A collective tech solution: designed by and for the professionals of the content industry

Blockframes is the backbone of a new technological ecosystem for the content industry (films, TV series…), aiming to bring more transparency and efficiency to independent cinema.

Basically, Blockframes is a platform allowing to register on the blockchain and protect all contracts related to the financing and distribution of a film, enabling reliable and transparent tracking of all payments related to this chain of title.

The Blockframes project was initiated in early 2018 by Logical Pictures, an innovating film financing and production company launched in 2016 by Frédéric Fiore and I, Yannick Bossenmeyer.

As we were still new to the cinema industry, we identified some major bottlenecks at different levels of the value chain. In collaboration with blockchain experts, we developed the idea of a blockchain-powered tool to improve contractualisation and payment redistribution in the film industry.

That was the beginning of Blockframes.

In September 2018, a successful proof of concept was made on the animation film Terra Willy, for which Blockframes managed to replicate and calculate the exact waterfall on the public Ethereum blockchain.

Following this success, we launched Cascade8 in early 2019, a tech company developing software solutions for the professionals of the content industry.

A path to success: the perfect integration of a tech company in its application field

One huge competitive advantage of Cascade8 is that it benefits from the expertise, sponsorship and network of the different entities of the Logical Group, each operating in different fields of the content industry (production, financing, international sales, domestic distribution…).

By mutualising this common expertise with the technical skills of our 15 developers, Cascade8 develops adapted solutions, designed by and for the professionals of the content industry, offering them new opportunities, while staying consistent with their current practices.

3 first DApps optimising content sales and financing

Using Blockframes as a background open-source platform, Cascade8 develops software solutions in the form of DApps (“Decentralized Applications”: basically, applications connected to a blockchain). Just like an app on your smart phone, a DApp offers a specific service and answers a specific need.

Among these DApps:

• Archipel Content, a marketplace offering package deals to content buyers on exclusive library content. This marketplace aims to streamline content purchases and offers a solution for volume content buyers (TV channels, VOD platforms…) to buy exclusive content without having to multiply their negotiations and deals; and for rights holders (sales agents, distributors, producers) to monetise their back catalogue and access more buyers. Archipel Content was launched in February 2020, at the Berlin European Film Market.

• Archipel Market is an endless film market online, digitalising and moving away from traditional physical markets, customarily handled alongside major film festivals. It’s a tool for sales agents to promote their projects, interact with buyers and create tailored premieres on a mutualised platform, shared with the whole industry on a permanent basis. This app will be launched in June 2020.

• Media Financiers is a marketplace offering high-capacity private investors to co-finance high-potential film or series projects with professional financiers of the content industry, looking to refinance or share their ticket on their projects. This app will be launched in the end of 2020.

A major innovation: combining the advantages of blockchain payments without the constraints of cryptocurrencies

It doesn’t take much to see that the entertainment world today is not ready to transact in cryptocurrencies. That is why we made a point of finding a way to remove cryptocurrencies from the Blockframes DApps equation. In early 2020, we realised a proof of concept with the European Bank Neuflize/ABN Amro, making it possible to manage payments in fiat money based on a blockchain process: a first in the industry.

Blockframes is funded by the Creative Europe MEDIA programme of the European Union.

To know more about Cascade8: http://www.cascade8.com

About the Author: Yannick Bossenmeyer, COO

Co-founder of Logical Pictures and Cascade8, Yannick has 21 years of experience in strategic and operational consulting, notably as a marketing manager for private equity investors at Ernst & Young. She is now specialised in entrepreneurship, marketing and digital innovation.