The producer, the thief, the movie, and its lovers: How blockchain will help indie films

When watching a CGI film, it’s hard to believe that the movie industry has such a rocky relationship with technology. Then again, the major studios have always been slow to adapt.

One infamous example is when Blockbuster rejected an offer to buy Netflix for $50 million back in the early 2000’s. Blockbuster’s executives failed to understand changing consumption patterns and stalled on the adoption of a video-on-demand strategy. Netflix, who understood the potential of online distribution, now boasts a $19.7 billion cap. Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010.

Things haven’t changed much. Hollywood is still trying to push for its own, late to the game, video-on-demand service, and theatre owners are still hating on Netflix. It’s no surprise, that major studios have very little to say on blockchain technology, despite its potential to completely annihilate the current status quo.

Blockchain technology demands a rethink of the entire structure of the entertainment ecosystem; if the industry doesn’t react quickly, we may see other giants fall by the wayside. Here are just some examples of how blockchain will shake up the cinematic world:

Securing investment

Any independent film producer knows that one of the most difficult tasks in moviemaking is getting funding. The main reason for this is that investors see indie projects as too high-risk with a low potential for reward. In recent years, the ways in which producers raise money for their projects has changed. One of those ways is through crowdfunding. A great example of this is the comedy action martial arts movie Kung Fury, which raised $20,000 for an initial pilot and $630,019 through Kickstarter for a follow-up pledged by 17,713 backers.

Usually crowdfunding participants get bonuses such as dinners with the cast or merchandise. So if the film is a smash hit, the investors get very little of real value in return, and there is the huge potential for fraud.

The advent of blockchain and cryptocurrencies will enable thousands of small investors and aspiring filmmakers to enter the filmmaking industry. It will also allow professionals to group together and create films without the need for funding in exchange for a return on the profits.

There are a number of blockchain projects already in the pipeline including Braid, an ICO funded horror movie, and Lizzard Maddoxx, a 3D animated feature film movie by Austrian animation studio Tectonic Slide. The latter, scheduled for release in late 2019, will be the pilot project of blockchain-based production studio and distributor Qravity.

Better and more original movies

If you are tired of the recent glut of revenue-driven reboots, you’ll be glad to know that blockchain technology can also help solve that. Talented filmmakers are brimming with amazing original ideas. However, Hollywood prefers to use algorithms to try and predict what will be a success according to previous buying patterns, rather than take a chance on anything new.

Acquiring investment through blockchain allows producers to bypass the studios altogether, meaning original premium-quality content gets a chance to shine.

Timely distribution

Distributing film and TV content is a legal quagmire resulting in huge distribution delays in some markets; and that’s if the content makes it to the market at all. The number of titles you can access on Netflix in a small central European country, for example, differs greatly from vast content choice you get in the U.K.

Blockchain allows for seamless digital rights management, so registrations, royalties and rights ownership can all be tracked in a transparent and secure fashion. This negates the need to delay a release based on geography.

Transparent payment for all involved with no movie mogul cuts

The entertainment industry has snowballed in size over the last 100 years. A early lack of industry knowledge, coupled with the expense of the equipment, established a status quo in which movie executives and top-tier artists made enormous sums of money, whereas the rest of the crew benefitted very little in comparative terms.

Blockchain-powered smart contracts enable secure and transparent revenue allocation and collection. It gives producers the ability to grant every cast and crew member a stake in the project. As soon as revenues are collected, they are automatically distributed to the stakeholders, which means waving goodbye to the middlemen who take their piece of the pie along the way, such as movie executives, agents, and the studios.

Combating piracy

In the US market alone, piracy is cost the TV and film market an estimated $31.8 billion in 2017. Top reasons cited for people pirating content include regional distribution delays, lack of availability due to rights issues, or difficulty in accessing the content via the distribution platform.

People often mistakenly think that piracy only affects the big-money studios, but it hurts everyone, from set designers and make-up artists to actors and directors by devaluing the cost of a production. Why would SKY pay $1 billion for a show if users can already access it for free on Kodi? Piracy even has an effect on creativity. A study by Carnegie Mellon University shows that in areas of high piracy, the production of original content slows to a crawl.

Blockchain technology offers an encrypted ledger that cannot be manipulated. Its data is also resistant to manipulation, which could spell the end of the multi-billion-dollar industry losses.

As it stands, rather than investing in blockchain technology itself, Hollywood is doing what Hollywood does best — it’s making a movie called Bitcoin, about other people who are ahead of the curve.

If you’d like to know more about a blockchain based platform that has the potential to support the production, and distribution of your independent film or TV show, check out Qravity.

It’s a platform that uses virtual tokens on the Ethereum blockchain to track digital content creation, distribute project stakes among creative team members, and bring content direct to market.

The industry is ripe for change, and the technology to support change is rapidly evolving. Learn from Blockbuster and Netflix and embrace it.

To learn more about Qravity’s digital entertainment production studio and distribution platform, visit www.qravity.com, read the Qravity white paper, or join the discussion in the Qravity Telegram group.