I'd like to report on the work that was done since the CCS was funded 7 months ago. I elected not to collect the first half upon funding and instead receive the full payout once the film is qualified for Oscar consideration, which will be done by next Friday, 28 September.
Here are some of the things that have been done:
We changed the title of the film from Mark of Distinction to LĂmite at the publicist's suggestion, as it is more memorable and positions the film better as a foreign language film. I decided not to wait until next year and see if we qualify via the festival route, so we opted for the second option and will be qualifying through theatrical exhibition. To that end, the film is currently playing at the Music Box in Chicago.
These are all the deliverables and everything that was promised in the original proposal. If I missed anything, please let me know. As noted in the proposal, I make no guarantees that we will win an Oscar or be nominated -- that's not what this is about. It's about getting behind a project as a community and seeing how far it can go. The Oscar is the moon.
In lieu of an acceptance speech, I want to thank the supporters and the donors and the people who gave constructive feedback. On a not so grateful note, I'd like to add that since opening this proposal, I've been on the receiving end of a campaign of harassment, abuse, libel and doxxing -- threatened and actual -- by a group of vindictive downvoters, some of whom are in this thread. These purported "community members" are actively working against the wishes of the donors who supported the proposal. I view this behavior as a long-term threat to the CCS and hope some remedial action is taken.
edit: Last 8 characters of payout address: JNQvEa6d
mark of distinction (24e5d0a1) at 21 Feb 08:40
Merge branch 'master' into 'markofdistinction_-master-patch-67876'
... and 62 more commits
@luigi1111 done. Thank you!
mark of distinction (69620d8c) at 18 Feb 21:15
Update monero-to-the-oscars.md
mark of distinction (b79de858) at 07 Feb 23:54
Update monero-to-the-oscars.md
Sorry for the spam. Proposal is now visible on the Ideas page.
mark of distinction (752be1b4) at 07 Feb 23:46
Delete MarkOfDistinction_16x9_1280x720.jpg
mark of distinction (620196e7) at 07 Feb 23:45
Delete Mark-of-distiction-Poster-70x100-1-final-online.JPEG
mark of distinction (bfbb3bfd) at 07 Feb 23:45
Delete coin_squeeze.gif
mark of distinction (366b373d) at 07 Feb 23:45
Delete Scene_16.gif
Surely you have the option of not donating, no?
Edit: My bad, just realized I'm replying to an account specifically created to down-vote this proposal.
Thanks for all the comments we've received so far (both supportive and critical). I've done my best to reply individually, but I also wanted to give a summary:
If there are any other comments or concerns, please let me know and I will try to address them.
Correct. There's also no rule against the film being publicly available if it gets nominated for an Oscar: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/01/my-year-of-dicks-its-real-its-oscar-nominated-and-you-can-watch-it-now-awards-insider
Thanks for your comment. I'd love to put the film in the public domain, but that would disqualify it from festivals (and therefore awards/attention), distribution, etc, and all the cool things that make movies different from YouTube videos. Also, the community would get none of the benefit of its sponsorship.
This CCS is to fund the marketing of the film, not the film itself. All marketing materials will be permissively licensed (trailer, publicity stills, etc.) That's the best I can do.
Retaliation against a proposer if certain conditions are/aren't met is a bit much, don't you think? Especially when those conditions are outside of my control. You've asked and have received a link to the film in what I presumed to be good faith. I hope you'll delete the copy of the film you kept as insurance. Having the film available online will disqualify it from film festivals, etc, otherwise I don't care much and want it seen by as many people as possible.
Having it up on YouTube as one out of 1,000,0000 videos uploaded this year doesn't achieve that goal. My other three films are freely available online and there is no reason to believe this one won't be, after its festival run. I've offered (private) screenings at MoneroKon and Monerotopia. I'll comment on the licensing question separately.
Thanks for the nice words. I hope the bit about pirating the movie was made in jest and you don't actually plan to do that if this proposal doesn't go the way you want.
Just to clarify, I don't want to short-circuit the CCS process just because we don't have an established framework for funding art/publicity-related projects. That shouldn't be a reason to accept this proposal. I think all proposals should be subject to community scrutiny and I appreciate everyone who is taking the time to comment here. It's a valuable thing that so many people care.
@plowsofff, I'd like to address some of these questions, since you're raising them for the second time.
Do we want to associate with 'Number Go Up'? Monero was never designed for this.
Monero is Money. Money is associated with Wealth. It's great to virtue-signal our allegiance to the poor and hungry, but you can't deny money's central property -- to hold and transfer wealth -- or go into convulsions any time Monero is associated with wealth.
Does Monero align "metaphorically, representationally, or ideologically" with Hollywood / The Oscars?
Does the dollar? You're treating Monero as a pet project for which some small group can decide the appropriate things/causes to be associated with.
Should the CCS support a "for profit" venture? Haveno had Angel investors but they still promise a small % back to the General Fund.
I set out to make this film with the full expectation that I won't be making my money back. Most movies are a money-losing proposition. That aside, as the administrator of the CCS, can you tell us how much money in total has been received from the projects that promise a return to the community? Project Coral Reef for example, are there any stats available? How much has Haveno contributed back? Right, it's still vaporware...
This is a finished product that advertises Monero and the community has the chance to put its logo and website in the end credits. It's a sponsorship opportunity, not an investment. You like the film and the Monero "easter egg", but are worried that the word "Monero" isn't featured prominently enough. This proposal literally solves that, as I'm offering you the opportunity to have the word "Monero" written out on the big screen, with a link to the website, and you're doing your best to make sure it doesn't happen. That's just self-defeating.
i am not a lawyer but how are my legal concerns il-advised? there is a possibility of legal action until a qualified professional clears it.
Your legal concerns are ill-advised because I explained to you when you brought them up in private that I've consulted two entertainment attorneys and I am comfortable with the risk. The risk of a lawsuit always exists, but thankfully that hasn't stopped our publicly-known developers from contributing to Monero and it hasn't stopped people from making movies about real-life events. Additionally, any risk would be born by me and my production company, not the community, so I appreciate the concern but you can relax, because it's bordering on FUD.
It is not a 100% certainty the movie would qualify
It kind of is. Please re-read the section where I explain the two ways the film can qualify. One is through festivals, the other is through a paid exhibition in a movie theater. Funding this proposal will ensure that both options will be available to us (the second one having a ~100% success rate).
Could a trailer be made to specifically only show the monero parts while cryptobears song plays in the background mixed in with some other scenes to generate hype from the monero community? of course, but is that totally honest about its involvement in the story?
Actually I wasn't planning on featuring the coin in the trailer (or the CBP agents or the gangster). You're making some really bad assumptions here in terms of my intent to mislead the community. Not sure where that's coming from.
Sent! Thanks for being open.