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Kickstart This: The Worlds Divide


It's a pretty small number of individuals who can claim to have created an animated feature single-handedly (or virtually single-handedly). Even rarer are those who have done it more than once. One member of this exclusive club is Canadian animator Denver Jackson.

Under the banner of Cloudrise Pictures, Jackson has created the webseries Esluna: The First Monolith and the feature film Esluna: The Crown Of Babylon. Jackson is two years into producing his second feature The Worlds Divide, and is now turning to crowdfunding to help him complete the film. 

The Worlds Divide is an action sci-fi adventure inspired by Studio Ghibli, Makoto Shinkai. Akira, Ghost In The Shell and Nintendo video game Zelda: Breath Of The Wild. The film is said to be targeted to a more mature audience akin to Princess Mononoke. The project is nearing completion of the animation phase but needs additional funds to be completed

Up until now the film has been created solely by Jackson and funded out of his own pocket at an estimated budget of $35,000. With the campaign he hopes to hire voice actors, a composer and a sound mixer.

The film is set in two worlds. One a dystopian cyber-punk future and the other the lush fantasy world of Esluna. The story features a girl named Natomi who is sent to the world of Esluna.Along with her new found friends she must navigate this new world in an attempt to find her father ( a god of this world) before she is hunted and killed by the ruthless Queen.


The project has already met its initial goal, but with stretch goals the hope is to be able to afford live studio mixes, physical Blu-Rays, vinyl records, artbooks and more. At the very highest level (labelled as 'impossible') if it reached the stretch goal of $319,350 "Denver gets minimum wage for his work".

Pledges start at $5 Canadian for which you get your name on the official website. Other goodies include digital downloads, soundtracks, digital artbooks, behind the scenes materials and more. What it doesn't seem to get you is access to the film itself, unless you shell out $1000 Canadian for the Limited Edition Blu-Ray.

The project is currently sitting at $56,683 Canadian having swiftly blown past its $41,500 Canadian goal. If you would like to help make The Worlds Divide a reality head over to the campaign page now. The campaign will run until Wednesday, April 12 at 9:26 AM BST.