Crypto’s goal has always been to make things less centralized. There are several people in Hollywood who decide whether or not a movie gets made. Who’s game? How hard will it be to spread the budget around?
Leo Matchett, CEO of Decentralized Pictures and winner of a Technical Emmy, thinks that blockchain voting will give Hollywood access to new and different points of view. He and Roman Coppola started DCP together.
Matchett said on the most recent episode of Decrypt’s gm podcast that blockchain technology can give artists more power, help them find new musicians, and put together great content. “We’re not trying to take a road necessarily in the status quo studio/film industry highway, right now we’re building a little footpath next to it to hopefully get to the same place. And maybe it’ll turn into a road and a highway at some point down in the future.”
Decentralized Pictures lets the community decide on things like film prizes, grants, mentoring, and funding. Voting is free, and people who vote on DCP’s blockchain, which is a fork of the Tezos network, are paid in FILMCredits tokens.
Steven Soderbergh, who made the movie “Ocean’s 11,” gave $300,000 to start the Andrews/Bernard prize grant, which gives filmmakers “finishing money.”
Unlike a DAO, Decentralized Pictures has a board of directors that gives direction and keeps an eye on how money is spent. On its board are Roman, Gia, and Sofia Coppola. In 2013, Matchett and Roman Coppola put a Bitcoin mine on a studio.
Matchett added “I feel like it’s becoming less and less apparent,” Matchett said. “Pitching this project in 2017 to studios and production companies was significantly more difficult than it is now. Glazed eyes, kind of jaws dropping, like ‘What? You guys are filmmakers, and American Zoetrope has been around for 50 years, and you’re getting into this scammy technology? Isn’t it all rug pulls and bunny money?'”
Matchett said thrypto and blockchain are starting to lose their bad reputation in Hollywood.
Matchett: “It’s not as clear.” “In 2017, it was harder to get studios and production firms interested in this idea. “What?” they asked, their jaws dropping. You make movies, American Zoetrope has been around for 50 years, and you’re using this scam? Rug pulls and money from rabbits?”
Film3 projects that use blockchain and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to fund or distribute their work could help dispel myths about cryptocurrency. Matchett wants to change the way people choose art.
Matchett said, “One of the biggest criticisms that we’ve got from some of the industry incumbents is, ‘Hey, guys, we love what you’re doing, but people don’t know what they like, we have to tell them what to like, we do that through advertising, it’s always been that way, and will always be that way,'” Matchett said. “To a certain extent, we’re trying to prove that wrong—that people do, for the most part, know what they like, and they can help us decide what that is.”
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