Alexander Amartei: Antara the First Hollywood Movie Funded by NFTS
Alexander Amartei is the producer of 'Antara', a Hollywood epic that is the first major movie in history to be funded via NFTs. The Antara Movie NFT by Arabian Camels has ushered in a new paradigm shift that is setting a whole new culture in the world of Hollywood, finance, NFTs and DeFi.
Questions:
Let’s talk about that paradigm shift!
Starting with Hollywood and the making of a movie, can you share the difference between the classical model of making a movie and the NFT model. And would this be considered fractional NFT’s?
Will this provide both democratization, making it available to all, and decentralization, making it accessible to all? And possibly explain DeFi here too!
I believe the magic is in the utility and the roadmaps for projects. How did you build out these features and perks? According to your road map, you have utilities like Ferrari’s and gold bars, how are you able to do this?
Are you single-handedly building the Discord community and fundraising?
What measures are you taking for those not interested in discord
Will you be acting in the movie as I noticed from your profile you love fencing, horses and horseback archery?
Left field question: Could an AI model replicate your movements and have it played out in the movie?
Character development, hero, victory and poetry is discussed.
Influencers and A-Listers
Speed of innovation and cost of creating a movie.
Is there a goal date to begin production? And will you only begin once all NFT’s have been sold?
Instagram for Antara Movie NFT
#hollywood #nftmovie #movie #community #metaverse #epic #discord #hollywood #producers #character #poetry #film #model #money #era #democratization #antara #defi #arabiancamels #nfts #nft #nftart #cryptocurrency #blockchain #metaverse #culturefactor #web3 #smartcontracts #nftartist #nftcollectors #eth #ethereum #youtubers #tiktok #instagram #branding #bitcoin #web3 #smartcontracts #bitcoin #community #decentralizedeconomy
Transcript
AlexanderAmartei: Antara the First Hollywood Movie Funded by NFTS
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, movie, project, community, metaverse, discord, hollywood, nft, producers, antara, piece, building, character, poetry, day, film, web, model, money, era
Holly Shannon 00:06
Welcome to Culture Factor. I'm your producer and host Holly Shannon. Our new season looks at creators, innovators and entrepreneurs. Why? Because the creator and gig economy is emerging. Talent has gone to work for themselves. The new year starts with the 101, or the beginner guide for NFTs, blockchain, cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and all those Metaverse and Web3 topics we keep hearing about. We're all going back to school on Culture Factor to understand this decentralized economy. From creator coins to the tax implications of selling crypto, let's unpack these emerging technologies in really simple terms. Join me and feel free to send in your questions. Would your brand like to sponsor Culture Factor? It is your opportunity to be a part of a podcast that is ranked in the top 2% globally and heard in over 89 countries. Email holly@hollyshannon.com. Subscribe to Culture Factor and share with a friend now. Okay, let's start with our class. Let's get our next guest on.
Holly Shannon 01:11
Hello Culture Factor family. Today I have Alexander Amartei with me and he is the producer of Antara, a Hollywood epic that is the first major movie in history to be funded via NFTs. The Antara movie NFT by Arabian Camels has ushered in a new paradigm shift that is setting a whole new culture in the world of Hollywood, finance, NFTs and DeFi. So let's get into that paradigm shift. Hello, Alexander. Welcome to Culture Factor.
Alexander Amartei 01:41
Thanks for having us.
Holly Shannon 01:43
That's great. So, starting with Hollywood and the making of a movie, can you share the difference between a classical model of producing a movie versus an NFT model? And then once you can kind of share with us that difference, would this be considered fractional NFTs because they're buying fractions of something?
Alexander Amartei 02:08
So with regards to the traditional model versus the NFT model, the key word is freedom. And you know, one thing as a creative if you want to, if you have a vision, you really don't want that creativity infringed upon, or you don't want to be dictated to in terms of how you have to bend or or shape shift in terms of fitting into a distributors model and things like that. And a lot of the time with traditional film financing, you have to go through the hoops of you know, you have to find the cast, you have to have a director you have to have finance in place those three things. And when you go to a director, they'll say, Do you have the money? When you go to the financials, they'll say do you have the cast? When you go to the cast, they'd say do you have the finance or the director? And this this sort of triangular, exhausting sort of add on that people have to go through, whereas, and then with regards to getting the finance and distribution, and a lot of the time, they're pretty particular and what they want to distribute, and because they are the ones sometimes helping with the money, and they dictate too much. But with NFTs, you can co-create with your community. You can have enough you can amass a community of 5000 people, 10,000 people, 100,000 people, and there's a lot of power in numbers. And it also gives the, you know, the artist and the creator and the producer freedom to produce what he wants without being dictated to.
Holly Shannon 03:27
Now you have a lot of stakeholders, your community. A lot more so, right? But different. So what part would they play? And I've, just to go back to the question, would they be buying like a fractional NFT in the process?
Alexander Amartei 03:47
So it's not so much a fractional NFT. So the way we've done this is, I mean, that could be done, but the way we did it is, we've got an NFT which is an Arabian Camel, And we stuck with the image of an Arabian Camel to stay true to the brand, and we've got big plans, obviously for the future. And, you know, for strength, the strength and and different sort of strategies where we're doing over the years. So we have issued an NFT collection. And if you own one of those NFTs you get to have access to own rights of the movie. So that's very different than fractionalized ownership of the movie. But I see where you're coming from. It's it sounds like it's fractionalized, but people own an NFT, which has a life in of itself. Like a board a it's got its own rarity. It's got its own artwork, it's got its own value in of itself, you know, and, but part of the utility of owning one of these NFTs is being attached to the IP of the movie as well and being affiliated with the IP of the movie. So they're separate in that respect.
Holly Shannon 04:47
That's very cool. So affiliated with the IP of the movie, so that kind of brings me to democratization. So this provides like a democratization model where it's available to all, you know the language behind blockchain and NFTs is decentralization, so it's accessible to all. So, you know, part of your bio talks about DeFi, could you maybe describe that in relevant to democratization and decentralization?
Alexander Amartei 05:23
So the whole idea behind, you know, the Arabian Camels is to start with was, yeah, the whole democratization and decentralization of the movie space. Because, historically, you know, most people have never been on a movie set, they've never been involved in it. And it's quite a magical industry, behind the scenes, and in many respects, and, you know, now anybody can really get access to own piece of the movie. Whereas before, it was just about, say, the financiers or the studios. And this makes movies accessible to everyday people a lot more. With the communication you have with Web3, with Clubhouse with Twitter Spaces, with Discord, it's allowing you to interact with 5,10, 15,000 people in a way that was impossible before. So the fact that that many people can congregate for a single cause, you know, by themselves is is really interesting. And a lot can be done with that. So democratizing that sense decentralized in the sense that, usually you have to do things through Hollywood, and you have to go through the Hollywood model, and you have to play by the rules. And you know, but with this model, if you can finance together as a community, then you know, that power is effectively taken away from from Hollywood, so to speak. And this is not a, this is not a anti-Hollywood, or anti-establishment sort of movement by any means. It's just, there's things that we all love about the movie business, and the things that we hate about the movie business. And there's things that we're not going to miss about the movie business as we go into this whole Web3 era. So rather than being sort of anti-Hollywood thing is just, you know, taking the meat and throwing the bones, and having a new system where we can do things a lot cleaner a lot more efficiently, quicker, without the jumping through the hoops and things like that.
Holly Shannon 07:01
I'd love to just go back in time, a little bit. What what is your history in the movie industry? Because you I, if I recall correctly, like that wasn't your background?
Alexander Amartei 07:12
Correct. Yeah. So my background was equities and corporate finance. And whilst I was in that space, I did some corporate finance on the movie side. So that was my sort of route in the movie side more from a commercial background, which is good, because a lot of people who are in the movie space are creatives, a lot of the time they lack the commercial prowess and that sort of corporate spine to enable them to make strong business decisions. They've got great ideas, but it's really important to have a sort of a commercial balance, you know. And so I this is why I kept coming back. I'm like, teamed up with Stuart Sutherland, he just finished Gerard Butler's movie Kandahar $50 million movie in the desert. And the whole idea with a project like this, you have to bring together top tier pedigree people to make sure that the movie is done at a high standard. Otherwise, what you're going to get is people coming into the NFT space saying I've got an idea, I want to make a movie, they raise five $10 million, and then they end up spending it on caviar. And, you know, they just don't do what needs to be done because they don't have the experience. So my angle in with this was sort of, you know, I put the script together with the professors of Arabic literature from Oxford, Cambridge. And, you know, it's a true story. So, you know, if you studied at Oxford or Cambridge, now you still study the literary works in this character, Antara, so I put it together, got the shedule, the budget script and things like that, and then put together these producers and director. And, and that's sort of where I stop in terms of you know, after the NFT campaign, it's the producers who really sort of take charge of the of the project and see it through to fruition.
Holly Shannon 08:49
Were you able to reach back into some of your finance contacts to maybe be a part of this because you're able to sort of bridge that gap between helping them understand their place in in your movie and in the NFT Web3 world?
Alexander Amartei 09:08
It's available. Remember, even aside from the NFTs all of the traditional financing models are still available. Even our distributors we met recently. And they said with or without NFTs this movie works, you know, Black lead hero born in the desert, ancient epic, you know, we haven't had a good epic since Troy Gladiator. So as a movie, it works anyway. But we can do it through NFT. So why not? Let's do it and make history by being the first major sort of do this. And, and with respect to like, going through to old clients, one by one, right, Web2 ish. You know what I mean? The idea of Web3 is you can reach masses of 15, 20, 30, 50,000 people through the internet, congregate together on Twitter Spaces, discuss things together, plan things together. That's all idea Web3, right? So yes, the old system is available if we need to fall back on it on any capacity for us and we want to go all Web3 as, as Web3 as you can.
Holly Shannon 10:04
You know, you talked about some of the flashy stuff that happens in the business. And I did notice on your roadmap that you have utilities like Ferraris, and gold bars and things like that being released into the community. So I, what I'd love to do is I'd love to dissect all of that a little more. I personally believe like the magic is in the utility and the roadmaps for projects, provided that they actually come to fruition, right? Because, you know, a lot of people can talk about, a lot of NFT projects fail, because they're, they're creative, and the work is beautiful, but they make a lot of promises they can't fulfill. So how did you build out these features and perks because like, people are also going to get an opportunity to like, be in your movie, be a part of the creative process, there's like, massive giveaways. So I'm going to certainly invite you to share with us a little bit some of these stops along your road in your map, because I might not be articulating the exact item. But can you share with us like how you are able to do this? Is that sort of like a nod to how the industry has always worked to try and keep it interesting. I know, there's a lot of questions there. But I think you can get where I'm headed.
Alexander Amartei 11:34
Yeah. So I mean, with the NFT space, you're expected to give giveaways, and they have to be fun. I mean, other than a, you know, we'd want to make it too transactional, where it's just, you know, this for that. And, you know, the whole idea of community engagement is this fun, there's no, you know, my entertainment, but there's fun, there's, there's, you know, you know, activities along the way. And sometimes we add things to our roadmap to make it more fun like last year, camel racing wasn't on our roadmap, we had the camel racing, we added the camel breeding where people can breed to NFT, get a baby NFT, things like that. And as the market changes, and trends change, new opportunities come available to add value to your community and utility. With regards to the Lamborghini giveaway, and the Rolex and things like that, again, you know, this is just a celebratory giveaway, just something to give back to the community because they're obviously, you know, facilitating, helping to facilitate this whole production. So to get something like an NFT, or sorry, like a Lamborghini is, you know, that's a celebrated giveaway, once the collection is sold out. And we've budgeted and forecasted to be able to, you know, add things on the end to give back to the community. And, you know, it's not a, we want to be a very visual project, we're gonna have lots of behind the scenes work, we're gonna bring people location scouting, on set with cast and crew, some people will get a part in the movie. And we want to be very visual about all of this, you know, most NFT project leaders are anonymous, they're, you know, nobody knows who they are, it's all behind closed doors, you don't even know if it's going to be a scam or things like that. So we thought, you know, let's make this a visual product, because there's lots of social media, lots of videos, lots of interviews, and it gives people an opportunity to sort of get behind the scenes of a movie, what's actually involved? How do you produce it? How do you finance it? What do you need for the distributors? How do you do casting, we're even gonna do casting some of our community members and things like that just for fun, and you know what I mean? So you have to have a well pronounced roadmap and make sure that there's lots of activity along the way, as well as the ultimate goal of the movie.
Holly Shannon 13:36
I love that sorry, I got the car wrong. I love that you are paying attention to the the conversation around Doxygen unboxed, which for my community is basically being able to know who the people are involved in the project versus than being sort of this mysterious entity with a you know, an AKA name and you know, no face and no way to trace anything that they're doing. Which can be really scary to people when they're investing their own Bitcoin or Fiat because, you know, it feels like it could just the, the rug can be pulled the bottom could fall out at any second. And it's can be scary. So I love that you're being 1,000% Transparent through the process.
Alexander Amartei 14:31
It's important and I think, you know, everybody thinks this NFT space is all about just artists and digital artists. And you know, they were just the first to really drive this space and give a definition, like those projects last year, the profile pictures of point 048 and things like that. They're unnecessary process because it's very educational that allowed everybody to get to terms with what is meant what your what is Metamask what is Eve? How to Buy an NFT why to buy an NFT Things like that. But remember, all these other professionals are coming in from the web three era. stockbrokers, traders, shipbuilders shipping people, real estate, you know, Studio x studio people, directors, producers, and all these people are coming in. And they're not going to be hanging around in discord, you know, chatting all day and you know, meme culture and all this type of thing, they're actually going to come in and use the space for what, what the potential that is, you know, that it possesses and what I'm excited about as people coming in with that experience to bring 1020 30 years of their heritage and their experience into it, to make it more blue chip. So all these projects of last year, a lot of them, I think, in the future, we'll think how to actively buy some of these MFPs. And, you know, but they're unnecessary educational process, I think to go through,
Holly Shannon 15:47
what is this but this starting price at that, sorry?
Alexander Amartei 15:52
What our project? Yeah, for
Holly Shannon 15:53
the for the NFC, sorry to mean to
Alexander Amartei 15:56
tarot movie, and yeah, so it's 1/8. For the whitelist. It's happening. But yeah, the price is one eight, and people did initially think wow, like, why is it so expensive? I definitely think that going forward as NFT projects get more sophisticated, and you get more of this professionalism coming in from the corporate world. And by corporate, I don't mean, you know, centralized world, I mean, just the experience that people bring, you could see NFT has been five each at the mid price. 2050. Why, because the projects they're actually building and creating, are actually doing something. And there is actually some value to be had there, you know what I mean? So, point 04 Is point 04, for a reason, you know, and a lot of the time, I don't want I don't want to discredit other projects that have great ideas with comics and graphic novels, things like that, or even lower budget movies that might be just doing something that half a million, that's easy to do at a point zero for a project. Yeah, it's an exciting time. There's, there's lots of innovations flooding the space, and people are clamoring into this space. So to change shape a lot. I think, you know, like a baby, when it's born, it changes every like two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, it looks different six weeks, it looks different. And it's like that with the NFT split space, I think for the next two or three years, until you actually get to see what's going on.
Holly Shannon 17:13
What I personally love that I'm seeing is that web three, actually reminds me more of early days web two, and for somebody with more experience in corporate like yourself and me. The original way of connecting people now I know we're using social audio to do it, because you know, we've had pandemics and you know, certain things have grown because of that. But the level of connection and networking happening, whether it be on a discord channel, a Facebook group, a telegram any of these channels. To me, I almost reminding me of like old school networking. Because there's so much value in really getting to know people and spending time learning about projects and ideas and iterating. And I don't know if you see this, you know, just the fact that you talked about the experience of some of the people from web two coming into web three. Like, I feel like it reminds me of like old school in a way I'm not sure I'm articulating it quite the way I want to say it. But do you feel kind of what I'm saying?
Alexander Amartei 18:37
100% that mean? Yeah. And it's, it's, it's amazing, because there's some people who, let's say, if somebody's aspiring to try and get a project on, they need to get in touch with certain types of people or whatever. And that might be difficult because of gatekeepers and just corporate structure that exists, which, you know, just the process of getting through to people and getting meetings done and arranging meetings. Now people just jump on clubhouse, you know, they follow each other.
Holly Shannon 19:02
Right. You know, and it's just things cross generational, too,
Alexander Amartei 19:06
right. And cross pollination? Yeah, yeah, no, no, I was gonna say cross
Holly Shannon 19:10
generational like, are you seeing like when you're on I'm Sorry, I interrupted you again. Like when you're on social or audio, like you can see like somebody in, you know, Gen Z, for example, helping out somebody in the boomer generation because like, we're all so new to it, that we're all bumping along figuring out the language and to work together.
Alexander Amartei 19:31
Exactly. It's a whole new type of networking and getting to know each other and new cultures forming and clubhouse and, and Twitter spaces and just new lingo and new slang and new whatever and it's, yeah, it's just things that should take normally 10 years are now taking like six months to a year. And what why I think the next five years is going to be so iconic is the speed at which all these innovations are coming in from different directions. You know, and how all without fitting together, and the new landscape it's going to present us with in like, two years, three years. Because it's not web three is I mean, people talk about NF things. But web three is like, the legal system will change, politics will change. Art, how art is appreciated how content is consumed, how people engage in entertainment with each other, like, you can watch movies on things like theme, or you can chat with friends all around the world, about the movie, while it's on things like that. And the process of how movies are going to be produced and who's producing them, and how are they producing them? Is it a bunch of community members together deciding on the sequel? And who's going to you know, what's gonna happen in the sequel? All of this provides a new system of following and reasons for following. And, you know, it's just, there's so much happening that it's so it's so hard to even predict or even have a business model, that's not going to be obsolete in six months. You know what I mean? So, yeah, there's a lot happening.
Holly Shannon 20:56
For the people that don't want to be in discord. I mean, I think you're probably the person that's managing some of your discord community and, you know, the fundraising like getting people excited about buying an NF. T, for people who don't want to be on a discord channel to keep up? How are you managing that?
Alexander Amartei 21:22
That is a challenge. Because the communication is one of the biggest challenges in all NFT space. Why? Because you have to. People need updates, they need to be told everything. I mean, there's people, I spoke to one guy who had 12 cameras, and he had no idea about the movie at all. You know, some people on Twitter, some people are in clubhouse, some people are in discord. Some people just go to the website, some people just get it for the art, and it's hard to chase to all these different social channels to try and you know, lock everybody down. So I think definitely, in terms of innovation, and how the space is gonna change, I think they'll definitely be something to centralize people's communication, and like an amalgamation of clubhouse discord, connect club, all of these in one because it's not efficient enough. And humans need efficiency, and speed. So that is one of the challenges, basically, to try and update everybody and make sure everybody knows what's going on.
Holly Shannon 22:15
Yeah, I find it to be very disparate, like, in web two, you know, people would go to your website, really, that was like the landing page to really understand your portfolio, your idea, your product, your service, whatever. And then if they wanted to get a little personal background check on you, they could scrape your LinkedIn, they could check out on Instagram, but that that was like extra, and people became versed in that. But I find that the NFT projects are in so many different places, because they feel like they have to be everywhere. That for the average person coming in for the first time, not knowing exactly where to go, you know, like, Oh, I'm in a clubhouse room, and people are talking about it. And they say, Oh, well, I just pin the link in the telegram channel, or, and then join my Discord. And, you know, so now you're sending them off to two places, there's a lot of friction, especially if you're say you're new to those platforms, they require a whole onboarding process in and of themselves. And then all of the DIS different discord managers for all of these different products build out their channels differently. So it's, it's, it's an A language kind of to itself, I feel like that is so much friction for people. I feel like that can't be sustainable. And I could be all wrong. But
Alexander Amartei 23:50
no, you're totally right. It's not sustainable. Even Elon Musk was saying a very good point. He said, You know, he's talking about the chip that goes in people's brain. And he was saying, at the moment, we're texting with our funds. And it's gonna get to a stage where it's just not fast enough. You know, humans are like that. You need speed, efficiency, and the best way and the most speediest and the most efficient way always wins. Because, you know, there's people who might be romantic about snail mail and you're writing a letter and putting it in the post and, but you're going to be at a serious disadvantage if you want to stick around in that era. And that's why I kind of worry about the metaverse because people sort of talk about all the metaverse they speak about it as if it's like this new heaven, you know, on the country. I'm one of the ones who's like a little best, we don't need it. And but the problem is, is you're going to need it. Because it's, it's going to be quicker and faster to interact and get everything done there. To meet people to agree things to get things done. You're going to have to be there. And if you're not there, you're going to be at a disadvantage. But what it's gonna do for humanity is is I'm not quite sure about that. I'm not quite bullish. But that's a different topic. I digress. But
Holly Shannon 24:56
no, I agree with you by the way.
Alexander Amartei 24:58
You know, you need something a little But central where people can just get things done quickly, because life is sort of like a race. You know, in many respects. People need things done quick. So yeah.
Holly Shannon 25:14
Yeah, the metaverse is a tough nut to crack for me too. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Because I feel like it's a computer within a computer. Like we're going into a space where you can watch people meet and have an have a conversation, which you could also get a link to a Zoom meeting with the same people. You can, you know, maybe build out a store in there. How that is much different from having a website with like a Shopify attached to it. I sort of feel like we're building web two products into this Metaverse, but they're really not that different. You're just entering a different portal, but you're, it's the same and maybe they're avatars or, you know, they look like animated characters, but you're not really changing the usability to me, like, I'm not really sure. I'm not against the metaverse, I love the creative part of it, like I would, you know, maybe love to create some sort of wearable jewelry that people could buy. They're like I understand the marketing side of it. But I just don't see how it's so vastly different from how we're operating now.
Alexander Amartei 26:39
It's just the parallel of virtual parallel, the people who were in fashion before are in fashion or the metaverse, people who are in, you know, movies before or in movies. And in the web three era, you know, and it's just, you know, it's the same thing, but it's just a lot more charged and fast paced. And, you know, I mean, yeah, that would take me off to a completely different conversation. That's a huge topic. But honestly, I think it's like, I think it's something that personally, I'd like to slow down, people work seven days a week. Now, most people you speak to have zero time, zero time, they can't even respond to text messages. And I'm one of them. And like, you know, there's sleeping all hours as well, because you're dealing with Shanghai, you're dealing with LA, Vancouver, Miami, London, you know, I'm, it's this crazy period where it's just seven days a week, and sometimes 24 hours. Remember the old days of like, Gordon Gekko and Wall Street's and Money Never Sleeps, crypto. And web three is just multiply that by 100. You know, so it's, it's weird. The weird phase rolling.
Holly Shannon 27:42
I agree. I feel like I haven't stopped. I mean, I have my podcast, and I'm constantly sitting in rooms trying to curate the perfect guests to have on. But that takes a long time sitting in clubhouse and Twitter spaces and listening like really listening, like, who is bringing something really interesting to the table that people should be hearing about somebody who's iterating differently using the model differently, or is just a cool person I want to have on but it requires a lot of bandwidth and a lot of time and then I don't think people really realize like, even for me, to create an educational platform like I am, also requires me to be listening, reading and researching all the time. And I find that like, I'm not I don't have any time either. I can't even believe how many hours I work sometimes I'm like, I gotta shut it down. Like I cannot be moderating a room and clubhouse, you know, 10pm after I've been going all day long. And I have interviews the next day, like it's, I don't know what happened with time, like you said, like, it's like, has all all guardrails that we've we've created for ourselves have like, vanished?
Alexander Amartei 29:07
Yeah, absolutely. You know, it even gets to the stage where you text somebody or call somebody, and they text back on a Sunday. And then they say, I'm with Family, and you almost get offended. Because how can you not, you know, I mean, literally, not even a meal, but just how can you take that stance, you know, you know, the world we're in, you know, fast paced, everything is gonna need to get done. We can't wait till Tuesday or Wednesday, you know? And like, you'd have to step back and think, Okay, is it is it actually good? You know, I mean, there's a lot to gain from it. And I think that's why there's a bit of a race at the moment. People want to be dominant in the web three era they want to be dominant dominant in their industry. It's all understandable. But yeah, I think everyone's gonna collectively realize at one stage okay, we need weekends again,
Holly Shannon 29:51
you know, yeah, well, I think like if you think about the old one, that old model, but if you think about Wall Street, it ran on a different clock. Whereas once we introduced cryptocurrencies which have no clock, I think that was part of that shift because like you're saying it's running 24/7 365. So the way people want to manage their money track their money builds, their, their net worth, operates differently when they can do it at 2am. Eastern Standard Time. Right. Whereas maybe they couldn't do it before, because Wall Street wasn't open.
Alexander Amartei 30:31
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It closed at four o'clock. And, you know, they go home, and, you know, so. But we'll see. I mean, I think it's just this transitional period where people see so much opportunity in the NFT space. I mean, like, what we're doing is, is it tremendously exciting, it keeps you going, and you'd have to just get it finished. I mean, both the storyline itself is like, it's so iconic, and it's really irrelevant for the time we live in. And then, and then just to be able to disrupt and introduce a new model like this, that will be introduced into Hollywood. I mean, imagine a situation where a studio can make $100 million movie, and through defi, through yield farming, they can make half of that money, or potentially all of that money back before principal photography. And this doesn't just have to apply to Hollywood, this could be shipbuilding. You know, you're building an oil tanker for $50 million. It's funded by NF T's, the people who own the NF T's have their money back before the ship is even built. And then it just ongoing earnings from, you know, freight rates and things like that. So the define how it's going to be able to add some like risk mitigation and buffers to business processes. That's where I think, you know, it could bring billions back into the movie business. Because not just from the financial element, you know, through defy, but also the collaborative element as well, with all the things that we're talking about, like on clubhouse on Twitter spaces, you're interacting with digital artists, score, composers, producers, cinematographers, they're all they're doing their thing for their own reason. And they're all wanting to collaborate. And it's raising the question of things like the RNA that's just as important as they were before. We even NEED A listers we can collaborate with people within our community. People know about the movie, it's got so much press, you know, do we really need my Lister? Okay, maybe one, you know, to peg things, and to satisfy a bit of the web too well, that that's still dominant. At the end of the day, you know, we still need the distributors to be satisfied. But, yeah, there's a lot of change. I think that I think this is gonna bring millions and millions back into the movie business and people getting more involved in the movie business.
Holly Shannon 32:36
Well, you know, this is now a left field question, what is your feeling on influencers? Then?
Alexander Amartei 32:43
Oh, that's a big question. So
Holly Shannon 32:46
I had to throw that in when you said A listers, because it's kind of the same thing. Well, we're
Alexander Amartei 32:50
in an era where people can become famous overnight. And that's the thing with A listers, they were a value because they had more visibility and fame than other people, people know them, they relate to them, they might respect them. And they're familiar with them. And for that reason, it's easier to sell tickets, because you know, that person on the screen. Now, you have a YouTube where you have an MMA fighter who might do I mean, Forbid, he was the most Googled person or 2022 most Googled sports person, to be the guy who's been Conor McGregor in UFC. And, you know, people can have different values. Now, that's been disrupted. And not only that, but this web three, culture. I don't want to say it's anti establishment again, but it's it's not anti establishment, it's just, things don't have to be how they used to be before. If somebody wants to be an actor, or an actress or a producer. There's not as many gatekeepers now, and things can be done a little bit more freely. And the good thing about it is the people who are coming into the space filtery space. You know, at least they're coming into the high standard, with production backgrounds with, you know, it's not just a bunch of 18 year olds saying, hey, let's make a movie. And you know what I mean? So, but with influencers, there's two ways to look at that in terms of their value. There's definitely value to have them in a movie like this that everybody knows about, everybody's watching how it's being produced. But in terms of liaising with them and working with them on promotion for an NFL Draft. That's another story. Another conversation for another day. That's that's quite a challenge. And some of them are great. Some of them are district patients, some of them are, you know, no comment, you know,
Holly Shannon 34:27
fair, fair, I kind of threw that one at you. I was just curious how you felt, you know, I I definitely want to attach any kinds of trailers to the show notes on here, but I don't think I really gave you an opportunity to share with everybody what the story is about and I think that would be very interesting, do you think you can give us
Alexander Amartei 34:51
So this story is about a character called if the true story first and foremost, and it's about a character called the Emperor and he It was a black slave born in the desert who eventually won his freedom. But after he won his freedom he went on he rocketed to stardom, he became the most celebrated poets in all of Arabic history. And the most respected, nice and like feared warrior, you know. And his story is, I mean, we put it together with the professors of Arabic literature from Oxford, Cambridge, Dale. So us, we wanted to do justice to the sort of literary grandeur of this character. I mean, it's the equivalent of the Iliad, in the Western world. But it's a true story, which is interesting. He has a character, I mean, his story is the, the Romeo and Juliet of the Middle East, there's a love story in it. But it's also the Alexander the greater Middle East, it's about the rise of a person who is at the bottom of society, and, you know, scales the heights of aristocracy and ancient Arabia. And, I mean, everybody knows what it's like to be the underdog. The Crypto era is the underdog, you know, you know, trying to replace an archaic system, which is antiquated and stuck in the mud. And so and then for us to be doing, you know, the first major movie versus magic epic in Hollywood history to be done by NFT. It is a bit of an underdog going away. So there's lots of parallels. And commercially, aside from the passionate story and the inspirational story, it's the right time in the Middle East as well, because in Saudi Arabia, they open cinemas for the first time in like 30 years. They had a band for 30 years on cinema, and then they're, you know, really open for business. Now. I think Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia are really competing against each other to see who's going to be the film hub of the Middle East. And they're both putting millions into into the film business and the infrastructure. So to have their Alexander the Great, as a big epic to be done with Hollywood's backing and Hollywood, distribution and Hollywood producers. It's a perfect storm. Perfect time. Perfect story. And, you know, we were very lucky that we had all of the things in place before we were before we embarked on the NFT journey. Like the director, the producers, the scripts, sheduled budget licenses, shooting Saudi Arabia, or tax credits, which are going to be taxable in advance, which is fantastic. And our team was fantastic. Like Gerard Butler, Stuart Sutherland, who just finished Gerard Butler's movie. And other one the producers, he just fantastic Gucci. And our director, his last six films, he's dropped like $700 million box office, and our bonding company had bonded like 7000 films since 1949. We've put together a top pedigree team for the production so but the story itself is the real driver. It is an epic story. I mean, if you read this guy's poetry. You know, we think because when this century, we think we're so clever, we think we're so intelligent, with our innovations and are whatever. But when you read the poetry of this character, his sophistication, his his articulation, his intelligence, is so bold, it's such a it's really striking. So and he's got this duality about him where he's, he's obviously he's, he's a slave, but he comes from noble blood, like his father was a Nobel. And in his poetry, you'll see like extreme violence. When when he talks about romantics like the most sophisticated way of approaching romance, you know, really impressive, so, yeah, Antara there's not that much on him. Like there was a Russian composer who did a symphony on him. There's a professor of Arabic literature, James Montgomery, he translated 50 of his main poems into English, and 2018. And they actually tried to make this movie on Tara in 2020 10. He doesn't have tenure with Dwayne Johnson. But it was pretty mature in the Middle East. They weren't ready for it to receive the, you know,
Holly Shannon 38:39
the industry was closed. Last night, it wasn't that developed. Yeah, yeah. We could possibly if you have, you know, maybe a piece of poetry that you think would be interesting as a PDF. And then of course, to we could proper, properly source. Of course, in the translation, I could put that in the show notes too, in case that might be of interest to people to from a depth perspective to understand the character, you know, even more deeply. A couple other left field questions for you, because I love those. But I'm
Alexander Amartei 39:15
sorry to interrupt on that note before you go to that is, this is why we wanted to attract a certain type of audience because I know that the whole discord world is not sustainable. Not everybody's going to be spending time that we've already spoken about how nobody has any time. You know, nobody's going to be sitting on Discord all day, every day. So we have to count on provision for that. So with this story, this is why we wanted to attract people who have appreciation for that level of depth. You know, to own a piece of Troy as a physical picture, that paint that, you know, physical, nice sheet glass frame that hangs on your wall. You've got it in your Metamask and you've got it on the wall and it's your ownership of a classical, timeless, epic, like, you know, if you had given anybody the opportunity to own a piece of Troy, which is still streaming 20 years later and making money and And to own a piece of that one of your favorite movies, I'd want to own it. And I don't buy that many NF T's. By the way, I'm, you know, I really don't. And but if I could own, say, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or Gladiator, to say that I own piece of it, I'd be proud. So we're coming with the same sort of, you know, and that's why we speak so much we go into much depth about the psychology of this character, what it means in people's hearts, and, you know, just hit him as a as a personality. It's a, it's something that when we go into depth, when we go into real depth on it, it's something that really will. It occupies a good space on people's mind, basically.
Holly Shannon 40:37
And I think actually reading poetry that he has written helps you feel closer to that character, which is why I kind of want to include something there if we can. Yeah, but that absolutely.
Alexander Amartei 40:51
I mean, even one of his I mean, I don't remember all of his poetry is but one of them really summarizes his character, he says, and if they asked you about me, tell them that I plunged into the uproar of war. Yet I abstained from the spoils. And this is Antara he was known for when he goes into battle, he only goes for the champion of the opposing side, or the top three champions. As soon as they're dead, he withdraws from the battlefield. And when it comes time to sharing all of the spoils of war on the gold and whatever, he doesn't touch it. And he leaves it. And he did that to show his grandeur of character to not to not touch any of that money. He is the one who gets the victory, but he doesn't touch. And that is like, when you dwell upon. I mean, that's like Floyd Mayweather winning the, you know, World Championship, who boxing whatever, and the prize money of 50 million, and he says, Keep your money.
Holly Shannon 41:43
Principle, right, you're there for the principal.
Alexander Amartei 41:46
And nobody does that. And honor and nobility in this day. And age is like, it's unlike support.
Holly Shannon 41:52
Well said. So so now I am going to give you my left field question, I noticed in your profile that you love fencing, horses, and horseback archery. So is there a way through maybe like AI or something to like, replicate your natural movements, and say, a horseback ride and put that in the movie? So that, like, you are a part of it, you're part of the action in some way? I know, it's such a left field question. But
Alexander Amartei 42:25
yeah, you're you're you're spot on. And this is the era we're going into. And this is why it's so interesting. I mean, there's actors, I found out the other day, there was an actress who, the people who manage her have a 3d scan of her whole body on her face and her voice, and they're allowed to put her in any movie. And she doesn't even need to be there. And they own the rights to that. So we're going into a really weird era. Exactly, yeah,
Holly Shannon 42:50
that's a theme image likeness, intellectual property nightmare in the making, in my opinion,
Alexander Amartei 42:57
you know what I mean? And that's literally somebody selling. You know, I don't want to say selling themselves, you know what I mean? And I mean, Drake, for example, he owns the, the rights towards, to the I think it's the hologram of either Tupac or Michael Jackson. He was the hologram rights. So if you ever have a hologram, or you know, 3d hologram, so we're entering into a really interesting era. And it's interesting in the sense, because it lowers the cost of film production as well, like a camera that would cost let's say, $100,000.20 years ago, you do a better job now on a camera that costs $2,800. So the cost of production is going down, and the quality is going up. So, but yeah, things like this can be done. Yeah, and the speed, like I say, before, I always say, the speed at which innovation is flooding the space is just, it's gonna make the next three years look so different than the things that people are gonna be able to do, and how they're gonna be able to do that.
Holly Shannon 43:51
Yeah, you'll want to do your movie all over again. Yeah, you have an image of how you're producing it now. Right? And then three years, like, gosh, we just wait it.
Alexander Amartei 44:01
You're spot on?
Holly Shannon 44:04
Wow. So is there a goal date for production to begin?
Alexander Amartei 44:13
Yes, we are scheduled to shoot October, the 10. Week shoots 25 weeks post production, so and the score we gave actually the score, we've sent the project to Hans Zimmer, some months back. And we were trying to get him to collaborate with a Middle Eastern artist, because we want to have a nice balance between Western orchestra and the right ratio of Arabian melodies in the score. To make an international epic, I mean, it is a Middle Eastern story, but we want to make it an international movie. We don't want to just make an Arabic movie. You know what I mean? We'll make an international for everybody. So So yeah, October is the date and we're going to be going location scouting sometime between now and then some of the recommended members, or after the NFT community will bring with us for the experience. And then some of them are going to be obviously being extras in the movie and it'd be part of the movie and things like that. So some of them will be their last video. Exactly. And it gives us an opportunity to have so much behind the scenes footage of how the movie was made, you know, the first big NFT movie like this, how it happened, how the NF T's campaign took place, how they know everything about the community members. And, and that leads back to even like a Lamborghini giveaway, as you know, all of that will be on camera, you know, the Lamborghini being delivered and the response and the reaction, we want to have loads behind the scenes, this project
Holly Shannon 45:29
is really, really cool. Do you need all of the NF T's to be sold in order to begin? Like, do you have no okay, all right,
Alexander Amartei 45:39
just just 3000. Between now and let's say July, it's a really low target. There's other NFT projects that do 20 30 million, and it's literally profile picture NFT. So we're actually creating something of tremendous, tremendous value, which is going to up the bar in terms of what utility and what people expect with getting an NFT it's a piece of art, but it's also IP ownership of an actual epic. And, and this is really good for our for price as well. Because if you NFT, a Ferrari, you know, a classic Ferrari, which is worth $400,000. And you split it into, let's say, 1000, and a piece, and everybody owns one each, nobody's gonna dump that NFT you know what I mean, they only sell it because you've got real value, which is pegged to value in the real world. And that's, that's the secret to NF T's rather than just having some inflated digital value. If we can bridge the gap between having the digital value, even if it does get inflated and goes out of proportion on the secondary market, that people are selling our NF T's for 15 eath in the future, because it's a collectible, fair enough. But we still have that floor of real world value pegged against pegged with our NFT, which is the interesting thing. So I think we'll see a lot more of that. And already now with this conversation we've been living since last year, so many more film, NF T's are cropping up and now the Twitter spaces. Subject Lines are our NFR movie NF t's the next Alpha NFT or movie NFT is the next future. And I think yes, absolutely. Why because it has more mileage and meat on the bone, so to speak, then profile picture and that is even music. NFC is becoming very popular, but it's just the album or the song of the artist. But with movies, you have the actual collectible, you have memorabilia, you have the strip that can be NFT, you can have a score that can be NFT. You can have airdrops for future things like sequels, you know, series, franchises, toys, merchandise, licensing all of that. There's a lot of, you know, imagine only part of Star Wars, for example, which is still going 20 years later, more sequels, toys, everything. So the value proposition with movies, more so than anything else. I think the value is there. And if I thought it was somewhere else, I'd be in that industry instead.
Holly Shannon 47:58
Now, it's very interesting, I have a friend that's in the movie business that is looking to do exactly what you're doing. He's been talking about it for last six months with me. So I think you're right, I think it's it's definitely a more interesting proposition compared to some of the other ways people are using NF T's. Although I do like some of the other ways i i like sort of the that one of one artist that's just curious to that's been maybe doing amazing photography, and they put out that one piece or a painting that they take a JPEG of, I love that there's like that bridge between, you know, what they've done before with the new technology, and maybe they don't even have to go any further than that. They don't need a discord channel, they don't need all of that they just maybe need to show up on like clubhouse to share their project and make it sell. So I like that there's two ends of the spectrum there. But I agree with you with the film industry, it definitely would be a movie as a more robust value proposition in the end.
Alexander Amartei 49:08
Yeah. And it has so much life in it in the sense that so many people can collaborate on I mean, in the film production, you have, like 200, between cast and crew. But then extending that to the community as well, you have so many people, promoting us helping with the promotion, helping with the box office, the community act as a network as well, they sometimes bring investors, sometimes they bring, you know, introduced introduction to other distributors around the world, the community can do some amazing things. If it operates like an ant colony, you know, those really big power in numbers and if you're doing it for a good cause that just cause uninspiring cause. That's, I think, the real sweet spot of the NFT and an industry and a community coming together. Like that's the sort of epoch of it's, you know, it's the sort of limit of NFT is that evolution to get to that stage where you can, you know, really do some may little things.
Holly Shannon 50:01
Yeah, I mean, a lot of projects are built with a social good component. I don't know that you had that in yours. I didn't see that necessarily, but I think maybe your social good is sharing a and a piece of history in a new way, and letting that underdog story take on a diversity that What hasn't really been seen a lot in cinema. So I sort of feel like you have a social good piece built in, but I don't think you designed yours with, I could be wrong, like a percentage that's going towards a charity or something like that.
Alexander Amartei 50:42
We didn't because we have so much weight upon our shoulders and responsibility to get the film production done. So every single piece of everything that comes from this all goes to the film production. But we do have plans with the Arabian camels brand, we have Abba saverlife NFT, which we're planning to launch, which is basically fractionalized ownership, which we were speaking about before. And you know, there's some people who might need a new kidney or a new heart or a new organ, and it cost maybe $70,000. And with us as a community, you know, with $50 Each goodness, we could save a life every month, you know, and we have been talking about that, but amongst ourselves within the community, things like that. We're planning. We're halfway up Mount Everest. So by we're at Basecamp. Now, let me obviously with some of our we got a bit they arrived the base time a couple of days ago. So between now and May, mid May, they'll right after acclimatize, so, you know, stop in place along the way, get used to everything. So mid May, we shouldn't be the first NFC community in history again to to plant our flag on the peak of Mount Everest. And then you know, people say, Okay, what does that even mean? But it's just the spirit and the culture of what we're trying to do. And then we've got an Atlantic crossing, as well, we're 10 of our community will be able to cross the Atlantic between Portugal and Bahamas. Why is just that spirit of adventure, you know, spearheading new areas of life and owning a movie together, Everest together across the Atlantic together, we plan to cross the Empty Quarter together and things like that. Saving life together. You know, there's even plans we have with Formula E. But we haven't really announced yet so I will not talk too much about it. But yeah, there's a lot of planning and that's what you should have with an NFT community go from strength, strength, because you can do great things with the community. Really great things.
Holly Shannon 52:29
I love this story. Alexandra, thank you so much. I I want to end on this note where you know, people are climbing Mount Everest and crossing the ocean together and building a new model for movies with NF t. So thank you so much for coming on culture factor. This was an amazing interview with you