If there’s one defining trait about Steven Soderbergh, beyond making terrific films, it’s his relentless curiosity and willingness to experiment. An innovator and early adopter of nearly any new technology that has been available to him —he was one of the first major filmmaker to embrace digital filmmaking, and has continued forging ahead with app-focused narratives like “Mosaic,” and backing iPhone-only projects for Quibi—Soderbergh has always shown himself to be a forward-thinker willing to play in any sandbox. And for his next act in this space, Soderbergh is going the blockchain route. Yesterday, via IndieWire, it was announced that Steven Soderbergh’s production company Extension 765 will provide a $300,000 grant to filmmaker Roman Coppola’s Decentralized Pictures (DCP), a blockchain-based nonprofit aiming to make film financing more equitable and transparent.
DCP was co-founded by Coppola, producer and tech specialist Leo Matchett, and American Zoetrope executive Michael Musante. Its board members include filmmakers Sofia and Gia Coppola. How does DCP work? The idea is that filmmakers submit pitches to win “financial awards,” and for each pitch they pay a submission fee in the form of DCP’s FILMCredits token. These fees then pay the DCP community members for their opinions on the various projects. At the end of the process, DCP selects a winner from the highest-rated projects. The hope is that this will make talent scouting and film financing more democratic. Soderbergh’s award, called the Andrews/Bernard Award (a nod to his parents and the pseudonyms he uses for editing and cinematography), will support multiple filmmakers with finishing funds for English-language fiction features or shorts.
“I feel much more confident that we will be identifying real talent more efficiently than if we were just going off scripts,” Soderbergh told IndieWire, noting that DCP being non-profit is key. “Part of my interest in this was to really get under the hood of how this is supposed to work to see if it really does work. Because for me, it’s still an open question, only because anything that was invented by a human being is probably at some point going to have the flaws that a human being has. I really want to get up in the grill of this blockchain approach or structure to see if it’s going to do what it’s supposed to do.”
Soderbergh’s grant is the latest in a growing number of awards at DCP. Last year, they awarded a beta test award to Tiffany Lin for her short “Poachers.”
Roman Coppola commented on DCP’s vision and what it means to collaborate with one of the biggest names in independent cinema. “Making a film can be a complicated and costly endeavor, by giving support we can kickstart opportunities for people who might feel left out of the usual ways of financing. Mr. Soderbergh’s award is an extraordinary resource for new generation filmmakers to express themselves. We feel that he represents the highest bar in the world of independent and experimental cinema along with remarkable experience in the traditional Hollywood studio film. To DCP, he exemplifies the very best in adventurous creativity in the world of filmmaking and we’re very grateful that he is sponsoring a new generation of film artists.”
Soderbergh has been disenchanted with film distribution for some time now and has been trying to find or explore new models, while also experimenting by trying to determine the success rate of films delivered via Netflix or HBO Max. He even created his own company, Fingerprint Releasing, to distribute “Logan Lucky” and employed a targeted advertising campaign. While this radical “experiment” failed in the eyes of many (including THR), essentially, it does demonstrate his desire to find or create a new paradigm for distribution.
“There’s no intermediary. The money is not passing through anybody’s hands,” he told GQ in August 2017. “All these people who work for scale to make this film will literally be able to go online with a password and look at this account as the money is delivered from the theaters. So it’s complete transparency.”