00:00
00:00
InputUnknown
I find ways to bring worlds to life. Too many visions in my head beg for time without enough hours in the day. Avid storyteller. High-concept. Action. Adventure. Science Fiction. Fantasy. icon by @poptaffy

Chase Langley @InputUnknown

Age 34, Male

Director • Writer •

Los Angeles, CA

Joined on 10/30/05

Level:
9
Exp Points:
808 / 900
Exp Rank:
80,774
Vote Power:
5.13 votes
Rank:
Town Watch
Global Rank:
47,876
Blams:
95
Saves:
83
B/P Bonus:
2%
Whistle:
Normal
Trophies:
14
Medals:
243
Supporter:
7y 3m 1d

A New Era for Newgrounds

Posted by InputUnknown - June 13th, 2012


This is an open letter to Newgrounds:

I was lucky enough to know from the time I could make scribbles with crayons, that I wanted to tell stories.

Eleven years ago I started coming to this site. The internet was fairly newish - I was still on dial up. Newgrounds was a place full of mischievous celebrity assassination games, stick figure fights, and experimental animations. I was in 6th grade and making animations on reams of post it notes or "flip books".

I was there as Newgrounds grew - creating an incredibly interactive community of people. I watched animations like Genryu's Blade, Xiao Xiao, and 8-bit DnD soar to the top of the charts here on NG. I watched as artists like Legendary Frog and PikanJo became kings of the portal and witnessed the first of animation collabs.

In 2003 I downloaded my first trial copy of Flash (flash 8 I think). I finally decided to start posting my path as an artist here on Newgrounds. This was my first account. I remember watching as the my first animation got over 1,000 views. An unreal feeling at the time.

I started growing up - high school changed every part of my life. I started to feel comfortable in my own skin. My art and focus began to develop. Newgrounds was changing. They redesigned the portal from the floor up - making it more accessible for the public to create a name of themselves. I made amends with a rival, that turned into my best friend and began an incredible journey in creation. I watched as the super stars of the old newgrounds stopped posting as much. Suddenly new celebrities like Adam Phillips and Egoraptor began gracing the portal with amazing new content. I made my new account and started a bigger project - a bigger hope at something new.

As I was growing, so was Newgrounds. Suddenly a site that was used for a young-man to posts his experiments with the program flash - became a living community of artists. The audio portal was born (along with A-Bot). Newgrounds branched out and created the sister company "The Behemoth" and produced a console version of Alien Hominid. I graduated high school - and watched as Newgrounds graduated to an even bigger league.

Animation, Games, Audio, Art, Writing, Forums, Collabs... So much change.

I started going to college - and found out the traditional path wasn't for me. I began working on animation and film as much as I could. As I worked on dozens of projects crewing, developing, writing, shooting, editing - I realized just how much I loved it all. The long hours - the grueling debates - the amazing moments when things finally click. All the while - Newgrounds orbiting the creative growth of my life.

And now - Newgrounds has changed again. A new look - new features - a new day and age.

Myself and a team of incredibly talented people have spent the last 10 months developing a live action web-series for Newgrounds. No doubt, a new venture for this ever-growing company.

Newgrounds: The Forsaken City

Two months ago we revealed our work to the public - and started a fundraiser to make this incredibly ambitious project into a reality. To our humble amazement - we have received an overwhelming positive reaction. Already with the help of almost 250 amazing individuals we have been able to raise over $12,000. But work of this professional quality is expensive (even with all of us donating our time without expense). We are down to the last 5 days of this project and have an $18,000 gap to cover. This is a project has the unique opportunity that could help push Newgrounds into the next era of creative media.

What happens if we don't make it? We haven't given up, but it's a reality that could happen. Going into The Forsaken City we decided to make a project the way it deserves to be made. Not half assing the production quality - not rigging together bubble-gum and duct tape to keep things cohesive. Without the means to create this epic - we don't want to fall short of the vision NG deserves. Does that mean it will never happen? No, we hope that one day - should this project not come to light - when we have the means to do it ourselves - TFC will live again.

But we don't want that. We know that this project has the chance to make it and we want to show you. So now I have a question. Can we do this? Can we come together as a community and get this thing out there? Can we let the internet know that Newgrounds is ready for the new age of online media? Can we raise the funds to make this project a reality and start something new here and now? And if you can't donate there are other ways to support the cause! It doesn't matter if you've never posted on Newgrounds before or if you have a fan following and a collection of daily first trophies you can help us by just raising awareness!

Thank you guys for reading this - and thank you all to have already given so much! Excited to come full circle on this journey towards something more. 5 more days.

We can do this.

-Chase

A New Era for Newgrounds


5

Comments

I plan to pledge $50 in the next few days.

Anything helps man! Thanks for the consideration!

If the Kickstarted doesn't make it are you allowed to make another one later on when you have more work to show off?

I'm not sure what the policy is on resubmitting unsuccessful kickStarters...

I certainly can relate to how you feel about NG and I can understand why feel so passionate about the site, I have a similar experience and history, so I wish you the very best of luck in this endeavour.

Thank you for reading :)

Same here Chase! I've watched newgrounds for awhile. I guess I was appeal to the animation flashes that I didn't even know that there was a website for it. It was fairly new at the time and I watched Stick Slayer series and LegendaryFrog and so much more more! At the same time, I felt like...like that this was...I don't know..um another planet! You know it was like Alice in Wonderland. Crazy stuff and I just love them all!

Now, with all the things I've seen and watched. Newgrounds became a inspiration for me and It motivate me being an artist. I still want to learn more and I've always..Always wanted to create animations but, I guess personal life became toll on me and at times, it kicked my ass...a lot.

I think we've seen so much in Newgrounds that it changed so much and I still love it! Especially Egoraptor! Very talented guy. I hope Arin still makes more egoraptor series in the future. As for me? Well, still in school and going to college and hope for the best and get as much experience in media, art, entertainment, and music production so I can put tribute on this ever-changing place.

Good luck Chase and I hope to my very best wishes that this project of yours will succeed!
-Yazjin3XZ

Greatful for you kind words :) Please help spread the word!

Holy shit, how did I miss Genryu's Blade!? That would've blown ma damn mind.

How come the teaser video for Forsaken City was never uploaded to Newgrounds?

Dude it's on on NG anymore - but it was number 1 on the charts for a WHILE... Epic stuff - especially at the time. I remember that was the goal for animation for me hahah sooo good.

Also - just never ended up getting done - maybe something I can talk w/ Tom about...

Finally, someone who understands what newgrounds can become, and already is, to a point: A safe haven for aspiration. Let's be the ones to push this website into a golden era. :)

Absolutely!

Just gave you another couple of bucks (kind of).
This has to get made!!

You're awesome! :D Thanks for the help man!!!

Finally got off my butt and backed you last week. Good luck dudes!

Moonkey my boy!!! :D Hope you guys are great! We gotta virtual chill soon! hahah :P Thanks man!

I know you want 9 episodes but it may have been able to reach more money if you made a pilot and then asked. That way people can get an idea of how it'll turn out.

Go pro, aim low.

A valid bit of advice. :) Thanks man!

Hey Chase, this was a great story. I too have seen NG grow and in effect owe a good deal of my artistic accomplishments to my experiences on the site. I wish you all the best in accomplishing this projects and your goals. Backed on Kickstarter. - Jerry

NG for life :) You rock thank you man

Your story convinced me - I'm even kind enough not to take a gift because i don't want you guys to spend the money on me - i'd rather you use the time you have for sending me a gift into putting a great series together! $25 is all i can afford right now! I get paid tomorrow so if my paycheck is big enough ill do another $50! Bro if i had $5000 it would totally be yours!
Long live NG!
Tyler

Thank you so much man - glad that I could share a bit of my life with you guys! :D

Hey, man.
Donated 10$, I hope this'll work out dude.
gg

You're awesome! Thanks so much man!

Ask yourself this: Did you raise enough money for just the first episode?

If yes, take said money (or make a new kickstarter and re-raise said money if you can't) and make the first episode. Then use the publicity from it to fund the second, and so forth. Trying to get people to hand over that amount of money with nothing besides a little teaser to show for proof of ability to make this is going to be hard even in the best of times.

Not an out-of-the-question idea. We are really pushing to get this thing all the way through. We are already almost to 17k!

Sheizenhammer, it doesn't work like that dude! If the goal is not reached he gets none of the money, all of it goes back to the contributors. He really needs to reach that goal or else the project gets rejected.

when saturday comes, i will see if i can get $500 dollars to that project
i have been working just for you the past two months for the money.
hope my mother will let me because she manages my account so i cant really acces it without her permission.
i will try my best and good luck to you sir.

P.S. for people to donate from this site is very unlikely so dont make this just exclusive for NG's but for other sites such as youtube or tumblr or whatever. that way, you can have a bigger chance for donations.
just a thought when this doesn't succeed and you have to restart.

Your support is awesome man! Money or not thanks for the good energy and positive spreading of content!

Dude _ I think I could give something - but I just dont understand - if it gets done, it will be just like a regular video? or some kind of streamed show?- And if u dont finish it - the money u have already received will go toward another surge of funding later on? I hope so man. anyway this is a great idea.

TFC is a live-action 9-part serial. As far as how often the episodes would be released - we've only briefly toyed with the idea w/ Tom no official word though :)

Ha, we made a list.
$100 - sorry it's late... been busy.

Miss you guys <3 :D

Couldn't have been Flash 8. Didn't come out till 2005/6 It was probably MX.

You are 100% correct!

You won't get funded if the Kickstarter doesn't reach the quota, so is there any way I could just give you my money anyway? Even if not for TFC, it could maybe fund something smaller you can use to get your feet off the ground?

I don't know, I'm trying to think of how else I can help, but I'm running out of ideas...

thanks~

Your words are too kind - I mus clarify though, I am not broke and looking for a hand. I only tell you because your kindness is very gracious and want you to be fully aware of what I was posting about. Which was simply helping usher NG and this project into a new era. :)

Are the paypal donations accounted for on the kickstarter page?

We are holding off on transferring the PayPal donations till the final day (and only to push it over if need be) This is due to the various fees accumulated by transferring out to PayPal and then into kickStarter (which then a % of it is taken as well) Hope that clears that up! :D

More Results