GEM DIGGERS AMA WITH MOGUL PRODUCTIONS
It’s Ozzy again from Gem Diggers…before we get into this article, if you’re a film fan make sure you get over to www.mogulproductions.com and buy your access pass NOW. There are a limited number remaining and over 35,000 people have already joined!!! I’m one of them…
The film industry really needs no introduction…being a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide everyone knows about it. However if you’ve ever wondered what you can do to influence the film-making process then read on…
Led by Lisa Sun who is the founder and president, Mogul Productions is disrupting the film industry in a major way. They’ve already coined a new hashtag #DeFiFi. It stands for Decentralised Film Financing.
What it means however is truly ground-breaking. For the first time on blockchain, film fans can influence the work of movie creators and film financiers to bring their favourite movies to market, at the same time earning rewards and profits for successful projects. Examples of rewards include earning engagement points that are redeemable for prizes like one of a kind film posters, speaking roles, red carpet tickets, and invitations to exclusive events.
To make all this happen though, you need a world-class team with an excellent track record and far reaching connections in the industry. The team at Mogul Productions definitely ticks this box, just take a look at their track record in this infographic:
Its clear, the team have got the experience, success, industry knowledge and an excellent tech team to make this come alive. With 35,000 fans already engaged this disruptor is sure to be a massive success.
So its no surprise then, that given Gem Diggers quest for sharing knowledge on true blockchain GEMS we had to get some time with Lisa and delve deeper into Mogul Productions.
Here’s the full Q&A from the event that took place recently on t.me/gemdiggers…Lisa’s answers demonstrate the passion she and the team have to make this a huge success!
Ozzy: First off, please tell us a bit about yourself and the core team at Mogul Productions. What brought you together to embark on this venture?
Lisa: I’m the President and Founder of Mogul Productions. I’ve been an avid film financier and blockchain investor for years.
Finally two years ago we saw the problem that film financing and investing was just so difficult! It lacked transparency, efficiency, and standardization.
So that’s why we started Mogul — with the mission to make film financing more inclusive, global, and transparent using blockchain technology and smart contracts.
The story of how we came together to start Mogul is very unique
Our founding team heard the story of Deadpool in 2016 and that’s when we originally wrote the first Mogul whitepaper. Then we started development in 2018.
I had invested in movies before at the script level and it was a really poor experience. No updates were given, the financial terms of investment were archaic, the first money into the project often got the worst deal, and there was no standardization.
One of the projects we invested in had a great experience engaging investors (more information on that project coming soon…. 😺) — they gave monthly updates with behind the scenes photos, told us who was being considered for casting, talked about business development, asked the investors for help and access to specific people in their networks, etc. As an investor or supporter, that’s exactly what you want to see! Transparency and good communication! And to feel like you have inside access to the project
That movie, which was called Bonded, grew a big and dedicated community that made the film very successful during a pre-production phase. This is we’re doing now with Mogul, but on another level with 100x the amount of engagement.
Deadpool was originally the inspiration to write the whitepaper over 2 years ago; I’m sure many of you have heard of the film. With Deadpool, the movie was shelved for 8 years by the studio because they didn’t want to produce it based on the vision of the people involved. The film only came to be because a proof of concept trailer was leaked (“by accident”) by Ryan Reynolds. When the trailer was leaked on YouTube, it went viral and millions of fans demanded that Deadpool got made because they were so passionate and they loved the trailer.
Since then, Deadpool has become the highest grossing R-rated franchise in movie history; and it never would have been made without the Fans.
Our advisor Cindy Cowan was really close to the original Deadpool team when this was happening and tells the story so well!
So in short: we started Mogul because we saw the problems in the film industry and knew it needed a change. A change towards transparency and fan inclusion.
Ozzy: What has been the most challenging issue for you in bringing this project to market, how did you overcome it?
Lisa: In looking at other projects that have tried to blend blockchain and the film industry there was a clear problem. A lot of these projects lacked actual relationships and a track record in Hollywood. A track record of making good, profitable, independent films, which is the niche that Mogul is focusing on. So the problem to solve with us was “let’s assemble an amazing team and make sure they love the vision of Mogul”
And now our team is amazing. Made up of true Hollywood veterans who have really bought into the Mogul production model of transparency through blockchain.
For example, Cindy Cowan. She’s an Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated producer who won an Emmy award last year for Miracle on 42nd Street.
We have Emmy-nominated producer David Cormican who negotiated the first ever Canadian Netflix Original Series distribution deal and has done 3 deals with them since, raising over $175 million for film and television productions over his career!
We also have Piers Tempest who is one of the most popular producers in the UK right now and had his movie, Love Wedding Repeat, as one of the most watched on Netflix last Spring. He also did Military Wives which I personally loved
Oh and Lyriq Bent who you would recognize from the Saw movies if you’re into horror! He’s an actor.
We’ve assembled a team that is excellent at financing, producing and distributing movies; and they have the professional networks that a project like Mogul needs to succeed.
We also know how important it is to grow community and market Mogul to the masses. One of our advisors is Dario Meli, he was the founder of Hootsuite which is a unicorn social media management platform.
Ozzy: With only 2375 access passes available, what happens when all of these have been purchased? How will Mogul Productions grow its user base?
Lisa: That’s a great question. The reason we could only offer that many Access Passes is so that we can offer exclusive experiences to the holders related to our movies. For example, we can’t offer on-set visits to everyone! We needed to limit the number of people who can participate in these bespoke experiences.
When the Access Pass Sale is over, that’s just the start for Mogul. Our goal is to build a product that has millions of users where we’re onboarding the masses from the film industry to blockchain. Our technology is scalable through our partnerships with Polygon, Biconomy, and the architecture that our team has built to allow movie fans from all over the world to be part of Mogul.
With that said, we do have STARS tokens that are going to be used for Ecosystem Development. This means that they will be used for things like contests, referral programs, distribution programs, and more to encourage more users to come to the Mogul platform. The token itself inflates its supply by 4% each year (same as Ethereum) to support the growth of our ecosystem for years to come!
Our NFT marketplace will also be a key driver in growing the userbase. Mogul will be the defacto place where movies meet NFTs.
Mogul, as a company, wants to be an industry leader in onboarding new users to the blockchain industry for the first time. That’s the product focus we have for everything that we build. Our product needs to be able to seamlessly allow a movie fan, who has no experience with blockchain, to sign up and use our platform with no confusion.
When we’re developing we always have that user archetype in mind. We need to, together as an industry, build products that make blockchain more accessible to the masses
Ozzy: I’m a budding filmmaker (I’m not), but say I was, can I make a proposal to Mogul to take on my work for production? If so, how?
Lisa: Of course! As a filmmaker you can sign up today and submit a project. A user just needs to sign up, upgrade their account to an “Industry” profile (this process gives the user the opportunity to connect their IMDb and other filmmaking experience), and then they have access to submit a project.
During the project submission we ask questions on the plot, location, time period of the movie, and of course as for the script. Our team then has a “score card” system where we grade projects out of 100. Projects that score high are then reviewed even further for commercial viability. We take a look at factors like: existing financing in place, potential tax credits, and any attachments (producers, directors, actors) to the project that exist already. In some cases the projects may have foreign sales in place or a sales agent attached to the project as well.
If the project is deemed to be commercially viable we then post it on the Showcase where our fans can engage with the project and its owners and Vote on which ones they want us to finance using their STARS tokens!
Ultimately the final say is in the hands of our users. Which really harnesses the power of the crowd and allows us to make movies that you, the fans, want to see! No longer is the control in the hands of one person working at a studio who can delay a creator’s project for years on end (just like Deadpool). If the fans love a project and ban together, they can make it with Mogul. And it will hopefully be a success because the creators are able to build a connection with their fans and the Mogul community from a script level.
Ozzy: So up front due diligence by the experts and then fans back the winner…that right?
Lisa: Yup! And eventually we’d love to have fans and people in our community play a role in that due diligence process to decentralize it even more. The initial due diligence is done by a distributed team from all over the world with various backgrounds, including producers, directors, accountants, lawyers, and more.
Ozzy: As a STARS holder, I get token rewards for voting on film production, but do I get any of the profits made from the actual film if it gets produced and distributed?
Lisa: 5% of movie profits are shared with a pool. This is a smart contract that will be controlled by our governance contract. STARS holders will collectively choose what they want to do with that profit 🙂
We’ve integrated Chainlink into our profit-sharing architecture so that this process (in concert with our Bond on the project) is also more transparent.
Ozzy: Mogul is on Ethereum, do you have any plans to go multi-chain and increase adoption that way?
Lisa: Yes we do. Our first scaling mission is to deploy onto Polygon with our smart wallet and direct integration with Biconomy so all users have free, instant, gasless transactions using meta transactions with a recoverable and non-custodial wallet interface. It’s going to be amazing!! 😄
We chose Polygon because finality ultimately happens on the Ethereum mainnet, which is where >90% of DeFi is currently happening. Polygon will be supporting all layer 2 scaling infrastructure for Ethereum as well so we’re really happy with that partnership with their team.
Over time I can definitely see us integrating other chains as well if there is enough demand from our users.
Ozzy: With such an impressive track record in your team, you will have great connections and must have some new partnerships brewing, can you share any details?
Lisa: I can only share what’s been announced! But we’re working and doing business development to grow the Mogul ecosystem every single day.
Our Partnerships to date are all about helping us to make Mogul’s platform as user-friendly, engaging and successful as possible.
We’ve already announced a few key partners in the blockchain space:
Chainlink: A big problem with making filmmaking more transparent is getting data from the real world onto the blockchain. With Chainlink, we’re able to bring audited financials onto the blockchain for profit sharing when we’re making our films. Read more here: t.me/mogulnews/39
Polygon: Mogul’s platform will use Polygon’s technology to ensure an ever growing number of people new to blockchain, like many film industry professionals, will enjoy a faster, frictionless user experience of easy instant transactions within the Mogul platform! Read more here: t.me/mogulnews/49
Biconomy: Mogul will simplify blockchain transactions for film industry users by offering free, sponsored transactions on the Mogul Platform, made possible by integrating Biconomy. We just had a great AMA with Biconomy in our Telegram. Check out the AMA here for more: t.me/mogulproductions/14266
Other partners include:
Film Finances Inc: This is a ‘Bond- an insurer that guarantees on-time and on budget delivery of every movie that Mogul produces.
Reelworld Film Festival: The Festival is helping provide Mogul with movies they’ve curated for our platform.
Geomercury: A gaming and development company that is going to help us gamify Mogul to onboard the masses!
Croogloo: production software for more transparency
Moonwhale & GD10 Ventures: blockchain accelerators for access to influencers and marketing
And there is more to come. We’re in talks with some very large projects right now.
Mogul is really about on-boarding the masses from one of the largest industries in the world to blockchain and our partners are key in achieving that.
Ozzy: In what way will STARS holders play their part in governance of the platform?
Lisa: Great question:
- Voting on which movies get made. This is a very cool use case because a lot of DeFi projects have issues with their governance because few token holders vote on proposals. With Mogul, reward voters with STARS for voting on the movies they want to finance during a voting round. This contract is in audit right now and we can’t wait to share it and integrate it into the platform soon
- 5% of profits on our movies — governing where that profit goes
We’re using the Compound governance contract as inspiration for the full governance contract. So users will be able to submit proposals on a variety of topics.
Ozzy: The price per token differs in each access pass tier, as a higher tier holder what is my incentive to keep hold of tokens and not dump them at launch?
Lisa: Mogul is a lot different from other projects. Our platform is built and the STARS token has immediate utility. Users who hold their tokens are able to:
- Submit projects for financing
- Participate in our growth farming campaign with Uniswap integration
- Stake their STARS tokens within our platform
- Vote on movies for financing
- Purchase rewards with their STARS
- And of course bid and purchase NFTs in our marketplace like this drop: https://decrypt.co/61823/buy-marvel-star-wars-nfts-and-watch-the-original-artwork-burn
We’ll be launching details about our STARS Master Chef contract (forked from Sushi) in the next week. This will be deployed on April 22nd when we go live with the growth farming campaign. Here are the rewards available for participating:
So 10% of the STARS supply will rewarded to users who are staking within the first 3–4 months depending on the time of the Ethereum blocks.
Uniswap has one of the largest user bases in crypto, and with this growth campaign, we hope to get tens of thousands of new users on the Mogul platform.
Ozzy: How are you tackling the potential of price dilution with a 4% inflation of STARS tokens per year in the ecosystem?
Lisa: 4% inflation rate is the same as Ethereum. It’s meant to grow the Mogul ecosystem and bring our mission to the masses. The goal with Mogul is to onboard the masses from the film industry and these tokens are used to grow Mogul as a whole.
Ozzy: Is your contract audited, if not what are your plans on this front?
Lisa: All of our contracts are audited by Zokyo, one of the most trusted auditors in blockchain. They audited Badger, Yearn Finance, and now Mogul. They’re a great partner. We don’t “test in prod” and will make sure that every contract we launch undergoes manual and automated smart contract auditing.
All contracts to date have passed the audits with flying colours 🙂
Which really is a testament to the strength of our smart contract developers. They’re awesome!
Ozzy: So, the access pass sale closes on the 15th April, a little birdy told me you have an event planned for 28th April, care to share a sneak preview on it?
Lisa: Yes of course! This is going to be the Livestream with Rob Prior and then our first NFT drop will happen after that.
We’ll have a panel of speakers from some of the biggest companies in crypto at the event, such as Chainlink, Game Credits, one of the founders of Ethereum, ChainGuardians, and more.
Rob will be burning his painting live on camera, and then revealing the NFT. The purpose is so that, for the first time ever, an artist will create a painting and burn it himself for the sole purpose of it ONLY living on as an NFT.
It’s going to be a historic event for blockchain and it is called “Proof of Origin” — where we’re proving that a painting will be destroyed and only live on the blockchain
This is the original press release: https://decrypt.co/61823/buy-marvel-star-wars-nfts-and-watch-the-original-artwork-burn
Make sure you join our channels on Telegram to keep up with this event. Our marketing team will have more details in the coming days
So there it is, a great AMA packed full of useful insight and hints on upcoming events. You don’t want to miss getting in on the access passes and being ahead in the line when it comes to project participation with Mogul Productions.
The winner is!!!
We really appreciate audience participation and this AMA was no exception. In the couple of mins allowed for audience questions, there close to 500 questions posted!!! If that isn’t conviction of the popularity for Mogul Productions I don’t what is…
As you can imagine it took some time for Lisa to review all these but she did and naturally there can only be one winner, here is the winning question.
Winning question:
Lisa’s Answer:
A massive thanks to Lisa and our great audience, see you on the next one.
For more quality AMAs join t.me\gemdiggers now!!!
