Hello friends,
@37L and I have posted another ZOMG grant proposal. The link is below. Full text of proposal also copied here.
Description of Opportunity
In early 2022, Zcash will undergo its most transformative upgrade yet with the Halo Arc Suite. The most significant aspect of which is the shift to the Halo proving system - a trustless, general purpose zero knowledge proving system. Halo promises to unlock scalability and interoperability, but also permanently removes the need for trusted setups. Although previous Ceremonies (The Ceremony and Powers of Tau) have received considerable media coverage, the Halo upgrade offers the chance to present the final installment in the Zcash trusted setup trilogy, with a comprehensive narrative crafted in partnership with Zcash insiders.
Proposed Solution
We propose to produce a stand-alone video complete with interviews of key Zcash players, helpful narration and visuals to inform the world of the achievement of Halo and bring the saga of trusted setups to a close once and for all. In addition, we will present never-before-seen behind-the-scenes information from previous ceremonies as well as the story of the Halo breakthrough from the engineers themselves, making the value proposition of our video distinct from all previous coverage of the Zcash ceremonies.
We aim to complete and release a ~10-15 minute video in Jan/Feb. 2022.
Technical Approach
We are a top-to-bottom production house capable of making Masterclass-level quality videos. Our team is already well-versed in the Zcash story from our related work on the Zcash short documentary funded through a separate ZOMG grant (ZF Grants - Zcash Mini-Documentary & Educational Series). As part of that work, we have collected all the necessary interviews to tell the story of the previous ceremonies and the Halo upgrade. Our approach will therefore be solely in the realm of post-production (editing, sound, coloring, graphics, narration).
Solution Format
.mp4 files
How big of a problem would it be to not solve this problem?
We believe, in line with our concurrent work making other Zcash educational content, that without easily accessible and entertaining media about Zcash, it may not reach high levels of adoption.
In addition, we believe this particular storyline has great potential to impress upon the wider crypto community how deeply core crypto values have been carved into the original design of Zcash, potentially leading to greater visibility and usage of Zcash.
Execution Risks
Considering we have already conducted extensive interviews with Zcash community members, we consider the execution risks to be minimal. We envision the main risk to be a lack of awareness of the video we produce.
Unintended Downsides
By putting different people front and center in our video, we risk unintended downsides if anyone featured were to have something extremely negative in their history or future come to light.
Evaluation Plan
We will solicit feedback from interested community members to help evaluate and improve our work. Due to the time-sensitive nature of the project, we have already been in touch with the ZOMG and they are in-principle supportive of this add-on video project.
We believe the video’s quality and fulfillment of its goal of telling the story of Zcash trusted setups and Halo can be measured by the community upon release.
Schedule and Milestones
Month 1
-Editing (In Progress)
Month 2
-Motion Graphics, Coloring, Sound
-Release of video
Budget
We have kept our rates the same as our other proposal (minimum industry standard). However, we have added an additional line item - an assistant editor. Due to the time sensitive nature of the release of this video, we want to take no chances at having to delay. An assistant editor will parallelize the work of going through both our own footage as well as the large historical archives of previous ceremonies we have access to.
Detailed Budget: Halo_video_budget.pdf - Google Drive
Applicant Background
37 Laines - Production Company
37 Laines is an award winning film production company run by Natasha Mynhier and Jeff Hammerton. Out of our offices in Santa Monica, CA and Denver, CO, 37 Laines produces high quality creative work for clients across the US, including branded content, commercials, short films, music videos, digital content, web-series, live events, and documentaries.
David Boyer - Project organizer, Writer
David is a scientist currently studying neurodegenerative diseases at UCLA. He has experience in managing technically demanding projects involving multiple interdisciplinary partners, as well as coordinating and executing long-term research grants. David has co-authored 20+ academic articles and is practiced in relaying detailed scientific information to general audiences.