Zcash Short Documentary

Please note this is a re-arrangement of our previous grant (https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zcash-mini-documentary-educational-series/39667) and hence Milestones 1-3 are already complete; Milestones 4-6 are new and differ from original grant. Please see Zcash Community Forum for full explanation of the re-arrangement.

Description of Problem or Opportunity

The general public does not know about Zcash, zero-knowledge proofs, the Zcash community, or how Zcash and its underlying technology applies to their lives. Beyond the problem of a lack of awareness, there is a steep learning curve for those that are interested in educating themselves about Zcash, which limits Zcash’s goal of being accessible to all. Finally, although information and discussion regarding Zcash development has a high level of transparency on the forums, this is not a translatable or approachable form of media for the wider public and casual Zcash users.

Proposed Solution

To overcome the lack of awareness about Zcash, help new and existing users better understand Zcash's current and future uses, and increase transparency in the Zcash development process, we propose to make an entertaining and educational introductory video that can be widely shared.

Solution Format

mp4 files

Technical approach

We are a top-to-bottom production house (development, production, and post-production), creating cinema quality content at a handheld price. We believe storytelling is the most powerful way to motivate change, so we strive to be a part of the community that inspires a sustainable future and more socially conscious society.

How big of a problem would it be to not solve this problem?

We believe that without easily understandable educational content about Zcash, it may not reach large scale adoption.

Execution risks

An important execution risk is the dependency on interviewees to agree to be interviewed to obtain enough video content for our short documentary.

Unintended Consequences Downsides

By putting different people front and center in our video, we risk unintended downsides if anyone featured were to have something extremely negative in their history or future come to light.

Evaluation plan

We will solicit feedback from interested community members during the scripting and post-production phases to help evaluate and improve our work. Once finalized videos are distributed, evaluation metrics include: community feedback, engagement numbers for posted videos (i.e., likes, shares, views), etc.

Schedule and Milestones

Month 1-2

-Development/Pre-production (completed).

Month 3-4

-Filming/Production (completed).

Month 4-6

-Post-production for Tier 0 video

Month 6-7

-Additional Production

-Final Post-Production

Budget and Payout Timeline

Milestone 1-3 Budget: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IFCm4GR1qrLQBhlQkeDxJ4R5EzjaBcg3/view?usp=sharing

Milestone 4-6 Budget: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eNIRysAw0zkaVAtANFL5FF_uQXhs2zCZtliDQEtEUds/edit?usp=sharing

Applicant background

37 Laines - Production Company

37 Laines is an award winning film production company run by Natasha Mynhier and Jeff Hammerton. Out of our offices in Santa Monica, CA, 37 Laines produces high quality creative work for clients across the US, including branded content, commercials, short films, music videos, digital content, web-series, live events, and documentaries.

David Boyer - Project organizer, Writer

David is a scientist currently studying neurodegenerative diseases at UCLA, where he recently received his PhD. He has experience in managing technically demanding projects involving multiple interdisciplinary partners, as well as coordinating and executing long-term research grants. David has co-authored 20+ academic articles and is practiced in relaying detailed scientific information to general audiences.