The purpose of this proposal is to obtain partial or full funding for the creation of an educational video about Near Protocol.
Proposal summary
Although Near Protocol is one of the largest projects in DeFi sector, we were unable to find high-quality video content about the network. Existing videos are too long, include unnecessary information and don’t provide sufficient information on the technical aspects of the project repeating common marketing descriptions.
We will be happy to fill this gap. Since Near protocol is quite complex in its design, and its core concepts are not easy to grasp for newcomers to the field, we propose to make a detailed video explainer about the technological aspects of the network, its key ecosystem components describing in simple words how does Near’s consensus mechanism work, what makes it highly scalable, what is Doomslug, how the technique produces blocks and achieves finality, how it differs from PBFT, Tendermint and Hotstuff, how does the network leverages sharding, how it achieves interoperability via Rainbow bridge, what is the utility of NEAR token and much more.
Who we are:
DeFi Teller is an educational resource that does the due diligence for the user by providing information about blockchain technology and decentralized applications (reviews, video explainers, on-chain data) in the most accessible way.
The project officially launched in May this year, and currently, 15 people are working on it (developers, designers, illustrators, editors, writers, and marketing specialists). During the short time of its existence, the project has managed to attract the attention of those we talk about. For example, the video we created about Polkadot was added to the Polkadot and Kusama documentation, and the video that we made to explain the Avalanche consensus was created together with the Ava Labs team and highly appreciated by the community.
We want to create a resource that would motivate users to study the technical component behind DeFi projects and shift the paradigm from “What coin to buy (and what buttons to press to do it)” to a deeper understanding of the technology behind the most popular projects and blockchain in general.
What we are good at:
Writing scripts targeted at an audience with an average level of knowledge in blockchain. We target people who have basic understanding of how blockchain works, as well as cursory understanding of the crypto market and its key players. Our viewer has probably already used dApps on the simple purchasing/trading/borrowing/staking level. Our task is to immerse this user deeper and explain in simple words what technology stands behind a particular project. In doing so, we take the presentation format very seriously and try to dig deep, figuring out what is under the hood of technologies and projects and what exactly makes them special. For example, this is how we explained the difference between optimistic and zk-rollups.
Creating distinctive visuals. The DeFi Teller team only uses original illustrations and takes a thoughtful approach to the process of video storyboarding. Our team of illustrators and animators works tightly with the editorial team, and the team of the project we’re reviewing. We welcome any kind of feedback or criticism from the team we are working with.
Process
The existing DeFi Teller videos were created with our own funds and were highly praised by the teams of the projects we were talking about.
Moving further, we see our development in line with the spirit of decentralization - we would like to continue to talk about the most interesting DeFi projects and do so with nice graphics and quality scripts. We’re not looking for profits coming directly from the team, nor are we looking to create entirely commercial videos, reserving the right to choose the topics and angle of their coverage. All we need is to cover the cost of the video and support us in distributing the content (retweets, adding to the documentation, and so forth).
The video creation process is as follows:
-Writing script;
-Creating storyboard;
-Recording voice-over;
-Animating the video;
-Publishing the video on DeFi Teller resources
Timeline:
The timeline of the video depends on its budget. Without expanding the design team, and given that edits and comments from the team will be provided promptly, we can produce one video in about 3-4 weeks.
We will need:
1 week to create and edit the script (two editors involved, 4 hours a day each);
1 week for designing the storyboard (three design team members involved, 3-4 hours a day each);
1-2 weeks for the animation (two design team members involved, 5 hours a day each).
This is a preliminary estimate, the final estimate depends heavily on the script.
How will it bring value to the Near Protocol:
-Illustrate the architecture of the protocol;
-Illustrate use cases of the project;
-Attract new audience (the video will be published on all DeFi Teller resources, giving Near exposure to new audience);
-A branding tool that will show the existence of high-quality content about the project.
Input expected from the Near team:
-
The team/community reviews the script and gives notes;
-
The team/community reviews the storyboard and gives notes;
-
The team/community reviews the final draft of the video and gives notes;
-
Help in promoting the video (e.g. on social media or in the project documentation).
-
Cover the cost of video production.
Budget:
Our team will be able to give you an accurate estimate of the budget only after the script is approved, since most of the cost of the video falls on the work of the illustrators and animators. A rough estimate is that on average one minute of video costs us $1,000.
The approximate cost of the final amount in percentage ratio looks like this:
Script
Writer - 5%
Editor - 7%
Storyboard
Illustrator - 25%
Designer - 16%
Supervisor - 7%
Animation
Designer - 30%
Supervisor - 10%
