Picturama-DeFi - Financing Independent Cinema

We aim to finance independent films and transfer the “decision making” power from gargantuan entities to citizens across the globe.

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Inspiration

Tldr: Getting an independent film funded these days sucks, because financing is increasingly centralized with entities that only care about mass market appeal.

Long: Creativity in cinema is being strangled by centralized film-financing in Hollywood, which we aim to disrupt with a profit-driven residual model of decentralized crowdsourcing via smart contracts & DeFi.

We want to transition Hollywood into Web3 by innovating the genesis of cinema - film financing - with the help of DeFi and smart contracts to circumvent the increasing censorship at the “story chosen to be made” level, and decentralize the opportunity to invest in cinema to anyone across the globe.

This will incentivize a spirit of innovation in the film world itself, and we will once again see the artform of an independent Cinema amaze viewers, as opposed to the current status quo which regurgitates sequels, scoops up pre-sold franchises, and churns out bloated mass market hot air.

What it does

Tldr: It will open up the ability to invest in film to everyone, and let the people decide what they want to watch, based on what they choose to invest in. And then they can make money from it. Yay.

Long: This DeFi solution to the financing of films will take the “decision making” out of the hands of the gargantuan entities who decide which stories will be told in the first place, and put that decision making power in the hands of citizens across the globe, who will be able to invest in - and profit from - the projects & and voices they believe in.

Imagine a website where you can view the scripts, pitch decks, and audited budget estimates for a wide array of independent cinema.

The visions proposed are clearly articulated, with quality people attached.

You then find a project you believe in, and want to see made. So you invest with an L1 smart contract token, (preferably Algorand, although for the purposes of this hackathon we've used $ETH.)

Once the budget has been reached, the funds are locked, and the film goes into production. Once the film is distributed, and the profit threshold is reached, every investor automatically receives residuals proportional to the amount of the budget they invested in.

In addition, investors will be rewarded with our own bespoke token - $RAMA - which they will receive in greater %APY at the beginning of a projects funding period, which will diminish as the project gets closer to being funded. If investors withdraw their staked L1 token, their $RAMA will be burned. If they withdraw their $RAMA, their funds will be locked.

Fans can then use $RAMA to purchase exclusive NFTs and fan experiences - like premiers, AMAs, and red carpet events, in exchange for $RAMA on our custom marketplace. (More can be found about $RAMA's tokenomics in our whitepaper, here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pqa8tx1GWbAsZCk1RB_efrCTaxvMvTbSMBESVgZf-fk/edit?usp=drivesdk)

How we built it

Tldr: Research and tutorials from chainlink and the internet. Solidity, etc.

Long: We leveraged power of building dapps on Ethereum with solidity; which we used to build the smart contract layer; that enables creators to add film projects and accept funding from investors (Currently as ETH) . The investors receive yield/profit in exchange in the form of Native RAMA token, which can be used for various purposes.

The UI is build on Next.js, with an express server backend and Mongo DB to store the film meta data. The film assets uploaded by creators would be stored on IPFS. We have also integrated ChainLink to get live exchange rates of ETH.

Challenges we ran into

Tldr: Filmmaking is an extremely complicated process, so we needed to figure out how to incentivize investors from a long term perspective - legitimately - and eschew the pitfalls of all the GET RICH QUICK bs out there.

Long: Since filmmaking is an extremely challenging and non-straight forward process, we had to account for following challenges:

Once funds are locked and film goes into production, how do we keep the film makers accountable and ensure that the investors' funds are safe ?

  • To overcome the challenge, we must have an overseeing authority; equipped with impeccable domain knowledge and experience in the world of filmmaking; to ensure everything from budget auditing to ensuring the best work is put in by creators to distribution of profits. As off now this role would be played by Picturama. To make the review process manageable for us at Picturama, the submissions page will only be accessible via a password upon launch. This password will initially be given to the international film school community, and will be closed once ~50 projects have been submitted. Once a project’s roles are filled and the budget has been audited & approved, the project will be greenlit for staking on our platform.

Lack of development experience in web3 tech.

  • Most of the team members were fairly new to the web3 eco system and venturing into the development aspect was a challenge, albiet a fun one. Would like to thank freecodecamp and Patrick Collins from ChainLink for in-depth tutorial

Finding time juggling a full time job and exploring web3

  • This was quite easy as we were constantly looking forward to learning more everyday.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Despite the challenges, we were able to accomplish all the features and build a fully functional prototype of Picturama that we had initially planned.
  • We were able to work as team of four from different parts of the globe, and we were able to meet a bunch of smart people and be part of a vibrant community.

What we learned

  • We were able to expand our knowledge about web3 esp. challenges involved in De-centralisation.
  • Were able to explore a lot of new technologies like ChainLink, IPFS, ETH, smart contracts with Solidity, HardHat, OpenZeppelin, ethers.js. etc

What's next for Picturama-DeFi - Financing Independent Cinema

  • We want to build the platform in full so we can begin reaching out to film students from the best film schools across the globe to get their projects realized.
  • We plan to migrate Picturama to Algorand (or Polygon Matic) to take advantage of low gas fees, unforkableness, etc.
  • Better test to ensure the smart contract layer is robust and scalable.
  • We plan for a build decentralized film community around the platform, complete with an exclusive marketplace of NFTs and merchandise from the IP (Intellectual property) of the films we produce. Which will be where you spend our bespoke token - $RAMA.

Thanks again, Team Picturama

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