Rabbit character by Poked Studio/Gecko Animation for Project Gooseberry. More.

Project Gooseberry is 7 days out from its fundraising cutoff and 1703 subscribers out from its goal. Things are looking a bit grim.. but it’s not over until it’s over!

And even once it’s over, assuming the funding goal isn’t met, there’s still plenty to look forward to with the money already raised:

• EU Media funding has been secured to develop an “open production environment”;
• on top of that, discussed features can still be developed (just not field-tested by an entire movie production);
• new educational material can be created and old ones updated on Blender Cloud

On top of all that, there’s the mysterious Plan B. Ton knows what Plan B is and he’s not giving much away, including who else knows anything about Plan B. At the time of writing, we know it’s a smaller production, and that’s about it.

But if the funding goal is met next week, however remote a possibility that seems at this point, production will kick into high gear – and they’ll release pre-production assets and other material into the Blender Cloud for people to check out.

So, hard sell time. Why should you support Blender and Project Gooseberry with a cloud subscription? Well..

Are you interested in learning how to work with 3D software, or even Blender in particular? There’s already many Blender tutorials up on the Blender Cloud which are available if you subscribe. Subjects convered include modelling, rigging, 3D printing, match moving for visual effects, and transitioning from other 3D software to Blender.

Are you specifically interested in 3D animation production and discovering how it’s done by the pros? Already on the Blender Cloud you can download four of the shots from the teaser – the wolf, the caterpillar, the dragon and the rabbit at the top of this post. That’s the entire shot – scenery, characters, animation, scripts, composite setups – everything that Kampoong Monster, Pataz Studio, Autour de Minuit, and the UK Blender superteam of Gecko Animation/Poked Studio/Icebox Studios respectively created. All you have to do is load the right file into Blender, hit “Render”, wait for a while, and you will have the exact shot you saw in the teaser. It’s already the equivalent of freely wandering around a professional movie set and poking things to see how they fit together. If the movie goes ahead, you’ll be able to watch it come together from behind the scenes – in real time. Open movie making makes it possible! (If you’re still not convinced enough to part with cash, you can grab a copy of Blender 2.46 and the production repository from Big Buck Bunny free of charge to see how this whole open movie thing works in its theoretical entirety – note that Blender 2.46 is hard fugly compared to newer versions of Blender though.) Speaking of animation though…

Are you interested in supporting independent animation? Gooseberry’s director Mathieu Auvray co-wrote and directed the animated series Babioles – if you know animation, you know French animation is utterly killing it lately. Mathieu is attached to Autour de Minuit based in Quartier Pigalle, Paris, also home to the famous Moulin Rouge and an impressive strip of porno stores – the latter fact may explain this curious and rather NSFW episode of Babioles. He is currently working with Esther Wouda from Sintel on concept and story development. No single studio involved in the production of Project Gooseberry would be able to make an entire feature on its own steam – the production will create the tools to allow them to collaborate on the film with production HQ centralised in Amsterdam. Whether the film is made or not, the tools to collaborate on making a production will be released for everyone to use – and if the film is made, they’ll have been intensively field-tested by professionals. Speaking of which…

Are you interested in improving open source software? Blender is some of the best open source software there is, but it could always be better. It has certain shortcomings in its dependency graph, asset management and proxying systems which are most evident to animators and people producing animated shorts and commercials. This kind of stuff is quietly holding it back from being a more viable production tool for studios with no need for the latest and greatest tech, just 3D software that works. Certain simple things in Blender (using a character twice in one scene) require hacky workarounds. Gooseberry’s development targets aim to solve these problems specifically and thoroughly, but again, these developments are happening whether or not the film gets made. Speaking of open, though…

Do you believe that creative expression is for everyone, not just the wealthy and powerful? Blender is already part of creative toolkits around the world: Rhythm and Hues composite artist Sean Kennedy used it as a go-to application for odd jobs, complementing his company’s in-house toolset; meanwhile, Hassan Yola from Cameroon produced an educational film about cholera with it. Blender is developed on a non-profit and volunteer basis by the Foundation, and open tools find their way into more hands because commerce is not its raison d’etre. Some aspiring kid in a poor country with an old cobbled together computer can still learn to tell their stories and dream out loud – open and inclusive software development projects like Blender help to make that happen, not just because the software itself is free, but the open philosophy behind the software goes on to inspire a community that shares knowledge and expertise as a matter of principle.

There will be more salesmanship over the coming week, very likely along with other asset renders. There is much spruiking to be done.