Frequently Asked Questions

Why the name Ether?

The story of Ether is about an alternate world of the same name. The most dominant feature of this world is an unceasing storm which covers half its surface. It makes sense that the population of such a place would name their world after the clouds that continually hang over them. So we chose "Ether ," a word that originally referred to an imaginary substance the ancients regarded as filling space and all the heavens.

Why the fantasy genre?

Without a doubt, the main reason for creating Ether is our love of fantasy. We're huge fans of works like George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and Neil Gaiman's Sandman. So it was a very easy decision to work in a genre both near and dear to our hearts.

The other, more tangible reason for choosing to do a fantasy is the wake left by the movie adaptations of The Lord of Rings. We feel that the profit and acclaim earned by these movies has brought a new level of attention to fantasy, much like Star Wars did for science fiction in the late 70's. Now is the time to produce original and quality fantasy.

Seems like there are some dark overtones, who's this geared towards?

One thing that we want to make clear is that Ether is not for kids. Our demographic is with adults 18-34, the video game generation and its successors. We made sure not to combine mature themes with childlike animation so as not to confuse our audience, like the recently cancelled Father of the Pride. Still, to call Ether dark is a misinterpretation, for there is plenty of comedy and romance to balance out the darker elements.

Animation for adults? In America? Good luck!

Right, this is the biggest criticism we've received in terms of concept. Animation in America is mostly geared toward children and the exceptions to this rule are satires like Family Guy or South Park. Yet, these exceptions are veritable smash successes and if not for a few smart executives taking a chance on The Simpsons, none of them would have come to fruition. The next step is Ether , an animated show with real drama and scope. Should it succeed, it will open American television to a style of storytelling it has long ignored. This implies a windfall profit for innovation.

Why television and not film?

Television offers a precedent for achieving success with animation. Cartoon Network's Adult Swim ranks #1 with adults 18-34 and regularly outperforms the late night talk shows. Even more impressive is that their audience continues to grow. We feel that this is good base from which to work and makes the risk of our ambitions a much more calculated one.

All that said, if we were offered the opportunity to make an Ether film, we would take it under careful consideration.

You claim this can all be done cheaply, how?

The cost cutting is relative to the concept. For instance, in The Fellowship of the Ring there are magical entities, battle scenes, and exotic landscapes. To create these for a live action movie it took a vast mount of resources and ended up costing approximately 100 million. Now Princess Mononoke contained similar elements to Fellowship, but because it was animated it only ended up costing approximately 20 million. Both were expensive, but by any comparison Mononoke was much cheaper.

In terms of television, Star Trek Enterprise and Farscape (both notably cancelled) are about as high concept as a show can get. They are also very expensive to produce at approximately 2 Ð 1.7 million per episode. Ether is equally high concept, but we estimate that it will take only $200.000 to produce a single episode. Again expensive, but cheaper by comparison.

The rough estimates are as follows:
  : $400.000 for the first two pilots
  : 1.4 million for the completed seven episodes
  : 5.2 million for the entire first season


So Duel in Ether is a separate story from Ether ?

Duel in Ether is essentially a prequel to the Ether 's main story. We conceived it as a way to introduce our main character of Mondsuul Amindas and the world of Ether on a minimal budget. It also serves to show our style of animation to both executives and producers. There are currently three episodes in production with twelve planned.

I'm interested, how can I get involved?

If you're interested in us, we're interested in you. Please click here to contact us.

So I've gathered that Quanta Perennial LLC is a production facility dedicated to "quality entertainment..."

Yes, very good. But let us evaluate that statement before we move on. Quality in media denotes, to us, something memorable. A conjured moment that somehow resonates within. A moment that refuses to leave you. To many, the word "entertainment," is contrary to this idea. After all, entertainment must be a fun park ride, the thrill of a roller coaster dragging your screaming rag doll frame four hundred feet straight down at one hundred and twenty miles per hour. Who needs to read a book during that madness, much less concentrate on anything "memorable?" We quite agree. But we also believe that entertainment should be engaging. For instance, while you're enjoying the roller coaster, a penny flips out from someone's pocket and pops a father in his eye; his yelp of surprised pain drowned out by the screams of exhilaration. At the end of the ride the gentlemen is fuming, dragging his two children (Gail, an 8-year-old prima donna, and her alpha-male brother Fawn, who hates his name and his parents,) to the machine operator (David, an undiscovered math genius working a theme-park summer job.) A screaming fight ensues and the father (Bob Hope, harboring pent-up anger about having to explain his name to every new acquaintance,) and his children are ejected from the park. When it's over you can't help but think the roller coaster you just experienced will never end in the same way again. You go over the details in your mind: the flying spittle during the tiff, Dave's futile attempt to explain the unfortunate probabilities involved, the tense silence when security arrives. And the poor children, scarred but better for it...

Whose coin was it that caused the ruckus in the first place? You check your pockets...

That's our kind of roller coaster ride. We strive to deliver the adrenaline and the memorable details of both plot and character. The stories we build are not hollow properties, but entities in and of themselves.

QP deals primarily in 'high-concept' properties: stories where character motivation and plot are indiscernibly entwined, stories that take place in worlds where fantasy exists within reality rather than in spite of it. The facility is currently dedicated to the development and pre-production of our original Intellectual Property (I.P.): the animated series called Ether .

You guys are weird. What does Quanta Perennial mean?

Since you asked...

"Quanta" is the plural of quantum, a measure of infinitely small size. Mostly used in particle physics, it can also refer to a measure of energy regarded as a unit. It can also, in the plural form, be a tag word for every unit of mass/energy in existence. Because we measure things with our nervous systems, (and tend to tag them with labels,) this does not refer to any "deep reality," or "one truth," though initially it sounds that way. We use it only to refer to that which is subjectively observable, because that is the limit of what any human can ever know... But not necessarily the limit of what any human can ever create.

"Perennial" suggests timeless, endless, or enduring.

So, QP is another way of saying "universe," that which we strive to reflect when we create something, the source of any and all inspiration, the building blocks of each imagination. It is also a way of saying "How about some wicked content to enjoy even after we are gone?"

Oh... I don't know, that sounds kinda heavy.

We couldn't resist.

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