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Project Gooseberry Launches, Seeks 10,000 Supporters to Write Film History

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The Blender Institute has just launched their latest open movie project, Gooseberry, from South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. Unlike the previous Blender Institute projects, this will be a feature length movie, requiring the participation of no less than 12 external renowned Blender studios.

The project will take about 18 months to complete. Combined with the much, much larger scale of this project this also means the financial demands are higher: for the initial campaign ('cloudfunding', as Ton likes to call it), the goal has been set to 10,000 supporters and a total amount of € 500,000.

The main promise of this campaign is that by signing up for monthly subscription to the Blender Cloud, you will get immediate access to all the Blender Institute's digital resources like training material and all assets from the previous open movies. During Gooseberry, the Cloud will be continously updated with new material, making you a front-row seat spectator or even 'virtual intern'.

Learn more about the campaign on the gooseberry.blender.org website right now and sign up for a membership or one-off donation! BlenderNation will be introducing all the studios and participants during the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

42 Comments

    • $65 (US higher when I get to OZ) to start with more a month. I just
      wish I knew what all the "access to the data from previous Open Movies
      and Workshop training videos" really entails. I've never bought any of
      the previous blender movies and files so I don't know how "deep" I have
      to be into blender to really get anything out of this.

      Can you share what's on the inside since they haven't done a good job of sharing yet?

      • I just joined the Blender Cloud to support this effort and can tell you that login provides access to five instructional DVD online valued at €135 in the Blender store. So apparently, the cloud subscription value is not limited to Gooseberry.

        Access to assets is spotty at the moment with HTML5 video not found errors. I'm guessing temporary teething pains.

      • Sure, here's what I can see:

        Open Movies: Caminandes 2 , Sintel, Tears of Steel (movies,assets and all extras)
        Training: Venom's lab 2 (characters), Blender for 3D Printing, Blenderella (character modelling), Humane Rigging,Track Match Blend (camera tracking)

        • Andrea Ferroni on

          I signed to Blender Cloud immediately: what a wonderful resource. Thanks again Blender Foundation!
          Unfortunately I have a problem.
          Maybe I'm wrong in doing something but, ... "Track Match Blend" online resource is not complete. "Overview "and "Videos" sections both do not list Chapter 2: Camera Tracking. Do you know why? Maybe not all DVDs contents as inclueded in cloud service?

  1. What's this about an 'exploitation window'? How loing will it last? Will Gooseberry be shown in movie theaters?

    • Yes, one of the ideas is to sell the movie to theaters for a limited time, before the full open content release. I'm not sure how long that window is exactly, I believe a few months.

      • This could be extremely profitable for both the Blender Foundation and the studios involved. I hope BF earns hundreds of millions so they can fund the further development of Blender!

  2. I just joined. I'm a new user of blender but i'm very excited about the software and the project. Hopefully i'll be able to participate at some point and learn a lot. Very excited times.

  3. Joined, as usual. If Blender can actually attract 10 000 donators at an average of € 50 each it will be quite a show of its strength.

  4. So the Gooseberry website says "Donations starting at 175 euro will get a name mention on the website
    and the film credit scroll. This includes a pre-paid Cloud Membership account as well." I read that as if you pay 175 euros you get cloud membership for the duration of the project (Better for me, as I am hoping from short term contract to short term contract, and whilst I can pay a large sum now I can't be sure I will be able to pay regular smaller sums in the future!). Anyway I did that and the system is not giving me access. Have I misinterpreted that or is that an issue with the system?

    • Ton Roosendaal on

      Sorry, this was old text that accidentally slipped my attention. I fixed it. Donations are not including Cloud membership.

      We decided to separate the Cloud Membership from the Pledges for mainly one reason:
      - Pledged donations are tax free (Dutch VAT). Cloud membership not (its a product, so we have to pay 21% tax on it). We cannot combine donations with products...

      We work hard to communicate things better on the site, difficult to combine with a busy SXSW crowd here!

  5. I'm getting a tingly feeling in my nether regions telling me that Blender is on the verge of becoming a massive overnight success.

    • Ton Roosendaal on

      Basically, for 10 euro per month you can get involved with everything we do. Participation will be possible too (modeling, animation, concepts, etc), but we need to figure out yet how to do this efficiently.

  6. It seems that the Blender cloud registration page is not using a secure webpage? I don't see https on the page where you are entering your email address and password. Why not?

  7. Will anyone else be a little bit sad if the Gooseberry movie turns out to be more cartoon squidgy animal things? After ToS, I was hoping that the next project wouldn't be more BBB style stuff. The Blender movies need to *benefit* from being independent, in contrast to the big studios' repetitive formulaic content. A Blender movie needs to be *different*, rather than running along behind Pixar shouting "Look!, we can do that too!". I do hope that Gooseberry can innovate and not just imitate.

  8. Atlantic_Dreams on

    Just signed up to support. Been following Blender for a long time and dabbled a bit with it at times. But I am a music man at heart. Hope this movie gets the support it deserves. And I would love to get involved in the Soudtrack side of things if possible.

  9. Can anyone explain the difference between the Prepaid and Recurring options? I'm wanting to sign up but can't decide which to choose. I've noticed the Prepaid option allows you enter an amount of at least €45, but what if I increase this amount? Do I still pay €10 per month for the next 18 months? Can I pay the full amount here without having to pay per month? It'd be great if someone could clear this up so I can get onboard.

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