Day: September 15, 2021

As of today, all early users who purchased one of the tiered Access Passes were notified that they can now view their Access Passes on the Ethereum blockchain! Here’s the message they received.

You’ve seen the breakdown of each Access Pass tier, and you know about their value as it pertains to unique film experiences, rewards, and NFTs such as the chance to meet the cast and crew of a movie Mogul is funding, spending a day on set, attending a red carpet premiere, or getting a producing credit on a movie! 

But the even better news is that your Access Pass is capable of so much more!

You can log into your Mogul account right now, connect your Metamask wallet, and view your Access Pass NFT from within the Mogul dashboard. Within the metadata of the NFT, Mogul can identify, across multiple platforms, which level of access you will receive. This will allow us to create more unique experiences and utility for specific tiers of Access Pass holders in the future beyond what you see today!

Few other projects in the world allow this level of access to an NFT! Mogul NFTs are integrated, on Day 1, with Rarible and Opensea NFT standards as well as our own Mogul standards for our platform. The cross-platform interoperability and native utility of the Mogul platform is truly unique.We’re excited to continue on this journey with you all!

In fact, you’ll be able to see all the Mogul NFTs you own, all in one place. As your collection starts to grow, it will be entirely viewable from our new NFT viewer, right in the Mogul dashboard.

An example of more interoperable utility to our Access Passes is our recently announced partnership with NFTY Labs. Soon, these NFTs will grant Access Pass holders entry to exclusive, gated Telegram & potentially Discord communities to participate in more intimate conversations with the Mogul team and our partners, including filmmakers and talent!

Plus, we’re hosting the world’s biggest blockchain-based contest, where only Access Pass holders have a chance to earn a role in a movie or even 25,000,000 STARS tokens! Access Pass holders will have more opportunities for exclusive NFT drops like this in the future.

Those of you who requested a physical version of the NFT will receive them as soon as they are ready; we appreciate your patience. Once received, each physical NFT has a unique QR code attached so you can identify that your NFT is real and that it is matched to your digital NFT. Soon, you will be able to verify the authenticity of all your Mogul NFTs at MGLNFT.com. 

We’re proud to be one of the first-ever blockchain projects to connect digital and physical NFTs together at scale as proof that you own the exclusive rights to your Access Pass and all of the amazing benefits that come with it.

Lastly, Access Passes are transferable. This means that you have the ability to trade them with other users so they can enjoy the experience of all that an Access Pass offers, or you can sell them if you choose to. This can be done on OpenSea, Rarible, or within the Mogul NFT Marketplace (coming soon!). You can even hold an auction of your own (like we did with Marvel & DC Comics artist Rob Prior).

We’re always striving to make Mogul better and we will leave no stone unturned in this mission. You can always count on this, especially when it comes to your new Access Pass NFT. 

Sincerely,

The Mogul Team

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About Mogul Productions (Mogul)

Mogul Productions is a decentralized film financing (DeFiFi) platform that connects creators, movie fans, and film financiers in one space to ensure the best films get made by giving everyone a voice. By leveraging blockchain technology, NFTs and a tokenized system, Mogul incentivizes participation and rewards engagement. Using the Mogul in-app payment and utility token (STARS), users can vote on, greenlight, and participate in key decision-making aspects of production.

Website: https://www.mogulproductions.com/ 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mogulofficial_

Jeremiah Kitchen, an early-adopter in the Mogul community, has been using his time this year wisely. The writer & director from Cleveland, Ohio distributed the first season of his wholly original TV series called “A Ball & A Dream” in February and has been relentless in promoting the series digitally during COVID-19.

For Kitchen, a minority filmmaker, this is the second time he’s produced, directed, and distributed a series. He admits the first time was more of a learning experience, and he has higher hopes for A Ball & A Dream.

During his first go-around, Kitchen pressed his artwork onto DVDs and made consignment deals with corner store owners around Ohio; a self-taught lesson in producing, directing, and distribution to learn from. Kitchen himself even said:

“The movie was horrible but a lot of the folks in the neighborhood loved it.”

As an early Mogul member, Kitchen was able to connect with award-winning actor Lyriq Bent to seek advice on the post-production process. He had a strong vision for the show when it was being shot, but recognized some issues early in editing. Lyriq was able to provide a sound wall and give sage advice on the process as someone who has been there before.

This time around, Kitchen planned for several years to bring his production to life. He noted that as a minority producer in a community in the Midwest, thousands of miles from Hollywood, he’s seen filmmakers spend years trying to get their projects financed. The opportunity to produce often never comes for some aspiring filmmakers — and that’s why he took a different approach.

Kitchen felt that he had a voice that needed to be heard. Inspired by Lena Waithe and her creation of “The Chi”, he saved funds for 2 years to produce his short web series. The self-funded producer knew this was an easier path than pursuing financing options in a Hollywood system that often has high barriers to entry, despite only needing what he has described as an incredibly low budget.

As Franklin Leonard, the creator of the Hollywood Blacklist, said on NPR’s Planet Money podcast:

“There is no correlation between being a world-class screenwriter and having the funds to move to Hollywood.”

The first episode of Kitchen’s series has over 20k views on Youtube and his audience is growing from a grassroots fanbase. The latest episode has seen over 30k views.

A Ball & A Dream is loosely based on the life of a young man named Nelson Maxwell who played the main character, Eli, in the series. Eli has enough talent to make it to the NBA, but poor life choices strip him of the opportunity. That is until a wild series of events put him head-to-head in a streetball tournament against a current NBA star (played by Malcolm Walters), which Eli uses as a chance for redemption.

Producing the film was a “trial by fire” experience in learning the art of problem-solving for Kitchen. Playing with little budget, he leveraged some personal relationships who had access to local production studios with cameras, drones, and editing software, put together a cast of young and hungry aspiring actors, and courted local business owners to film at their facilities. Kitchen also had to woo the Cleveland City Hall to get the proper permits to shoot at the famous Abbey Park basketball court, a local spot known to attract streetball players on the lower-income westside of Cleveland. Neighborhood legends, such as former Michigan State basketball player and current actor Delvon Roe, frequently spend their days here playing streetball and dreaming of making it to the NBA.

The series serves as inspiration for many aspiring filmmakers and industry professionals — this wasn’t just a step forward for Kitchen’s career, but Walters (who played Malik Hall) has been cast in two other roles since A Ball & A Dream, including Black Panther 2 with Chadwick Boseman. It shows that you don’t need to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to create your vision to vault your film career.

As Josh Gloer told us on Mogul Live, the best camera an aspiring filmmaker can have is the camera that they currently own!

It took 7 months for Kitchen to finish the series — then he faced the next challenge of distribution. He recognized that he couldn’t press up DVDs in 2020, so he started looking at major digital distributors. Distributing his self-made film on Netflix, Prime, or iTunes originally sounded like a dream-come-true, but after unpacking the fine print, he learned that producer compensation was incredibly low and that his low-budget series would be blocked from the selection screen on the sites even if it was chosen. It would only be found if someone specifically searched for his film.

Kitchen chose Youtube to distribute and monetize the series and used a small budget for digital advertising. Paramount in his decision to self-distribute on Youtube was also the connection with fans. Kitchen felt he’d lose the connection and direct access and contact to his fans, and that the information that these streamers would provide him would diminish his audience down to just demographic data rather than real-life interactions.

He has tried to reach a wider audience and has promoted through Mogul, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook by using hashtags, keywords, placement links, and metadata to continue targeting.

Kitchen has learned a lot from the process and has recognized his mistakes along the way. He’s now working on the second season of his show and has even gotten paid local opportunities in the industry to work with Fox 8 News, The Affinity Baptist Church, and The Cleveland Baptist Association.

You can find Kitchen in the Mogul Community and on his Youtube channel.

In a previous post here at Mogul, we helped you understand exactly what a blockchain is and went a little bit further into why it makes sense for Mogul to use it.

You learned about the basics of the technology, but we put it in the context of the film industry and disruption.

In this post, we’re going to go deeper into the blockchain aspect of things. There are four key benefits that blockchain technology offers to both Mogul and the film industry at large.

The more you understand the basic principles of what a blockchain can do, the more you’ll see the value in the Mogul community. Promise!

Blockchains Have the Potential to Democratize Anything

The Hollywood movie industry is all about the grandiose.

When you consider the scale involved in producing a big-budget movie and the whopping gross revenue numbers that the greatest movie franchises of all time produce, it may surprise you to know that Hollywood is controlled by five major studios and a handful of streaming services. We’ve already talked about that.

Blockchain technology is what Bitcoin is built on. Bitcoin allows people to exchange value without a central authority or government controlling everything.

How does this relate to movies?

You may want a particular movie to be made, but the large studios are generally only interested in pre-existing franchises and new IPs from established filmmakers. Even though there is an audience who wants to see a movie, it won’t be greenlit as it is more of a gamble in their eyes compared to what they are already doing.

Thus, your dream of seeing that movie on the big screen is dashed.

With blockchain technology, however, it doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to be rich to support the next great movie and earn a share of the revenue. You don’t have to bend over backward to keep the above insiders happy.

You ultimately get to push a movie into production that you think has potential. That’s true whether you’re an actor, producer, financier, or movie fan.

Blockchain technology and the Mogul community combine to democratize the entire film value chain for everyone.

Blockchains Make Transactions Transparent

A blockchain is more than just a network of computers tied together for the sake of validating transactions. It is a public ledger that allows anyone to look at transactions and see what’s happening.

Movies tied to the blockchain have to be transparent. The blockchain doesn’t allow for any kind of opaque or hidden “Hollywood accounting”.

In show business, money flows into many different pockets and it’s challenging to keep track of who’s doing what. Different stakeholders involved with a movie production have different priorities.

Actors want to be paid as much as possible. Investors want to profit as much as possible, and producers want to be able to spend the money required to make the best movie they possibly can.

Registering transactions on the blockchain helps keep everybody honest and keeps financial information transparent.

The best part about using the blockchain for movies though is that it’s not just good for tracking financial records. It’s also good at keeping track of decision-making and voting.

Traditionally, only industry insiders and studios get to vote on which moves are going to make it to the big screen next.

Thanks to the blockchain, the Mogul platform lets YOU vote on what should go into production. Voting is powered by the crowd, not the exclusive powers that be.

Increasing Liquidity

Mogul and the blockchain allow for plenty of opportunities for STARS token holders to access liquidity. This means you can back a project, or back out of a project at your own convenience.

Traditional movies are governed by many contracts and stipulations that tie stakeholders into commitments. Financial commitments can increase over time as movies get closer to or often exceed their budgets.

Funding movies on the blockchain means that you don’t have to worry about that. Back a project as much, or as little as you want to, or not at all. The power is in your hands!

Automating Agreements and Payments through Smart Contracts

Now that you know a bit about how Mogul uses the blockchain to help movies that deserve a second chance get funded, it’s time to bring in the concept of smart contracts and explain how they can automate agreements and payments.

A smart contract is a self-executing contract that doesn’t require a lawyer or third party in order to execute. Parties involved in making an agreement together can stipulate payment arrangements and who gets what based on predetermined conditions.

If those conditions are met, the smart contract executes and everybody gets paid what they’re supposed to get paid. If the conditions are not met, the smart contract responds accordingly.

Smart contracts can collect funds from multiple financiers and do it in a faster and cheaper way than traditional contract and negotiations might be able to. They can also distribute funding and resulting revenue from the film to the appropriate stakeholders in the Mogul community.

Summary

As has hopefully been made clear, there are a number of advantages to using blockchain technology in the film financing space. With a wealth of film industry experience, our team have seen the problems first hand, and are convinced that Mogul is the solution. 

We’re willing to do whatever it takes to show everyone what a democratic movie creation process can look like. We hope you’ll stick along for the ride!

Mogul and the STARS token are officially accessible on Binance Smart Chain (BSC), and that’s major news! We’re here to show you the reasons why and to walk you through the benefits of interoperability through Binance Smart Chain. 

What is Binance Smart Chain?

To understand what Binance Smart Chain is, it’s probably helpful to give you some context as to what Binance and Binance Chain are (yes, those are two different things).

Binance

Binance is a private company that originates from China but now runs its business out of Malta. The CEO of Binance is Changpeng Zhao – better known as CZ in online circles – one of the youngest and most influential billionaires in cryptocurrency.

The Binance brand includes a centralized cryptocurrency exchange by the same name, an incubator, a venture capital fund, project launchpads, Binance DEX, a charity, and the Binance Coin.

Binance Chain

Binance Chain is the very first blockchain network ever created under the Binance umbrella. Since Binance Chain does not support smart contracts (self-executing contracts that don’t need third-party involvement), Binance Chain wasn’t ideal for most of the projects that now live on Binance Smart Chain. Binance Chain supports many non-Ethereum based projects.

Binance Smart Chain

Binance Chain didn’t gain the mass adoption that Binance was hoping for (and it still isn’t). Nowadays, Binance Smart Chain is the most trendy and popular property that the company owns.

The difference between Binance Chain and BSC is that the latter supports smart contracts. From a coding standpoint, the BSC blockchain is fairly similar to Ethereum, and Binance is using the product to seemingly compete with Ethereum.

One key difference between BSC and Ethereum is that BSC uses a consensus algorithm called Proof of Staked Authority. We won’t explain that here. All you need to know is that it allows for faster transaction speeds and lower fees than most other methods for reaching consensus on the blockchain. For small users, that can be a huge benefit!

Since Mogul launched in February 2021, Binance Smart Chain has experienced exponential growth in its on-chain usage and daily address growth – nearly 250k addresses per day! 

Compared to Ethereum, which has been the gold standard as a smart contract platform for many years, this is incredibly impressive. Although Ethereum has experienced growth within the same time period, their average is closer to 150k wallets per day.

Now, Mogul (and STARS) have access to both. 

Mogul and Binance Smart Chain: A Match Made for STARS

Now that you understand what Binance Smart Chain is, and the explosive growth that it has had since Mogul’s launch, consider the key benefits the move offers to Mogul.

Marketing

With the crypto market maturing greatly over the last decade plus, marketing and brand awareness is becoming more and more important in the crypto sphere.

As that trend continues, crypto projects tied to popular culture are becoming more and more popular. Crypto isn’t just good for finance, it’s been great for sports, music, art and now, movies. That’s why NFTs have been huge over the last year.

This demand has done something that crypto users don’t like. It’s raising the cost of trading tokens between projects on the Ethereum blockchain because of rising smart contract fees. Binance Smart Chain charges significantly lower fees, but the benefit of being on the platform isn’t just about saving money.

BSC is tied to Binance, a brand that many veteran crypto users already know and trust. BSC not only makes it cheaper and faster to get STARS tokens, it also allows holders to interact with the Binance ecosystem.

We are noticing that more and more members of the Mogul community are moving to BSC in search of lower fees and faster transaction fees.

Spotting these kinds of trends early on is important in the fast-moving world of cryptocurrencies. That’s why getting onto Binance Smart Chain and telling you about it is a top priority here at Mogul!

Speed and Efficiency

It takes no more than three seconds to validate a block on the BSC blockchain. That’s because of the proof-of-stake consensus algorithm mentioned in the sections above. By comparison, it takes up to 13 seconds to validate one block on the Ethereum blockchain. 

If you don’t understand the significance of block time, just keep in mind that BSC can process close to 50 transactions per second compared to Ethereum’s 15 transactions per second. It’s quite a difference!

This makes completing transactions on BSC much more convenient for you, the STARS token holder!

Low Transaction Fees

At the time of this writing, the crypto market is going through a downturn, so there aren’t as many transactions being processed on the Ethereum blockchain as there were six months ago. At the moment, you can complete a transaction for four or five dollars on the Ethereum blockchain. That doesn’t sound like much, but the average cost of a transaction on BSC is around 15 cents.

Remember, we’re comparing a four-dollar transaction fee to 15 cents based on a crypto market that is currently cooling off. Within the last several months, Ethereum users were sometimes paying more than $100 for a single transaction on decentralized exchanges like UniSwap.

Access to Decentralized Applications on BSC

The team at Mogul is always working on forging more partnerships with interesting projects that allow creators and movie lovers the chance to tap into new and unique opportunities.

Having STARS live on BSC means the Mogul community will get access to a wide range of decentralized applications (DApps) that offer all sorts of features, advantages and benefits to users.

At the present moment there are 991 different DApps available within BSC. This means you can access all kinds of other opportunities and still keep transaction fees really fast and really low for yourself. The fact that Binance offers so many DApps with so much promise and efficiency only strengthens the long term use case for the STARS token.

Now you understand a bit more about Mogul’s push to move to Binance Smart Chain and why it’s awesome news for STARS token holders.

Here’s to lower fees, faster speeds, and the continued growth of the Mogul ecosystem! Register and join the movement to decentralize the financing of movies today.

People have been spending more time at home these days than ever before. If that sounds like you, chances are that you’re looking for something new to watch. Look no further than a movie about Bitcoin or cryptocurrency. The movies that we’re about to list fall all over the spectrum as far as critical acclaim goes. However, what’s truly cool about these movies about Bitcoin is that they were the first-movers. They were able to get the conversation going about blockchain and Bitcoin in the movies.

These movies are also good to recommend to your family. That way, whether you see each other virtually or in your home, the topic of Bitcoin can have some context to it. Movies are often a way for people to imagine something they were previously unable to see. Whether or not they have critical acclaim, films bring concepts to life that are hard to visualize, and very few people can do a better job of bringing something to life than a filmmaker.

Go to our website to learn more about how Mogul is disrupting film and blockchain.

Breaking Down the Movies About Bitcoin

The movies we are about to list differ greatly in terms of critical acclaim, style, and type of movie. After watching all three, you will have a strong baseline for understanding the way Bitcoin has been portrayed in the movies.

Banking on Bitcoin (2016)

This 90-minute documentary was created in 2016 by director Christopher Cannucciari. The film traces the history of cryptocurrency. It goes from Bitcoin’s early roots in the cypherpunk movement with computer scientist David Chaum to DigiCash and eCash, to Nick Szabo’s writing about minimizing trust during the time of the 2008 financial crisis.

The documentary also explores different economic concepts like the meaning of a free market, Know-Your-Customer (KYC), and Anti-Money Laundering (AML). Some of the industry juggernauts like the Winklevoss Twins (Facebook, Gemini) and Charlie Shrem (Bitcoin Foundation) are featured in the documentary.

Some crypto enthusiasts say that the film focused too much on the negative aspects of Bitcoin’s past rather than focusing on the protocol’s potential. The documentary has a 67% out of about 100 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

Go here to learn more about how Mogul is disrupting film and blockchain.

Crypto (2019)

When a Wall Street banker is demoted to a bank branch in upstate New York, he ropes a small-town art gallery into an international crypto conspiracy that involves his family and a dangerous Russian gang. The 2019 feature film stars Beau Knapp, Luke Hemsworth, Alexis Bledel, and Kurt Russell.

This crypto film received some mixed reviews from critics. One user on Reddit commented on the plausibility of the thumb drive in the film that is allegedly filled with crypto, calling the thumb drive worthless. However, another Reddit user responded that the thumb drive in the movie could have contained a copy of the owner’s crypto keys, contending the film was accurate. Regardless, as we said before, it’s great that these films got the conversation rolling about Bitcoin on the big screen.

Bitcoin: The End of Money As We Know It (2014)

Despite being the oldest movie on the list, this documentary is known to be one of the best about Bitcoin. The credits include industry favorites like Andreas Antonoplous and Roger Ver, as well as the Director of the American Economic Research Institute, Jeffrey A. Tucker. The doc talks about Bitcoin through the lens of a changing, centralized banking system. The reception was warmer for this documentary than the other movies about Bitcoin. One crypto enthusiast called the documentary their “go-to primer for Bitcoin.”

Comparing the Films

One of the common critiques on the films out now about Bitcoin is that they don’t portray digital currency realistically. To be honest it wouldn’t be the first time Hollywood is accused of too much creative liberty while explaining a niche subject.

The bigger point here is that these films demonstrate blockchain and cryptocurrency has made it to the big screen. However, Mogul will take blockchain and film one step further. We are an engagement platform for industry professionals, contributors, and fans to come together in a transparent way. Mogul delivers an easy-to-use smart wallet and quadratic voting platform.

In Closing

Filmmakers have been exploring the topics of blockchain and Bitcoin on a professional stage since 2014. From documentaries to fully-on Hollywood productions, Bitcoin has made it into the movies. However, Mogul will take the integration of blockchain and film one step further by connecting all the pieces of the film community together. Let us know if you have an idea for creating a screenplay about blockchain!

Established in 2019, Mogul Productions is a blockchain-based film finance and production company with a presence in Canada, the United States of America, and Europe. Mogul’s platform connects contributors, film industry professionals, and fans through technology that allows all users to engage and participate with each project throughout its entire lifecycle.