NFTs and Soulbound Tokens Define Web3 Filmmaking, Says Director

Web3 tools and innovations are making their way into various mainstream industries worldwide. Some like the sports and music industries have taken a big leap into adoption. However, the cinema world has not been as vocal when it was introduced.

Some filmmakers have previously touched on DAOs as a tool to increase community engagement around film projects.

Recently, big names in film entertainment such as Disney have made faster moves into the space by hiring Web3-related lawyers and bringing the Polygon blockchain network into the accelerator program.

Cointelegraph sat down with director Stephen Fung, who is currently developing the Web3 film project Departed Apes, to better understand how Web3 tools like nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and now soulbound tokens (SBTs) can serve cinema. In addition, Fung helped define what makes a Web3 film, and whether it is a genre of its own.

Despite the lack of buzz in the world of cinema around Web3 tools, Fung says these two worlds share one inherent function: visuals.

“Movies are just moving images that tell stories. It’s all very visually based. In my opinion, in addition to the technology behind Web3, it is also very visually based [industry].”

But where the film industry can be hesitant about the whole NFT movement is intellectual property rights (IP).

“Film companies’ most valuable asset is their intellectual property rights (IP). Let’s say if you’re Marvel, you’re not going to dive into anything that might have the potential to put some of the IP at risk, says Fung. “They tend to be much more cautious, which is very understandable.”

This can be seen in a recent lawsuit between the blockbuster director Quentin Tarantino and the film studio Miramax, over NFTs that were made about the former’s hit film Pulp Fiction. The main issue in this case was about property rights.

Related: Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins sells out his NFT collection in minutes

Nonetheless, Fung highlighted the ways these tools can still be useful to communities in the crossover world of Web3 and cinema. He suggested using Discord for NFTs as a “writer’s room” to include the community, which is usually a “closed doors” element of filmmaking.

The director also highlighted who SBTs can help creators distinguish between those who are in it to resell NFTs and those who have a passion for the project.

“We want to use it more as a badge of honor for these early supporters.”

Fung went on to say that when it comes to Web3 movies, there is no definition at the moment, rather two perspectives: “either a movie originating from characters originating from the Web3 space,” he says, “Like if the Bored Ape Yacht Club was going to make a movie.”

Or if it’s a movie shown inside a metaverse. In other words, taking a standard cinema film and web3izing it through the way viewers interact with it.

Overall, the director stressed that this is still a time of development for the entire space, so those in cinemas should allow “a degree of risk-taking” when entering the space and exploring.