New Pledge Prizes!

(Reposted from Kickstarter Update #4)

Well, isn't this just awesome.

105% funding with 5 days to go.

Well it took us a day or two to mention here but if you're following our facebook page or twitter you'll already know this: new awesome bonus prizes for new donors!

Here's the deal: for anyone who donates or increases their pledge after we've made the goal (there's already a few of you) you get this awwdorable plush knitted test tube. The pattern is provided by this amazing artist out of the UK; you can check out here stuff here. So tell your friends! ANY donation or pledge increase over $5 gets a cute lil guy (picture attached) in the color of your choice. We're adding it as a tier today. 

GAWD isn't he just the cutest?! COULD BE YOURS!

Jigga whaaaat

[re-posted from Kickstarter Update #4]
So, wow guys!

We never thought with our push yesterday that we would make our goal with a week to spare. In a matter of hours we went from 72% funding to 100% -- $800 in less than five hours, fifteen new backers and multiple pledge increases. You guys. Are. Amazing. For reals. The support you've given us has been overwhelming and totally invigorating. We can't say it enough when we say: thank you, thank you, thank you SO much. It means a lot that you've all invested in this project. It's been years in the making, and to see it come to fruition and have the support of so many of you is just indescribable. It honestly means so much. We will be personally thanking every one of you once the campaign is over.

March! Already! Crap!

How does the time go by so fast? I swear I just wrote an entry for this blog. And now it's March. And holy crap, there's only ten days left to the Kickstarter. Which is 2/3 of the way funded. So, if you haven't, please consider donating. We have super awesome cool fun-time rewards. Glow in the dark buttons! Stickers! Things we hand-make you because it's cheaper!

Awesome necklaces by a talented artist! Don't you waaaant? You get this AND....

...a one-of-a-kind scientific illustration (and other stuff!) for only $75. AWESOME. Right?!

Yeah, so, spread the word, tell your friends, tell your science-y friends, and your teacher friends, and parent friends, and your nerdy friends, and filmmaking friends, and just EVERYONE, ever.
And thank you to those of you who have supported so far. To those of you we know, we love you and thank you, to employ a cliche, from the bottom of our hearts. And to those of you who we don't know -- thank you for believing in what we're doing. It truly means a lot. And we are excited to send you your rewards! But, we still need some more funding to make all that happen, so repost, reblog, if you want some flyers, send us an email, we will try to get you some...let's keep this awesome momentum going.
Meanwhile, we're coordinating stuff with a puppeteer to do some ancient Greek myths told in puppet form. Yeah, that's right.
We're still trying to hunt down a few more interviews as well, so if any of you out there know a pilot, hockey player, food scientist, or genealogist, send them our way!
More updates soon. We have some video sneak peaks we're working on!

Interviewee of the Week: Chef John Wayne Formica

This week we went out to the suburbs to interview Chef John Wayne Formica, also known as The Traveling Cowboy Chef.

It was a bad idea to write this post on an empty stomach.

Don't forget

Are you a screen printer, or do you know someone who is? WELL, you and/or they are in luck, 'cause The Big Idea is having a poster contest!
Our colleague at the Contreras-Gabriel project, Diana Gabriel, approached us to partner up for a poster contest. We'd offer up our themes, and she'd display the winners at Morton College.

Diana's sculpture in the Willis Tower lobby. She's legit.

The contest is also a print exchange, so you get copies of all the other winning posters.

Link after the jump!

Happy New Year

Hello friends and readers,
Happy New Year, belatedly. If you look at the blog, you would think nothing much is going on here at The Big Idea, but that is, like, so totally a fallacy, guys. Lots and lots has totally been happening around here, I swear.
We're more than halfway through January and things are really picking up steam. We're going try to be better at this whole blog updating thing. The Facebook page and Twitter feed are more reflective of how busy we are. Almost done with the month and we've printed 1,000 promotional postcards with info for the kickstarter, locked down all of our prizes, interviewed some brilliant musicians, got a poet to write something for each episode, and saw a 3-D camera in action.
So, we're about three weeks away from the Kickstarter launch, tentative date being February 10th. Things are going smoothly -- the video is nearing completion, as we try our best to make the sound not terrible. Video isn't too hard to fix mistakes with, but sound...if the sound sucks, you're screwed. There's no getting around that. Learned lesson #1 of making this webseries: time to buy a lavalier microphone. For you non-filmmakers out there, it's a mic you clip to a person's shirt. It's way better for picking up just their voice and not the sounds going on all around them (especially traffic, which has doubled the length of the last two interviews we've done just from stopping the subject as a truck drove by).
This is where things like the kickstarter and any grants we manage to get would come in handy. HINT HINT.

The two interviews this week were awesome too -- more on that next week.

More soon, we promise! In the meantime, check out our other pages!