{"id":11678,"date":"2025-11-05T10:48:36","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T15:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artechouse.com\/?p=11678"},"modified":"2025-11-24T10:55:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T15:55:09","slug":"crowdfunding-white-rabbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artechouse.com\/crowdfunding-white-rabbit\/","title":{"rendered":"Crowd-funding an Emmy-award winning short film through audience participation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Emmy-winning anime\u00a0<\/strong>White Rabbit<\/strong><\/em>, co-directed by world-builder Maciej Kuciara and pioneering creative technologist Emily Yang (pplpleasr) and currently on view in SUBMERGE: Beyond the Render<\/a>, did not win\u00a0\u201cOutstanding Innovation in Emerging Media Programming\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0just because of its storybook anime style and mesmerizing scenery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The artists began the project without much resources, <\/strong>\u201cjust conviction and the skills to make about a minute of animation.\u201d Rather than releasing the clip in isolation, Maciej and Emily engineered a \u2018Choose Your Own Adventure\u2019 mechanic <\/strong>where, using digital currency, users voted what direction they wanted the story to take. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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These decisions were more than opinions. <\/strong>Viewers were turned into not just fans, but active producers<\/strong><\/em>, directly connected to the development of the story in real-time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As each chapter was released, fans voted, waiting months for the next installation as the story developed in real-time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This innovative participatory model allowed the artists to allocate the tokens staked to actual production costs,<\/strong> facilitating the creative process without the reliance on a big studio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWhite Rabbit began as a proof of concept \u2014 not just for a film, but for a new way of creating\u2026Three years later, we have a fully crowdfunded, grassroots film that never would’ve existed if we’d gone the traditional route.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\u2013 Emily Yang (pplpleasr) + Maciej Kuciara<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Maciej Kuciara ><\/u><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0Maciej Kuciara is a Polish artist and director whose two decades in visual storytelling span concept art, animation, and world-building for\u00a0The Last of Us<\/em>,\u00a0Spider-Man: No Way Home<\/em>,\u00a0Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3<\/em>, and more. He co-directed\u00a0White Rabbit<\/em>, an Emmy award-winning anime, as well as films such as\u00a0MECHA<\/em>\u00a0and Linkin Park\u2019s \u201cLost\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Emily Yang><\/u><\/strong><\/strong> (pplpleasr)<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Emily Yang, professionally known as pplpleasr, is a multidisciplinary artist and technologist whose work bridges anime, video games, and traditional Asian art. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Yang co-directed the Emmy award-winning anime,\u00a0White Rabbit,<\/em>\u00a0and has collaborated with the likes of Kering, Sotheby\u2019s, Steve Aoki, and Vogue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The Emmy-winning anime\u00a0White Rabbit, co-directed by world-builder Maciej Kuciara and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":11680,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Crowd-funding an Emmy-award winning short film through audience participation","_seopress_titles_desc":"\u201cViewers became fans, fans became collaborators, and three years later, we had a fully crowdfunded, grassroots film that never would've existed if we'd gone the traditional route.\u201d","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,22,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nyc","category-education","category-artist-spotlight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artechouse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artechouse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artechouse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artechouse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artechouse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11678"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artechouse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11691,"href":"https:\/\/www.artechouse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11678\/revisions\/11691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artechouse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artechouse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artechouse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artechouse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}