Proposal to fund zcash skydives!

Community Grants
1

Application is submitted and awaiting approval.

Applicant background

I am a USPA B-licensed skydiver with 250+ jumps, located in California. I am also a prominent Zcash investor and maybe the biggest public speaking Zcash bull. I spent the entire bear market skydiving every weekend. I am @_tm3k on twitter.

Description of Problem or Opportunity

A couple years ago when the MGRC was an infant (now ZOMG) I made a proposal to fund a Zcash parachute in order to create media content to share across all socials. Looking back, I’m glad the grant was denied as the timing was wrong! Now, the timing is great. Positive price action on ZEC, NU5 coming, the Greyscale ZEC fund, etc etc.

EDIT: Grant was not denied, it just did not reach the funding goal. And IIRC, the whole grant program was shutdown and revamped before the available time ran out for my grant. It had 21zec funded and I was asking for 70 or 80 I think.

Zcash has almost zero marketing, which is a boon and a curse. Gangsters move in silence, and the team building Zcash has been doing so for so long. I believe now is a good time to create Zcash content. @In4Crypto on twitter is an absolute boss and paid for half of the zcash parachute months ago, but due to covid, and life circumstances I have not been jumping. All that is about to change. Starting in December I will start jumping again. This timing works well with NU5 release in January.

Proposed Solution

Creating skydiving videos with the Zcash parachute will bring awareness to Zcash in general, because skydiving is cool! I have a vision of creating slow motion video clips of the canopy opening which could be used inside other videos, or by itself.

Solution Format

Video files both raw and edited.

Schedule and Milestones

If everything goes according to plan I will be doing a bunch of jumps in December and have some video ready by January, 2022.

Budget

$3300 is going to be more than I need but Its a small budget and id rather ask for more than not enough. Here is a breakdown of estimated costs:

  1. Re-register with USPA so my license is active again, $80 - $120 bucks
  2. Repack my reserve parachute $180 - $250
  3. Re-currency jump with a coach- $80 - $100
  4. Gas to drive to dropzone and back per day $70
  5. Food per day $30
  6. Gopro fusion 360 cam plus memory card $280-$350
  7. $28 per jump
  8. $500 estimated cost for video editors.

For the one time expenses we are looking at about $800, leaving $2000 for covering the cost of food, gas, and jump tickets.

For the $2000 left, I would be spending about $240 per day on food, gas, and jump tickets which is 8 days of skydiving with 5 jumps each day.

40 jumps should more than cover all the times I forget to turn the camera on, the times the memory card fails, the times the canopy opens not so aesthetically, and so on.

Lets make this happen!

27 Likes
2

I like this, it’s something different, tm3k is a stalwart community member plus there seems to be love the proposal on Twitter and in the Telegram community.

I have a few questions…

What should we expect to be delivered once this is complete? Will it be something like an X minute edited documentary style video plus raw footage that can be used by others?

Also, the aim of this is to bring more awareness to Zcash, how are you planning to distribute this content once ready?

All in all this if a cheap proposal and low risk (ignoring skydiving risks!) so my gut feeling is that I want to see this funded.

4 Likes
3

What should we expect to be delivered once this is complete? Will it be something like an X minute edited documentary style video plus raw footage that can be used by others?

Not a documentary but I will be releasing all footage for anyone to use as raw, as well as making an edit myself, and also hiring outside editors. I did a little bit of research and good editors charge 60-80+ per hr. Would like to hire 2 or 3 editors as each person can put their own twist on footage, it is art after all.

Also, the aim of this is to bring more awareness to Zcash, how are you planning to distribute this content once ready?

I will be posting on my twitter account, but the main goal is to get the footage included in any future video ECC/ZF/ZOMG makes with the hopes of Barry Silbert to retweet it, tbh lol.

Its something different, its memorable. Its not the cookie cutter marketing everyone else is doing.

8 Likes
4

I like this idea. it’s fun, eye-catching if done right, and captures some of our community spirit. Cost seems eminently reasonable for the publicity it could generate even if we’re just retweeting the footage.

Plus the man comes with his own Zcash parachute. I’ll leave that there.

@tm3k Would you keep your face/identity obscured?

2 Likes
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I’m probably the only one who will say that this will be a strange precedent for ZOMG. And that it will significantly lower the level of criteria for selection for the following requests.

For example, developers could include food in their expenses for the daily performance of their task, because on normal days they do not need to eat… Yes, I’m that bore. Apparently because I have to form budgets in my organizations and limit employees in spending.

To be honest, I would prefer to freeze the fund to $5,000 per ZEC so that we can fund fun projects with a clear conscience.

2 Likes
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I don’t see any problem with including the cost of food since the grant applicant does not charge an hourly rate for his service. It is my understanding that in the case of engineers, we charge hourly rate and that includes cost of food and other personal needs.

2 Likes
7

I agree, don’t see anything wrong with including food in a grant especially as we are not being given an hourly rate that implicitly includes incidentals. Food is a necessary input for good work - like gas, or equipment or what have you. All sorts grants can and do include money for reasonable incidental expenses. $30/day is hardly opulent.

Maybe I’m spoiled, but I’ve always gotten a modest meal stipend when travelling or doing “extra stuff” for work.

1 Like
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Would you keep your face/identity obscured?

I’d have to dox to ZF which im ok with. I’m not sure if Ill keep my face obscured or not, actually! The placement of the camera on my helmet has everything to do with that.

1 Like
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If its a problem, I can remove the cost of food.

I’m probably the only one who will say that this will be a strange precedent for ZOMG.

Its not the first strange grant funded. Is spending 55k for memes is a strange precedent also?

1 Like
10

Perhaps. Yes, the concept of strangeness is really strange in itself. We need the concept of “efficiency”. Your proposal is likely to be effective. Difficult to assess. I think ZOMG should be segmented into several categories: tech things, affiliate programs, marketing stories, experimental funding. We have a lot to think about. Committee members should have clear methodologies for making decisions and some small percentage of creativity that can be left to the will of the community to vote.

3 Likes
11

Hi people. I would just like to point out that this idea has been posted on the ZCASH official telegram and has received some good support.

Personally I think its a very good idea and the if we edit some small clips out of the shoots they could gain virality.

Tmek is the person that kept me in ZCASH and he has over 40k followers on twitter.

One idea that comes to mind is to play the clip on reverse on UpOnlyTV which would show the parachute going up (only) into the sky. Maybe we could organize another ZCASH episode like the one that featured Cryptopathic, tmek, and I forget the third guest was, before the launch of Halo.

8 Likes
12

I fully support this grant. In terms of risk/reward it is one of the best grants submitted so far.

It’s important to fund some things that are fun.

8 Likes
13

On this subject, (and opinions are my own), maybe there is a need to expand the scope of funding to include more community-focused organic initiatives? As of right now, main focus seems to be tech/security/edu: Zcash Community Grants | The Zcash Community Grants program funds independent teams entering the Zcash ecosystem, to perform major ongoing development (or other work) for the public good of the Zcash ecosystem.

3 Likes
14

I think that, depending on the content of some of the additional video editing, it would fit in the education category.

2 Likes
15

Oh I wasn’t referring to this proposal in particular. Just speaking more generally :slight_smile:

4 Likes
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Got it. Agree more community-focused initiatives would be good. :+1:

4 Likes
17

im all for this. no questions asked. this is both a very tiny amount of money and a great R/R bet imo. also something fun and out of the box. some of the replies are exactly y ppl dont associate much with zcash, it seems like everything is so serious. the world is changing. lets adapt. this is cool.

3 Likes
18

totally agree brother.

1 Like
19

Although, you know. After the last ECC-tweet, I changed my mind. Let’s triple this grant and do it.

5 Likes
20

You will eat the clif bars and you will enjoy it! Don’t even think about a $30 dollar In-N-Out lunch!

But seriously – I think @tm3k is being honest in his costs, whereas in most other grant proposals, that “hidden cost” is factored into the daily rate.

Considering that he’s proposing a physical activity of jumping out of a plane, it only makes sense to fuel his body in the process.

10 Likes