Update/ Creating a video for Cosmos with DeFi Teller

Continuing the discussion from Creating a video for Cosmos with DeFi Teller:

Update to the proposal

This post is the follow-up to the previous proposal where we requested partial or full funding for the creation of the educational video about Cosmos.

In the original proposal, we have been advised to prepare the script draft first, so the community has an understanding of what the final video would look like before committing.

Our team has prepared the video script draft and I would like to share it with the Cosmos community. Would love to hear your thoughts on this. It took a little more time, but the script turned out quite detailed and can already become a basis for preparing the storyboard.

We also made the link restricted to be able to control the distribution of the content that’s still under development. Hope for your understanding!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1acRaPgVlSXOB0M5Ld9bevunj-uIjG0OaTqMBYzMK_Rs/edit?usp=sharing

Original proposal

The purpose of this proposal is to obtain partial or full funding for the creation of an educational video about Cosmos with DeFi Teller.

For one video we are looking at an allocation of up to 400 ATOM

Proposal summary

Although Cosmos is one of the largest projects in the 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 or mention Cosmos along with other projects.

We will be happy to fill this gap. Since Cosmos 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 Cosmos consensus mechanism work, what is behind is three-layered structure, what is the role of Tendermint and what is BFT engine, what is the utility of the ATOM 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.

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 Cosmos:

-Illustrate the architecture of the network;

-Illustrate use cases of the project;

-Attract new audience (the video will be published on all DeFi Teller resources, giving Cosmos exposure to new audience);

-A branding tool that will show the existence of high-quality content about the project.

Input expected from the Cosmos 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%

3 Likes

@lexa @andreas_k Hi guys thought you might be interested in reviewing the draft script :slightly_smiling_face:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1acRaPgVlSXOB0M5Ld9bevunj-uIjG0OaTqMBYzMK_Rs/edit?usp=sharing

2 Likes

The document is locked for outsiders ^^

First question which comes to my mind; will you create one longer vid or several smaller where each vid has a separate topic? Imho the latter is more effective in this day and age where infotorials are short videos showing 1 topic. And a next topic is a next video.

One thing to add as well is where we will use these videos. Good marketing tools are a must-have, but it also must mean that we will use it to spread the word. Is this aligned with a marketing strategy?

Could you please request access to the document? We’ll grant it once we receive the notification. As I said before, this was done for security reasons.

We can go either way, depends on what the community sees as the best option. Usually, we try to make the scripts more concise and under seven minutes in length as longer videos can affect the perception of the information. In cases where a project has too much information to fit into one video, we believe it is better to make a series of short videos rather than one long video.

I have sent the request :slight_smile:

And I agree on the shorter vids, that is my preference as well looking at the “standard” in this day and age.

Access shared :slightly_smiling_face: Please let us know what you think

I think the basis is there, but needs some touches.

Some first thoughts.

Storyline
For me, the line in the story is not entirely like a flow yet. For example; the transition here is not a logical one for me. Adding something like “but let’s first explain some of the basics” would create a better transition imo.

Let’s dive deeper into the Cosmos architecture and see how the Internet of Blockchains works.

First off, what is a VM?

Security
This part also needs a small addition:

  1. Security

Smart contracts: Their security is determined by the security of the blockchain software on which they are built. The architecture of a blockchain that is made to host smart contracts is complex, and it is very difficult to predict the security of such a base, which often leads to the projects choosing to launch on secure but overloaded blockchains like Ethereum.

Application-specific Blockchains: it’s easy to check the security of a blockchain created from multiple modules - you just need to check how the different parts of your chain work with each other.

In theory this is correct, BUT there is also a weakness in app-specific blockchains. Because for each blockchain there is a set of validators required (in the Cosmos situation), whereas for example devs on Ethereum can profit from the solid infrastructure which is already present. ICS can play a role in that, but it is a little bit too early to say for sure.

One thing to add in terms of security is the ability to shut down that specific blockchain instead of having a complete ecosystem at risk. We have seen it happening with Terra where the damage was “controlled” by cutting of all communication with the Terra1.0 chain. A lot of damage was already done, but a lot more could have been coming. So having these islands of blockchains where you can destroy the bridges (IBC-channels) is a big plus to be mentioned.

Coding language
Not entirely sure, but is the basic coding language of the Cosmos not go?

How is the Tendermint consensus layer designed?

ABCI
This feels a bit like a centralised protocol called ABCI which runs at one location and then hands over the blocks to the relevant blockchain. Whereas if I am correct ABCI is also blockchain-specific. A slight change to this part of the text would make it more clear that each chain has it’s own ABCI protocol

The block is then handed over to the application-specific blockchain. Based on the ABCI messages, the application-specific blockchain calculates the updated state of its chain, taking the new block into account.

IBC
As far as I am aware this is not live yet. Spoken about, been through governance, but not implemented yet (or I missed something :))

If one network connects to the Cosmos Hub, the Hub gains access to all other blockchains that are connected to that blockchain.

1 Like

Thank you so much, your comments are super helpful!

Yes, totally agree that the script is not smooth yet, but this is a draft version and of course it needs a lot of refinements. Also, there are still some questions that we would like to clarify with the Cosmos team/community. So, if the Cosmos team/community decides to commit, this script will be modified and supplemented, and we’ll surely add logical transitions.

The reason we’ve prepared this draft is to find out whether the Cosmos community would be interested in making Cosmos video together and covering at least a part of our costs.

With the current version of the script, the video will be approximately 10 minutes long. As discussed, we can break it down into two or three separate videos in case this proposal is approved.

I can help on the text and such, but I am not a video creator :stuck_out_tongue:

Some very short videos would be good indeed.
Maybe it is good to tweak the proposal a bit for a long term proposal with informative videos and such. I think it goes way easier through governance that way.

Your help with the text will be very valuable :slightly_smiling_face: Do you mean to switch the category for this proposal?

I thing it is helpful to have a more longterm plan, that is in general better appreciated imo.

Asking funds for a one-time video or asking funds for a set of tutorials and info-vids would make quite the difference in outlining the added value for the Hub and the ecosystem.

I like the idea. Im a bit unsure about the price. Im in the content making business too and seems that 1k USD per minute is a bit too much. Im going to be honest, i prefer doing on talking. Alas, we dont have the time to produce something like this. But we can support this from our validator for a feature in the promo video. i.e. the video will be powered by citizen cosmos validator. Most (complex with 3d animation and pro) videos we order, do not exceed 300 usd per minute thought…

PS about pricing: [PROPOSAL][DRAFT] Cosmos ecosystem news videos - #6 by dimiandre

Just wanted to share our latest video on Aave as an additional example of our work Aave V3 Made Crystal Clear! Detailed 2023 Aave Review. DeFi Lending Explained in Simple Terms - YouTube