AIP-168: The Legend of ApeCoin: Atrium Casting Call

[Anaroth]

Legend of ApeCoin

Abstract and Cost:

To produce 12 independent animations with a run time of 1 minute each.

This proposal introduces an ecosystem-wide casting call to all eligible IP Holders powered by ApeCoin. The animators of Atrium have experience with Disney, Pixar, HBO, Netflix & more and await the opportunity to co-create with community members. Funding this proposal showcases ApeCoin’s dedication to providing new avenues for creators and results in 12 animations under a “Legend of ApeCoin” theme.

Rationale of Value Added to ApeCoin

• In an increasingly digital landscape, content rules permanence and brand recall. Good brands build timeless content that fans can anchor on. That in turn creates an increasingly valuable ecosystem around it. As the canon storylines are created officially by Yuga, this proposal to the ApeCoin DAO community has a unique opportunity to co-create equally memorable characters and storylines that are completely driven bottoms-up.
• Being crypto native and having highly experienced talent from the animation industry (Pixar, Sony, Netflix, Dreamworks, Marvel), Atrium is uniquely positioned to work with ApeCoin DAO to create content that appeals to mainstream audience, bring more awareness to an already lovable crypto-native brand and deliver co-created cinematic content.

How does this benefit DAO + DAO members?

• ApeCoin DAO produces the storylines the community creates involving the ApeCoin brand.
• Co-create with crypto native network of qualified animators and filmmakers.
• Reinforces top of mind for community-produced content on all social channels (Atrium’s previously created content has recorded millions of impressions and hundreds of thousands of views in aggregate).
• Crypto native distribution mechanism of artifacts used in the production (content viewing, companion mints all made available free to the community members)

Based on the overall reception of the pilot short-film series, if community wants to expand on any specific storyline - Atrium will have logistics In place to build out the series with follow-up proposal.

What is Atrium?

Atrium is a blockchain-backed network of artists and creators. Disciplines represented on Atrium currently include Screenwriting, Animation, Concept Art, Voice Actors, and Music production.

Securing top-quality creative talent who are well versed in the NFT space and committed to supporting the long-term growth of an ecosystem is extraordinarily difficult. Here at Atrium, we have curated and nurtured a collective of outstanding animators, illustrators, storytellers, and all-around remarkable creatives.Take a look at a few of our creators below.

3DPG:

ZenDoubt

HKJAY:

Phuncal:

RetroSketch:

Indy

Timeline

Web-App creation

Funds requested from ApeCoin
$200,000

Our independent artists and animators will produce 12 stories for the first series. Each animated story will have a run-time of 1:00min - 1:10min. Proposal funds will be inclusive of:

Logistics for running the casting call
Concept development & Storyboarding
Animation production
VFX
Voice-over
Music and Sound design

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Rationale
This ‘Legend of ApeCoin’ proposal reflects ApeCoins value of boldness. We know that storytelling is no easy task, and cinematic animation is incredibly difficult to produce. This, however, doesn’t mean that Hollywood-level production quality is unattainable.

This proposal allows IP owners to build a story and universe around their desired character to share that story in the form of a beautifully crafted piece of animated content with the world.

Should the owner and community want to expand on that story and build on any traction, then Atrium’s Artists are on hand to continue that development and build out a series or feature-length piece.

Here at Atrium, we also share the ApeCoins value of equality; this is central to everything we do. We believe that anyone with a strong character, idea, or presence should be able to have an unforgettable producer experience that unites and engages the community and reflects the wealth of opportunities the BAYC and ApeCoin have created for their owners.

For greater context on the cost of good animation studios, they are typically priced anywhere from $10K to $25K per minute. In some cases, content featuring stars can push that price up to 200k per minute.

While we are not a large studio, our talent has already proven themselves in the space and is anxiously awaiting the opportunity to create with the community.

For us, this is only the beginning, here at Atrium, our core mission is to empower those with a story to connect with the artists who can bring it to life. This proposal is the start of bringing that creative utility to the ApeCoin community.

Motivation:
BAYC has ushered in a new era of community experiences, commercial opportunities, and a disruptive and fresh approach to brand building.

At Atrium, we believe that creators, VFX artists, and animators will contribute untold value to the Web 3.0 space. Their creative skills can enrich the experience of IP owners and collectors and transform the creative identity and reach of brands.

We are dedicated to onboarding exceptional industry talent into the Web 3.0 space and, by doing so, redefining what community-generated content can mean. This positions Atrium at the nexus of changing fanfiction for a generation and elevating beloved characters known and unknown to a global stage.

Steps to Implement

• We will announce the central theme of ApeCoin to ensure all animations have a common thread running through them. Whether you see ApeCoin as a coveted treasure on an island or a precious fuel source for an intergalactic saga, we are thrilled to see how the community embraces multiple worlds tied together through this central arc.
• The casting call invites the community to nominate their chosen characters that our animators will bring to life, this is the spark that lights the fire of creativity within the ApeCoin community. This kicks off the process in which holders can shape the ApeCoin storyverse, creating a community lead narrative. Defining who their characters become, what they do, and how their story arcs evolve. We estimate this to occur in early January and expect the animation process to take between 4 - 6 weeks to complete each animation.
• Our artists, 3D_PrintGuy, Phuncal, ZenDoubt, HKjay, RetroSketch, Indy, and others, will select their favorite characters from the casting call. They will then invite the owners into a personalized producer experience. Here the collectors will act as co-creators, working alongside our industry veterans to produce a unique 1/1 animation.
• Casting call winners are then invited to provide input and feedback on major creative element of the project. This includes the script, animatic feedback, music, and even voice acting where relevant.
• Taking a page from 10KTF, we plan to select a day every two weeks to share content previews throughout the process. While we are prepared to release content previews ourselves to engage the community, we do feel coordinating previews with existing spaces and other content proposals would be a great collaboration opportunity.
• Upon completion, we will premiere the completed animations on Twitter and a web-app created by Atrium. We believe leveraging a multi-sig wallet for delivery of the final animations ApeCoin is financing to be the best custody solution.
• Multi-sig wallet Signers include the final casting call winners and will be a 5/13 (1 signer per story created + 1 atrium) signature requirement mandate.While outside of the scope of this proposal, we can also look into putting all episodes in a tessera vault and fractionalizing all of the episodes for collection by the broader community.
• Finally, we will initiate the second casting call, extending new owners the opportunity to create a character to be featured and existing owners the opportunity to refine their proposals from the first casting call. The final 6 characters will be chosen from this.
• We will then invite the entire community to choose their favorite characters from those submitted for the casting call. We will then share this shortlist with our animators, who will make their selections. This also provides an excellent opportunity for all ApeCoin holders to have a say in the storyline, regardless of the NFT they hold.
• The first tranche of our plan will allow us to introduce three new animations with the first animation being released in February and the others by April 2023 and then throughout August 2023.

Web App Creation

• Iron out the Product requirements for the web-app
• Define the final UX workflow for the web-app
• Create front-end for the required workflows
• Wire up any backend and infra dependency for the Video delivery + content viewing
• Launch of the web-app Work on this web-app to happen in parallel with the production of the first few episodes after casting call kickoff.

Not in scope

• Multi lingual
• Mobile app native workflows

[Harry]

Hi @Anaroth , glad to have you here.

Have you checked out https://twitter.com/boredjob? They have done some casting calls in the past, you can learn from their best practices and potentially find collaboration to gather more feedback from your project

[Anaroth]

Hey Harry,

Thanks for the reference, I will take a look to see if something can be used as we work to provide a casting call that inspires the community.

[supriyo]

Chiming in here alongside @Anaroth .

To add to your note @Harry , its a good call out on Boredjobs. They have certainly been leading with a lot of IP based deal activations within the community members. However, we are planning something unique in terms of approach with this proposal and it will be more focused on story content that can rival the canon content in terms of production quality.

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• Casting call essentially is a series of guided prompt exercises we will do with the community to come up with a bottoms-up non-canon storyverse with Apecoin at its core.

• Atrium creatives will take their own unique spin on each piece of story created (e.g. think black mirror with distinct direction on different episodes) where it still all binds together.

• Atrium will spin-up a dedicated app to explore the animated content specifically as the storylines grow(?) in the future. We do not intend to token gate this to artificially make the content scarce. Good content is open to watch for everyone & share.

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(E.g. Canon = Anakin skywalker / darth vader, Non-canon = Mandalorion where both are at par in terms of developing their own long-term cultural impact in the star wars universe)

Atrium’s group of participating creatives in this proposal (@Anaroth will share more info later on) are some of the top veterans from the animation &vfx industry who collectively command decades of experience from Disney, Netflix, Dreamworks, Sony to name a few.

We already (independently) had the opportunity to facilitate some of the most viral individual story kickoffs through Atrium’s platform in the recent months.

Check out

sixstrings.eth

AaronPYS.eth 🦍🍣🤖 BAYC #3338

Shwaz

[Anaroth]

Know your Creators

Atrium is bringing multiple artists together with decades of professional studio experience from Disney, Pixar, Netflix and more for this effort. They are exceptional in technical ability and skilled storytellers too. Get to know some of the featured artists below.

3dprintguy

3dPrintGuy needs no introduction. You may have seen his work in short films such as Saga of Six or the Sushi ape. He comes from over 15 years of experience at Disney / Pixar and was behind a few of the most iconic feature films made in animation, like “Up”. Some of his independent films on Youtube have fetched over 15 million views.

Zendoubt

Zendoubt has been a long-time resident artist at Luma Pictures, where he proudly led a team of artists working on imaginative indie and blockbuster films. Zendoubt and HKJay are the artist behind the music star Shilly

HKjay

Having been an animator in film and TV for 10 years and worked for studios such as Netflix, Sony Imageworks, HBO, Disney+, Warner Bros, HKJAY’s experience speaks for itself. He has worked on titles like Sea Beast, Dark Materials, DC Superpets and has been creating in the NFT space while planning his eventual release as an independent artist.

Phuncal

Phuncal is an Animation Director, Screenwriter, Techno Music Producer, and Old film enthusiast creating originals since 2008 when he founded his studio Shockunit.

Retrosketched

Retrosketched is a group of artists, composers, and illustrators who come together to create amazing stories on a diverse range of themes. Check out House of Habit - a short based on the works of tony babel.

[Anaroth]

Thanks for adding the extra clarity Supriyo

[Apeancestor]

@Anaroth

own pieces of IP

Are Otherside Otherdeeds considered part of the IP owners as well?

[Anaroth]

Yea, as we move in to the draft stage I will be sure to be more specific here. Thank you for the question.

[phibacka31]

I like the idea of creating high-quality content using the IP. My biggest question is: are the “selected” owners of the IP compensated in any way, or is this more of using the IP for the greater good of the brand and being able to collaborate with Atrium?

[CryptoLogically]

As a Yuga asset-holder and story-teller myself, I do love the idea of helping holders develop their IPs into actual characters with actual stories that contribute to the lore of the Yugaverse. I’ve actually developed a world in which my three Mutants come together to form a hip-hop trio; I’ve written the script and storyboarded the first issue of their graphic novel, even recently found our artist.

I suppose my main concern (in addition to breaking down the costs associated with this undertaking) is that it still caters toward people who are already part of the Yuga ecosystem and while it may help grow Yuga exposure, I’m not clear how this helps get new people into ApeCoin.

Once again, we hold assets many can’t have access to, and I’m always most supportive of initiatives that prioritize the expansion of ApeCoin holders worldwide. How does this help get new people in the door?

[Anaroth]

Tldr Shortterm:

Every piece of animation is created as a NFT by the artist and preserved as an ERC721 containing the final outcome. The intent is to have a joint Multisig with atrium + ip owners who would be custodians to these assets.

Cinema grade production is expensive, and the ask here in ApeCoin will fund the creation of these stories while they are curated in a bottoms-up manner from all of the community members (The Casting Call). The IP owner(s) are getting themselves cemented as a core character of a story world which has the opportunity to become bigger.

This is also done in an artist first approach, where unlike larger production studios the majority of the ask is going directly to the artist. We believe that Atrium can be a home for the stars of the VFX industry to have a way to showcase their talents.

More longterm (not in scope of this proposal):

If the story world takes off in terms of recognition and community wants to further the stories, Atrium (artist collective) could come back with a follow-up proposal which lays foundation for a more full blown story pipeline that involves these same IPs. Then potentially any kind of secondary revenue generated (limited series mints for e.g.) can have a revenue-share setup with the IP owners.

Great question, thank you

[Anaroth]

I really like the central question of “How does this bring more people into ApeCoin?”

Bringing talented artists to the space who accept ApeCoin as payment helps bring in new members with a well sought after skillset.

Part of bringing more people to ApeCoin also involves giving the larger public something to feel proud and excited about. Content offers an avenue to feel heard, voice your opinion, and be proud of a result even if you do not hold an asset.

As a community we have the opportunity not only to create content, but to create careers for those looking for a new way to display their talents at a high level. I’ll look to include more of this theme in a draft version though Chris because it certainly fits well, thank you.

[CryptoLogically]

Thanks for the response Anaroth. Like I said, I love the idea and am excited to see our characters brought to life in a way that transcends the static PFP.

I’m just always looking to see how we can bring this multifaceted tool we call ApeCoin to the larger world. Looking forward to seeing what shape this project takes.

[0xSword]

I think is really cool. Having some of characters animated & their stories developed would be a lot of fun. From the first time I saw this proposal, it’s been something that’s excited me. I also like how involved you are in twitter spaces, and its great to see you come to the forums w/ your idea & wanting to build. Lets do it! You have the track record, the tools, the plan. This could be a fun thing!

[ChrisL]

Just to give you some basic info about the IP rights of otherside. Otherdeed owners do not have the right to build derivative products. Rights belong to Yuga based on the current agreements and can be changed at any time by Yuga in the future. I’m trying to create another proposal about IP rights so the community could get a better understanding of the IPs of your NFT.

Back to the topic of this thread, the idea is great. I’ve seen some of the animations on Twitter before and they are in good quality. Look forward to seeing more of them!

[Vulkan]

Thanks for putting forth this proposal @Anaroth! I also enjoy hearing you discuss it on the Spaces session hosted by the ApeComms team. It’s clear you have a vision, plan, and team to back it up.

One interesting thing I’ve seen a few other projects do is have two casting calls/votes where say you get 100 submissions, the community narrows it down to 20-25 or so and then the Atrium team narrows it down again to the final 10. No pressure to implement this of course, just thought it might be a cool way to get the community engaged and involved in the selection process a bit.

[Anaroth]

You raise a great point here, specifically what I hear here is finding a balance of story cohesion and community engagement. Making those that don’t get selected feel just as included in the experience is a great call out.

Thinking out loud here, I feel like the second casting call that occurs would be great timing for something like what you mentioned. There would be a stronger story foundation that allows people to not just vote on a character but to see them become part of the existing story.

[Vulkan]

Yes, this a a cool idea.

[0xSword]

Hey @Vulkan is your mutant more of a hero or villian type? How would you describe his alignment?

[Vulkan]

I’ve started to develop a bit of a backstory for him, which includes a villain-type role in the BAYC. Definitely enjoy playing into his “volcano-like” theme he has going on.