Visionary Filmmakers Beat Major Studios To Metaverse With First Production Office In Crypto-based Decentraland
Diamond’s Dark House LLC and Diamond Shadow Productions Inc. are the first professional film companies with an official presence in the “metaverse.” The companies are opening a studio office and outlet store in cryptocurrency-based Decentraland. They are working with other companies there to reach global markets.
The initiative is headed by visionary director-producers Diamond Monique Washington and Shadow Dragu-Mihai. They are behind ground-breaking film properties including the much anticipated Eartha Kitt C’est Si Bon, as a directing team, and Diamond Monique Washington’s upcoming dark fantasy The Rabbit Hole. They join other forward-thinking companies like J.P. Morgan, Coca-Cola, Walmart, Bank of America and others, who all have offices in Decentraland.
No other professional film production companies have entered the space. Following Facebook’s rebranding as “Meta,” animation firms Pixar and Epic games announced their future work would be "metaverse friendly." The announcement seems to have been intended to attract attention to Epic Games’ animation product Unreal Engine by associating the term metaverse with the Meta brand. They do not have an active business presence in the decentralized metaverse.
Meta itself has not expanded into the space, either, possibly because it requires them to leave their controlled platform. “The metaverse is actually a decentralized world that has grown up for years with advances in block-chain technology. It’s not a product you can brand. Meta is years behind the times if they don’t understand this,” says Shadow Dragu-Mihai, Executive Director of the International Independent Producers Guild.
Why move into the space now? Diamond Monique Washington answers, “It’s about reaching my audience where they are at. With my brand of dark fantasy and horror at Diamond’s Dark House, there is a large crossover in demographic. People in the metaverse like what I create.”
Says Dragu-Mihai, “The major studios haven’t moved into the space because they think digital technology is about control. But it's about communication, not control. Digital technology has permanently lost them control over distribution, and they are failing in the same way as the major music industry did some 20 years ago. A measure of how much trouble the majors are in is that studios like Disney may be bought out by computer companies. That’s what happened when the music industry lost control of distribution. That’s what is happening in film now. Independent film producers are about to rise again, and Diamond Shadow Productions is at the forefront.”
The Decentraland office will highlight the dark fantasy work of Diamond’s Dark House. It
will offer branded media created especially for audience in the space. The initiative is represented by Legio XIII Imprimatur Inc. All inquiries should be directed to them.
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Fantastic @Shadow ! I wondered when you would announce this. My next question is about straight forward, plebian mechanics. How does one view this media, how do you get paid for it and how much specialised equipment or connectivity does a viewer need to fully appreciate your presentations in the metaverse?
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Morgan Aitken Essentially, consider that Decentralized and similar platforms (we're putting a presence on other as well) are a virtual world, literally mirroring the brick and mortar world, through in an interface which is like a game interface. You could consider it a kind of game of The Sims, except that, since it is real life, there's no game. People do in it what they would do in real life. There is the element of escapism of course, from the physical world. But as this so-called "metaverse" is maturing, people are actually doing what they do in the physical world, and for the same reasons. One of those reasons is to make money. That is Facebook/Meta's problem - and the problem for all businesses - it's not a product you can exploit, it's another territory to be active in. An alternate reality which is already growing and maturing. Facebook/Meta could participate in the metaverse, like everyone else, but it cannot sell it or control it. Decentraland is not actually a platform, which would exist on centralized servers. It's a virtual experience, built on decentalized crypto-technology. Therefore, the "servers" exist on dozens of nodes across the planet.
BUT to answer your actual questions: (1) one views the media by enterting Decentraland. You need an ETH wallet address to be able to buy/sell but you can actually just go to decentaland.org and enter from there. (2) The experience is 3D, still rudimentary to my eyes, but getting better. (3) Therefore the media is built into the models, avatars, etc. (you see it as you would any graphic) and we can stream audio and video content. In fact concerts from Ozzfest and others have already been streamed there. So it streams to your device or on a screen "in-game" so to speak. It can also be encoded into an NFT. (3) In Decentraland proper, transactions are done thorugh "mana" which is a side-chain of ethereum. You use it on the platform because while there you incur no "gas" fees for transactions. But essentially it is ethereum crypto and you can put it in or take it out as such. (4) At this time, the global daily user base of Decentaland is ~300,000 users (its' growing wildly and other platforms are coming up - there will eventually be links among all of them). That's a lot but not enough to make feature films profitable there by itself. So our presence there will use it for what it is good for - reaching a global audience and creating word of mouth - and distributing NFTs, which the space does make possible. We will get paid in mana of course, and can lik to briak-and-mortar world events and offerings.
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Link to the official press release, going out to news services tomorrow. S32 gets it first!
https://independentproducersguild.org/images/press-release-first-in-meta...
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This is brilliant! Thank you for the alpha.
@Shadow Fascinating, so cool this is making creativity literally available in an “alternate universe” and also bypass traditional gate keepers who cannot land grab for mass control. Re your answer to @Morgan seems involvement is less complicated than one may imagine.
P.S “Decentralized” love it, can see slogan on a tee shirt.