Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: The Experiment
Part 3: Git for Film Making & Screenplays as NFT’s
Part 4: DAO, Tokenomics & Legal Structure
Part 5: The Future of Film Making
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Remember Game of Thrones, season 8? A finale simply unacceptable to fans, leading to 1.8M signatures on a petition for a remake. Would a DAO of filmmakers, producers, writers, crew and fans have produced a better outcome, receiving the script before filming? At DeFilm, we believe so.
Film making is a highly collaborative art form — with an average of 276 workers per feature-length film — but resides in an opaque market, run top-down by studio executives who’d rather produce Fast & Furious 69, instead of funding new stories. Economically understandable (half of movies don’t turn a profit), but what if production involved all fans and all crew from day 1?
Not just by crowdfunding, but by having an active say, a vote with their wallet, on what the final version of the script will be, who’s going to direct it and what the final cut will be. How wild is that — seeing something on the big screen that you actually contributed to? That’s the same reason why the movie industry can get away with abysmal pay for creators: the work itself is a big enough reward (for some time).
Enter the DAO
DAO’s fundamentally try to solve human coordination problems, and that’s exactly what the task of a film production company is. Of course, there is art and creativity in film making, but someone has to decide which story or artistic vision to fund, and for now, that often resides in the gut feeling of the movie executive.
The big question is: Can a DAO be less wrong and more right in producing great films, while rewarding the makers fairly and involving fans from day 1?
The answer lies in the fact that with a DAO for film making, the legacy structure can still be preserved, but in a better, transparent way, with shared ownership:
Want to give a carte-blanche to the famous director you just attracted?
No problem, just delegate your tokens/voting power.
Want to rewrite the first 10 pages of a script?
No problem, just make a pull request (More on this in Part 3).
Want to remake Game of Thrones Season 8?
No problem, raise funds via the DAO, rewrite it, gather a crew and film it.
In effect, a DAO for filmmaking is essentially Git for filmmaking.
The proposal
A film making cooperative is nothing new. Nor is trying to bring movie financing/payouts on the blockchain (Filmchain 👏) But what has not been done yet, is to actually make a movie with decision making happening on a blockchain. And this experiment needs funding.
With a DAO and a $50K fund, purely to pay for production costs, we can make a short film (5–20mins) to serve as a proof-of-concept.
How? Read more in Part 2 or fill in this Google Form to signal your interest.
To be continued.
