Occupy Hollywood: The Studio Finance System Is Broken | Stacy Spikes-MoviePass , Jason Nelson

[Music] and hope you're enjoying e Denver my name is Jason Nelson I'm a reporter with decrypt and joining me today is Stacy spikes founder of movie pass and we're going to talk about the centralized film how are you doing I'm doing great thanks it's good to see you guys so to start off just wanted to highlight that you are the author as well of the book blackf founder about your experience in the industry and I think think that's probably a great place to start is how has your time in the industry changed from when you first got started to now and how has decentralized Finance factor into that wow so technology keeps speeding up faster and faster and faster and the changes just are light speed it's almost like every it used to be once a year there was something that happened then it was once every 6 months and now it's inside of a week if not days it's like if you guys didn't see where literally Microsoft launches a Quantum chip and announces it and 48 Hours Amazon me mentions a Quantum chip the last time anybody talked about Quantum was when China had built their quantum computer which was a few years ago and we've been talking about Ai and then it's like like it's like that um and news Cycles are 24 our social like the panel before talking about the different social features and it's crazy my Telegram and my WhatsApp and everything is around the clock now and the conversations are not just in America it's I'm literally having global conversations um you know that's that's all what's really been such a big change is the speed at which things move and change I was speaking with uh Roman Copa earlier and we were talking about uh well basically because you have web 3 and then you have what's known as film 3 which is the film industry version of it and we were talking about how it's different than the traditional Hollywood structure because it's far less centralized anyone can finance a film now but how in your opinion do you think def defi D film financing is different from traditional say Kickstarter or any platforms like that yeah so the term we've been playing around with which is what we call defi decentralized film finance and what I think is going to happen is I think you're still going to have distribution companies that need to push it out in the marketplace but to date you really didn't have the ability to have back-end participation on Films so now with smart contracts you have that capability so Kickstarter never really grew to the scale it could have because how much money are you going to give if you're never going to see it back right okay maybe I'm going to give pull out $1,000 cuz it's my niece or nephew but um other than that you're not going to give too much money and so the average film was Raising below $25,000 how many good films do you know are made off of 25,000 and you'd see a Spike Lee be able to pull I think he pulled three or $400,000 down and that Spike doing it um so I think now you're going to see that open up uh a lot more than before yeah I think Ley and maybe Robert Rodriguez are probably the only people who could put out a blockbuster for $225,000 [Laughter] um but when you're looking at the different aspects of web 3 because it's not just crypto there's nfts there's uh different types of blockchains you know you have Bitcoin ethereum salana I mean you walk on that stage you're going to see any hundred number crypto projects so how do we how do we direct all of this technology towards someone's project because what what's the what would you say is the best thing for for a filmmaker to do to say Here I Am look at me so I think there's web three and then I'm going to pull AI into the conversation so I think there's I break it up into three pieces um financing it making it and then marketing it and go to market and I think that web 3 has the the beginning of it and the end of it and so and then I'll come into the middle the the beginning is I can move digital money in ways that I can do um trustless contracts so that everybody because everyone's afraid of Hollywood because you're going to lose your money so that is where I think the banking and moving finances around is very mature there on the marketing side whether it's nfts or proof of attendance or Rewards or badging or gamification related to we were having a conversation earlier um when Christopher Nolan did Batman they took the very first trailer with Heath Ledger and Heath had not been seen as a joker yet and we were in I was in New York when this happened and literally they they gave coordinates they didn't tell you was at a theater or anything they G they just drop Shi two coordinates and they had a flash mob of a thousand people who showed up and they were the first ones in they told them go sit down they didn't tell them what it was and they were the first people who saw it now if you wanted to reward those people later you can do that with web 3 Technologies if you do it Web Two you're doing it through email right so the the finance and the marketing web 3 is kickass for that the AI components in the middle of it um we're seeing how fast that's coming I mean that stuff's just crazy that's bringing the cost down so fast I mean there we run one of the largest film festivals in the us and we're already seeing full films completed from voice to text I text to uh text to to video it's nuts so well do you think that web 3 could allow creators to just bypass the studio system all together because we saw uh Galla films put out Razer last year and it was nominated for an Emy yeah so so and that was completely inside the web 3 space so getting people's attention is really hard and cost a lot of money making a movie is one thing cutting through the noise it's it's cute to do that every now and then but you need a you you are negotiating for that screen space um and and if you are a I'm going to call you a producer if you are a production company As you move up you either have to do that distribution yourself and then you're a studio or you need to go to a studio so Disney for example is Disney Studios is like a a holding company or bank and then bua Vista distribution is the thing that actually puts it in theaters and then retrieves the money back they're two different they're under the same umbrella but they're two different entities in time the muscle to get you distribution is like should I sign with XM Satellite Radio or should I go to Spotify cuz you're going to get that climb up it's no different than uh which exchange to be listed on uh should I be layer one should I be Layer Two should I be salana should I be whatever those are those are Studios so I think that that never really goes away some version of that you just need MUSC in the market well let's talk a little bit about how the how web 3 can benefit small creators because one of the things that we're still dealing with as representation in Hollywood and I'm not talking about on the screen I'm talking about behind the camera people who are actually making these movies does web 3 open the door for more people of color more women more minority groups to get involved in the film industry so historically and having been in the movie IND industry long enough genre films outperform Marketplace so if you pick a swim Lane you have a group that really will go because it's Community to them so if you pick horor if you pick comedies um and if you pick black or brown comedies they disproportionately uh pound-for-pound uh sorry my eyeglasses are ringing I'm like I'm like wait what's going on right meta we're not talking about you yeah all of a sudden I hear my phone ringing in my eyeglasses and I'm like wait why is it um so so if you if you remember new line Cinema and you remember um when mirax created Dimension and Warner Brothers well those films had lower budgets but they always punch way above their weight class their their um from d yeah from Dust Till Dawn um all of the uh you know the hood comedies everything so if you want to win you will go there faster if you go with the community okay and black and brown communities or genre disproportionately is a great place to go with web 3 my feeling is is that now people who are hesitant to put money in are going to be more likely to put it in because they're going to get that money back and I think you can see more funding happen from the community level versus you still got to go to the studio to get it done that is where I think it'll take off and have a lot of big ad manages do you think you're going to see more people get involved with web 3 now that especially in the United States we have what appears to be a more friendly regulatory environment do you think that's going to make a difference well I'm going answer it from a business perspective the panel before was talking about so much of it is just too hard that has to change that has to drop we did uh we received an investment and we did a major deal on the S blockchain and S Prides itself on using um uh social login so I can now log in to S like I can to my Gmail why is that taken so long to get to that point it's like there's so much pride and wanting to be different that um you know web 3 Prides itself on making things difficult when it really needs to get that barrier down fast then I think it should be ubiquitous whe whether I drive to Walmart or I buy from Amazon which is going to get it to me faster and cost me the least amount of money so it took 20 years but Amazon just surpassed Walmart in sales so web 3 has to be cheaper better faster that's it that's all there is to it let's go a little bit back into your history with movie pass because that was one of the first subscription models for M it was the first the first the first but us do you think that we could see something similar with nfts and crypto and in that type of uh structure for a subscription for subscription so like say I wanted to go to look Cinema can I show them my nft and they say okay come on in something like that I mean I think it's whether it's a QR code or a badge or an nft as long as it's easy remember that ticket taker needs to take their phone scan it and their phone's going to chirp and that's that's all they care about so keep it simple make it fast and easy then yes that that will absolutely work if it's more complex and the ticket taker can't figure out how to log into their uh wallet to go check your nft it's never going to fly what do you think is the most transformative thing coming to not only entertainment industry but to decentralize finance for film what do you see in the future I mean my my thing is I really think I'm going to use music for for a moment imagine friends of Jay-Z in Brooklyn were able to put in money on chain on his first album and imagine Jay-Z in his smart contract said every time I'm raising money for my next album I let the last people the people who were in last time I let them in first and I cap how much money I'll take from the community he'll never have to raise money anywhere ever again that is what's about to happen I think that's going to happen for film I think it's going to happen for music and I think that what's beautiful about that is the money is going to come back to the community it goes from rather than being extracted from the community and it never goes back I went and spoke um Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson had um a New Zealand film festival and they had me as their opening keynote and they didn't know what I was going to talk about they were just like talk about whatever you want and I started talking about web 3 and film financing and I said imagine if Peter Jackson had let everyone in Lord of the Rings in New New Zealand Finance it they'd all be rich New Zealand does 250 million in tourism just from people who want to go see where Lord of the Rings was shot $200 million a year in New Zealand that's not the movies that's not streaming that's not any of that now imagine that little island if the money was there no that money went to Warner Brothers it didn't it went to B bank and so that's where you can take talent and the the funds get extracted and so what I believe the most powerful thing with AI coming to wipe out a lot of jobs is where you're going to want to put your money is in entertainment at blockchain level ground level is my opinion that's going to change the entertainment industry like never before and it's interesting that you mentioned AI because I've covered the sagaa and wga Strikes last uh in 2023 and but you're seeing AI coming into the web 3 space like just like never before I mean everyone has an AI agent now do you how do you see do you see that as being something that creators filmmakers could take advantage of as well yeah I I don't know how you so everybody probably knows this the prince story but if you don't I'm going to tell it real quick Prince Rogers Nelson AKA Prince are the artist formerly known as he was a teenager and Prince went so he he they had heard about him at Warner Brothers and the agent there was a a demo and it was they asked him who played who were the bandmates on your album he said it was all me and he said what are you talking about he brought the agent to his house to his bedroom where he showed him a tazan drum machine a fourt track recorder a COR M1 his guitar and he showed him how he did each of the instruments he produced his entire first album from his bedroom and got a record deal and signed that's what AI is about to do to the movie industry and so it doesn't matter how you make it it matters can you st a tell a story that gives people Goosebumps that they'll that they'll want to watch so what digital music did for recording you can now make an album on your iPhone right kids are doing it now that is going to happen to film making awesome well Stacey thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us everyone thank you for coming and hope you enjoy e Denver thanks guys