In April 2017, Liliana Partenava invested round $2,000 in some pals’ Ether mining enterprise. Having no earlier information of cryptocurrency, she
In April 2017, Liliana Partenava invested round $2,000 in some pals’ Ether mining enterprise. Having no earlier information of cryptocurrency, she then wished to study extra about blockchain know-how and its purposes.
Discovering little on-line content material explaining how blockchain and cryptocurrency work in easy phrases, she determined to create her personal documentary. The movie follows her on a road-trip throughout three continents as she talks with over 30 gamers within the blockchain area.
Partenava additionally wished to focus on the tales of feminine CEOs, buyers, and business professionals, to indicate that girls are essential within the area too.
Noble goals certainly… so why did ‘Crypto Rush’ find yourself leaving me so chilly?
Not probably the most skilled piece of filmmaking
The very first thing that hits you’re the sloppy manufacturing values. The disclaimer proven earlier than the movie even begins has a spelling mistake, and it isn’t the one one. At one level we see “$20 000 000” displayed on display screen, because the voiceover says “twenty billion {dollars}.”
Eleven minutes in, any individual is talking German with no subtitles. Afterward, non-English audio system do get subtitles, however provided that you flip them on for the English audio system too. Partenava is supposedly a former TV reporter and producer, however exhibits no proof that she is aware of the best way to put collectively high quality programming.
This might, and may, have been mounted earlier than launch, however there are extra terminal points afoot. The digital camera operator appears perpetually not sure the place to focus, and even level the digital camera. A primary steadicam rig wouldn’t have gone amiss right here.
The worst downside although is the audio. Interview high quality ranges from nearly bearable, to compressed to the purpose of sounding nearly robotic. Once more, investing in an honest microphone would have carried out wonders.
Moreover, the one authentic music monitor is nearly painful to hearken to after some time, and you may be listening to it loads. Apparently that is deliberate, to convey “the discomfort and uncertainty of the heroine.”
An entry level to the world of crypto?
Sadly, even when you may get previous these points, you’re more likely to be dissatisfied. The “uncertainty of the heroine” appears to have prolonged to precisely what story she was attempting to inform.
The movie paperwork the interval round cryptocurrency’s ‘gold rush’ from 2017 to mid 2018, however there isn’t any sense of the FOMO or investor craziness which occurred presently. We get a short clarification of cryptocurrency and the way it works, however from there we simply traipse from nation to nation interviewing an attention-grabbing, however disparate, group of business gamers.
Within the quest to make this a ‘feature-length’ 90 minutes lengthy, the editor has needed to embody an terrible lot of filler. From the overly-long pictures of interview topics wanting awkward, to at one stage, over a minute of footage of individuals simply dancing in a nightclub. No dialogue. No crypto. No clarification.
It isn’t apparent that there was any pre-existing plan earlier than setting off around the globe to movie.
We contact upon Bitcoin for retail funds. A South Korean business govt explains that she is sad about being valued for her seems to be over her brains. We even get a short perception into what a decentralized web could be like, though Partenava herself admits that she doesn’t actually perceive this… so how does she anticipate her potential viewers to know it?
The documentary may need labored content-wise, if any one in every of these angles grew to become the main target of the entire movie… and the operating time was lower in half.
As an alternative, the viewer is left feeling none the wiser about something, and the movie ends with Partenava promoting her mining rig for a similar $2,000 she purchased it for, in opposition to a backdrop of 2018’s value crash, noting that she looks like she was a part of a ‘second’.
Regardless of its lofty intentions to doc crypto’s gold rush, being half travelogue, half crypto 101, and champion of ladies within the business, it finally fails to realize any of this. Sadly, as a lot as I need to advocate a movie bringing cryptocurrency to the lots, for me this isn’t it.
For many who desire to make up their very own minds, the movie is out there to stream through Vimeo On Demand, the place the value for a 48 hour rental is $2.99.