AnimeFest is embarking on a new and challenging project. We intend to bring together a group of volunteers to make an anime. From the early days of AF, we have been inspired by the story of how the anime studio Gainax was formed. A group of fans came together before DAICON, a science fiction convention in Tokyo Japan, and produced two anime shorts; one for DAICON III and another for DAICON IV. This group of fans later went on to form the Gainax animation studio and produced titles like Neon Genesis Evangelion and FLCL. It can be done again, and we intend to make it happen!
Opening animation for DAICON III in 1981 and DAICON IV in 1983
DAICON artwork and legacy
The goals of the project:
Learn, as a group, the anime production process
Produce a 23 minute pilot episode for a series. Just like episode 1 of your favorite series, even including opening and closing credits. We might even include the eyecatch for a commercial break.
Tell a complete story, but start a longer story arc. Depending on how this project goes we may continue the work indefinitely with new groups of volunteers replacing those that move to Japan to work for Studio Ghibli (we're kidding, but we honestly hope we're not kidding)
Use only volunteers for pre-production, story, animation, and voice acting
Consult with professional animators and voice actors on the entire process. AnimeFest has a large network of anime industry professions to call upon for advice and opinions.
Inspire and help start a career in animation for project members
All work produced by the project must be released by the volunteers (copyright) to AnimeFest, but we will release them at the conclusion under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. This will ensure that we don't have any copyright issues in releasing the work, and all contributors will be able to use the end result as part of their portfolio and future work.
AnimeFest will be funding the production including training, computers, software and supplies. It is likely that we will be using Kickstarter to raise money during the middle of the project.
We are mostly looking for local (Dallas area) volunteers on this project. We will consider out of town volunteers, but that will depend largely on the number of local volunteers we get.
Story Contest
We are initially putting out a call for a story. The chosen story will be used for the anime and the writer will be made the head writer on the project. The contest will occur in two stages. In the first stage we are looking for writers to submit the following:
A one page description (please no more than one page or roughly 300 words) This MUST be an original story with original characters.
Once the story submissions have been received we will select the our favorites and call you in to the clubhouse (err... studio) to pitch your story in person. Once the head writer is chosen they will work with us to select a writing and creative team to work on the script.
We would like all of the stories submitted by Friday February 10th. If we do not get enough submissions or high enough quality submissions we may extend the deadline. UPDATE: We've extended the deadline to Friday February 17th and added a new Google Form for submissions.
We cannot start recruiting for artists until we have chosen a story. The story will drive most of the decisions about what art skills we will be looking for. However, if you are interested, please start putting together your portfolio. As soon as the story is chosen we will put out the call for artists.
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AnimeFest
