Hi folks! as you may know, we made our kickstarter minimum goal *2, at roughly 40k usd! Not our ‘full funding’ goal, but really close 😀 , I’m sure Fateh will have more to say on that. Thanks to all the wonderful people who donated, and who campaigned and shared the project. You make this movie possible.
In other news, we made the local press. The Valley Advocate, a wonderful newspaper, has an article about Tube, Urchn, Bitfilms and the goings on at the nerdodrome in both their print and online editions.
We even made the front page! So cool to see gilga in a different medium:

In other news we’re working on various things; more animation and lighting, a bit of rig tweaks, and some logistical issues are taking up our time- mainly getting ready for the summer interns, and finishing up on the aftermath of the funding campaign. More next time!

Join +Bassam Kurdali Saturday at High Noon in a Google hangout to chat about the Tube production (May 12 at 12pm EST)

Alexandre Prokoudine published a great, funny interview with Bassam and me over at Libre Graphics World: Tube Open Movie Founders on Art, War and Blender

LGM Talk about the Tools of Tube: Libre Graphics Meeting is a great conference well attended by developers of free/open source software–all the programs we use in the making of Tube. Since we weren’t able to be at the meeting in Vienna this year, we prepared a short remote talk for the group. It’s mainly about some of the tools we’ve written as part of the Tube Open Movie production, and we thought it would be nice to share!

Summer internship applications are open until the email deadline of Thursday May 17, at 5pm (EDT).

In the 3 days left on Tube’s Kickstarter campaign, can we reach full production funding?! You can help by getting the word out to your people, and we’ll finish in a massive success — thanks for your support!

Calling all students (18+), recent graduates, and professionals wanting to ply their 3D skills in libre software:

Join Bassam and the URCHN crew this summer on the Tube Open Movie production, hosted by the Bit Films animation incubator at Hampshire College, Massachusetts. Helmed by Chris Perry, formerly of Pixar and Rhythm & Hues, the program draws together a lot of talent, so although the internships are unpaid, it promises to be a very stimulating and fruitful space. These positions offer an opportunity to improve your skills, develop your reel, and make useful contacts in the industry. There is a possibility that housing can be offered.

The official internship period runs from Monday June 4, 2012 through Friday August 31, 2012. Applications are due (via email) no later than Thursday May 17, 2012 at 5pm (EDT). We understand that this may be short lead time for those needing to make visa and travel arrangements. Because the project is ongoing, the internship period is flexible; if in doubt, apply!

Although it may not provide as immersive an experience, we are open to considering very strong applicants to a remote internship. Remote interns would join the already global team using web-based project management software, SVN, video calls and IRC.

Please read carefully the open positions announcement and FAQ! Have more questions? Email us: internships@bitfilms.com

Here we have a Tube Open Movie postcard / A5 suitable for printing! Rather than ship them all over the world, we offer the print-ready files [front, back] (in CMYK with bleed margins in place). We hope anyone who wants to help promote the project and campaign knows of a few spots to post them or pass them around. If you want to show the image on the web, better to use the ones displayed. Thanks for helping us get the word out!

Heya folks, Fateh and I just posted a video update, it includes a small behind the scenes peak at production during the past week. Check it out!