. Spiced up with a generous dose of optimism, energy and emotions they tell us in an entertaining way to follow our dreams and stay on track. And sometimes less is more.

The shortness and merit of life have a meaning to all of us. How do you live your life to the fullest? What is important to you? One thing especially for us is to make The One Minute Fly Show come true. People feel really touched by the story of the initial animated short 'One Minute Fly‘. It reminds them to make the best out of their lives. This personal additional value was really inspiring for us, too. It gave us the idea to make this show. We would like to reach out again for the people and give them more appealing stories they can relate to.  

In the beginning, we plan to produce 6 episodes over a period of 1 year. Each episode will be around 2 to 3 minutes, depending on the storyline, and will feature the life of another unique One Minute Fly.

In addition, we would like to make this show free for everyone to watch. Each episode will be available on our YouTube channel as soon as it’s finished.

To emphasize the fact that this show is made for the people, 3 of those episodes are offered as perks for our funders. They can hand in their own ideas, dreams or goals. Consequently, we will develop a story around it and design a unique One Minute Fly with the characteristics of the idea contributor.

We hope you would like to be a part of this exciting new project and help to make it come true.

Your support will not only be rewarded with new episodes, but also with the great perks we offer you. You can find detailed information on them further below.

In order to produce this web show and offer it for free, we need your support. We are aware that 32.615 EUR is a lot of money, but the creation of a 2 to 3 minutes animation is a time consuming process.

The funding will mainly cover the production costs such as storyboarding, animatics and the actual animation process, as well as postproduction, sound, music, and the supply of some technical equipment. Plus, it will provide us with some nutrition to let us work with full energy.

Like in the first film, the animation will be computer generated 2D. We will use the animation software Anime Studio Pro and its sophisticated bone system as a major tool. This way, quite a lot of time can be saved while maintaining a high quality of animation.

If we don't reach our funding goal, we will not be able to make this show and you will keep all the money you contributed to this campaign.

For everyone who wonders why it takes so long to make 2-3 minutes of animation, here is a short summary. 

First we write the script which describes the whole story of one episode only in words. Then we make the storyboard according to the script. For the storyboard we draw every single shot and establish how the story will be told in pictures. Each drawing gets a few lines of description that tells what exactly is supposed to happen in that shot. Here we also put down some notes about the sounds and special effects that will appear. 

Subsequently, we put the pictures of the storyboard on the screen into the editing software to make a so-called animatic. Some pictures may be added in-between the existing drawings to make a rough animation. This way we get the feeling of the right timing and we can define how long each shot will last. 

After that, the animator begins to animate the characters, which is the most time consuming process. The animator becomes an actor and makes the movements of the characters appear so credible that it fits the overall mood of the show. A 2-3 minutes animation takes around 4 weeks with the animation technique we use.

Meanwhile, the sound designer begins to create the sounds while the musician also starts composing the music, according to the animatic. Once the animation process is completed we start to design the backgrounds. In the following compositing process we put the finished backgrounds and animations together and add some special effects, if necessary. We then put everything together: the animation, the sound and the music and make some final tweaks to satisfy our expectations. 

Finally we put the brand-new episode on our YouTube channel free for you to watch. You see: It is a full-time job to get one episode done in 2 months.

If you support us, you get some of the great rewards we offer you. There are many ways for you to be a part of this show. Just take a look.

All digital perks will be delivered after the successful completion of our campaign and will be sent to you by email. The digital DVD package and the HD downloads of every single episode will be accessible as soon as finished.

Please note, that the physical perks will be shipped altogether after the completion of the show, since we will need some time to produce those perks and all the episodes. This will be around December 2015.

The best way to support us reaching our funding goal is by ordering your favourite perk.

If you like this project, but are not able to give financial support, please help us by spreading the word among your friends. To do so, you can simply use the share buttons provided on this campaign page.

You can also join us on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.

We will keep you up to date on the campaign's progress and will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Just write an email to igg@one-minute-fly.com

Thanks a lot in advance! We are very excited!

In some cases the production of one episode may take a bit longer than two months. However, we are trying our best to follow the schedule. In any case, we will keep you updated on every stage of production.

+++++

Q&A

How to upgrade your perk?

If you wish to upgrade your perk from your original selection, please add the difference between the two perk packages by using the ‘Contribute Now’ button, selecting 'No Perk' and then send an email to igg@one-minute-fly.com to confirm your upgrade. If the campaign is unsuccessful, your money will be refunded by Indiegogo. For more information visit - Indiegogo Support Pages

What did we prepare?

We already have the script and storyboard for an entertaining show pilot and the short summaries of the following exciting episodes.

In addition, we have a professional workflow to finish the following stories to be ready on time after the previous episode has been completed.

Though 3 of them could be exchanged depending on how often the perk at 1.500 EUR will be chosen. (see perk above)