Here's one Matt. With an 18 month production schedule (according to the kickstarter page), how much of Area5's time is this project going to receive? Are you going to continue commercial work during that time?
There is the perception in this thread that part of your funding amount is going to go towards cost-of-living stuff. Will Outerlands funding be your only source of income during the production period?
Fair questions!
To the part about cost-of-living stuff. Crowdfunding a project like a videogame or a film is you becoming a patron in the exact Renaissance-era sense of the word. You're at least partially fronting the funds that will be required for the people to survive long enough as an entity to finish a project you believe in. Yes, Area 5 lives in SF. Why should "we," the crowdfunding public, be helping them to live in a city they choose to make their home? It's not the funders' fault it's expensive to live there. I get where the idea comes from, but there's a cognitive disconnect. If you follow that line of reasoning; you shouldn't have backed Mighty No.9 because Tokyo and Osaka are crazy expensive places to live and Double Fine should give back a million dollars or two because they're based in San Francisco, too. They should just move out. Perhaps you believe our project deserves more justification for its base of operations than theirs. I submit, rather, that our endeavor is no less sincere and that we have no intention of spending any more money than we have to on keeping us alive while we make Outerlands. I can understand that such doubts could be assuaged by offering more justifications and, perhaps, outlining the five years of intense sacrifices my team has made and the financial hardships we've faced to keep doing what we love, but if the doubts require that kind of audit of our lives and lifestyle, I can offer no solace. It's no more than any other crowdfunded project has ever asked.
What I can offer up is some more visibility into what we've already communicated (thanks David Hellman!). Travel and backer rewards should be fairly straightforward, but what may not be as obvious are things like contract labor. It's not just AREA 5 making this. It's AREA 5 paying people what they deserve to help us make it. We have not asked, nor will we ask, our musicians to give us their music for free. We will be licensing tracks and some of the budget is set aside for some custom tracks so that the Outerlands Soundtrack can have some truly original gems. We do have some music, design, and other help that will be pro-bonoEveryone has friendsbut I won't be sharing what we're paying and who's getting paid as that would be outing them to any other contracts and deals they might be working on. Which, if that isn't clear, is a dick move. We may not hit our freelancers stretch goal, but that was always in addition to budget we've set aside to pay the necessary help we need to get Outerlands made.
Which leads to the other point above--we're still a production company. Yes, we'll be doing other work while in production on Outerlands. In the past five years we've often had crews in different spots doing different jobs simultaneously. This is, in fact, the only way a production company can stay in business. Even if you're Bad Robot. We have a stable of camera people, sound people, editors, producers, grips, and so on that we can call on to help depending on the size of the job. Of course Outerlands is going to be our primary focus, but this doesn't preclude us from other work. In fact, other work can only benefit Outerlands. Profit that goes back into Area 5 gives us more to spend on gear or even personnel; maybe even let us make more international trips or tell more stories in an episode.
The world needs more passion projects like this, you guys rock!
