Solving The Film Budgeting Problem For Good

“Making an independent film takes a long time compared to studio productions. As an independent film producer, I think about solving this problem by creating mutual benefits and values for content creators and audiences.”

And it’s about time the film industry experiences a change – starting with a platform dedicated to providing more value for film enthusiasts. In this interview, we have Can Eren, Founder & CEO of Cheyni, to talk about the Cheyni streaming and Film NFT marketplace hybrid platform – from his passion, his motivation, where & how it all started, and his experience creating the NFT marketplace on NFTify.

🔎 Interview Questions

Could you please introduce briefly yourself and your role in the project?        

My name is Can Eren. I graduated from Istanbul Bilgi University with Visual Communication Design and Film departments as my double majors. Then, I completed my Film master's degree at the same university. I am a film producer and have been producing independent films since 2013. My film productions were screened and awarded by many international festivals like Cannes and Berlinale. Cheyni TV is a startup project that I’ve been working on since May 2021.

Before launching the CHEYNI Film NFT marketplace, what were you working on?        

I have a long film festival journey before the Cheyni project. I participated in film festivals and film markets in many countries in Europe and America with my film productions. Both on the artistic, academic, and industry side I have deep experience in filmmaking.

What eventually led you into launching the CHEYNI TV marketplace? Was it a difficult decision?        

Budgeting for an independent film is a painful process. This is a common obstacle among international filmmakers. Grants from the private sector, governments, and film festival funds are used to fund independent films. Film producers must comply with the schedules and requirements of these funds in the process of creating their film's budget. This is why making an independent film takes a long time compared to studio productions.

As an independent film producer, I think about solving this problem by creating mutual benefits and values for content creators and audiences. I graduated in Film and Visual Communication Design. Thanks to my Visual Communication Design education I entered the NFT field early and got to earn many experiences.

When all these pieces came together, the idea of ​​CHEYNI — the world's first Film streaming and NFT minting hybrid platform — was born on 29 April 2021.

Today, CHEYNI aims to transform films' outputs such as posters, director's cuts, and production notes into utility-driven NFT collections.

CHEYNI is not a public minting NFT platform. It is a curation-based platform. We aim to build utility-driven exclusive art and entertainment communities. We are building a sustainable Watching and Collecting space that includes NFT artworks and utilities.

We aim to invite multi-disciplinary creators and advertising experts apart from independent filmmakers to our project CHEYNI.

We believe that your Film NFT marketplace has a strong emphasis on being the world's first Film streaming and NFT marketplace hybrid platform. Can you elaborate a little bit more about this?        

As I mentioned above, film production is a difficult, long but also a fruitful process. A film production produces hundreds of outputs.

For example, cult film director Alejandro Jodorowsky's film project DUNE's pre-production stage (although not shot) has produced hundreds of outputs to inspire almost all popular science fiction films from the 1970s onwards.

CHEYNI audiences will collect NFTs of their favorite content and have the chance to be a part of creators' utility-driven exclusive communities. As of now, we have 3 different NFT utilities on CHEYNI:

1. First owner utilities: These utilities will be defined by the content creators. It could be a private event invitation or some access to their collaborated brand's product. The sky is the limit.

2. Tradable utilities: The content creators also define the tradable utilities but we have key utilities such as:

• Participation in the artist's online community
• Updates on content creator's milestones
• Invitation to the content creator's exhibitions and events
• Whitelist priority on the content creator's upcoming NFTs

3. And our secret sauce: Sustainable Utility

Sustainable Value is a signature CHEYNI utility. With this unique utility, all collections will activate the utility of future collections, and in this way, we can keep our content creators' production momentum alive and the values of the NFTs will keep going up with time.

What is the perception of people towards your film NFTs in general?        

The film, art, and advertising industry is excited but does not know what will happen as there are no precedented cases of Cheyni's business model. This is going to change as we're launching Cheyni on October 9th with hand-picked films and sustainable utility-driven NFTs.

What is the biggest challenge you faced when you were getting started with your NFT marketplace?

The infrastructure process was the biggest challenge for us. Deciding on blockchain and negotiating with developers and investors take time. We are happy to meet solutions like NFTify that accelerate my operation on this path.

How did you get to know about NFTify, what convinced you to choose NFTify to power your NFT project?        

Honestly, we met NFTify after long research. Communicating with the team is easy, and it is not possible to see this in other alternative solutions. We see that they have a friendly and solution-driven team, and that's why we decided to set up our film NFT marketplace on NFTify.

Can you share with the audience what's your plan to grow CHEYNI NFT marketplace as well as your future goals?        

We will launch on October 9, 2022 along with the NFT collections together with the documentary of 6 Parisian artists. After our French artist documentary series, we’ll follow it up with documentaries from our Spanish, Italian and American artists. We will also work with international film festivals and advertising agencies. Our aim is to build an international film NFT community.

That sounds fascinating, can you tell us a little more about your upcoming NFT collections? 

On October 9, we will start to launch our first artist documentary series NFT collection. In this series, you will watch documentaries about the artists and get to know their creative routines. And of course, each artist's documentary will be launched with utility-driven exclusive NFT collections.

The biggest difference with Cheyni TV NFTs is that each NFT is required to activate the benefits of the next NFT collection. We are calling it Sustainable Value. Our artist network will keep producing. They will build collaborations with brands and each other. With our Sustainable Value model, we aim to provide maximum benefit to NFT collectors.

You can fill out the whitelist form at cheyni.com to participate in the launch on October 9th. Join our Discord channel and meet our community.

And that’s it for this interview! Thanks a lot, Can Eren, for trusting in NFTify to empower your NFT business. For anyone wanting to support independent filmmakers, check out the Cheyni NFT marketplace and be a part of the new see for yourself how this can be the new way to appreciate films.

📌 Other NFTify's Creator Story:

Creator Story from Majiano: Redefining the Music Streaming Industry

→ Go ahead & open your film NFT-related marketplace or store via https://nftify.network/