Mogul partners with ChainGuardians and the Cryptoverse Alliance; bringing additional utility to the world of gaming and NFTs
Mogul Productions, the decentralized film financing (DeFiFi) and movie-based NFT platform, has partnered with ChainGuardians, an industry-leading blockchain gaming and NFT platform, to increase the utility of movie-based NFTs and provide additional gamification opportunities for our users.
The Cryptoverse Alliance is a group of gaming NFTs that have collaborated with ChainGuardians to allow for cross-platform integration of NFT characters on the ChainGuardians networks. Each NFT is given a unique CGC value upon its launch in the game.
Charguardians will be creating a Mogul Productions NFT character within the game. In addition, Mogul-produced movies will have the opportunity to collaborate with ChainGuardians to create their characters as NFTs within the ChainGuardians universe.
Gaming and NFTs are both industries that are growing exponentially in the size of the audience and ChainGuardians appeals to both industries, as well as the anime audience that has a strong overlap with blockchain users. This collaboration assists Mogul in appealing to a wider, more engaged audience, and brings us one step closer to our mission of facilitating fan-driven, transparent movie-making in Hollywood.
“There’s a clear overlap between the film industry and gaming industry” says Emma Liu, Co-Founder and CEO at ChainGuardians. “This partnership will help both of our userbases collaborate and is mutually beneficial for the growth of both ecosystems.”
“Both of our companies are incredibly focused on mass adoption of blockchain through two of the largest, growing industries in the world, and shipping frequent, working products that our users can interact with.” says Lisa Sun, Founder & President of Mogul Productions. “Our mission and values are very similar and we’re excited for the growth and future collaborations together!”
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.
ChainGuardians is a blockchain meets superheroes gaming ecosystem which combines traditional gaming concepts with blockchain technologies. As well as boasting the world’s first NFT Mining Platform and interoperable RPG, ChainGuardians also merges awe-inspiring artwork with imaginative storytelling. ChainGuardians amalgamates the juxtaposing concepts of play-to-earn and free-to-play through a balanced in game ecosystem; enabling users the opportunity to make key decisions through governance.
– Come join us in the fight against The Gatekeepers on Telegram and find out more.
Mogul will be working with GeoMercury to continue developing the gamification of the Mogul platform
Mogul Productions, the decentralized film financing (DeFiFi) and movie-based non-fungible token (NFT) platform, has partnered with GeoMercury to assist with gamification; supporting customer acquisition and retention.
GeoMercury has a wide range of online gaming experiences — they have built augmented reality softwares, worked to build billion dollar brands such as Party Poker, and recently received the prestigious European Commission Award for their work on a popular mobile application. Their development team is seasoned at building everything from html5 games to Unity 3D based simulation games.
“For Mogul, this partnership brings us one-step closer to onboarding the masses from the film industry. Gamification continues to be a global trend in marketing and user growth and retention. Our focus is to create experiences and a marketing funnel that draws users to the Mogul platform to join our engaged community of users who are, together, helping create the next blockbuster hits” said Gagan Grewal, CEO of Mogul Productions.
“We are excited for what the future holds. Marketing and engagement through gamification is our expertise and we will bring that to the Mogul community to assist in growing the power of the crowd” said Piotr Blazewicz, CEO of GeoMercury.
GeoMercury’s team is based in Europe (UK, Gibraltar, and Spain) and works with other partners across North America and Asia. They have been building unique games for the past 6 years and these have been used by some of the largest operators in the gaming sector.
Geomercury’s experience working with these large companies will be instrumental in releasing games and products to support Mogul’s user base, which has grown to 30,000 users in just 5 weeks since launching their product.
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.
About GeoMercury
GeoMercury is a digital advertising and development agency that helps improve value from advertising through increased conversion, attention, and frequency of visits to our customers’ websites. We produce games, quizzes, puzzles, and more to engage user bases.
Mogul partners with ApeSwap; giving STARS token holders increased use cases on the Binance Smart Chain
Mogul Productions, a decentralized film financing and movie-based NFT platform bringing together movie fans, creators, and financiers, is partnering with ApeSwap, the fastest-growing decentralized exchange (DEX) and community within the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) ecosystem.
ApeSwap is a decentralized, community-owned exchange platform that, due to being deployed on the Binance Smart Chain, is more cost-effective than using Uniswap; especially for frequent users.
ApeSwap gives tokens more utility through participation in their farms, pools, and Initial Ape Offerings (IAOs); all of which center around their BANANA and GNANA tokens. Users can stake their existing tokens to earn BANANA and vice versa.
The site currently boasts nearly $300 million in total value locked and 155,000+ followers on its social media channels. The BANANA token is a top 350 cryptocurrency by market capitalization and the project’s expanding group of partners currently includes 90+ different strategic alliances.
STARS holders will be able to use ApeSwap as of July 15, 2021; giving Mogul access to ApeSwap’s growing userbase of 400,000 monthly active users
Apart from ApeSwap integrating STARS into their platform, Mogul and ApeSwap are joining forces in a host of marketing efforts centered around introducing STARS to the BSC ecosystem. These co-marketing efforts will give Mogul exposure to ApeSwap’s engaged userbase, including their 30,000 BANANA holders and non-fungible ape holders.
As part of the partnership, ApeSwap is featuring Mogul on ApeTV, a global podcast series reaching listeners from more than 30 countries that is now streaming on Spotify.
The partnership will also include:
Multiple Twitter and Telegram giveaways from both projects for users to earn STARS and BANANA
An ecosystem development campaign, where Mogul Access Pass holders will be gifted $10,000 worth of free BANANA, and non-fungible ape holders will be gifted STARS BEP20 tokens
A GNANA staking pool to earn STARS
Official STARS listing on ApeSwap
A STARS/BNB LP farm to earn BANANA
Anonymous ApeSwap founder Obie Dobo says the amazing growth that Mogul has experienced in such a short time makes the partnership a match made in DeFi heaven:
“We identified Mogul as a top Ethereum project in the NFT space based on the fact that they’ve grown their audience to over 50,000 users and done more than $10 million in NFT sales. We’re incredibly excited to launch STARS products on ApeSwap”.
“Given that both Mogul and ApeSwap are two of the fastest-growing projects in the cryptoverse and more and more users are looking to BSC-friendly platforms to get their hands on crypto, the partnership is a great milestone for us, says Lisa Sun, Founder and President of Mogul Productions. “Community growth is important to us at Mogul, and we’re excited by the engaged ApeSwap community – we’re sure to find some movie fans there!”
About Mogul Productions (Mogul)
Mogul Productions is a decentralized film financing project connecting creators, film financiers, and movie fans together, giving everyone the opportunity to participate in producing and distributing big-budget movies.
Using blockchain technology, NFTs, and tokenomics, Mogul incentivizes participation and engagement. The STARS token allows users to complete in-app payments and vote on key decision-making surrounding green lighting and producing feature films.
ApeSwap is a leading decentralized exchange (DEX) on Binance Smart Chain and Polygon focused on offering a premier trading experience. Users are incentivized to pool liquidity on ApeSwap through yield farming to earn the native currency, $BANANA. Additionally, apes can use their earned $BANANA to stake and earn other tokens and unlock exclusive features. Built by DeFi apes, for DeFi apes, we have a dedicated team with years of experience who are committed to the DeFi community and growing the ApeSwap Jungle.
Mogul to launch on mainnet with Chainlink oracle integration, providing transparent profit sharing with future film financing investors.
Mogul will integrate Chainlink, the market-leading blockchain oracle network, to bring more transparency and accessibility to film production and financing. Mogul to use the Chainlink Network to bring off-chain movie budget and profitability data onto the blockchain, enabling the disbursement of audited, fair-market profit sharing with investors in a more efficient, transparent, and accurate way than ever before. Mogul will also make use of a Chainlink ETH/USDC decentralized Price Feed to ensure users receive fair market exchange rates on all ETH profits derived from USD-denominated budgets.
Mogul’s vision is to be an innovative and progressive film financier and production company leveraging blockchain technology for voting, investment, and rewards. With our proprietary platform, we are looking to engage audiences and investors through the entire script-to-screen process, with the mission to promote investment transparency in independent film financing.
Independent film financing is opaque, hard to access, lacks standardization, and has costly closing costs; all of which are great use cases for blockchain technology. By using a transparent and efficient blockchain-based system for film financing, Mogul can produce films at a lower budget rate than traditional models. In addition, Mogul’s unique rewards system using STARS allows independent projects to curate an audience for their film at the script level, helping Mogul and film distributors better predict a film’s expected ROI using early fan sentiment indicators.
A key barrier to applying financial transparency to film production is the sheer number of transactions that occur outside the blockchain. In traditional film financing, it’s difficult to collect, analyze, and distribute profits transparently to investors given the complexity of budgets and number of disparate parties involved.
To combat this, Mogul will be using a Collection Account Manager (CAM), who serves as the unbiased third-party auditor of all Mogul films, accounting for revenue and distributing profits to the appropriate parties at scheduled intervals. However, to enable a CAM to serve as the arbitrator of how profits are automatically distributed on the blockchain, Mogul needs to make use of a blockchain oracle which is secure middleware that relays the CAM’s data to the smart contract to trigger the execution of payouts.
Chainlink is the most widely-used blockchain oracle in the industry, securing over $5 Billion in user funds for leading blockchain applications. Chainlink’s proven oracle technology is leveraged by numerous blockchains such as Ethereum, Polkadot, and Avalanche; as well as large enterprises. The Chainlink framework is data agnostic, allowing any off-chain data type to be delivered to on-chain smart contracts. There is already a large ecosystem of traditional data providers and smart contract applications connecting to one another through the Chainlink Network.
Chainlink’s technology ensures data accuracy, security, and reliability using a decentralized network of independent, security reviewed oracle nodes to redundantly source and deliver data aggregated off-chain data to smart contracts. The result is a reliable, tamperproof, and transparent data delivery process. Importantly, stakeholders can independently verify the on-chain activity of the oracle network, which includes data pertaining to the film’s financing, auditing, and other types of relevant metrics. By integrating Chainlink, Mogul’s CAM will be able to provide profit-level data to Chainlink oracle nodes, which deliver this data on-chain to trigger the execution of transparent profit distributions based on previously agreed upon financial terms for each film. Mogul can also ensure investors receive reliable exchange rates on payouts.
“Mogul’s tech, development, and film advisory teams identified a major barrier to entry for the film industry’s adoption of blockchain technology”, explains David Cormican, Emmy®-nominated Producer (Tokyo Trial, Tulipani, The Tall Man, Faces In The Crowd), Co-Founder and President of Don Carmody Television (DCTV) and Mogul Productions’ Co-Founder and film advisory board member.
“Blockchain, when applied to the film industry, can provide financial transparency for film financiers when it comes to project expenses, crew, cast and vendor payments and more importantly — profit-sharing. Currently these are all very manual processes that happen behind the scenes. By bringing verifiable off-chain data to the blockchain through our integration with Chainlink, we can provide our investors enhanced transparency, while protecting the privacy and confidentiality of our cast and crew.”.
“We’re pleased to provide a secure oracle solution for Mogul to enable them to use real-world data from trusted sources to coordinate film financing processes,” said Daniel Kochis, Head of Chainlink Business Development. “A Chainlink-powered decentralized oracle network will bring reliable on-chain data to Mogul’s democratized film financing solution, ensuring that financiers are fairly compensated for their investments.”
Exploring Future Integrations with Chainlink
Mogul is exploring other avenues to leverage blockchain and smart contract technology, and has already built a recoverable smart wallet, rewards, and in-app currency token system, as well as a digital asset token and voting system.
We’re excited to explore even more opportunities with Chainlink and enter new verticals for blockchain and film together.
Future integration ideas:
Accessing verifiable randomness to assign rewards to raffle ticket owners or enable the fair selection of investors wanting to participate in high-demand projects
Mogul Productions is a decentralized film financing (DeFiFi) platform that connects creators, movie fans, film financiers and other contributors in one space to ensure the best films get made by giving everyone a voice. By leveraging blockchain technology and a dual token model, Mogul incentivizes participation and rewards engagement. Using the Mogul in-app payment and utility token (STARS), users can vote for their favorite films to be greenlit and participate in key decision-making aspects of production. Mogul’s continuous film fund ensures constant liquidity, allowing investors to redeem their investments at any time. Mogul’s production team and advisors are award-winning Hollywood veterans who have written, directed, acted in, and produced diverse slates of films and TV shows.
About Chainlink
Chainlink is the most widely used and secure way to power universal smart contracts. With Chainlink, developers can connect any blockchain with high-quality data sources from other blockchains as well as real-world data. Managed by a global, decentralized community of hundreds of thousands of people, Chainlink is introducing a fairer model for contracts. Its network currently secures billions of dollars in value for smart contracts across the decentralized finance (DeFi), insurance and gaming ecosystems, among others.
Chainlink is trusted by hundreds of organizations to deliver definitive truth via secure, reliable data feeds. To learn more, visit chain.link, subscribe to the Chainlink newsletter, and follow @chainlink on Twitter.
Here we are in the month of June! We’re excited to share with you all the progress that we’ve made over the month of May. There is no shortage of updates for you.
Our team continues to work hard to onboard more and more users and introduce them to everything that the Mogul Productions ecosystem has to offer. We are absolutely blown away by how many people are getting involved in the decentralization of film production, financing, and overall film fandom. Our community gets stronger by the day.
The highlight of the month was no doubt our Proof of Origin event featuring Marvel & DC Comics artist Rob Prior. You can watch the entire event here if you missed it (or if you just want to relive the excitement!). Almost 400,000 people watched it via half a dozen platforms, so we’re not alone in showing our excitement!
Quick Bites:
Prior’s painting, Reign of Money.… what the f$ck, was BURNED! The NFT sold to the highest bidder for 5,500,000 STARS, or ~$182,000 USD on May 28th after a 24 hour bidding period.
2,755,555 STARS tokens were burned after the auction.
Entrepreneur Paul Sparkes has joined Mogul as a Strategic Advisor. Sparkes is the co-founder of a publicly traded finance company and a former Senior Executive at Bell Media.
Mogul is partnering with NFTY Labs, an NFT technology and infrastructure company. The partnership is going to increase the utility of Mogul NFTs and offer users curated and token-gated communities for NFT holders with exclusive access.
Mogul has appointed R&CPMK, the leading entertainment public relations & marketing agency, to handle its entertainment publicity and communications.
Mark your calendars: Mogul Live is coming back on June 22nd! Stay tuned for who the guest will be…
Mogul in the Press!
Check out these articles that featured Mogul in the month of May:
Forbes mentioned Mogul in an article about NFTs as a new revenue stream for the movie industry.
Mogul now has a robust Help Center available to users who want to get answers to Frequently Asked Questions like “What is an Access Pass?”, “How do I purchase STARS tokens?” and more…
Using the Mogul Help Center is as easy as accessing the live chat teacher on the bottom right-hand corner of any page after logging into Mogul. Typing questions or keywords in the search box under Find your answer now and voila!
The month of June has shown no signs of slowing down so stay tuned for another big month!
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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. Leveraging blockchain and a tokenized model, Mogul incentivizes participation and engagement. Using the Mogul in-app currency and utility token (STARS). users can vote for their favorite films to be greenlit and can also participate in key decision-making aspects of the production. STARS holders are key governing bodies of the Mogul platform, including the profit-sharing pool of capital accruing from Mogul-funded movies. Mogul’s production team and advisors are award-winning Hollywood veterans who have written, directed, acted in, and produced diverse slates of films and TV shows.Want to change how you receive these emails?
Award-winning producer Cindy Cowan preaches networking and showing personality in Hollywood
Recent Emmy Award-Winning producer, Cindy Cowan, was featured on Mogul Live as a guest on June 30th. As a highly decorated producer, Cindy co-founded Initial Entertainment Group (IEG) in 1995. From its conception to its sale in 2000, IEG became a leading film production and foreign sales company. IEG had many successes including an Emmy-nomination for Rent-A-Kid; Emmy, Golden Globe and People’s Choice nominations for If These Walls Could Talk; the coveted United Nations Award for Savior; and four Oscar wins for Traffic.
As last month’s Monthly Mogul, Cindy most recently won an Emmy for her part as the producer for Miracle on 42nd Street, a documentary about Manhattan Plaza, a federally subsidized residential complex in New York City for performing artists.
Mogul is lucky to have Cindy as a production advisor as well! When Mogul is producing independent films, Cindy will be overseeing production to share her knowledge, best practices, and contacts, and she might even be producing some of the films herself!
“With a platform like Mogul you will have someone like myself to at least oversee [production] and pass on knowledge.”
Here are some key takeaways from Cindy’s interview on Mogul Live with James Pratt:
Starting the interview, Cindy talked about starting IEG with Graham King and how she could have never imagined how successful it would be. A Florida girl at heart, Cindy made her way to LA initially doing songwriting and had some early successes that she parlayed into her new production company. Many people told what she couldn’t do and she was determined to prove them wrong by showing what she could do.
“I was a machine for 5 years.”
She was unconventional and bold; becoming an overnight success in Hollywood. IEG was eventually sold to Spectrum, and after 5 years without a single day off or a single vacation, she was able to marvel on the impressive business that she built, but wanted to take a step back. She admits that her company always came first and that her personal life suffered because of it. Cindy and her company bought, financed, or produced 25 movies in 5 years which is unheard of!
She wanted to reclaim her femininity and take a step back from the intensity. She took nearly 6 years off and many people told her that “you’re only as good as your last job” in Hollywood and that if she left for too long no one would remember her. She didn’t find that at all and has come back to the industry with a new mindset. Her advice is to:
“Have a balance. You need to have a balance in life no matter what. […] I lost the balance and going forward my weekends are my weekends now, and I’m still finding that I am equally successful.”
For those looking to get their foot in the door in the industry, Cindy said to find what you’re passionate about and that too many people are “passionate about everything”. She added that you need to take baby steps in the film industry as a writer, producer, director, or whatever you want to be. You need to identify your passion and then take those steps. You can’t be passionate about everything!
“The other advice I cannot say enough is network, network, network.”
Cindy added that if two actors walk into a room and she knows one of them, she’s more likely to cast the one she knows because she’ll be working with them on set for the next two months. She feels comfortable working with people she knows.
For those of you who are looking to make the move to LA to pursue your career, Cindy preached that no job is too small and the best way to approach a career in LA is to take whatever job you have and be the best at it and get to know every single person you come into contact with — even if you’re just delivering coffee. Stay current with trends in the industry and continue reading the trade magazines and be knowledgeable.
Cindy took this mindset with her own career and said:
“I was going to be the best at what[ever] I did.”
We are seeing a huge trend here on Mogul Live with now three award-winning producers, Josh Gloer, David Cormican, and now Cindy, mentioning the value of networking to reach your career goals in the film industry, which is exactly what we’re cultivating with the Mogul community.
James also asked Cindy what her advice is for actors looking to be cast in roles.
“I like to see actors that come into an audition and are themselves.”
Cindy told viewers to master their craft, meaning if you are an American playing a British role, make sure you really have the accent down during the whole audition! She also advised communicating candidly with the producers as well, but warned not to overstay your welcome! Producers want to cast actors they feel a connection with because they will be working with them for months so don’t be standoffish.
“Let your mask down, be vulnerable, and let us see your range.”
Towards the end of the interview, Cindy spoke about Mogul with true, passionate excitement.
“Mogul is going to make it easier and better for the industry because they are stacking people [like myself] that have different pieces of knowledge and skills to help assist other filmmakers.”
She noted that there are opportunities for platforms like Mogul to really become THE platform [to launch independent films].
“Platforms such as Mogul are really more important than ever right now.”
When asked about the ideal budget for an independent film, Cindy said she likes the budget to be under $5 million USD because over that you have more risk. With that restriction, it’s becoming harder and harder to shoot films in America, especially because the tax credits are so advantageous in other areas. Her next two films are being shot in South Africa and Thailand, and she was able to save between $2-$4 million USD by shooting in South Africa for her next film.
Recently, Cindy worked on a film with Robert DeNiro called Red Lights in Barcelona and it was her first movie after her 6-year hiatus.
Asked about his personality, Cindy (who actually calls him Bob!) surprisingly responded that he is quite shy! She was able to get through though and told a great story about him, being a foodie at heart, actually pulling some strings to shut down a Michelin Star restaurant for their crew to have a 40-course tapas meal!
“He’s an actor that stays in character offset most of the time.”
As one of her final pieces of advice, Cindy gave:
“We all have to embrace technology [in the film industry]”
Sage advice for those learning about Mogul for the first time, where we are using technology to help improve the independent film financing and production process to make it more transparent and inclusive.
If you want to keep up with Cindy, her upcoming projects include True Haunting, a supernatural thriller with Screen Gems; a music-based project with TriStar loosely based on a true story involving ‘NSync; Eye in the Sky, an action thriller with Millennium films; Line of Control, a political thriller with the Exchange; and a female-empowerment story about the girl who struck out Babe Ruth starring Abigail Breslin. Additionally, Cindy is producing a faith-based film entitled Iron Will, as well as various TV shows including Ellis Island, a scripted series about immigration during the 1910’s. Unsurprisingly, Cindy is also venturing into unscripted television with Seekers, a reality format showing the various modalities people are choosing to seek enlightenment in this world of darkness, as well as a show documenting the rebranding of Maxim Magazine.
Follow Mogul on Instagram to tune into the next Mogul Live, where all fans can engage with moguls.
ABOUT MOGUL PRODUCTIONS (MOGUL) Mogul Productions, established 2019, is a blockchain-based film financier and production company with a presence in Canada, the United States of America and Europe.
The Mogul platform connects contributors, film industry professionals and fans through technology that allows all users to engage and participate with each project throughout theirs entire lifecycle, from financing through to production and distribution.
On April 23rd, Mogul’s James Pratt, top international luxury and celebrity home auctioneer and 2019 Australian Auctioneer Of The Year Award winner went LIVE on Instagram with one of the stars of Netflix’s new hit comedy series, Huge In France, Jordan Ver Hoeve (Snapchat’s Boss Cheer, upcoming Exploited).
James & Jordan chatted about Jordan’s acting journey thus far, how he’s coping with COVID-19, and acting in the digital age.
Here are Mogul’s top 3 takeaways from the chat:
Persistence is key in kickstarting your acting career
Joran actually rode his bike around LA with his headshots and literally knocked on doors to get his first gigs! Talk about taking your career into your own hands!
Be comfortable outside of your comfort zone
Jordan used to be uncomfortable making himself vulnerable but tirelessly worked on his craft. Even when he was working on restaurants he was trying different acting routines on the tables he was serving!
COVID-19 is showing the need for more digital platforms for film professionals
Jordan is practicing his craft with his coaches for over 4 hours a day on Zoom. Nothing is slowing him down! Jordan noted that there is nothing like Mogul out there for the film industry right now and that it really helps [actors].
Head on over to mogulproductions.com to answer trivia questions about Jordan’s career and earn STARS!
Upcoming interviews and already scheduled guests on Mogul LIVE include:
• April 29 @ 4pm PST, leading Hollywood concept and storyboard artist, Dane Hallett (Mad Max: Fury Road, Aquaman, X-Men Origins: Wolverine)
• May 4 @ 12pm PST, Hollywood PR Queen Bee & TV personality, Jessica Ross
• May 7 @ 12pm PST, President & Founder of family friendly Jul-TV Network, Tom Julian
• May 12 @ 12pm PST, Hollywood Manager and the head of LA Management’s Youth Division, Trisanne Marin
If you’re a longtime follower of Mogul Productions then you’re familiar with our Instagram Live show, Mogul Live. It’s an intimate interview between host and a special guest, and we’re ecstatic to announce that Mogul Live is BACK!
Mogul Live is a Mogul-produced interview series that has garnered 1000s of live viewers, with host James Pratt intimately chatting with award winning Hollywood professionals in real-time.
To date, the show has had over 60 guests that have been part of some of the world’s biggest and most successful movies/TV shows, including Fast & Furious (stunt pilot Frédéric North), Netflix’s Daybreak (star Greg Kasyan), Traffic (Oscar-winning producer Cindy Cowan), and many more!
Among their many accolades, past guests on Mogul Live have claimed 10 Emmys and been nominated for many more, have starred in no fewer than four Netflix shows, and won three Academy Awards!
You can see why we’re so excited about this, right?
In the past, guests were almost always working actors, directors, producers, and other members of the film & entertainment industry. Going forward, we’ll stick to a similar pattern.
Twice monthly, James will welcome a new guest onto the show, and over the course of their conversation we’ll get to know what they’re working on, what might have been recently completed, and where you can see them on the big or small screen!
If you haven’t guessed by now, Mogul Live airs from our BRAND NEW Instagram feed. Follow us at @mogul.official to ensure you don’t miss James’ next interview.
The first guest on Mogul Live’s return is Emmy-nominated producer, David Cormican! David is an entrepreneur, an Emmy-nominated producer, and the Co-Founder & President of Don Carmody TV.
James Pratt is an award winning actor, director and celebrity favorite within luxury real estate auctioneering. He’s one of Australia’s Top 5 Under 35 in Entertainment. And, he is regarded as one of the most successful and youngest real estate auctioneers in the world for luxury homes!
Mohit Ramchandi is the Director and Writer of Bonded, the first-ever feature film hand-picked and financed by Mogul.
Bonded tells the story of a Mexican teenager whose dreams of becoming a soccer star are derailed when his mother dies. He is smuggled across the border with the promise of a better life but instead ends up being sold to a sweatshop in downtown Los Angeles.
This past weekend, Mo sat down with James Pratt for a Mogul Live chat on Instagram. In the 25-minute interview, he details how he came up with the idea for the movie, how he pushed through hard times to get it funded, and what it was like working with lead actor Jason Patric.
Mo is no stranger to big-budget movies. His previous film credits include working on Outlaws and Angels featuring Luke Wilson, and Two Days, featuring Paul Rudd and Adam Scott.
Mo’s passion for bringing awareness to the world’s ongoing struggles with child slavery through Bonded shines through during the interview. We wanted to share the highlights with you.
Bonded represents Mo’s directorial debut in full-length feature films, so we had to ask him how it all started.
The True Story of a Pakistani Child Slave Turned Advocate and the Success of Slumdog Millionaire Inspires Bonded
“I originally had written a film about a kid from Pakistan who is sold into slavery in the late 1980s. His name was Iqbal Masih. This is a true story he was sold into slavery into a carpet factory and he ended up breaking free and becoming the spokesperson for the Bonded Labour Liberation Front which is an organization fighting the Pakistani government to change the labor laws.
His crusade kind of grew. He came to America and met Senator John Kerry. He won the Reebok Human Rights Award at the age of 13. When he went back (to Pakistan), the government had him murdered because had become the spokesperson for anti-child labor laws….”
Ramchandi continues about writing the script and how it finally got made after he sold it to Saving Private Ryan producer, Mark Gordon. He recalls Gordon saying nobody in Hollywood wants to see a movie about Pakistani and Indian kids…and then:
“…lo and behold two years later, Slumdog Millionaire came out and became the most profitable film for 20th Century Fox outside of Star Wars, and he (Gordon) says ‘Hey kid! Guess what? Now there’s already been a movie with Indian and Pakistani kids, so now we have to find something else’…”
With Masih as his inspiration, you might be wondering why Bonded is set in Mexico and Los Angeles actors instead. It’s because Ramchandi eventually sent the script to Peirce Brosnan’s production company and Brosnan enlightened Mo about the fact that Los Angeles’ fashion industry employs child slaves too.
Ramchandi spent a year researching the issue and found out that more than 160,000 Latin Americans are enslaved in LA’s fashion industry working in underground sweatshops.
Jon Graham Introduces Mo to Mogul
Jon Graham is a former executive at Viacom and a good friend to the Mogul community. He’s the one that convinced Mo he could get financing for his movie from movie fans, creators, and financiers. In addition to leveraging the power of Mogul, Mo created a mission statement sent out to industry insiders that drew the attention of an A-List actor and producer. Now, he’s just a few months away from releasing the trailer. All of this while putting his career on hold to take care of his ailing mother and then working through a global pandemic.
“I wrote the film in 2011. Pierce Brosnan wanted to play the American cop in the movie. It was all set up to go but unfortunately my mother got diagnosed with stage IV bone marrow cancer. I abandoned the project and spent the next six years taking care of my mom. She passed away in 2017. I went through a year of dealing with that at the end of 2017 I decided I would make the film. I had a friend who actually introduced me to Mogul, Jon Graham. I had been friends with him for years and said ‘Hey, I want to make this story…”
..” I made this mission statement video and the mission statement video helped me raise the money and that’s when I got the cast together and so forth…”
The Challenges of Covering a Gut-Wrenching Subject like Child Slavery
For Mo, Bonded is truly a passion project. He didn’t take a salary to be the Director, and he didn’t want to create a documentary that only those really interested in issues surrounding child slavery would watch. Instead, he was driven to create a movie as a way to inform the masses and touch them enough to get equally passionate about the issue.
Mo recognizes that awareness surrounding child slavery is deeply lacking:
“…Nobody cares about the issue. Most people don’t care. They are so involved in their own lives, and that really affected me a lot because my only motivation for making this film was that I wanted to shed light on this issue in America…
Mo goes on to talk about how he didn’t take any money to make the movie and what it’s like to try to bootstrap a movie that you care about so much:
“I didn’t have a producer. Nobody wanted to produce this movie because there was no money. I was lucky that I had these two investors, Jon Graham and Rufus Parker. They stepped up to help produce the film, even though they both have full-time jobs. For every one person I found that bought into the cause, I found 10 people that just really didn’t care.
On a slim budget with many challenges overcome in his personal life, Mo talks about how difficult yet enlightening it was to develop a relationship with lead actor Jason Patric:
“It was tough. In the beginning, we didn’t get along. What’s really interesting is that he’s very, very smart. A lot of people don’t know this but Jason is the grandson of Jackie Gleason and his father is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright. As I sort of let him in, I realized Jason has a world of wisdom for me.
He was great!… He cared so much about the story and we butted heads a lot during the shooting of the film but we became very good friends… He’s meticulous and he is very smart.”
By the end of September 2021, Mo plans to finish post-production on Bonded and release the trailer. He credits his production team, the actors, and Mogul for helping it get to the big screen in a way that might not have otherwise come to fruition.
Mo’s passion and ability to tell a story shines throughout the entire Mogul Live interview and the earliest clips of the movie look both dramatic, thought-provoking, and inspiring.
Mo’s drive to create Bonded and his willingness to put his faith in the wisdom of the crowd by letting Mogul come along for the ride are a testament to the work ethic and belief that it takes to get a meaningful message across in a Hollywood caliber film that may not have otherwise gotten another look.
Here’s to Mogul making a definite impact on Hollywood!
As the summer months are flying by and COVID-19 is still impacting most of the world (and the film industry) we’re grateful here at Mogul that we’ve been able to make such great progress this month. We’re also so excited to watch our community members generate success for themselves as well through these unprecedented times.
The second season of Mogul Live picked up right where we left off with Season 1, and thousands of fans tuned in to engage with all of the moguls we had on this month. We were lucky enough to interview Emmy-winning producer Cindy Cowan who has also been nominated for Oscars and Golden Globes, Emmy-nominated producer David Cormican, TV producer Josh Gloer who has produced and written for fan-favorite shows such as Gear Dogs, Selling LA and Duck Dynasty, independent producer and co-founder of Cast Caller Justin Levine, and founder of Yaplat casting agency Kathryn Courtney-Prior.Here is the lineup for this month’s guests:
Lyriq Bent — award-winning celebrity actor who’s known for his work in the Saw films, The Book of Negroes, The Affair, Acrimony, and Nappily Ever After (July 8th noon PST)
Gabriel Napora — CEO of Electric Panda Entertainment and independent producer with Triton Films Inc. (July 14th noon PST)
Terry Ryan — former NHL hockey player, author, and actor (July 21st time TBD)
Zaib Shaikh — Consul General of Canada for Southern California, Arizona and Nevada and former film Commissioner and Director of Entertainment Industries for the City of Toronto (July 30th noon PST)
Send us an email at [email protected] if you, or someone you know, would be a good candidate to be a guest on Mogul Live!
In early June we partnered with Reelworld Film Festival to support our mission of making the film industry more inclusive and transparent.
In response to the partnership, Mogul advisor and award-winning actor Lyriq Bent added:
“I am very excited to be part of this collaboration, especially given the current social landscape. This helps Mogul’s aim of providing an environment of trust and transparency in the creative process.”
Award-winning actress Tonya Williams (Young & The Restless), who is the Founder and Executive Director of Reelworld, added:
“We applaud the work Mogul is doing in creating more inclusion and diversity in the entertainment industry and look forward to our media artists harnessing this new platform to present their unique perspectives and significant voices to the world.”
Check out these articles that featured Mogul this month:
Flicks Daily covered our partnership announcement with Reelworld
Indie Activity writes about our interview with Yaplat Casting’s Kathryn Courtney-Prior
Indie Activity also summarized our interview with Justin Levine
Any journalists, bloggers, podcasters, or content creators are encouraged to contact us [email protected] as we’d love to work with you!
Monthly Mogul
If you know of another member of the Mogul community who is accomplishing great things in the industry and deserves to be recognized by their peers, let us know! We’re always looking to celebrate and highlight the successes of outstanding Moguls!
This month’s Monthly Mogul is Lyriq Bent! Lyriq is an advisor for Mogul and part of the Mogul community. Lyriq is currently focusing his efforts on creating an environment of inclusion and transparency in film and the world. This month the Black Business and Professional Association (BBPA) announced the 2020 honourees for the 38th Annual BBPA Harry Jerome Awards. Lyriq was given the BBPA Harry Jerome Arts Award. He was also featured on the Canadian Television Network (CTV) show “Change & Action: Racism in Canada” to speak about why we need more diverse storytelling in film. Watch his full interview here.
Community Spotlight
Here’s what some of our community members have been up to this month:
Cindy Cowan has her first movie going into production this year from Sony Screen Gems studio, which is a label that specializes in horror films. The movie is called True Haunting and is a real-life horror based on the first ever televised exorcism in 1971 and what happened to the family once the cameras were turned off… Sounds spooky! We cant wait to announce more updates. They will begin principal production in South Africa on October 5th. Gary Fleder is directing and they are currently casting.
Terry Ryan announced on his Instagram page that he is starting to write his second novel. His first book, Tales of a First Round Nothing, was a best selling novel on Amazon. For Mogul community members, you can message Terry on Instagram @terryryan2020 to purchase a personalized signed copy of his book! Just let him know that you found him through Mogul.
Shoot us a message if there are others in our community who have been Moguls this past month for a shoutout!
Industry Reads
Top, curated industry reads directly from our team that piqued our interest over the last month:
ABOUT MOGUL PRODUCTIONS (MOGUL)
Mogul Productions, established 2019, is a blockchain-based film financier and production company with a presence in Canada, the United States of America and Europe.
The Mogul platform connects contributors, film industry professionals and fans through technology that allows all users to engage and participate with each project throughout theirs entire lifecycle, from financing through to production and distribution.
