Fund This: ‘Haphead’ Investigates The ‘Matrix’-Like Immersive Future Of Gaming

Welcome to Fund This, a new column here at Tubefilter. Each week, we’ll look at a planned web series or other online video project currently in search of funding on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or any other similar crowdfunding sites. We’ll tell you what the series is all about and explain why it is worth your money. Do you have a project that’s currently being crowdfunded? Contact us to let us know and we may feature it in upcoming installments and check out previous installments right here.

Project Name: HAPHEAD

Asking For: $30,000 CAD ($26,687.42 USD) on Kickstarter

Amount Raised Thus Far (At Time Of Post): $8,473 CAD ($7537.42 USD)

Days Remaining In Campaign (At Time Of Post): 22

Description: In the year 2025, “hapheads” are outlaw video gamers who use haptic cable inputs to connect to video games and learn the skills (lethal or otherwise) promoted within. Maxine is one such denizen of the future. The story begins as she steals a cable from her workplace (the factory which manufactures the devices that are capable of Matrix-like learning) and consequently inherits powerful fighting abilities from her favorite game. But once she learns her father’s death was caused by another haphead, she needs to use her haptic training and real-life skills in order to figure out what happened.

Creator Bio: HAPHEAD is led by a team of seasoned creators, who have been making science-fiction feature films for over seven years (their 2012 film, Ghosts With Shit Jobs, won Sci-Fi-London’s Best Feature award and toured in over 25 cities worldwide). Jim Munroe created and wrote the series, Tate Young

directed and edited, and Anthony Cortese and Sean Lerner produced it.

Best Perk: Sometimes the best perk is the most unique, but in this case, it’s the one with the most bang for your buck. Canadians local to the Toronto area should jump on the chance to spend $100 CAD on “The Toronto Booster” perk. This provides you the completed series in the format of your choice and all the “extended world” extras (read about them on the project’s page). But the best part about this perk is a ticket to the web series screening in Toronto and a before-or-after drink session with the cast and crew. It’s like you’re a Hollywood VIP, except Canadian-style.

Why You Should Fund It: According to the project’s Kickstarter video and page, the creative team behind HAPHEAD managed to raise an initial round of funding for the web series. This allowed them to film over 60 minutes of footage for the first season, and even pay everyone involved with the production.

So why do they need more money? The post-production is the key, because without more funding, HAPHEAD won’t be given the visual effects, sound, music, and general editing like color correction the team had originally envisioned. And it’d be a shame to keep that from coming to fruition, because HAPHEAD has two visual effects artists, Barb Benoit and Mathew Borrett, with Hollywood credits to their names. Benoit has worked on titles like RoboCop and the TV show Revolution, and Borrett has worked on TRON: Legacy and Resident Evil: Retribution. This duo has a lot of potential to polish off HAPHEAD with some truly top-notch visual effects unmatched by most indie web series on the market.