BENTONVILLE, Ark.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cartwheel Startup Studio, a studio dedicated to forming new companies out of Northwest Arkansas, today announces a new partnership with Jumpcut Media to pitch and executive produce an animated series.
The film project is based on thousands of illustrated characters from a collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) called The Society of the Hourglass (The Society). The Society’s narrative universe—built around historical figures leveraging the secrets of time travel to bring about significant societal advancements, famous historical events, and more—will be equal parts entertaining and educational! The team has a vision to attract a new psychographic of collectors into the NFT space, and convert NFT evangelists into entertainment and cross-media creators.
The Society team is producing and delivering a first edition, illustrated seek-and-find book featuring characters from the collection and delivering a copy to Society NFT holders. The Society has over 2,300 community members and supporters from around the world at the time of this writing. The partnership between Jumpcut Media and Cartwheel Startup Studio will activate that growing community and bring them into the creative process for the animated series (and/or film). Ownership of The Society NFTs will give each owner a role to play within the creation process. The NFT collection will exist on the Ethereum blockchain with an upcoming sale date of January 4, 2022.
“We have a passion for democratizing Hollywood, which has led to our goal of making TV and film development more community-centric. That’s why Society of the Hourglass is so compelling to us as film producers. We love the illustrated artwork and we know how to take their great narrative framework and provide the guide rails to harness the creativity of their digitally-native community,” said Dilip Rajan, Head of Product at Jumpcut Media.
“Our vision for The Society of the Hourglass started with building this generation’s Where’s Waldo through NFTs, and with Jumpcut Media’s partnership our vision evolved and accelerated into bringing a new kind of cross-media brand to life. We believe The Society can be enjoyed and co-created by all ages, and that this idea will usher in a new age of entertainment out of Northwest Arkansas,” said Joe Payne from the NFT collection’s founding team, and co-founder of the new entertainment company.
“A large part of what makes Web3 compelling is the idea of open-sourcing a portion of this narrative universe and empowering creators to both engage and own a piece of what they create—getting to introduce these new Web3 concepts to parents and kids alike is exciting,” said Josh Stanley, CEO of Cartwheel Startup Studio. Cartwheel will form and facilitate funding of the new entertainment company in the early part of 2022.
About Jumpcut Media
Founded in 2019, Jumpcut is democratizing Hollywood by making TV & film development more community-centric and bottom up. We pair underrepresented writers and filmmakers with input from digital communities (both web2 and web3), harnessing collective creativity to develop a slate of TV & film projects. Our collaborators include global streamers such as Disney, and leading producers such as Amblin, SB Projects, Oscar-winning producer Lawrence Bender, and others.
About Cartwheel Startup Studio
Founded in 2021, Cartwheel Startup Studio is in the business of creating new businesses. With its focus on technology led opportunities, Cartwheel calls Northwest Arkansas its home and directly seeks to magnify the region’s impact on the world. Cartwheel is opening up the region to the expanding landscape of Web3 opportunities, and leveraging the potential of the region’s enterprise reach with local industry leaders.
