Accelerating Growth for the Film3 Movement with VIVID NFTs

A robust Film3 community is beginning to coalesce around NFTs as a pathway for alternative financing and opportunity for filmmakers to engage directly with their fans. Filmmaking has often been on the forefront of technological adoption, with filmmakers wrapping their artistic ambition around new technologies from sound to color to CGI and 3D. But Web3 adoption also represents a reaction to the business realities of the industry today where a more diverse set of films — both in subject matter and budget — are increasingly difficult to make. The industry is funneled into well-deserved, however well-entrenched, gatekeepers who make fairly narrow decisions about what to green-light. As we learned from our recent partnership with Air Bud Entertainment, even very successful legacy media companies are experiencing that narrowing.

NFTs also bring back the concept of media ownership. Streaming has been a powerful force in the industry for over the past decade. While it has contributed to increased content production and unfettered convenience for consumers, it pales to the revenue impact of the home entertainment era that began with VHS and culminated with Blu-ray. Ownership revolutionized how studios green-lit movies, creating an economics whereby studio heads understood that movies could be produced and marketed at a loss through its theatrical run because strong theatrical performance led directly to profit in the home entertainment market.

Ownership seeded the practice of collecting

DVD Extras were sets of behind-the-scenes, commentaries, alternative endings, and photos that were only available to those who purchased the movie. For collector’s, these were must-have editions of their favorite films. Not only were they exclusive experiences only available to the owner of the DVD, but one’s DVD collection was also an expression and representation of identity. Sound familiar?

At Vivid Labs, we see NFTs as the next media format. As we have gone from VHS to DVD to Blu-ray to streaming, we believe NFTs are a next evolution for the creation, marketing, and distribution of film and television. However, if NFTs are going to be a true format, we believe they have to enable more compelling content experiences. As we think about NFTs today, a 20-second video or a JPEG does not give filmmakers the palette from which to create truly engaging content. At Vivid Labs, we are focused on providing the platform and tool set for creators to create more advanced NFTs, those that provide the palette for richer, more programmable content experiences for narrative, marketing, and branding.

Enter the multi-asset, updatable NFT from Vivid Labs.

More complex media

Our platform is built on a decentralized media processing platform that was designed to deliver complex media through a decentralized Internet. This platform allows us to create NFTs out of a variety of file types and media formats. Through our integration with Filecoin, we are creating NFTs that are up to 32gb. This allows us to handle two-hour feature films, 4K content, and we are doing some early work with AR and VR formats.

Multi-asset film NFT

We build our NFTs to be containers of media, where combinations of content can be included in one NFT. Let’s think of this like we would the DVD extras. The filmmaker adds PDF files for each version of the script, showing the progression of drafts over time. Videos of early production meetings or behind-the-scenes moments from the set are added, as well as alternate takes and endings. For CG-based films, filmmakers can add 3D objects of set or creature designs. Interviews with cast members and crew can be stuffed into the NFT and the director and key cast/crew record an audio file that serves as a commentary track. Of course, the feature film can also be distributed via the NFT, becoming a new distribution pathway for filmmakers and their audiences.

Updatable NFT

Many creators today think NFTs are only useful at the end of their creative process. Our updatable feature enables NFTs to play a role at the start of the creative process, not just at the completion of it. In a variation of the above, the content is updated into the NFT as it occurs — from Day 1 all the way to completion on Day x. In this use case, the holder of the NFT gets to experience the process of creation together with the artist. There are some possibly interesting interactive mechanics as well. The artist could bring the NFT holder into the creative process, perhaps allowing some degree of influence or agency over how the work develops. We also see this as an early financing model, where proceeds of the NFT could be achieved prior to the completion of the art. Interestingly, as the creative process progresses and the art comes closer to realization, the NFT becomes more valuable.

These are some of the ways we imagine filmmakers taking advantage of our advanced multi-asset and updatable NFTs. We welcome any outreach and would love to hear about your use cases!

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