Unbelievable! More than 200 backers got us all the way to our initial goal of $21,500 in just 5 days.
Now it’s time to get us through post-production by helping us raise our stretch goal of $40,000!
VR post is intense. Every shot in The Ark consists of ten distinct shots that must be stitched together into a 360° sphere. Next, effects artists step in to erase the stitching lines, camera shadows, and lighting differences between cameras. After that, the sound designer creates a 3D sound mix that reflects the spatial reality of the image we’ve captured. Then developers step in to create an app that will play back the experience on your smart phone. This is a lot of work, but several upstart companies have already volunteered to drop their post-production prices down to well below market to help bring The Ark to life.
And if we somehow end up hitting our $40k stretch goal? Let’s just say we’ve got some other ideas brewing that will be revealed in good time.
Now back to our original message, already in progress:
Hey everyone, this is Eline Jongsma and Kel O’Neill, the creative team behind of The Ark.Thank you so much for coming here and supporting our project—we’re racing against time to get to Kenya and finish filming, and really appreciate your commitment to the cause.
The Ark is probably the most important project we’ve ever set out to make. Our goal is to leverage high-tech filmmaking techniques to make extinction tangible. Using 360° virtual reality (VR) technology, we will put each and every one of you face-to-face with the last northern white rhinos; animals that have been pushed to the edge of survival by habitat destruction and poaching. Along the way, we’ll take you to the rhinos’ last habitats—Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy and the San Diego Zoo—and introduce you to the park rangers and scientists who have devoted their lives to protecting this magnificent species.
We have a passion for using new technology to tell global stories. This passion drove us to make our last project, the Emmy-nominated, Webby-honored documentary Empire, and now it’s driving us to make The Ark. At the core of The Ark are the stories of two groups of people on opposite sides of the world, united by a single cause. VR gives you the opportunity to stand alongside both of these two groups—to explore their environments, and to witness their inspiring work firsthand.
Virtual reality—or VR—uses high-definition goggles to give viewers an experience that is closer to real life than traditional movies. While movies show you events from a distance, VR drops you directly into the action, and allows you to look where you want to look. You aren’t just watching; you are there.
Up until a few years ago, VR was a sci-fi pipe dream. Now it can be experienced by anyone with a smart phone. Today’s VR goggles are cheap and easy to use. The image above shows Eline wearing one of the most popular units: the Samsung Gear VR, which is basically just a casing for a Samsung Galaxy Note smart phone. Pop your Note into the casing, pull the goggles onto your eyes, and the smartphone’s screen acts as your doorway to another world. Google Cardboard uses a cardboard casing to the same effect, making VR even cheaper and more accessible.
We’re shooting The Ark with a 360° camera system, which captures the full environments where we film. We want to give you the most direct experience of our story possible—to place you inside San Diego’s Frozen Zoo, and alongside the rhino bodyguards in Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy.
The Ark looks at two communities that are working to save the northern white rhinoceros.
In San Diego, a team of scientists are developing a “genetic rescue” program for the species. Central to this program is the Frozen Zoo, a four foot-tall, liquid nitrogen-cooled aluminum canister in the basement of the San Diego Zoo’s lab complex.
The Frozen Zoo contains thousands of skin cell samples from a vast collection of animals—including the northern white rhino—and the genetic rescue team are working to transform frozen rhino skin cells into powerful stem cells that can be transformed into any cell in the body. Their larger goal is to use these cells to create the sperm and eggs necessary to grow a whole new generation of rhinos through in vitro fertilization.
As The Ark unfolds, it expands to include our second group of main characters: the Ol Pejeta Conservancy’s rhino bodyguard team. The team is a well-armed, well-trained group of park rangers tasked with protecting Kenya’s three northern white rhinos from poachers. These rangers stay alongside the herd 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, and even go so far as to sleep next to the animals. Among the rhinos they protect is Sudan, the last male northern white rhino—and the last chance for the species to reproduce through natural methods.
We just finished filming in San Diego, and have launched this campaign to get to Kenya.
For a first look at our 360° footage, go to VRideo and watch a clip on mobile, desktop, or Oculus Rift.
You can also download a GearVR-ready version HERE.
Our work on The Ark up until now has been funded by the Tim Hetherington Trust’s inauguralVisionary Award, a prize set up to honor the memory of the late, brilliant conflict photographer and filmmaker Tim Hetherington.
We’ve used the prize money from the Visionary Award to pay for our VR shoot in San Diego, and to partially cover our preparations for Kenya. Now it’s up to you to carry us the final mile.
With this Kickstarter, we’re aiming to secure the bare minimum that it will take for us to get to Kenya to capture our footage. By pledging to this campaign, you’re buying our plane tickets, paying for our stay at the Ol Pejeta Research Center, and making sure we have the technical resources, liability insurance, and (wo)man power we need to carry out our plan.
We have a proven track record organizing and executing international shoots. We spent 2011-2014 on the road (i.e., without a home base) while filming Empire in ten different countries. We know how to budget, and we know how to work in locations that are new to us. There’s a lot of work ahead of us, but we know that the results will be amazing if we can raise our goal.
Director/producers: Jongsma + O’Neill are Eline Jongsma and Kel O’Neill, the creators of PBS’s interactive documentary Empire (NYFF 2013, SXSW 2014); contributors to Vice, VPRO Television and The Creators Project; and immersive media consultants for clients like The Economist and Film Independent. www.jongsmaoneill.com
Advisor: Nonny de la Peña is a virtual reality pioneer, and the creator of Hunger in Los Angeles(Sundance 2013) and Use of Force (Tribeca 2014). http://www.emblematicgroup.com
Producer: Brandon Zamel is the founder and CEO of Springbok Entertainment.http://www.springbokentertainment.com
Director of Photography: Todd Somodevilla has more than 17 years of experience shooting commercials, music videos and feature films. http://www.tas-dp.com/
Executive Producer: Josh Ludmir is VP of Business and Legal Affairs at Participant Media and the founder of Inklings Creative. http://inklings.tv
Associate Producer: Claudia Dibbs has been a fellow at the Taproot Foundation and Impact Hub LA.
Why not give to the San Diego Zoo Conservancy’s fantastic End Extinction program or supportany of Ol Pejeta’s incredible rhino programs?
We’re all in this together, people. Thanks again for your support.