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Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: Nikolas on Tue 04/02/2014 08:11:55

Title: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Nikolas on Tue 04/02/2014 08:11:55
You might remember me talking about kickstarter, checking logos and asking lots of questions. Well here's the result:

Beauty & Hope in the 21st century

(http://www.nikolas-sideris.com/EMF/kickstarter_640x480.jpg) (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2925155/beauty-and-hope-in-the-21st-century)
The image is clickable and leads to the kickstarter campaign

At last I can reveal everything. In fact the video in the kickstarter page will reveal it for me. I went to all this trouble shooting and editing the video, so it's worth it!

As, you might expect, with a rather large sum of money requested (£10,000) I'm inclined to ask for help everywhere! Including my homepage for the last 8 years!

But, I can promise you these:

So,

If you're into classical music, piano, sketch illustrations or... me... then go ahead! And, please, spread the news everywhere you can.

Nikolas

PS. I just launched a couple of hours ago, thus the £0 at this moment.
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Ghost on Tue 04/02/2014 08:37:42
Awesome! I wish you the best of luck! And that video is impressive indeed. Not a classics guy myself but I this is good stuff.
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Nikolas on Tue 04/02/2014 08:47:13
I will admit that I had help! From AGS people indeed.

Cerno has been with me the whole time, providing feedback all along the way. And Chris (Limpfish) was kind enough to help with the 3-d mockups... :)

And now you, Ghost!

I'm trying my best to truly give out the honest impression of what we're trying to do. And I can promise you, as I said above, that it's going to be awesome! :)
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: DrewCCU on Tue 04/02/2014 08:48:09
Awesome job man! I will definitely contribute in the near future!
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Radiant on Tue 04/02/2014 09:45:08
Excellent, congrats Nikolas!
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Tabata on Tue 04/02/2014 10:36:43
Congratulations for this big next step on your way and lots of luck in reaching the goal (http://www.smileyvault.com/albums/userpics/12962/kleeblatt.gif)
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Nikolas on Tue 04/02/2014 10:51:32
Thank you all! :) Much obliged!
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Vince Twelve on Tue 04/02/2014 17:05:27
Got my pledge in, and I'll be posting it to Facebook and Twitter several times over the next month!  Good luck Nik!
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: NickyNyce on Tue 04/02/2014 17:11:44
Congrats!

Wishing you the best of luck to go along with your great skill.
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Nikolas on Wed 05/02/2014 08:31:01
Thank you Vince! :) much obliged!

And thank you Nicky! I hope that it will go well! :)
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Problem on Wed 05/02/2014 09:08:59
Quote from: Nikolas on Tue 04/02/2014 08:11:55
The project WILL happen no matter what. The publishing house has published more than 60 titles thus far and there's no reason for this one to fail.[/li][/list]

Pssshh, don't say things like that - it might discourage people from pledging if they think their pledge won't make a difference ;)

But seriously, this looks (and sounds) like a wonderful project! I'm short of money right now, but I hope I'll be able to pledge by the end of the campaign. This is worth supporting, and I'd be interested in both the the digital score and the recording.
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Nikolas on Wed 05/02/2014 09:42:03
I wanted to make sure you guys know how dedicated we are to making this happen. The truth is that if kickstarter fails, we'll fall back to only doing the music score and the recording, offering it in mp3/flac format (so cut down heavily on the products), but other than that...

Thank you! :)
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Ali on Wed 05/02/2014 15:37:32
Backed and tweeted! Good luck!
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Nikolas on Wed 05/02/2014 15:53:15
Thanks Alastair! See you soon! ;) Pics to follow everyone! :D Nelly is on (since this is AGS)
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: DBoyWheeler on Wed 05/02/2014 23:08:28
Congratulations, man!  Best of luck to you on the next step!
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: selmiak on Wed 05/02/2014 23:41:47
I wish you a great success Nikolas! Have fun and don't get crazy with this kickstarter stress ;)
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Blackthorne on Thu 06/02/2014 04:04:24
Backed! I've always enjoyed your work, Nikolas.  Best of luck on your project.


Bt
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Nikolas on Thu 06/02/2014 05:25:05
Thanks guys!

"Blackthorne". I got curious to who it was and clicked on backers info and saw your avatar! And thought "Wow... that's a familiar face"
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Blackthorne on Thu 06/02/2014 06:02:36
Quote from: Nikolas on Thu 06/02/2014 05:25:05
Thanks guys!

"Blackthorne". I got curious to who it was and clicked on backers info and saw your avatar! And thought "Wow... that's a familiar face"

Heh. I got my mug all over the 'net much already! Haha, but I am very excited for the project - and I'm excited to see the score! Best of luck to everyone involved with your project; I'll be sure to mention it in one of our KS updates as well!!


Bt
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Construed on Thu 06/02/2014 23:13:59
Shared it on FB and twitter for ya ;)
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Nikolas on Thu 13/02/2014 10:55:30
Construed: Just saw your post. Thank you! ^_^

Just wanted to update you guys, that we're doing rather well... And I've posted a couple of updates already, the 2nd one containing a couple of photos and a few recordings already!

Take a look: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2925155/beauty-and-hope-in-the-21st-century/posts/746666
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Nikolas on Fri 21/02/2014 19:36:01
Double, or triple post? Not sure! :-D

But, I wanted to let you know that we've gather £3,155 so far! So it's moving forward, but we need quite a bit of luck to make it in 10 days roughly... :)

More over, there's a few more updates in the page, which might be interesting to see/read/hear: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2925155/beauty-and-hope-in-the-21st-century/posts

finally I've created a pseudo-event in facebook, for this project, hoping to gather some more momentum: https://www.facebook.com/events/1487103618183489/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming

Any help is most appreciated, as always! ^_^ And I'll post next week, for a final update most probably, so no more double or triple posts...
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Nikolas on Fri 28/02/2014 13:02:37
Triple post! I'll got to AGS jail! ;D

Anyways... this is the last weekend for this campaign! We've just passed the mid point, by a little, and growing stronger by the day. But there's only 4 days left!

I've posted a nice update about where we are and begging people for more money... You know... the ultimate kickstarter strategy! ;D

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2925155/beauty-and-hope-in-the-21st-century

Finally, I was asked to post more about this project, which I did and I'm copying everything here...

This is a "multi-media" project more or less. It involves classical music (for piano), illustrations and most probably a video as well (recent development).

The purpose is to produce and publish a high quality music score with 9 black and white illustrations, created by three artists, and 9 music scores, from nine composers. It also involves the recording of the 9 pieces by a pianist, to the best possible location in Greece (unless we actually have the funds to go elsewhere), and the production of the digital recording in downloadable form (mp3/flac) and physical form (CD) as well as the analog recording (double LP (Vinyl)). Then since this project contains so much art, I figured that a high quality, hard cover art-book with the illustrations, along with other information, sketches, drafts, ideas, etc should also be available in digital and physical format.

Obviously all the above cost a significant amount of money, that a small publisher like myself cannot take on as it stands right now! Thus the kickstarter effort.

Below one can see mockup images of what the products will most likely look like:

(http://www.nikolas-sideris.com/EMF/kickexamples.jpg)

And further down are three examples of the illustrations. I can't post all nine, since it will flood the thread, so I hope these three will give enough of an idea.

(http://www.nikolas-sideris.com/EMF/kick2.jpg)
[size:8pt]Creating the space

(http://www.nikolas-sideris.com/EMF/kick3.jpg)
The kids are our future

(http://www.nikolas-sideris.com/EMF/kick4.jpg)
The butterfly fixer[/size]


As one can see, there are different takes to what Beauty & Hope in the 21st century stands for. For the first artist (Elwira Pawlikowska) this was an opportunity to explore the recent developments in science and find ways to hope for a better tomorrow through that. For the second artist (Piero Pierini) his efforts went into a philosophical route, while the third artist (William Chajin) went to a rather political and social stance...

And each composer has taken a different route to their compositions. However, a common thread of a small aesthetic idea seems to coexist in all of them (as far as I can tell from the samples I've seen and heard). In the following soundcloud link one can listen to 4 examples of the music that's been composed.

https://soundcloud.com/editions-musica-ferrum/sets/beauty-hope-in-the-21st

The mockups were made by limpfish! ^_^ And cerno has been wonderful through all the preparation course! :)

Thank you...

Nikolas
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Ghost on Fri 28/02/2014 13:04:40
I wish you the best of luck! This really deserves any attention it can get, I love the concept.

Holding my thumbs!
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Nikolas on Tue 04/03/2014 05:04:15
Thank you And obviously I'm bumping this once more.

It's 15 hours to go and we're still short. As you can realize I can put in the rest of the money, but not THAT much! If it was something like 9000 I'd seriously consider putting in the rest, but right now at 6572!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2925155/beauty-and-hope-in-the-21st-century

So... This is as serious bump as it can get! Can we move this thing as much as possible? Through twitter, facebook, and whatnot!?!?! If you're all as excited as ghost is!
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: selmiak on Tue 04/03/2014 14:59:17
Wow, getting closer and closer to the aim!

*keeps fingers crossed*
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Chicky on Tue 04/03/2014 18:38:55
Woo 10,000! Congratulations Nikolas!
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: CaptainD on Tue 04/03/2014 19:22:43
Congrats Nik!! :grin::grin:
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Tabata on Tue 04/03/2014 19:23:41
(http://www.smileyvault.com/albums/userpics/12962/congrats.gif)
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: cat on Tue 04/03/2014 21:02:37
Congrats! :)
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Nikolas on Tue 04/03/2014 22:05:32
Thank you all!

I'm so very happy that this came through after all! I did have to push a bit further, but after all it IS kickstarter... :) I'm just very pleased right now...
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: selmiak on Tue 04/03/2014 22:09:27
Congratulations, how did you make that last minute or last hours sprint?
It is okay when you answer once everyone has payed and you got the money ;)
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Nikolas on Wed 05/03/2014 08:38:53
Quote from: selmiak on Tue 04/03/2014 22:09:27
Congratulations, how did you make that last minute or last hours sprint?
It is okay when you answer once everyone has payed and you got the money ;)
I'm not sure I'm understanding you...
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Snarky on Wed 05/03/2014 09:58:31
I think selmiak is alluding to the fact that you're not actually allowed to pledge to your own campaign. (Kickstarter FAQ (https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/creator+questions?ref=faq_nav#Trou), at the very bottom.) VISA and probably other credit cards as well consider it money laundering, and it's therefore banned by the Kickstarter rules. If you kicked in your own money using your own account, the charge is likely to fail or to be reversed, and the project may be retroactively canceled. (If you got someone else to pledge on your behalf you're probably OK.)

(Incidentally, if you are willing and able to complete the project even raising less money than the campaign target, why didn't you set that target lower? Pledging to your own campaign is just throwing money out the window, since KS and Amazon Payments take a hefty commission.)
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Nikolas on Wed 05/03/2014 10:55:55
Yes, I know that the project creator is not allowed to pledge to their own campaign... That's fine by me! :)
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: selmiak on Wed 05/03/2014 12:40:36
Fine, but how DID you manage to get in like 4000 pounds in the last 6-8 hours?
Did you make a big buzz on twitter, youtube, kickstarter, whereever? Were these just people waiting until the very end with their pledge?
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Andail on Wed 05/03/2014 13:06:39
Yeah, this is like the only Kickstarter campaign I've seen that mysteriously got funded just in the nick of time!!
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Nikolas on Wed 05/03/2014 14:11:37
Family members stepped in, along with quite a few people changing their pledge upwards...

Also, I should note that quite a few friends (of my parents mainly) were too old to actually use a credit/debit card so they handed in some cash... NOT the full amount by any chance, but still.
Title: Re: finally I'm on kickstarter!
Post by: Nikolas on Tue 01/04/2014 17:45:34
BUMP!

Hello to all,

I'd like to publicly say a huge THANK YOU to all of you.

Here's a video of me and Myrto having some fun in my studio...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZNVij5d_D4&

I should note, that one of the two composers that've yet to deliver their score is me! :grin: So... hehe...

Finally, I guess some explanation about the final surge of money would be in order, although I already offered some insights to that.

What went on is quite simple, but broken three ways.

1. Quite a few people in Greece are weary of credit card fraud so they did not want to offer their funds in kickstarter. As such they offered us cash. A total of around 1500 euros were gathered, which were put into kickstarter on the last day by my parents.

2. In addition to that, a serious amount of money was put forward by my brother.

3. Finally, some people who really loved me upped their pledge considerably.

I never did use my own credit/debit card to put money in!

all of this made the campaign a success and the project possible, to its full potential.

So in all THANK YOU!