Kickstarter Project: "House of Monsters"

Here's another chance to support a woman filmmaker who's bringing a personal project to life outside of the studio system. Back in 2012, Dawn Brown created a stop-motion film in the spirit of Rankin/Bass called "House of Monsters" which proved itself as a real crowd pleaser in the festival circuit. Well, now she's back with plans for a whole webseries and you can help bring this project to life.


If you've read any of my posts and interviews over the years, you know how exciting it is to see another woman animator take the bull by the horns by starting her own production company, then forging ahead on her own projects--bringing her own unique voice and vision to the screen!

A concept artist for such projects as "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Avatar the Last Airbender" with a career spanning twenty years, Dawn founded 'the Monster Shop' to create her original short and has now set up a Kickstarter page to promote her web series. As of this post, she's half-way to her goal of $20,000 with has 21 days left to go.

One of the cool things that Dawn has set up in her rewards is posting production updates. So, for a minimum donation of $1, you can get a sneak peek into her production process as she creates her web series. Already on the Kickstarter page is a video showing how she creates a head for one of her stop-motion puppets. While not a production class in and of itself (nor is it meant to be), there's always something to be learned by observing how other filmmakers plan and produce their films.

For a modest $10 pledge, you can get a (physical) skeleton key along with a code for the first episode's digital download--including all the production updates. However, there are currently 16 levels of pledge support left that provide more rewards for those who would like to contribute to this project. Among them are t-shirts, art prints, and a faux bronze maquette, all the way to your very own stop-motion puppet made in your likeness (if you so choose).

I encourage everyone to view the video above to see the details about Dawn's project, if you haven't already, and then visit her Kickstarter campaign page for samples of her artwork.

If it strikes a chord with you, please consider making a pledge and support this talented woman in animation.


And if you need a little help deciding at what level you'd like to support this project, check out her original House of Monsters short below.


* All Images and videos used in this post are copyright Dawn Brown and used with permission.