Cinefex Kickstarter (ends tomorrow!)

[Mad Old Lu]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/newscribbler/cinefex-classic-collection

I hope I'm not breaking any forum rules for promoting this, but I recently found out about this Kickstarter campaign to digitize the entire run of Cinefex magazine. If you know anything about special effects in movies, or even have a passing interest, you know about Cinefex. You know how thorough and in-depth their coverage of a movie's effects are, and what a great source of behind the scenes photos and stories they are. They have already reached their goal, but they want to reach a milestone of third most funded project. They have several levels of giving, as low as $1, with several sets of digital issues you can buy. I bought their Star Wars set for $20 for 8 issues. Other sets include a James Cameron collection and a Stan Winston collection. You can also get the entire 126 issue run, which include many out of print issues, for $315. And many of the individual issues, particularly the out of print ones, go for hundreds on ebay.

The funding will be over tomorrow, August 16 at 6:30pm, so you may want to hurry.

Like I mentioned, they have reached their goal, so the project is a go. The individual issues will eventually be available for download for iPads through iTunes for $4.99 each.

I thought I'd post about this since I think many of you guys here would be interested. Personally I think it's an awesome idea and I can't wait to get my set.

 

[VASith]

Grabbed the Star Wars bundle as well.

 

[Mad Old Lu]

Cool!

You get a good deal with these sets they're offering. The Star Wars set will be twice as much when they're eventually on iTunes, since you'll have to get them individually for $5 a pop.

 

[VASith]

Cool!

You get a good deal with these sets they're offering. The Star Wars set will be twice as much when they're eventually on iTunes, since you'll have to get them individually for $5 a pop.

Yeah it's a really good deal. Plus I like supporting kickstarter. I think this is the 7th I've funded.

These will be nice to read on the ipad. Thanks again for the heads up.

 

[The Ween]

I'm just asking because I don't know, but Cinefex can't afford to do this without asking for donations?

 

[Mad Old Lu]

From the Kickstarter page:

How The Funds Will Be Used

Our small team of three people has been hard at work on this project for the better part of two years. We've devoted hundreds of uncompensated hours to this, because we wanted to create an archive that people like us—movie fans, filmmakers, and VFX artists alike—would find valuable and relevant.

Getting to the point that we are today has been a monumental task. We knew when we started Cinefex for the iPad, that the money it took to create this wouldn't come close to compensating the amount of work that would be required to build our own platform to deliver it. But we are committed to doing it this way because we truly believe in the value of this project.

Some of the funds raised in this Kickstarter will go to pay Cinefex licensing fees allowing us to create this archive—a fair agreement considering the unimaginable work that the small-staffed magazine has poured into this publication over the last 30 years. The majority of the funds raised, however, will go directly to the costs it takes to bring these archives into a new format.

Much of the work that we are doing is painstaking—like translating the original printed text into machine-editable text while proofing for typographical and formatting errors, marking-up each word by hand with custom tags, and optimally adjusting thousands of photos for sharpness and level balance. As of today, we are on issue 70 of the 126 back issues and have about six months' more work to do to reign in this gigantic collection.

By becoming a backer of our project, you give us the means to make it the best we can make it for you, while providing us with your vote of confidence that this has been an undertaking worth pursuing.