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.