The Ferrarity Project - The Ultimate Q&A Panel

[CloudFyre 848]

Hey everypony, I wanted to introduce you to a potential project that a friend and I have been planning over the last few months. It's actually two/potentially three sub-projects combined into one, with the focus being on a filming project. (It's a wall of text, but a good wall of text! Trust me on this one!)

 

The short version:

 

1) We want to take the fandom’s long-pondered upon questions and create a massive, pseudo-interactive filming project by driving around the U.S. and Canada, while recording our guests’ responses to your queries. (“Guests” meaning official MLP staff, community members, etc.)

 

2) Create a nonprofit that’s registered with the U.S. government in order to let Bronies potentially use their donations to charities as tax write-offs.

 

3) If there’s suddenly a massive interest in this project (and if people fund it accordingly), we want to design a custom, one-of-a-kind MLP themed Ferrari F430 to become the “flagship” car for MLP. (Yes, you read that correctly.)

 

The long version:

 

The Mane (Main) Project:

 

Q&A panels. They're a unique link between the MLP staff and the fans, and you never know what kind of insane hilarity will ensue once a panel starts. For both thefirebreathes (not currently registered on these forums) and I, we've never had a chance to go to a convention. We've always been too busy to attend, so we've always had to watch everything via YouTube.

 

It suddenly dawned on us that we're not the only ones in this situation - out of the millions of MLP fans, not everyone can make it to a convention. Whether people are tethered down by work/school, if they can't afford to go, or if they're simply too much of a Fluttershy to ask a question, there are plenty of people who would like to join in on the conversation, but don't have the means to do it.

 

So a few months ago I started reaching out to various members of the MLP staff and the MLP fandom, asking if they would join us on camera for what we hope will become the largest psuedo-interactive filming project in the fandom - and we got great responses.

 

The idea: You guys give us 1) the names of people (official show staff, other members of the fandom, etc.) that you've always wanted to talk with, and 2) the questions that you want us to ask them, and we'll drive around the U.S. and Canada on an all-out filming expedition to get their responses. When we're done, we'll use the clips to create either a full length film or a series of shorter YouTube videos centered around our interviews with them. (It doesn’t have to be serious questions either, it could be something as random as “Toilet paper: how should it be oriented?”)

 

Now I can probably guess what your next question will be: Who do you already have planned to join you? And can you guys see if ____________ can join?

 

I'm glad you asked!

 

We're always looking for more people to join us, even if they aren't related to MLP. If it sounds like fun, we'll interview them!

 

The current guest list:

• Michael Anderson (The composer for all of MLP's background music.)
• Peter New (Voice of Big Mac)
• Michelle Creber (Voice of Applebloom)
• Madeline Peters (Voice of Scootaloo)

  (*Note: all of the listed voice actors have told us that they would like to join, but they have to get approval from their Hasbro agents before they can actually show up on camera. They’ve all agreed to ask their agents for permission if it looks like the MLP fandom supports this project enough.)

• Amy Keating Rogers (One of the writers, known for creating the scripts for The Best Night Ever and The Cutie Pox, among others.)
• Kreoss on DeviantArt (One of the official animators for MLP. I'm not sure whether he would mind us using his real name, so I'm not going to post it for the moment out of respect for his privacy.)
• Dusty Katt (The "Manliest Brony in the World")
• Tsitra360 on DeviantArt (Known for his famous pony artwork that has been sold via T-Shirts on WeLoveFine.com)
• The Journey of the Spark crew. (The Journey of the Spark will be the first full length, fan made MLP movie, and it's set to be released in 2015 last I checked. Go check it out if you haven't!)
• Alkili Amethyst on DeviantArt (Known for her stunning "Stained Glass" pony coins that were a huge success on Kickstarter.)

Others who have not yet responded/undecided:

• We've contacted St. Tabitha Germain (voice of Rarity and Princess Luna), and she told us she would give our proposal a once-over, however we have yet to hear back from her. (We assume she kind of, um, forgot to actually look at it...)
• We've contacted Quinton Flynn (voice of Axel from Kingdom of Hearts), but he has yet to tell us yes/no.

There's a ton of people we could still reach out to: EQD, Everfree Radio, etc. We have a few others as well that we're hoping to contact, but we don't want to go too much further without seeing what you guys think.

 

We won't charge anything for this, as we’d like it to reach as many people as it possibly can. However, we will need to raise start up funds via Kickstarter, in order to acquire suitable cameras/mics, etc.

 

Project 2: A Pony Nonprofit

 

I'll make this section short and sweet: we've seen Brony charity work done before, all out of the kindness of people's hearts. We think it's awesome. We'd like to give people one more reason to donate.

 

Nonprofit's here in the U.S. have a unique attribute attached to them: if they're registered with the U.S. government, any donations that are done through them can potentially be used as tax write offs - meaning that there will also be a very practical reason to donate to charities. It increases donations for the charity fund in question, and gives people an alternative place to send their taxes. It's a win-win all the way around.

 

(*Note: This is also a reason why we'll need to create a Kickstarter page for this project. The legal fees for setting up a nonprofit run at about $3500 initially and there's a yearly insurance fee that has to be covered as well.)

 

Project 3: The Ferrarity

 

By this point you're probably saying: "This sounds great Cloud, but where did you get the name Ferrarity from?"

 

Let me first start by saying this: Although this last section is one of our "sub-projects", this is merely an idea - a "bonus" of sorts if the fandom likes the idea enough. This means that although we'll be raising money to get this project off of the ground, we’ll only be pursuing this if we get a massive amount of support.

 

We noticed that anime franchises usually have advertising that's both fun yet functional, usually in the form of vehichles. For example, the Pokemon franchise has an entire fleet of Boeing 747's with Pokemon stuff plastered all over it. However, My Little Pony has...nothing. No cars, no airplanes, no nothing.

 

I happened to be browsing the web when I came across this image done by Kloudmutt a while back, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

 

Basically, it's Ferrari's "Prancing Pony" logo with Rarity's silhouette superimposed over the top, and renamed a "Ferrarity". I promptly messaged Kloudmutt, and he agreed to let us use the name/design for our project.

 

While there have been numerous video game mods featuring the Ferrarity, we’d like to take a real Ferrari F430, relabel it as a "Ferrarity", repaint it to match Rarity's color scheme, and rebadge it using Kloudmutt's logo. It would the coolest 200 mile per hour pony advertisement on wheels. Even better yet, Kreoss agreed to help us with the concept art, so we have custom Rarity designs made just for the car.

 

So in answer to the earlier question: As this project evolved, our focus changed. However, we've held onto the original name of the project out of the hope that we can someday create a real life MLP-themed Ferrari.

 

 

Final notes:

 

We'll be driving around the entire U.S. and some of Canada, so if you're a convention owner/head of a meetup group, let us know! We'd love to drop by and film you guys as well!

 

We’re doing this for you guys, so the more of you that join us, the more awesome this will be. Never hesitate to ask a question or suggest an idea. Ever. I will ALWAYS respond to questions, and we will listen to any and all ideas that you guys have - because let's face it: the collective creativity here in the MLP fandom is just plain AWESOME!

 

If all goes well, we’ll be filming everywhere from Washington, California, Maine, and Vancouver B.C. That being said, we’re still not sure whether this is something that the fandom would enjoy – so we're wondering what you guys think!

 

 

For all of you here on the forums, I don't mind which way you contact me, but if you prefer other meathods of communication:

 

Main email (we all see this): ferrarityproject (at) gmail.com

 

My contact info (just in case):

Email: CloudFyreBrony (at) gmail.com

Skype: CloudFyreBrony

 

We also have the framework of a Tumblog ready, but it hasn’t been used yet:

http://ferrarityproject.tumblr.com/

 

So there you have it. Crazy filming trips, practical charity drives, and pony themed Italian supercars. Would you guys be in favor of this? Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? Fire away!

[Dusty Soul 2,611]

Man. This is huge! I am full support of this. When I answered those few questions in the one post you made originally I never expected it to be of this caliber. I look forward to it.

[CloudFyre 848]

Man. This is huge! I am full support of this. When I answered those few questions in the one post you made originally I never expected it to be of this caliber. I look forward to it.

 

We aim to please!

 

In all honesty, we had no idea whether people would enjoy this or not, so it's great to hear that at least someone would enjoy it!

[Standard User 2,127]

I'm backing this! It's a really great idea. Though it does make me want to go to a convention now more than ever...

 

Anyway, I'm in support of this idea.

[CloudFyre 848]

I'm backing this! It's a really great idea. Though it does make me want to go to a convention now more than ever...

 

Uh oh, I didn't mean for this post to have that kind of an effect on people! XD

 

But you just gave me another idea: free convention passes! (We can't cover travel/stays, but I think we could manage a few con passes.) I'll have to hit up some of the convention owners and see what they think...

Edited November 5, 2012 by CloudFyre