Beards! London’s Blockchain Beginners founders are actually lovely blokes

As part of the journey making Radical Transparency: Weapon of Mass Liberation we — or maybe a bit more accurately — I, will explore being transparent in the process as well. As we move through the research phase, I’ll share learnings about what’s going on in the world of society changing tech, nuggets from the people we talk to — and throw some light on what happens in those shady back-room conversations.

We’ve got lots of ambitions for this project, but one of them is getting both the movie made, and also to leave behind a bunch of info and ‘stuff’ for people at large to explore and use. We also want to ask the questions that will make you think.

What questions do we need to be asking?

The movie is the bit of the iceberg popping up above the waterline, with lots and lots going on below. We’d love if we left a community of people behind who take the ethos forward too.

A friend of the movies, who used to be ‘very high up’ in program-making at the BBC suggested yesterday as the voice of, well, you — in this piece, to go for it and ‘expose’ myself and my journey in this whole process. ‘Exposing’ my life — as in the parts that make we want to go to therapy — but also shine a light on why editorial choices get made, and why I pick the stories I do. But that’s a discussion for another Medium post, soon.

All this takes hard cash — and where the cash comes from affects what stories makes it to screen. Radical Transparency the movie, kicked off with a promise from a money-man who wanted to support anti-corruption initiatives, including highlighting problems and how to solve them. That’s our agenda too and we loved the boost it gave to get the project started.

Money, Money, Money — it’s Bitcoin driven craziness right now

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency worlds are especially full of easy money, but it’s also full of people with agendas willing to splash that cash. We’re getting connections with projects in authoritarian countries (yaha, obviously government connected) who are looking to cash in on the Crypto-Gold-Rush. These people both have an agenda, but the story they have may be an interesting story to explore too. A lot of crypto-developments seem to be coming out of places like the Ukraine, Russia and other ‘controversial’ territories.

How do we handle that as filmmakers and communicate that to the wider world? Run away? Face the challenge? A badly thought-through choice could scupper the whole thing. We’re getting offers to talk to politically explosive and hugely controversial figures in the crypto-world. As a non-political project (well largely), do we even go down there — will it muddy the waters for our true ambitions, or offer leftfield insight?

Do the right thing with data — the US and EU are going different ways

Our movie is a primer for the general public and how their lives might change, not how to make cash quick with Bitcoin. We’re a guidebook helping people understand the world around them — using humor as tool. We show you the story, you decide what to make of it.

We won’t be going deep into conspiracy theories and geo-politics on the big screen. But WE as a team of storytellers (and I’m specifically staying storytellers, not journalists) need to understand the wider context, and the influential players, and what people are thinking. That means politicians, business people, NGOs, activists, your mother and maybe — but just maybe — the ones that many call ‘bad actors’.

The Truth IS out there

We’d love to hear (considered) thoughts from our potential audience and supporters.

The article is peppered with a few extracts research interviews we did last week. You’ll find more clips and whole unedited interviews up on our YouTube, with some shorter versions on Instagram and Twitter — let us know what you think. Shall we carry on posting these raw video chats?

Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / YouTube / Tumblr

I’ll leave you with a longer extract from a buddy, a long term supporter of mine, and an awesome, driven individual. I worked a lot with musicians in my early career, and Benji Rogers used to both be one (Marwood). He’s now focused on helping musicians and other Creators make a buck in this increasingly gig-based, self-employed, portfolio-career world. Here he passionately shares his vision for how that should — or will — happen.

Until next time

xVlad