The Necrofusion Project

[KodinKenji]

Hey folks,

Hello Facebook friends!

We opened a kickstarter page to promote donations for our project- Necrofusion.

Necrofusion is an anime inspired 2D animation that attempts to produce and establish a darker, more serious approach to the American animation market. Necrofusion tells the story of Lilith, a 13 year old girl who shares her body with a refugee “soul reaper” entity named Kuro, who spared her soul for mysterious reasons.

Necrofusion is a collaboration between American and Israeli students, as well as, craftspeople from three different schools and disciplines: MCAD- Minneapolis college of art and design, Bezalel- Academy of art and design, Jerusalem and Shenkar- School of design, Tel Aviv. This team of artists, from different countries, is working together to achieve the goal of creating an entire marketing package around one animation.

Since the content of the pilot episode is targeted toward teens and adults we’ve decided to market Necrofusion with an additional project. A videogame demo based off of the pilot's concept was then designed by all members of the global team to enhance Necrofusion’s marketability.

We're really excited about this project and it's been getting a lot of attention, and now we could use some donations from you!

You can even donate a dollar, every dollar counts! So please send this page to everyone you know, share it with the world and if you can- throw in your donation and help us bring our vision to life.

Thanks a lot!

The Necrofusion Team

Link to Kickstarter:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...ted-production

Link to Necrofusion's official Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Ne...86895231336411

If you have any questions regarding the project, please comment and I'll make sure all questions are answered.

[TinyBird]

I have to say I was pretty interested after seeing the attached preview image, and then felt disappointed after seeing the "Billy and Mandy"-esque chibi image and that the reaper looks like a mix between a Hollow and Ryuk.

Though I'd be interested to know more about how you're planning to establish this more serious approach, or do it differently than any other more serious Western cartoon, and what the game will be like (2D, 3D, sidescroller, RPG, casual, etc) since it looks like you've taken a lot to chew here.

[KodinKenji]

I have to say I was pretty interested after seeing the attached preview image, and then felt disappointed after seeing the "Billy and Mandy"-esque chibi image and that the reaper looks like a mix between a Hollow and Ryuk.

Though I'd be interested to know more about how you're planning to establish this more serious approach, or do it differently than any other more serious Western cartoon, and what the game will be like (2D, 3D, sidescroller, RPG, casual, etc) since it looks like you've taken a lot to chew here.

Sorry to hear you're disappointed with the style, but that's my character design style and what we're sticking to at least for this stage of production.
Although I tend to take the Death Note/Bleach comparison as a compliment

The approach we have is serious, don't let the seemigly cute character design fool you. The content is darker than you'd expect. Like most of my work, I combine colorful and cute looking characters with darker stories and themes. Although, I would totally understand not liking the style, it's a matter of taste, but judging the content is anther thing.

I'd love to give you more content related details, but as you can imagine- I don't want to share any story details for copyright reasons and the fear of theft (since there's no protection from idea stealing), so I'm sorry I can't really give you too many details on that.

As for the game design plan, it's throwback to the 16-bit days, a classic 2D sidescroller. But we're not aiming for a "mario-esque" game. It's more puzzle based than action based. We drew our insspiration for the game design plan from games like "Heart of darkness" and "Limbo", just with a bit more action. If I had to describe it i'd say it's a hybrid of Limbo/Heart of darkness with Muramasa the demon blade. Platformer Puzzle with action elements.

And of course, all the puzzles and abilities are related to concepts from the pilot and the overall series universe.

And yup, it's a lot to chew. But many people are involved and the projects already deep in production. The game's Animation and GUI are all 100% done, the layout and game design plan are both finished and are tight indeed. The programmer is already working on the Unity based engine and the final background color assets will be done bythe end of the month.

The pilot's script is done, all the designs and storyboards are done as well and so are the voice recordings. Right now we're working on finishing the animatic by the end of the month. We're running a tight ship here, we'll be done before the deadlines we set.

If you have any other questions- I'd be glad to ask, as long as they're not content related, because my hands are tied. All I can tell you is that the humor part in this show is really suttle and focuses more on the interaction between Lilith and Kuro. The show deals with death, accepting death or the responsibilty for saving someone's life or letting go even though you can save them..and more. Again, can't really go into detail beyond that. But thanks for asking!

[Saramel]

This does seem like an interesting project. I agree with TinyBird that the design doesn't look all that serious or original, but I'm willing to hold my reservations until I actually see the characters in action because, unlike some animation purists, I am able to look past subpar tv animated character design if the concept, writing and acting are compelling and original and/or hilarious. (I tend to only be critically purist when it comes to short or feature film animation, but for tv I am usually more lenient)

It does seem like an awfully big project, but it sounds like you have plenty of people working on it, and that you all have gotten quite a bit done, so I'm tempted to believe you guys might actually have something here. I'm really suprised that you only need $3,000 for a fully animated pilot and demo game?

A couple questions - are you going to be pitching this in the US or in Israel or both? Will it theoretically air first in the US or Israel? Will it be in hebrew with english subtitles, or vice versa?

[KodinKenji]

This does seem like an interesting project. I agree with TinyBird that the design doesn't look all that serious or original, but I'm willing to hold my reservations until I actually see the characters in action because, unlike some animation purists, I am able to look past subpar tv animated character design if the concept, writing and acting are compelling and original and/or hilarious. (I tend to only be critically purist when it comes to short or feature film animation, but for tv I am usually more lenient)

It does seem like an awfully big project, but it sounds like you have plenty of people working on it, and that you all have gotten quite a bit done, so I'm tempted to believe you guys might actually have something here. I'm really suprised that you only need $3,000 for a fully animated pilot and demo game?

A couple questions - are you going to be pitching this in the US or in Israel or both? Will it theoretically air first in the US or Israel? Will it be in hebrew with english subtitles, or vice versa?

Thanks!, that's the approach I usually take on this topic as well. You should also consider the fact the animation is not illustration. Since I'm the only animator, dealing with complex character designs on a 21 minute pilot would be suicide. That's also a part of the reason for the simplictic designs, even though you guys have seen only two of them, so the judgement is not really fair. Which is why I'd be glad to share a few more:
















As for your questions, have no doubt- we'll get it done. I've been through some serious productions, and never failed to deliver. We have deadlines for everything and this is also my thesis project, so there's no "maybe" here, this will be done- and on time

As for the budget, no but that's a great question. As the kickstarter page states- we're only trying to get help, 3,000 is far from being our final budget, Every main person on the team chips in money wise, but even with all of our savings combined- we still need more to be able to maintain our quality of life. So the 3,000 is just a goal that's reasonable as far as ickstarter fundraisers go. It won't cover everything, but it will allow us to get the project done easier aand perhaps even give up on some of the crewmembers responsabilities and hire craftsmen for various other aspects (like a motion graphics animator for a credit seuqence or extra money for an original closing title song instead of a basic title sequence).

It'll jus help us raise the bar on this project's production value, and help us afford it all more easily and allow ourselves to improve the overall presentation.

In regard to your question- we're no going to pitch it in Israel since there's no chance of getting a budget or investors to produce it there. Our aim is to pitch it here in the US and in Japan. In my thesis committee there's a faculty scholar that deals with manga/anime as her research- she has connections in the japanese industry and knowledge of how things run there, so she's going to help us with that (since there's no chance to get to that market without knowing the requirements, rules and the right route).

So if it sells here- it'll be english. If it sells in Japan, japanese. But the pilot episode itsef will be english only. And will be presented in the grad shows in Israel with hebrew subtitles.