ProposalsProposal 407

Let's make a short animated film to fund the Protocol Guild

Executed

For

Against

Abstain

Quorum: 50

Proposed by

0xC3Fd...36Bb

, sponsored by

0xE30A...1510

TL;DR

Let’s make a ~45s short animated film to celebrate Protocol Guild's work on Ethereum, release it as a droposal, and donate the proceeds of the mint to fund Ethereum core development. This prop requests $400k USDC to hire The Line, a BAFTA-nominated animation studio to make this short film.

Edit note from candidate feedback

This prop has been updated from its candidate stage to fix a funding request typo. Also want to acknowledge the excellent feedback from Noun 40 and Trent re: shifting the framing of Protocol Guild from glamorous heroes to tireless stewards / maintainers in the co-created universe of Ethereum. We will work that feedback in with The Line and post an updated script via Propdate.

Why support Protocol Guild?

Nouns love public art and software, and Protocol Guild maintains the most important public software to us: Ethereum. We've demonstrated this in the past to the tune of 500 ETH. Instead of continuing with direct donation, I'm proposing that we leverage our financial and creative resources to make a film about PG, and release it as a mintable NFT whose proceeds go towards the Guild.

This is not only great for PG, but also affords us a unique opportunity to use nounish imagery, characters and themes in a piece of media that will widely seen in our prime demographic of humans who love and care for ethereum.

It's true that "donating" via a mintable film is more risky than giving money directly – but I think telling the story of Ethereum and Protocol Guild through the lens of Nouns is something we can uniquely do. Other DAOs like UNI and LIDO may be able to donate more due to their larger treasury – but none have the mission and mandate to fund creative endeavours like we do.

A successful $400k investment in storytelling can have a broader reach than our previous 500ETH investment and drive far more direct positive attention to Nouns while at the same time providing financial and cultural support to Protocol Guild. And we have evidence this can work, both from our past successful droposals and the Stand with crypto mint.

What's the story we're going to tell?

Please watch Bjorn, our director, tell you the story, settings, and characters in his voice. We're working with a draft story and visual references, and will be refining it all over time with input from the Nouns community. Our current draft story is something like this:

This is a story set in a floating port town, which metaphorically represents the Ethereum ecosystem. Everyone is gathered to celebrate the return of the Protocol Guild, a group of adventurers bringing back innovations that will improve the town (metaphorically EIP-4844). The Nouns play host to these adventurers by inviting them to a big feast. We follow a young child who looks up to the Protocol Guild and follows them across their journey around town, in hope of meeting his heroes.

If you'd like to check out the draft script yourself!

The world and its characters

You should definitely check out Bjorn's video explaining the world in his own words, but check these images for a preview! And feel free to flip through the reference deck yourself!

Who's making the film?

We're working with The Line – a BAFTA-nominated animation studio whose work span across work for major brands and original animation. They've worked extensively with top tier artists and brands like Gorillaz, Lil Nas X, and Marvel Studios, and Nickelodeon. Our director will be Bjorn-Erik Aschim, who's also a studio co-founder.

I reached out to them not only because they worked on a viral Chobani video about a solarpunk farm – which I think visually and emotively embodies the vision the aspiration of Nouns and Ethereum really well, but also because they are one of the best studios in the world, whose work is widely recognized in the creative industry.

Funding & milestones

Funding

I'm requesting $400k USDC to fund this short animation. 100% of the amount goes to The Line to fund the development of the film. The funds will be released over 2 milestones: 1/2 upfront, and 1/2 upon completion.

Milestone payment will be held in an escrow multisig whose signers are the Agora team and will be disbursed to The Line upon milestone completion. In the unlikely event that the film cannot be completed, the remainder funds will be returned to the DAO.

Then, trent.eth from Protocol Guild will submit another proposal to the DAO to release the short film as a droposal with 70% of the proceeds going to Protocol Guild, 20% to Nouns treasury, and 10% to Agora.

What's Agora / Yitong's role in this?

I'm incredibly excited about more Nouns-produced short films released as Droposals, because there's a real flywheel here if we can demonstrate that Nouns can create super high quality short films that also have real mint value.

It's why we're working on an easy Droposals creator at Agora, and I can think of no better film than one about Ethereum itself to demonstrate the power of Droposals.

Timeline

Dates are approximate, and may change by a few days depending on exact timing of the candidate approval. During the process, Yitong will serve as liaison between The Line and the Nouns community to make sure we have the chance to provide feedback during each phase of production.

w/c 19th Oct - Proposal approved (PAYMENT MILESTONE 1 50%) w/c 26th Oct - Creative Phase commences w/c 10th Nov - Creative Phase Deck Approval w/c 16 Nov - Pre-production commences w/c 30th Nov - Edit Lock & Designs approval w/c 21th Dec - Layout approve w/c 21th Dec - Production commences w/c 25 Dec - Christmas Break w/c 25th Jan - Animation approve w/c 25th Feb - Comp approved w/c 22 Feb - Final Delivery (PAYMENT MILESTONE 2 50%)

A story in chapters

If we're successful with this first film, we can serialize this into a series of short animations celebrating major Ethereum milestones so that we can both create an ongoing source of funding for Protocol Guild, and tell an episodic story that builds into a larger narrative and universe that can stand on its own and be appealing to a mass audience who might not even know about Nouns or Ethereum.

Proposal votes

For

Against

Abstain

Quorum: 50

Activity

0x387a...fffd

voted against (1)

This should be a free mint (for scale), earning zora protocol rewards. If we are first minter, that would mean 0.000444 ETH earned per mint. So to simply break even on the $400k (256 ETH) cost of goods sold, we would need to 576.5k free mints. Even if you price the mint at 0.05 ETH, during a bear market, when the current meta is free mints, you need 5120 paid mints, just to break even. Such huge hurdles before PG will even see a penny. The Line are incredible, I know their work well. But I also know talented artists, in animation, who've been dedicated to Nouns for a long time, who'd do this at a much more affordable price, without all the overhead of being a top-level studio in London. All these issues aside, we're also only giving 70% of mint proceeds to PG and it's very likely this runs at a big loss. My main problem is this proposal is out of touch with nounish mint culture and the current, broader mint meta. Btw, very few nouners even mint nounish art. I do as both a creator and collector. Wish I had chimed in during candie.

475d

0xCEEd...D915

voted against (1)

This prop confuses me a bit. The ask seems quite high for a 45s short based on other funding. Also, we have funded protocol guild quite a bit already and it would seem better use of funds to do that directly if that's what we'd like to achieve here.

475d

0xcC26...6Ed5

voted against (4)

FOR - 8 VOTES

benbodhi | "Looks like this will be really cool! Top tier team that will bring more high quality evergreen content to the ecosystem."

akva556 | "Excellent idea. I wonder about the costs, but it is Protocol Guild so fiwb"

borg00000 | "$8888 per second could be the most expensive prop per second yet? im here for it"

AGAINST - 28 VOTES

peterpandam | "400k for 45s of content"

ABSTAINS - 4 VOTES

475d

0x6b26...c2B1

voted for (3)

Sent from https://goops.com Nouns Governance Pool

475d

0xDCb4...5E5e

voted against (16)

https://www.lilnouns.wtf/vote/nounsdao/407/votes

FOR 1 VOTE

AGAINST 543 VOTES

ABSTAINS - 0 VOTES

475d

0xc2d4...e413

voted abstain (1)

This is a grand experiment in sponsorship, media development, and public goods funding. I like everything about it except for the cost. To put it in perspective, we're spending half of nounish's 6 month runway to get 45 seconds of video. However, I know the outcome will be gorgeous and its reach and promotion of core developer work will make up for our loss in treasury.

475d

0x0B3C...d2E3

voted for (2)

475d

0x5D80...1F16

voted for (2)

While I think that it remains to be seen if a Droposal can raise enough interest and ETH to pay for a project of this magnitude, especially in the current market, I’m overall bullish on Droposals as a concept and I think it’s worth experimenting. The Line are incredibly talented, and Yitong is very reliable, so I’m confident something beautiful will come from this. Also, it’s worth mentioning that donating content to an org like Protocol Guild is also valuable in and of itself. It may not be as fungible as ETH, and I know core devs won’t work for animated shorts, but having ownership of a custom, high quality animated video that tells their story well could prove very valuable for public relations, education and fund-raising purposes. With that framing, all proceeds from the Droposal could be considered a bonus. Good luck!

475d

0x5372...d00c

voted for (1)

Protocol Guild + Art? I'm in.

(first vote from ethOS!)

475d

0x1db1...Bda0

voted for (1)

+1 index

475d

0x36A5...46ff

voted for (2)

475d

0x9c74...e623

voted for (1)

476d

0x83fC...45B9

voted abstain (19)

i'm not as enthusiastic about this as the consensus view, but also don't want to stand in the way of something that could potentially be quite beautiful

476d

0x3B60...a43F

voted for (1)

reVoteWithReason from willpapper.eth

One of my core beliefs is that Nouns should advocate for itself and its work in public goods: https://x.com/willpapper/status/1648707794978361344 Nouns needs to serve as a beacon for public goods. Many of its donations are unrecognized or quickly fade from public attention, and Nouns suffers in its ability to bring in contributors as a result. While I believe that the funding request is substantial, and that the money would also serve developers well, a big bet on Nouns advocating for itself is one worth making. The proposal is very high quality with Nounish values, and the Droposal will be a representation of the best of Nouns. I don't think that we should spend this much on PR and marketing often, but rare exceptions are worth it. Excited to see where this goes and whether great contributors find Nouns and Protocol Guild through it. sent from voter.wtf

sent from voter.wtf

476d

0xE30A...1510

voted for (1)

Proposal author and designated studio both have an impressive pedigree in their respective fields of work.
Proposal author has tons of experience with scoping, sequencing, and carrying momentum on large, complex projects.
I’m generally supportive of efforts to interpret, celebrate, and commemorate crypto narratives via shortform storytelling.
Double plus if the deliverable is accessible to folks who may not be fluent in Nouns (or even in crypto)
Nouns is a highly creative, visual brand; I’m generally supportive of continuing to engage with soft world building with seasoned creators.

In addition, I am really interested in how Nouns can further proliferate its brand through creative projects that employ character development and explicit storytelling. This is how I personally become involved in Nouns — I was enchanted by the video NFT by Nounish on Zora, “Let’s Play Nouns DAO”.

476d

0x10de...74cc

voted for (1)

I had a lot of initial hesitancy here (about almost every prop tbh), but feeling much more optimistic about this proposal after reading 40's reason. Maybe I'm living in my nouns bubble too much?

No doubt that the work will be top notch, and will remain hopeful that it can move a needle or two.

476d

0x3Cbd...8637

voted for (1)

One of my core beliefs is that Nouns should advocate for itself and its work in public goods: https://x.com/willpapper/status/1648707794978361344

Nouns needs to serve as a beacon for public goods. Many of its donations are unrecognized or quickly fade from public attention, and Nouns suffers in its ability to bring in contributors as a result.

While I believe that the funding request is substantial, and that the money would also serve developers well, a big bet on Nouns advocating for itself is one worth making. The proposal is very high quality with Nounish values, and the Droposal will be a representation of the best of Nouns.

I don't think that we should spend this much on PR and marketing often, but rare exceptions are worth it. Excited to see where this goes and whether great contributors find Nouns and Protocol Guild through it.

sent from voter.wtf

476d

0x13eE...DA33

voted for (1)

476d

0xDf6e...0019

voted for (2)

I believe that Droposals are a great formula for both funding public goods and proliferation of nouns.

It makes sense to allocate a significant budget to the first Droposal to ensure its quality and success. Perhaps in the future, the funding size and formula can be optimized, with some funding going directly to the organization, and the proceeds from minting being split four ways between nouns, Agora, the production team, and the organization.

The story of Rise of Blus unfolds in the sky city too. I wonder if the Line team would consider developing a story in an underwater or deep space world instead. Overall, I'm very excited to see more high-quality animations.

(voting via camp)

476d

0x91dC...2937

voted for (1)

476d

0x8491...8bf1

voted for (1)

seems like a big bet, but i'm open to making it given yitong and team's track record.

476d

0x7f64...d6d2

voted for (2)

476d

0xaE65...46c0

voted for (2)

477d

0xFC21...6214

voted for (20)

(noun40 voting via agora)

I think this is a much more exciting iteration on prop 108 where we just made a straight ETH donation to the protocol guild. last year in ETH denver I had this experience where someone who was part of PG (an actual beneficiary of our 500 ETH donation) was completely unaware of our contribution (we were the single biggest ETH doner!). I mean, I don't necessarily blame that person. but I think it's just a reality that we make these public goods contributions that roughly nobody knows about, and while I still fight for those props b/c it's still important we do them to keep true to our own values, I think it's worth being honest that it hasn't done much in getting ppl to know more about nouns and a much better iteration would be something that could accomplish both like this prop has a chance to.

yes $400k is a big bet, but what I would expect from The Line and yitong here would be something truly world-class, and that's exciting. the bar for success here is high but there's a chance they really pull it off. what success looks like imo is the entire ethereum community going nuts about this animation. ethereum hasn't really had much cultural pieces made about itself like this that imagines a future where ethereum is successful and ubiquitous. a film that vitalik (and other leading figures in eth world) would mint and retweet organically just because it's awesome would be the bar here.

could it raise money for PG? in the success case it definitely could. the wizard's hat mint was 0.05 ETH (I think this is a healthy price and we should price the mint for this something high like this; it's a donation and the right ppl will feel good about making a decent donation to PG exp celebrating art like this). for the wizard's hat mint it minted out around 2320 (a good chunk of that was speculative, but that's expected for any successful nft mint and that's fine, we can leverage that here as well). could we do much more than 2320? vitalik did this NFT mint with gitcoin to raise money for gitcoin (also at 0.05 ETH) and it sold 9209 copies (https://gitcoin.metalabel.app/quadraticfunding). it would be epic if we could beat that. a world where nouns is super successful is where we become a community that can routinely pull off things like that. super excited to have a shot at big success here. absolutely no one better than the line and the agora team to take a swing at this.

477d

0x32d1...d4f5

voted for (2)

i think generally marketing public goods orgs via the dao is an interesting/under-explored space. Long felt it would be clever to fund a marketing effort on behalf of CC/CC0 and this feels aligned with that idea.

It feels like peak guerilla marketing to promote other positive sum projects and position Nouns narratively as beneficiary rather than benefactor.

Might not be the best use of funds, but, to the extent that we have an 'advertising' budget, I'd like to see close to all of it allocated along these lines..

477d

0xFC53...6183

voted against (0)

Respect to the proposer, and the animation house for pitching this idea, i'm sure it would yield some beautiful animations... With that said this feels off to me for a number of reasons and is super expensive for a short ~45 second video.

Also, would love to see some of the talented nouns builders commissioned to work on projects like this instead of just bringing in external firms to pitch the dao.

sent from voter.wtf

477d

0xA868...9E63

voted for (1)

477d

0x00cD...8772

voted for (1)

Breathtakingly expensive and not as Noun-centric as I'd like to see, but their work is just so good. Making something beautiful feels more nounish than making a donation in this case.

sent from voter.wtf

477d

0xb0dd...4404

voted for (1)

it is a big win to work with The Line on creating nounish media on something the entire industry can rally behind. hoping the mint itself is as much of an experience as the media itself.

477d

0x2666...4607

voted for (3)

Crazy expensive, but having more top creatives building with nouns is huge. People will take notice.

478d

0xe3D7...A436

voted for (2)

I am in favor of directing resources towards orgs we like and care about via some kind of production/creation. Simply sending funds directly is not as nounish as we can be. in this case, I think its certainly an open question of whether the funds we spend will be comparable to what PG ends up receiving, but I would like to default to doing more experiments and drops than less. In this particular case, i also fw The Line's aesthetic (subjective). Optimistically bullish.

479d

0x008c...A7e4

voted against (9)

I love PG and support them full throatily, but it's more efficacious if we make pure art for Nouns and give straight ETH to PG. This won't move the needle for Nouns and won't generate enough money for PG to move their needles (a Droposal into this market is going raise $5k? $10k? is that generous?)

PG's work and funding it is more important than art celebrating it. Would love to see a Prop from Trent and PG just for ETH.

Wonderful sentiment, but a bad fit for 3% of the Pro Forma treasury.

479d

ProposalsProposal 407

Let's make a short animated film to fund the Protocol Guild

Executed

For

Against

Abstain

Quorum: 50

Proposed by

0xC3Fd...36Bb

, sponsored by

0xE30A...1510

TL;DR

Edit note from candidate feedback

Why support Protocol Guild?

What's the story we're going to tell?

This is a story set in a floating port town, which metaphorically represents the Ethereum ecosystem. Everyone is gathered to celebrate the return of the Protocol Guild, a group of adventurers bringing back innovations that will improve the town (metaphorically EIP-4844). The Nouns play host to these adventurers by inviting them to a big feast. We follow a young child who looks up to the Protocol Guild and follows them across their journey around town, in hope of meeting his heroes.

If you'd like to check out the draft script yourself!

The world and its characters

You should definitely check out Bjorn's video explaining the world in his own words, but check these images for a preview! And feel free to flip through the reference deck yourself!

Who's making the film?

Funding & milestones

Funding

What's Agora / Yitong's role in this?

It's why we're working on an easy Droposals creator at Agora, and I can think of no better film than one about Ethereum itself to demonstrate the power of Droposals.