Fund BlockbusterDAO Studios To Develop the Nouns Narrative Universe

[garfieldlmiller]

Yes! We absolutely want to collaborate with the community and keep this open as possible. 100%. The whole point of doing this is to create something that we are all excited about, and that will inspire Nouners (and soon-to-be-Nouners) to iterate on. That’s not likely to happen without meaningful community involvement. Furthermore, in this relationship, we see you as the executive producer, and we want to produce content that you all, first and foremost, are happy with. There are a ton of ways that we can all work together to make sure that the finished product is infused with all the elements that Nouners love about Nouns. We can hold community-wide brainstorming sessions to identify what elements are most important. We can share drafts and works in progress for community feedback. We can hold Twitter spaces, and Q&A sessions.

The biggest challenge with opening things up is that writing is a messy, iterative process with many wrong turns, dead ends, and retracing of steps before finally arriving in the promised land. A pitch is a living document that can and will change significantly from draft to draft and, with a group this large, there is the concern individuals will get excited about elements that may get dropped or altered. (Of course, this being a CC0 project, if that were to happen, the unhappy individual could always pick up those dropped threads to incorporate in their own future projects down the road). Also, as I’m sure many in the community can appreciate, writing is a process where creators must feel safe to express horrible ideas, make bad jokes, sound stupid, etc. Often the worst ideas lead to the best ones, and it can be hard for a writer to be vulnerable enough to let go of their filter when they know there are a thousand people potentially listening in on every word. (“Can you believe he suggested a new Noun materializes every time Vitalik farts? What an idiot. If that’s where Nouns came from, there would be way more Nouns by now!”) You get the idea. No one likes being criticized and so rather than suggest the bad idea that might lead to the great one, the writer might stay quiet, which means they’re not doing their job.

That’s all to say that, as a team, we are all in for building in the open while maintaining a creative process that is going to achieve the best possible results.

One possible solution would be to identify a “Nouner Liaison” who would join us in the writing room, post regular updates on Discord, and field real-time community feedback, while also acting as a resource for the writing team. Ideally, this would be someone who knows Nouns inside and out and can answer any questions that the writers will have. This person would provide the community with real-time access to the process.

That’s just one possible option. There are many other ways to achieve this balance and we are open to exploring them to find the optimized fit of openness and collaboration that will ultimately get us the results we all want.

[BigshotKlim]

Given your limited experience in Hollywood and licensing, this seems like a very big ask, and if there is true interest in nouns at this level wouldn’t it make more sense to simply help build this together in the discord to see if this all works the way you pitch it before asking for funding?
For every presentation I have ever seen or put together there was a full volume of spec work to prove the concept. You and your team do not need any permission or approvals to do what you are proposing , Just DO it, and the community will most likely embrace you and help.

[Van]

Totally understandable if you haven’t read the proposal completely or followed all the links but our team has quite a bit of Hollywood experience. I myself have over 30 produced film and TV credits.

In the world of licensed concepts, in addition to my writing work with Illumination on their Minions properties, I’m also currently involved in the design of a licensed theme park ride which involves maybe every possible layer of licensing and fabrication (a video game component, physical placemaking props, gift store merchandise, custom interaction controllers).

As for the idea that pitches require free, fully executed spec work. I have to say my personal experience is very different. I was also part of the writing team that set up the Sonic the Hedgehog movie (including both pitching the board of directors at SEGA in Japan to secure the rights as well as pitching the producer Neil Moritz and the studio on the film.) At no time in this process was any free written spec work required or used. In fact it’s a union violation for professional screenwriters to produce unpaid written material and share that material with a studio during the pitch process.

Many Nouns DAO proposals seek funds to pay vendors to execute on the ideas in the proposals. I’d point out that in our proposal, we are the vendors ourselves. So there’s actually one less layer between the Nouns and the work being done which I think should be seen as a positive.

I can assure you that our ask is actually below the market rate for this kind of work. For example, the writer’s guild minimum for a non-network television bible is $51,000. The minimum weekly pay for an individual writer working for six weeks is $5,302. These are minimums. The actual rates for this kind of work in practice from a team with our level experience would generally be much higher.

I think your questions have been very valid and I’m really happy to answer them. I’d also like to add that this project getting funded would not preclude you or anyone else from working on or pitching any Nouns media projects they may be developing. It could even provide those with a valuable foundation.

[DAVID]

I assume where Klim is going is along the lines of when one first goes in to pitch Illumination or Netflix, WB animation etc etc, there is no $ in exchange for a pitch. As you know, one relays the general XYZ elevator+ via first sit down ( or zoom nowadays ) and then we go to the next stage or not. Perhaps would be helpful if we connected via zoom through nouns studio 1. Would very much like to discuss more with you.
Here is the contact.

https://www.studio1.wtf

Hope to connect,
best,
David

[garfieldlmiller]

Thanks for the suggestion, @DAVID. NOUN22 reached out to us yesterday to set up a voice Q&A in the discord for next week. Why don’t we combine all this into one?

[willbryanfilms]

Hi everyone, this is Will from the BlockbusterDAO team (and cofounder of CUDO). Thank you, again, for inviting us to the Q&A last week; we enjoyed the opportunity to learn from you, answer questions, and tell you more about our vision for an incredible partnership between Nouns and BBDAO.

As you continue to discuss our proposal internally, we’d love to reiterate a few key points of our proposal:

MORE THAN A PITCH; THIS IS PRE-DEVELOPMENT // Because our proposal mentions pitch materials, their utility, and our process for soliciting partnerships with legacy media, I’m concerned an important point may have gotten lost in translation. In television, it’s common for a group of writers to create a simple package of materials (which is often far less complex than our initial proposal here), develop a pitch, and approach production companies in order to fund the “pre-development” of a series, which typically means the creation of a writer’s bible and ancillary material to help sell a show to a network or streaming company. These production companies typically purchase an option (allowing them exclusive rights over the IP for a set period of time, commonly 12 months) and pay the creators to develop materials internally, often with their own teams, to prepare a series to be shopped around and acquired.

Our proposal details our vision of circumventing this process, and replacing the middleman production company with a collaboration between Nouns and BBDAO. We believe this is the best way to discover the unique character and nuances of this project, with the help of the Nouns community, in a totally web3 environment before the show is ready to pitch directly to networks, broadcasters, and streamers.

COLLABORATIVE INFRASTRUCTURE // We want to implement a system that will allow us to incorporate feedback from Nouners as we work. So please remember that we’re offering more than the development of materials—we’re offering a process. Our team has been discussing different possible frameworks, and we would love to talk about them with you. We believe this is a much stronger (and more Web3-aligned) approach to pre-development compared to typical processes within the industry. And by implementing a collaborative framework within the community, we would be setting a new standard for other web3 animated television and film projects going forward.

EMPOWERMENT TO FUTURE CREATORS // Our goal is to work with Nouns to build the foundation of a (not “the”) Nouns mythology which will be optimized to succeed as a television series and/or animated film while at the same time inspiring others to jump in, contribute, and become creators in this ever-expanding universe.

This is very, very difficult work; at my own company, many of our creative discussions have to do with creating a show with a strong story engine and compelling characters while leaving just the right amount of mystery, ambiguity, and open spaces in our story world to allow other creators (in our case at CUDO, players contributing user-generated content) feel empowered to become active participants and NOT just passive audience members. Very few cross-platform properties strive for this quality, and our team has the skills to pull it off.

Thank you, once again, for your consideration.

[goldy.mov]

Thank you Will,

i think plenty of us understand what the scope you are describing is, and the typical arrangement and perceived benefit of your approach, but I dont think the issues are (at least from what I’ve read and been thinking myself -sorry to have missed the Q&A) has to do with pitching vs bible materials or what you’ve described above.

The part imo that does not quite feel right or exciting is the part where Nouns DAO is assumed to want to own the materials you make, and the approach of essentially you being a creative team for hire for the DAO. I think there may be a presumption that Nouns DAO would like to own, protect, and develop its IP, or act like a creative organisation that wants to pursue the creation of this media for itself and it’s own gain, and I don’t believe that this should be the default case.

The reason is that it doesn’t scale as much, and it diminishes all the unique opportunities there are in the novel structure that Nouns is built on.

I believe Nouns DAO’s power is as a protocol more than organisation. Nouners are fragmented, busy, and of divergent opinions and visions, as they should be. Creative work like this is best done by a dedicated tight knit team imo, the whole web3 collaborative thing feels potentially unnecessary. But the bottom line is that I don’t think Nouns want to (nor should) spend our time trying to coordinate as a filmmaking studio, or even as IP owners, we want to give money (as grants) to teams that can take the ball and run with it (whatever ball that is), and profit from their ventures without concern for the DAOs participation.

The DAO benefits from the feedback loop created as nouns are proliferated into the world, and the thesis of building profitable and beneficial projects from public domain and open source IP works is prove , leading to demand for the NFTs increasing, thus refilling the treasury, enabling the circle of life.

It seems to me if your pitch was that you want a grant to write a script and/or develop a pitch bible or whatever materials, and then your plans and goals were to pitch it back to us to fund a feature film or pitch it to Netflix to purchase/produce a tv series, etc. it would be much better fit for what we are, and what we’d like to see happen.

This is only the first comments on the conversation from only one noun (or technically it’s ~0.53 nouns). I’d be happy to continue to discuss and evolve my stance based on the words of your team or other nouns or community members as they influence my thinking

Cheers!

[garfieldlmiller]

Hi @goldy.mov, thank you for your thoughtful comments. I think the bottom line is that we are flexible and are happy to structure this however Nouners want. We are most excited about the prospect of working with Nouns and are confident we will create something truly amazing if provided the resources to do so. If it is preferred by Nouners to structure this as a grant where we, as creators, retain ownership of the IP, then we will do that. If it’s preferred by the DAO that we just run with it on our own (without extensive collaboration), then we can work that way. Again, we are flexible and can make this work in whatever way suits the Nouners. (As professional creatives, we are experienced in working with various levels of input). Regardless, please understand that whatever content we do create, we will be taking to Netflix, Disney, Nickelodeon, etc, with the express purpose of getting something made. That is and has always been our ultimate goal. We would also be happy to pitch the final project back to NounsDAO with the intent of the DAO funding a script and/or a film. Again, more than anything we want to make something with Nouns. We are confident that with our team in place, it will be great regardless of the details around who owns the IP or the level of Nouners involvement in the process. From our perspective, there seems to be a lack of consensus around those issues on the Nouns’ side, but our stance is, that whatever the majority wants, we can accommodate, and the outcome will be great.

[9999]

Based on our discussions, we most likely want to reach out to a few teams, including BBDAO, to creatively tackle their take on Nouns via the synchronous funding of distinct writer’s bibles. We do not want a single Nouns story or canon and we believe the best way to achieve this goal is that no single team is blessed by the DAO to write the Nouns narrative.

We recognize that this is a shrink in scope of your initial proposal, but it is the size of project we are comfortable dealing with at this time. Should everything go well there are always future opportunities to develop the other deliverables.

With regards to IP, there are two options: either the writer’s bible is released under CC0 or it is owned by its creators. We’re happy to fund both approaches because they hopefully both lead to the same place: a team connecting with the story and wanting to work hard to bring it to life.

We will be in touch, most likely via Discord with more details as they emerge. Thank you!

[garfieldlmiller]

Hey @9999, thank you for the update. As stated we are flexible and open to working with Nouns, so we look forward to receiving more information from you. Sincerely, the BBDAO Studio team!