As of last year, Netflix alone has over 125 million customers, but despite the popularity of movie streaming, it hasn’t changed much in 10 years. The trouble starts when you’re looking for something new to watch…
After scrolling through hundreds of posters your eyes can glaze over. A few seconds of searching stretches into half an hour and you end up watching yet another episode of The Good Place.
A new Kickstarter campaign hopes to improve that. Filmocracy is a streaming platform that aims to gamify movie viewing through prizes, while offering incentives for both filmmakers and critics.
“For the first time, filmmakers, movie critics, and film buffs can all participate in creating a new film economy outside of the traditional Hollywood system.”
Paul Jun, CEO and Co-Founder
Earn green while you stream
Part of what makes Filmocracy unique is the virtual currency they issue to subscribers. They call it popcorn and it can be used to buy things like movie tickets, gift cards or even be cashed out.
Users would earn popcorn by leaving reviews, earning badges and watching movies. Completing enough actions can earn you a position on Filmocracy’s leader board, where the popcorn really starts to roll in. Users are eligible to share in 10% of revenue if they make it to the top of the board. That can potentially mean earnings of a few hundred to thousands of dollars at the end of the month.
Perks for filmmakers
“There are over 13,000 films produced every year while only about 700 get distribution.”
Kasia Kaczmarczyk, Co-Founder
When scrolling through the endless selection of titles from platforms like Netflix, it’s easy to forget that there are people behind those posters. While licensing deals for larger films or series can be in the tens-of-millions, smaller or independent films can get taken advantage of.
If for instance, you’d like to include your film on Amazon Prime’s video platform, you can expect $0.06 per hour it’s streamed. That would be a meager $5,700 for 95,000 hours of streaming.
Filmocracy plans to offer 50% of their monthly revenue to filmmakers based on the number of minutes a movie is streamed. For example, a film that made up 25% of all minutes watched on the platform for the month, would earn 12.5% of all revenue that month.
Movie buff’s paradise
Movies are very multifaceted with many different pieces working together to create the final experience. It can be a hard thing to sum-up with a thumbs down or 3/5 star review.
That’s why the rating system used in Filmocracy expands into multiple categories. Instead of only rating the entire film, users can fine tune their reviews by plot, dialogue, cinematography, performances, music and characters.
In addition to video streaming and reviews, Filmocracy plans to offer curated films, customizable avatars, achievements and competitions. In keeping with their gamified mechanics, gaining more Popcorn lets you level up, unlocking bonus features on the site.
If funded, Kickstarter backers will be able to access Filmocracy in July 2019, a month ahead of the general public. Pricing is planned at $10 per month, but Kickstarter backers can save up 70%. The “earliest bird” pledge level of $15 gets you three months of access to the service and 250 popcorn credits.