Futureflix: NFTs and the New Age of Entertainment

Futureflix: NFTs and the New Age of Entertainment

SPEAKERS

Nadja Bester (AdLunam Inc Co-founder)

James Pratt ( Head of Film at Mogul Productions)

Phil McKenzie (Co-Founder & CEO of myco.io)

Alright guys, I think we are waiting for one more speaker but in the meantime, let's do a quick sound check if you can hear me Give me your favorite emojis so I know I’m not speaking into the void .All right, awesome. And James Hey, how you doing? Where are you dialing in from today?

You've got me at a good time in sunny Los Angeles. So started the day it's gonna be a good day. But yeah, it's summer here. So nice weather all year round.

Well, that's quite early for you then. So thank you for tuning in. Early on a Sunday. I mean, on a sunny day at least. Even if it's not a Sunday.

No problem at all.

Phil, I think you are here as well. How's it going?

Yeah, I'm here. I'm in the UK. So yeah, time is just mellow day for me. A bit better than James, I think. But yeah. All good. All good. At the moment,

I think the bigger question is, is it raining right now?

We've got a brief reprieve or not, I think but, I mean, yeah, it has been. I mean, it's always raining here. So it's like, you know, I love it. I love it. Alright, so yeah, it's all good.

It's great to be speaking with you.

And then we also have Phil McKenzie, the co-founder and CEO of Myco.io. Myco.io is the fastest growing web3 streaming platform in the world with a diverse vertically integrated content slate, ranging from live sports, film documentaries to influencer and user generated content. They are fueled by the vision of building a video content, super DApp, that delivers true empowerment and ownership both to viewers and to content creators or publishers. With a truly decentralized on chain economic layer and an on chain video infrastructure layer. Myco.io currently has 12 million registered users on the platform. And so when Aaron does join us, I will introduce him as well. But in the meantime, Phill. So happy to have you here and to have your insights today as well.

No, my pleasure, my pleasure, like everyone in web3, I love talking about web3, of what we're doing, and always happy to take any opportunity to Yeah, you know, in general talk about what's happening, but also specific to us Myco.io. Yep, you know, I think we're a really exciting point in our journey. And we've certainly got a lot of lessons we've learned along the last kind of two or three years of, of existence, you know, that I think are worth sharing probably, as well for, you know, people starting in the space or navigating the space. And I think, you know, that's what this is all about, you know, sharing Intel, you know, and what we're all doing in our separate, separate silos, and, you know, trying to build this together, and the sort of true, the true vision and values of decentralization and web3.

Absolutely. And I think I want that one to use that as a starting point. Because over the bear market, no matter if it was the hottest narrative in web3, there was very little attention being paid. And so you saw a lot of education initiatives, including this podcast, where, you know, thought leaders would come and deliver a lot of value in return for this aim that yes, in order to onboard the masses, we need to educate the masses. Now, film3, this very specific segment of web3, of course, is a lot more niche. I was curious, then how in full in the two to three years of building this during a very, very tough market? How did you find the reception from the various stakeholders that you guys engage?

Yeah, that's a great question to start with. That's pretty big question. I mean, it's changed, I suppose, is the answer. At the very start of the business, you know, we were very much a, you know, we launched the token, we did an ICO we raised some money off that we, you know, what was the clever thing? What were the clever thing was the team did, you know, I wasn't part of the team at that, at that early stage, was they quickly put those funds back into building the platform and investing into projects, and really delivering value back to the community who'd invested into that ICO. So that was the sort of initial kind of stakeholders and, and, you know, we still have a strong core of community members, you know, that were with us from the start that more kind of Degen web3 needed crypto crowd. But over the last, I'd say definitely two years, we've made a real concerted effort to, you know, try and broaden and mass market appeal. And, you know, we're not trying to do that in web3. He, all of us as business owners, as app owners as content creators, then you know, we're gonna really kind of boxed ourselves into quite a small audience. You know that that kind of understands the technology to the nth degree and is comfortable with it. So over those two years, they've made that effort, as I said, to, to really deliver something that is as easy as possible to get on to in terms of the app or the or the site to meet. So that it's giving people you know, the content they want, and experiences that they can't get elsewhere. And for us, that's the watching and mechanics. So as soon as you come on, you're watching and you're earning and content token. So for us, it's about consistently giving value back to whoever those people are, originally, it was that, you know, Degen, you know, diehard, you know, community over time, it's become more of that mass market. But when we go through, you know, for example, you know, different initiatives that we're launching, in the next kind of six to 12 months, we'll probably flex it in terms of where, where we're devoting our time and attention, but really, the vast majority is going on that mass market appeal, and how can we, how can we bring those people on to Myco.io and, ensure that they stay with us?

Yeah, thanks, Phil, I think you know, that really speaks to when you have the community ethos, as part of your company DNA, that the evolution of your company will always be in lockstep with what the actual retail market needs. Because even though you start in the degen community, I mean, if you build sustainably for the long term, that very much reflects in the fact that you are easily able to then scale not only from a web3 digit market, but to the wide, wider web3 audience and then even just to the general, retail public, James, but I have I have a question then. Because your background, of course, is very much in the entertainment space. And so the world of web3, as your school was referring to the Degen culture, it's very, very specific to web3. So from a film3 perspective entering into this arena, how are you finding it in terms of that aspect of the industry? Do you feel that that is something that is necessary to become part of if you are in the in the filmor entertainment space? Or is it something that is your almost like a garden bed, where you have one species of plants or flowers growing in this plot? And the other one on that side? Do they easily coexist without having to really have that much to do with each other? Or what is your experience been?

Thanks, James, I see that Phil is as a listener right now. So I think he's busy reconnecting. In the meantime, I'll ask a follow up question. You mentioned, of course, we understand the hazard the hesitation that any large industry feels to adopting blockchain, especially as you say, because of the transparency, never mind the general change management involved. But from where you stand right now, what do you think is going to really drive the change? Is it going to be Hollywood? Is it going to be independent creators? Or is it going to be a bit of a blend of the two?

It's a really good question, because you hit the nail on the head, in your intro, when you're talking about a lot of people like I find it hard, like you can go and I live in LA, I've been you can go to filmmakers, directors producers here and can say, hey, like, you know, have you seen anything good on or, you know, what are you watching? What are you streaming online, and no one likes what they're watching. You know, the, I had someone the other day, who'd won an Academy Award, say it took him 15 minutes scrolling through a certain streamer, to find something you want to watch that lasted for 30 seconds. And that's 15 minutes of your life, you can't get back. So I think on the one hand, I think the fan engagement giving them more of a say in what gets made, I think that we'll have a big dictatorship on it. But I also think that as, again, I mentioned through COVID, when you had the crypto time where crypto market really rose up and people thought, hey, I can make money from it. I think people need to also realize this is a real opportunity to, you know, transition your business into, you know, embracing this to actually, you know, do well, because the benefits are there. You know, again, I talked about fan engagement, but there's so many positives. You know, if you're in the film industry to leaning into to web3, it's just a matter of obviously educating yourself and you know, taking that step out as well.

I'm going to ask you another question, because I see, Phil is still having trouble joining back. So just let me double check if it's not a if it's not a bug on my side. If you are able to unmute, please do but I do see you listed it listed as a listener right now.

We've got him back.

Ah, fantastic. Okay, Phil, are you able to hear me? And can I hear you?

I can hear you. I can hear you. Sorry about that. All right, awesome.

No, I mean, it's x, we're very, very used to it. The fact that there's, you know, if there's any tech glitches, it's to be expected. It's only the amount of tech glitches that we complain about. So I don't know if you were able to hear what James was just talking about in terms of Hollywood versus the independent creator. But I'm curious then from the market that you servers, how do you see this evolution? Do you see a lot of independent creators coming in? Because of the technologies that are currently on the table? I mean, and here, I'm also, of course, referring to generative AI, because we all know, that's a very big conversation as well. But so are more and more people incentivized to be creative to use these technologies at their disposal. And then perhaps a follow up question two, in fact, both of you, the creators that are currently doing this, are these people typically that are already in the creative space? I know from my experience, I've met quite a couple of people who had never been creative. And suddenly, you know, they creating odds and even movies just because it technology is there. So I would love to know, full What are you seeing on a daily basis? Who is kind of driving this? This this creative explosion, where publishers are able to connect to audiences in a different way?

Yeah, that's a great, it's a great question is a very big question. The former micro point of view for us, it's about better empowering the viewer, which I think has been forgotten. And then in everything that's happened. And you see this in the rise of a lot of new platforms emerging now, it's about empowering the viewer, and giving them the opportunity to select what they watch when they watch it. For us, yeah, Miko is a step on from that it's rewarding and giving the viewer an experience that they don't currently have. And by doing that, by economically empowering the viewer with, with, you know, with content tokens with micro tokens, they are then able to pass that on to the favorite creators, sporting events they want to watch, etc. And if you kind of take a step back from that, you kind of see this in the industry, a large, you know, traditional entertainment industry out of Hollywood's, you know, these, you know, that they're not innovators, as kind of James said, you know, they're not disruptors. And you see this in the decline in asphalt subscriptions, you see it in the decline in theatergoing, you know, what, the way in which content has been served to people is, is antiquated. And, and it's not, it's not fulfilling their wants and desires and pushing them, you know, into new areas that excite them. So as, as creators, as business owners within the greater sector, you know, the onus is on us to get viewers to watch our content and make them excited to watch that content. And I definitely think there's an arrogance, and a, an a, you know, and probably our organs is the best way to describe it, that, you know, people will always come to us to watch our stuff. And if we make it, then it'll be good enough, that's not the case, we have to come up with increasingly innovative, exciting, and new ways to, to create content to deliver it to people, as well as the kind of storylines themselves. And I think what you're seeing in terms of the platforms are merging. Now, the ones that are providing those newer ways, either to do better creative tools for creatives and unleashing the sort of, you know, boundaries around them. Or better, as I said, experiences and rewards that come with that. And actually, where that is all centered is around influences, user generated content, and sports, that's where you're seeing all of the innovation, in terms of content production, content delivery, and kind of fun and audience engagement. And hazard a guess is that because that's not as controlled as, say, the film and TV markets, which are very traditional, and you know, there's a limited number of incumbent players that are kind of controlling those markets. So I think what we're going to see is increased innovation across those two areas, and that particular areas that Michael focused on, and we see huge growth opportunities, and I think you're gonna see that within, you know, that's also in response to what viewers want to see more of, as well, they want to see relatable, you know, content creators, you know, making content that is reactionary, fast, the quality of it isn't important to them, it's more about the speed to market of it. And, and sporting events, you know, increasingly, you know, rise in value and engagement levels as well, the traditional side of the industry in film and TV will will decline. But there's still space for it to do very well. And you know, but it's, but again, it's ripe for innovation, I think. And so I think the creators that are going to do well. And the ones that we're seeing come through are the ones that begin in those areas, and then maybe move into others. And I think that's the exciting thing is you're now seeing creators, filmmakers, whatever you want to call them IP generators, you know, starting in one place, but then picking off all these other opportunities as well, you're no longer just a YouTube creator, you should no longer just be a filmmaker, what you're creating, you're a storyteller, you're an IP engine, and then you need to bleed that out into as many different ways that you can engage with your audience and, and build that community around what you're doing as a person or as a business. And then the individual IP and projects are just one way in which you engage with those with that community itself. So that's, that's kind of how we're seeing it at the moment and Miko and kind of general market view as well.

By the way, I love the term IP creator, because I think, you know, we start off and talk about the Creator economy and how it's empowering creators, but then we simultaneously refer to those creators doing it on web2 platforms like YouTube and Facebook and TikTok and Instagram. And so it's a creative button name, whereas the term IP creator really speaks to the fact that as a as a creator, I mean, if you're not owning your own IP, you know, that's certainly something that you should be thinking about. So thank you for that perspective. James. So yeah, we'd love to hear also, from your perspective, I think in terms of what Phil just said, we know that they is a huge sort of seismic change underground, in terms of people, you know, awakening to the fact that there are all these tools are now able to leverage these tools. And from the viewer perspective, you know, we had aluminum have similar sort of user empowering models we have engaged to earn, we have proof of attention. And so you can see this shift culturally, really, where people are slowly waking up and understanding, you know, what, actually, I can be empowered. I don't always have to make platform choices that disempower me, but from Hollywood perspective, and I mean, of course, you live in LA. So you're right, in the heart of your creative land, what are people thinking about in terms of the future of these technologies? And how it's going to influence the film and entertainment industry?

You know, it's a great question, because I think it also depends on the sphere of influence of the person you're talking to, in general, people want change. That's the thing. And, you know, I can see I've got members, you know, Giorgio, and Matt and other people listening at the moment that will all agree with me from Mogul, that the really interesting thing is, is that right now, there's such an exciting time for change. It is such an exciting challenge, if you're prepared to, I guess, upscale, and take a chance on this new technology. And a great example of that is, let's say five years ago, I made a short film, traditionally how it would work, if I made a short film, it might cost $10,000, I would maybe put it in a film festival, I'd have my weekend of attention where you know, you invite family and friends. And hopefully something comes of that. But generally, that's it. That's it, I mean, a lot of short films made. And then they're just used to show reels. If you think about just even a simple form of introducing NFTs to that all of a sudden you make a short film, you talk about the IP side of things, but from a monetary point, you could, you know, do an NFT of the poster and NFT of the scripts, you could cut the short film up into five different NFTs you could sell it. And all of a sudden for a filmmaker in Hollywood, you have a chance now of making money that you could not do before. And I think this is the exciting part because, again, I talked about 5,10 years ago, this wasn't there. This is for anybody. I mean, you do not need to make an Oscar winning short film to do an NFT of the poster. There is a lot of people out there that are waiting for the next Steven Spielberg, and are going to take a chance on your poster. And again, as you know, with NFTs every time it sells, you get royalties. But the exciting thing about that from a creative point of view is in Hollywood, the hardest thing is getting money to make your film. And if you can provide this, you know a web3 technology, but you can provide this way of making films now where you can first of all generate funds to make the film. You can generate post funds an example of post funds with mogul we did we did post funds on a film called reboot camp. Very funny movie, I'd recommend if anyone wants to watch it to roll David Kepner it Begley Jr. It's a comedy. But again, how we work with that is, you know, we did NFTs from the film raised enough money for post funds and a premiere. That sort of filmmaking wasn't available five years ago. So I think it's an exciting time, I think you do obviously have to want to have that change. Because, you know, as Phil's alluded to, there is that old school way of doing films where people go, hey, buy whatever make a film, I only want to see it on Netflix. And trust me, there's enough gatekeepers there that, you know, you've got a very small chance because of all the things you can't control. So I think it's an exciting time. It's a time for, you know, embracing this technology. But there's so many ways monetary that really make it appealing for the independent filmmaker at the moment.

And yeah, thank you, James, for adding that perspective. Because I mean, ultimately, it doesn't matter how passionate you are about something, it doesn't matter how you want your message to get out there. Money talks, and without money. It's really, really difficult. And I think a lot of people who are not yet aware of or understand how web3 works, or, of course, there's a lot of technical or let me rather say there's a lot of perceived technical barriers. And so therefore, you get a lot of resistance from people who are afraid to even look into it not understanding that it really could make a massive difference, especially financially. But then the follow up question to that, I think and Phil, I'll start with you. This perceived technical barrier, and I say perceived because I very often meet people and I mean, keep in mind, I've been in blockchain and the blockchain industry for many, many years, seven plus years. I'm not a technical person. And I've never felt that I needed to be but that's because I understand the industry. Now when I speak to the average person the phone First thing that I would say is Oh, I don't understand. And it's very complicated. It's very technical. And so with this sort of knee jerk reaction to these technologies, what are you guys doing at my car? To make that easy? I know you started with the web three audience, but speaking more to a general audience, how difficult is it for people to onboard? How much understanding do they need to have in order to start using the platform?

Yeah, I think just splitting this into kind of two bits I did to just firstly, I think on the Creator side, I don't have I don't have much patience for kind of filmmakers or creators that say that they don't have the you know, that they, they don't have the technological experience or the or, you know, they don't, you know, something's too complex for them. Because as an independent creator, or filmmaker, you know, your job is to constantly be finding new ways to get your stuff made. And that will continue to involve evolving your skill set and adding different bits in, and you know, that will never change. I think, from a creator point of view, I don't buy that excuse. And, you know, it's always our job to be to be looking in all these weird and wonderful places for new ways to build community to monetize our content, and to create our content as well. But then flipping over to sort of viewer side, I mean, it Myco.io, it's very easy to use, as soon as you get onto the platform. You know, you put your email address in and you're, you're registered, and you can start, you know, watching content. And you'll see the number of tokens amassing in the kind of top right hand corner, as you're watching stuff. And, also, as you're watching, you'll hit milestones within the video, kind of like you see on other platforms, you know that when you get to that you earn a certain number of tokens along the way, as well. And within that, you'll be served ads, which obviously generates the revenue that we distribute between the viewer and created themselves as well. The bit that we are that we are improving fast, or is the is once you've got those rewards, once you've got your tokens, the ease in which you can then withdraw them. So we have quite a lot of announcements that will come up in the next probably, I don't know, probably two to six weeks. So throughout summer, let's say that will mean that that entire process is far easier, because we all know, the difficulties that we have in terms of connecting a wallet in terms of withdrawing funds from one place and transferring them to another, you know, managing the gas fees. You know, it is, you know, it is one or two steps more and I'm saying in general now than then it should be in a lot of cases. So for us at Myco.io, we've been working hard on bringing new partners into the business again, that will be that we'll be announcing or able to announce throughout the rest of summer that will make that process literally a one click away. In terms of once you've got your rewards, how can you then withdraw them? Or how can you transfer them. And then the other bits that we're working on, which I think kind of goes to my earlier point of, you know, people will go through that extra little bit of, of pain and education, if the content or the experiences is good enough and is appealing enough. And I go back to like an example of when Netflix came out. It was a huge bore like to set up your account to mess around with your TV remote to input your email address and your password. And, you know, essentially sign up to a new service when it was very much a kind of new thing to be done. But we all remember the TV series on Netflix that made us make that jump and made us sign up to Netflix. And for me that was House of Cards. Now we are again as creators, it's our responsibility to find what is that house of cards, you know, what is what is that event? Or what is that experience? Or what is that reward that is going to really tip people over the age of say, Hey, I'm gonna give this a chance. I'm going to go through this extra one step that I'm not currently doing, whilst we're still you know, smoothing out the technology and the wrinkles of this because it's still going to take a bit of time. What is that thing that's going to change our behavior as a viewer and as a consumer. So for us again, Myco.io that is that is like for two events and that is the original content that we're creating. But there's a whole host of other examples. And then I suppose the other side is the rewards that we're giving people that they're not getting elsewhere. So that means that people will go through that one step extra of pain, but as I said, we should be able to get rid of that one step extra in the kind of next six weeks as we bring kind of some bigger part Big Partners, and we'll be announcing very soon.

Yeah, thank you for all I think it's a, you know, the fact that we are talking about getting something down to one click really speaks to how far we've come in the industry. Because for the longest time, the onboarding process was not really something that was that much attention was paid. Third was the kind of mentality of, oh, well, if you're on web3, you know, you're willing to jump through hoops in order to get onto the platform that you need to get onto for no good reason at all. Other than, you know, we want you on there. And it's really starting to change, I think you're far more user centric, and really an understanding approach of okay, just because you've built it doesn't mean they will come, you need to find what you need to allow them to find their house of cards, or whatever the case may be that really compels them. Thank you for that. James. So I want to ask you the same question at Mogul productions, you allow filmmakers and people who want to invest in forms to come together. Now, how are you finding the difficulties of these two audiences in terms of onboarding them into what I assume for most people would be a brave new world that they might not be very familiar with?

Well, just firstly, I was gonna say I can completely relate to what Phil said with those early days of Netflix and signing up and going through what seemed like a very tedious process. Just I mean, a lot of what Phil had actually mentioned is similar with Mogul where, you know, we've got to separate the, you know, there's a different user, I mean, for Mogul, there's the film investor, there's the film lover, and there's also the filmmaker. They're all three different things. And just a quick snapshot of those when it's when I'm talking about the filmmaker. You know, for example, we're raising funds through NFTs right now, some very exciting projects. But at the same time, for the person that just loves making films, we've got offer rewards and perks that they can't get elsewhere. And I think that is, that's a challenge as well, because don't forget to it would be very easy if everyone that used our platform lived in Los Angeles. And we could say, sure, like, you know, we can invite you to the sound booth next week, or we can give you a role in the movie, but it's a little tricky. If, you know, for example, they're living in Argentina, and, you know, there's, there's all sorts of little things there. But the essence of it is what we want to do is Yeah, give them the experience they can't have before if you're a film, you know, if you're someone who lives in Dayton, Ohio, and this is an opportunity to get up close with a film that you really want to see made, we don't want to just, you know, you cut a check, and you can come to the premiere, it's one of the other experiences we can give along the way. And for the filmmaker, it's the same thing. It's the challenge that you said before, is getting money. So we want to give that opportunity to the filmmaker. What the gap is, is obviously, as you know, we've all experienced it's, you know, some filmmakers do not want to go through a new process, they think raising money is either going to be friends and family are going to give the money or miraculously Warner Brothers Studios gonna give them $30 million for their first film. And so it's the little growing pains. I think that that obviously helped tweak little things. But overall, with mobile, the exciting thing, what we find is, if someone comes on the platform, and you know, whether it be by stars tokens, or you know, starts engaging on a film, they generally keep staying there. It's just a matter of obviously getting these people to come in getting them obviously from finding out what they want to see made. That's the big thing, too, because that's something I think we could probably dive into for a long period of time. But that is, you know, user engagement, and what are the films that fans want to see made? That's the real key to getting people to come to the platform.

So I'm going to ask a follow up question. To both of you. I know that Phil has already spoken about sports and user generated content being the most popular platforms on my car. What are you finding at Morgul? What are people really interested in?

It's a great question, because we did we did a poll the other week. This is just an example on AIX. And for example, a lot of people are very excited about a new project called TT, which is a revamp on Shakespeare. In the past, we've had very successful campaigns, for example, we did a Stan Lee collection. So that was wheeling into that, you know, superhero comic side, comic books. It's hard to just go into one niche. What I will say which again, this is just a very generic thing in the industry is it's always been this way in Hollywood dishes outside of went through Eve. If you have a celebrity attached to a project, fans will come because they see that celebrity and they think okay, well, you know, that's exciting. I think The interesting thing we found at mogul is that we've had projects where we've had names attached. And that does get, you know, interest. But we've also found that there is a real level of value in giving the audience a genre, a script or something that they want to see made. And they really want to see it made. And that's your audience you want to see. I think, like I said, the ulterior way of making films used to be well, unless it had a star attached, they're not going to greenlight it to the studio. And there's some very, very good scripts that never see the light of day. So there's, I guess, to sum up your question, I think I have seen a little bit of everything. But I haven't seen it because oh, well, because this celebrity is attached to it. That's why everyone's voted or That's why everyone wants to see this project made. It's more than just presenting different possibilities for people. And then the audience is engaged. For example, you know, the latest one with the Shakespeare revival?

Well, that's awesome. I love the fact that the Shakespeare revival is hot news right now. Phil, So in terms of user generated content, specifically, what are you guys seeing on the platform? What is it that I mean, we know what a lot of the users generate the content on TikTok? And on Instagram, and YouTube looks like is it very similar? Or are you seeing distinct differences, or maybe even just sort of the beginning of a difference in trend?

No, not really, I mean, it's the same stuff is always going to work in that space, you know, music, fashion, lifestyle, sport, but ultimately, it comes down to the character that's doing it. And probably how relatable and, you know, kind of salient to the kind of current situation that it is, you know, with, with everything kind of going on. So I don't think it's anything too, too different to what's already happening. But what that kind of magic, you know, kind of mixture of it is or what that kind of magic sauce is that does it is, is still always going to be, you know, you can't kind of bottle it because it comes down to the person and their character and that their ability to present and, and create at the end of the day as well. And I think that that, you know, that definitely, you know, kind of goes into the, you know, the long form stuff we're doing the more traditional, you know, like originals that we're shooting, where we're doing a lot of unscripted documentaries, you know, it's topics and genres that are that people will always kind of fall, you know, you know, always want to gravitate to, but it's but it's new stories and telling them in a new way that hasn't previously been done. And again, like us, as creators, as filmmakers, you know, that's what we have to be focused on is people want what they've always had, but just delivered in a different form and a more exciting form. And if it's something that they haven't had before, then you need to really engage with them from an early stage to tell them why it's so great, and why they need to, you know, pay attention to it not be kind of scared by it or turned off by it. So, so yeah, you know, I'd say I kind of summarized it as that it's the same stuff, but just done in a fresh way, with new talent and a new kind of skew on it as well. I'm also seeing that in the sports stuff as well. Yes, the kind of traditional sports will always work, but people are increasingly wanting to look at Challenger sports. You know, the same format, or the same excitement, or potentially even the same, the same sport in general, but in a different location, a different league somewhere a different set of characters. You know, that still has that kind of core appeal, but just doing it in a slightly different way.

I want to ask, what is both an easy and a difficult question. And I always ask this, because even though that's absolutely not the focus of the show, it's still the name of the show, when you mentioned the word NFTs, to the average person. Now, depending on what they've been exposed to, they will have a very particular definition of it. Now, I mean, the focus of the show is of course, to really demonstrate that NFTs are so diverse, so varied, that it's not that one thing that the average person refers to in their head. But how do you when you explain NFTs to maybe not even on a professional level? Let's start with how do you explain it on a personal level to people and then sort of branch out how to explain it in a professional context. James, Europe.

you're just giving me flashbacks of some of the looks that people have given. Whenever NFTs have been brought up for me. Not all good, by the way. It's a great question, because I'll say this. In Hollywood. It's a different business model. have found than other places, celebrities tend to lead the charge. So to answer your question, firstly, you know, what tends to be the reaction? I think it tends to be, you know, have they seen a celebrity endorsing this? And are they that sort of person that follows the trend? Or is it someone that, you know, has already got experience in it? And then the second part of your question is, I do think the most valuable way I try and describe it is how this is going to add value to whatever you're doing. And generally, it's the revenue side, which is, like I mentioned before, with the short film, or whether it's been a feature film that you need post funds, I always try and link it to that. Because, yeah, to sum up your question, I think a lot of people have either read something negative, I know, that was a lot of, again, let's just say bad publicity about them when people thought it was that sort of get rich, quick scheme. And we all have seen some of those. But I've seen the opposite. You know, like I said, I've seen people carve up their films into NFTs, I've seen, you know, musicians and different people find ways now all of a sudden, to, to use the whole NFT way of raising funds and improving their life basically. So yeah, linking it to how they can see value in it is probably the key for me.

Now, I love that about how it can add value, because ultimately, that is what it comes down to for no matter who you are really, the bottom line is always how can it add value? I love that definition. For what about you? How do you explain NFTs, both in a personal and a professional capacity.

I mean, I sort of always tried to steer people towards the kind of more broader definition of a token and the you know, an NFT is just a version of a of a token. And by, you know, through tokens and tokenization, you know, what we're trying to deliver is, you know, a fairer, more equitable, you know, decentralized democratize far more democratized version of whatever industry or sector or part of the world you're kind of looking at. And once you get the sort of core, you know, kind of values and, and utility of what a token can do, you know, you can, you can really see the power of it, you know, spread across those different areas, in terms of bringing people assets, and opportunities, you know, together that didn't previously kind of exist, or did exist previously, but only to a handful of people in a handful of institutions. So that's what I always tried to steer, steer it towards, and within that NFTs as a sort of, you know, a subset almost, you know, that is very creatively driven, you know, non fungible in terms of the identity that they have, and therefore, the value of them is, you know, like any sort of art is attributed to, you know, the, the willing buyers that are out there, you know, to push the price up or down. So yeah, that's kind of how I would sort of try and spin it.

That leads me to a, I think, very important follow up question that we don't talk about enough. Web3 and the web3 technologies that we work with, or that we talk about, they are revolutionary for many different ways, but of course, one of the main ones and, and for me, that's certainly one of the main ones is the fact that it democratizes pretty much everything, or at least has the ability to democratize pretty much anything it touches. But what I find is that the average person doesn't seem to be too interested in the democratization aspect of it, not because you're it's not important to them, I think it's just that we come from systems and industries were being empowered was not even on the table. I mean, it's not even a question. And so I find that a lot of people have difficulty understanding these things in the abstract. And it's really only once they experienced the democratization for themselves, that it really clicks for them. So I'm curious then, for both of you, in terms of your daily dealings in the professional world, how often does this conversation really come up where people grasp the fact that the fact that while this is not only x application or y value, but this genuinely has the ability to uproot an entire industry, no matter what the industry is? Yeah, Phil, maybe you can take this one. And then we'll go on to James.

Yeah, there's two vectors. I mean, firstly, I think there's not enough good examples for people to see that value being shown because the whole pretty much the entire web three movement was driven by you know, weigh a, you know, how can we use this technology to get rich quick and to, you know, create complex financial structures and trading mechanisms, etc, you know, for kind of a very small set of people to use. So I think what you're starting to see actually is, is some examples coming through where you are actually, tangibly seeing democratization and decentralization of previously, you know, highly centralized, you know, real world assets. And I think that's, that's this next sort of phase, we're moving into as a sort of web three sector, and, you know, particularly you know, Miko, you know, that's something we talk about a lot is, you know, is being able to, you know, be at the forefront of that, you know, real world assets, sort of class that's coming through and giving people the opportunity to, to earn a share in the content that they're watching, or at least, you know, use those tokens to then invest and provide, you know, funding for future content and, and be part of that process and part of that content being created. So yeah, I kind of come at it from that probably and say, it's yeah, it you know, we haven't probably done ourselves much justice, as you know, as a kind of sector, but we're starting to see the sort of shoots emerge in our world of far more, you know, if you know, far more far more opportunities and businesses that are going to kind of really crack this for the for the mass market, I'd say.

Good times ahead. James, what are your thoughts on this?

Well, I think I think Phil really summed it up perfectly with some of those points, especially in the point where it hasn't had as much time given to it as, say, some of the other things. I think, from the film space here in LA, I think there is still quite a big gap between the traditional form of like film studios, and the people that hand out the money and the filmmakers. And I think I think it's about education. That's the thing, I think a lot of people, you know, just haven't been educated enough to sort of see this part of it, and obviously, the value add. But I think that is changing. And one of the I had a great conversation recently with someone at Warner Brothers. And the conversation I had with him was, he's quite high up there, been there for about 15 years, and it's all about change. And the conversation we were having was, for someone that's in this space in the entertainment space, you'd be crazy to not try and change your business model right now. But you'd not try and obviously really exhaust every way that you can actually be, you know, disruptive right now, because there's being disruptive. And then there's actually really being disruptive. And I think there's no greater way we're seeing that at the moment where, for example, Sky dance, and Paramount did a merger last week, that took a couple of weeks for a billion dollars. And that's all about just becoming more tech focused and aligning better ways. That's on a big scale. You know, there's a reason why Amazon and Apple TV, all of a sudden film studios, and then the other film studios are really hemorrhaging losses. And what I'm saying right now by that is, this is a great area right now where you can really look at, you know, decentralizing and looking at, obviously, how you yourself, if you're getting into web three, how you can make that a part of your business, as opposed to again, just kind of disrupting, and not really sort of pushing too hard.

I think, because, well, so I was just gonna, I think it's gonna be example, it's gonna take a couple of examples, like, especially Hollywood, Hollywood only lessons or pays attention, when there's money. They'll only pay attention when they see a couple of films that have been properly funded through this mechanism. And, but that being said, I think, to James's point, very early on in the speeches, you know, now, there's never been a better time to be trying to put these new ways of structuring the financing provision, bringing this community element into it, and that's, you know, something we're looking at is, you know, not just across, you know, investing in the film and TV that the filmmakers we're working with looking at but you know, creator driven content, you know, sports rights and sports leagues, etc. How can we bring all of these things that people are passionate about, there's natural communities about how do you just match that up with the content and give them better experiences, better rewards, and give them a shot at investing, you know, a small amount in exchange for that, and I think, you know, I don't think there'll be long before they'll be some great examples that start to come through and, and sort of lead the way, you know, obviously bullish that Myco.io will be one within that. And I think another good place to look as well as partners we've been working with For the last year, Republic, you know, who are some, you know, fantastic advisors and, you know, fundraisers within the space and the platform as well. And, you know, they are really kind of leading the charge in how do we, you know, tokenize and bring investors into opportunities and business that didn't previously exist. And, you know, for example, we're on that platform at the moment as an investment opportunity, you can invest into Myco.io, you know, on the same terms that some of the leading VCs in the world are doing so. So I definitely take a look at Republic if people are looking for examples. And I think it won't be long until there's more within the entertainment space as well with what James is doing and what we're doing to.

Absolutely, I think it's a good time to remind everyone that we are very early in though, we would like the price to be greatly accelerated, objectively speaking, it's super early days, I would love to continue this conversation for another several hours. But unfortunately, like always, time has crept up on us when we went looking. So I'm going to try to get at least one, if not two questions from the audience. Firstly, and please fill in James, feel free to tick. The question. First is from Mr. J. B. What are the entertainment traits we should be looking out for? Is the reward going to be based on a leaderboard? So really, just generally speaking, how is this sort of engagement slash reward model going to work in the entertainment industry?

I mean, I think it's gonna differ from platform to platform and created a greater the way Miko does it is we take the ad revenue that's attributed to the content you're watching. And we give a percentage of that to the viewer and a percent of that to the Creator, to whereas in traditional platforms, for example, YouTube, it's split between YouTube and the creator. on Netflix, it's given otter Netflix, in our case, we are dividing it between the viewer and the creator. But I'm sure there's various other models out there that are doing it in different ways, or thinking about it in different ways.

James, Phil, thank you so much. I think this has been incredibly insightful. If you are listening after the fact on your favorite streaming platform please follow these two amazing speakers if you are live on the on the recording right now, James for where are the best places to follow you and as well as Mogul and myco.io.

If it's myself, please reach out any anytime on social media. James, I've just called press seven. It's the same on LinkedIn, Instagram. And you can also email me info Mogul productions.com. And just attention to myself, for any film fans, investors, or just film lovers or anyone that just says, Hey, I really want to see this film being made. Please email it through.

Yeah, we had to probably LinkedIn is the best place for me to just Phil McKenzie. Same picture that I've got on here. And yeah, download the Myco.io app from any of the usual places or go to Myco.io. And also, yeah, check out Republic as well, where we're doing the current kind of equity raise for one and a half million. We're nearly two thirds the way through that. So any contribution to that is greatly appreciated. And you also get a one for one, Warren on our token as well. So definitely check that out, too.

Thank you both so much for your time tonight and to the audience. Thank you so much for spending another hour with us. I'll catch you again next week for another episode of the future of NFTs catch you then guys. Have a great week.