Animation - The Film3 Feed

The Reckoning Hollywood Didn't See Coming

The most expensive films ever made are underperforming. Franchise fatigue is realer than real. Theatrical attendance has been declared dead so many times it’s practically a meme. And yet — somehow — a horror film made for pocket change sells out midnight screenings. A niche drama with no stars and no studio backing finds its audience and keeps it. A scrappy, weird, specific little film does what a $200 million blockbuster cannot. Read more

Stop Performing. Start Making.

There's a version of film3 that exists entirely in pitch decks and Discord threads. Gorgeous whitepapers. Detailed roadmaps that go out eighteen months and somehow never fully arrive. Projects announced with fanfare and quickly forgotten, somewhere between the bear market and the next shiny thing. I've been in the space long enough to know the difference between someone building and someone performing building. The gap is almost always the same thing: they haven't sat down and done the actual work. Read more

Cinema Was Always Meant to Be Yours

For the longest time, people didn't know what film3 was. Many still don't — and that's okay. Like a lot of things in the blockchain space, it's a big idea that arrived faster than the words to explain it. I felt like I understood it the moment I entered the space, but I heard story after story of people who couldn't quite define it. And when it came time for the movement to catch on and grow, that gap caused a major stall. What is film3? Filmmakers were genuinely excited about it. Builders were less certain. Read more

The Book of Film3

People have been asking me what film3 is for years. At festivals, in DMs, after panels, at events with filmmakers who sense something shifting. What is film3? How does it work? How do I get involved? I've answered the question more times than I can count — in conversations, in Twitter spaces, on stages, over coffee, over beer, in articles, the list goes on. Every time, I gave the best answer I had. But a passing conversation was never going to be enough. So I wrote the book. This is my story. Read more

What's Next in Film3

If you're anything like me, you're cutting your current film while developing the next one, managing a YouTube channel or three, running a podcast, and constantly in production while keeping teams on track. Maybe you also have a family and a household to run. Or a physical storefront or take on client work. Tbh, I love the chaos of it. I love being so busy I fall asleep without remembering my head hitting the pillow. Read more

You Are Now the Studio

IndieWire published a piece recently that stopped me mid-scroll. The headline was "Don't Call It a Comeback: How Independent Film Will Be Rewired in 2026." It's a sharp analysis of where indie film actually stands right now — not the hopeful spin, not the doom spiral, just a clear-eyed look at the new operating reality. Read more

Our AI Agent Raises the Money, We Make the Film

Here's a sentence I never thought I'd write: our AI agent is raising funds from other AI agents to produce a human-made stop motion animated film (and even trolling us a little for being so analog). Auctobot's pitch deck has no pictures. No emotion. Read more

MIXED*: 211 Films, 44 Countries, One Night in Portland

Last Wednesday, I found myself in a packed Tomorrow Theater for MIXED*, a hybrid film showcase curated by my friend Garett Stenson. The concept was simple but ambitious — 211 films submitted from 44 countries, distilled into a single evening in Portland, Oregon. Read more

How Film3 Is the Answer to Independent Cinema's Existential Crisis

The Sundance Film Festival opened this week in Park City for its final year in the Utah mountain town that became synonymous with independent cinema. Over 16,200 submissions poured in from 164 countries, all chasing the dream that's sustained indie filmmakers for decades: make something great, get discovered, secure distribution, build a career. Read more

The Work That Matters

Let's talk about the thing you make without a deadline, client, or a guaranteed audience. The thing that feels almost too small to justify your time. Let's talk about personal projects; that work matters more than we tend to admit. Personal work is where momentum begins: When you remove the pressure to impress, optimize, or monetize, you move faster. Read more