Yowis Ben is one of the most successful Indonesian films in 2018. This film was a result of Bayu Skak creativity, a famous YouTube artist from Indonesia. A lot of reviews were received, in overall crediting this film with a mixed-to-positive impression. The comedy & story is well-packed, while at the same time promoting Javanese culture & traits nationally. The government also acknowledged this film, mainly for its educational message for students that they must not skip their class in order to succeed when they grow up.
There is an interesting story about how Bayu tried to find producers or studios to fund the movie production. He went to many studios and a lot of them rejected his idea because they thought it was too focused on Javanese culture. Luckily, Bayu didn't lose hope, he continued searching for studios until Starvision accepts his idea and then give the appropriate support for production Yowis Ben.
Yowis Ben movie poster. Source: Blogunik
The short stories above outlined a major problem in the entertainment industry: the centralized source of fund and difficulty for newcomers to start their own career.
Media Moguls Monopoly
In their whitepaper, SPOKKZ (pronounced "SPOCKS") told us that there is a monopoly in the media industry. This happens because we still rely on a traditional content production model with all of its problems. The model creates challenges for new movie production while at the same time doesn't give the proper rewards for stakeholders.
The traditional model of content production starts with an individual who has a script, or idea. After she/he write the draft, usually they will look for someone who has enough fund for the creation of the content, either individually or with a list of investors. This mean, the fate of a potential content lies in the hand of individual or groups which sometimes choose the wrong decision (like what happens in Bayu case above).
If the idea or script is rejected, there is no other choice except to look for other studios. If there are no studios that agreed to fund the production, then of course, in the end, the movie will never get produced. Self-funding is not a viable option, because content production needs a great deal of money.
Classic cycle of movie production. Source: RJDM
Let's suppose if the idea was approved, are we free from problems? No. After the content creation is finished, the producer would need to sell it, either pre-sold or post-production to distributors, cinemas and so on. This means it is still unclear whether they can cover their production costs. Such risk makes producers or studios than to reject ideas that seem new or never applied before.
"Piracy" is also a great problem for content creators, because the intermediaries are taking more revenues than themselves, such as cinemas, YouTube, and etc. Not to mention there are a significant amount of illegal DVD/VCD sellers that sold their contents without giving revenue to them. Such problems cause funding becomes harder as content creators tend to lose revenues after they produce their content.
The problems also appear for the viewers. Their contribution to content production, marketing and so on aren't well rewarded & acknowledged. Your reviews, like or dislike, ratings and so on for every content that you've watched/hear that in fact is being used to analyze what kind of product suitable for you, aren't being rewarded at all. In other words, they're taking benefits from you!
A Better Platform is Needed
A quick look at SPOKKZ platform. Source: SPOKKZ
So what should we do now? After realizing such problems existed, then we must solve it. Luckily, Spuul, one of the biggest entertainment platform originated in India already on its way to solve all of those problems. They're going to launch SPOKKZ, the platform for the entertainment industry that works like you never knew before.
How will they do it? What kind of technologies that they'll use? And will SPOKKZ become the ideal solution for content creations and related problems in our current entertainment industry?
We'll talk about it in my next article. Stay tuned guys!
Note: This article is not a financial recommendation. The author, SPOKKZ and other parties mentioned in this article is a separate entity. The author writes this article based on his own understanding of SPOKKZ, readers should read the original document of SPOKKZ by themselves. The author shouldn't be responsible for any actions taken by the readers, including but not limited to: joining SPOKKZ bounty program, participate in SPOKKZ token sale, and etc.
Important links that you should check:
SPOKKZ Website: https://spokkz.com/
SPOKKZ Whitepaper: https://spokkz.com/static/documents/whitepaper.pdf