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Welcome to Pleb Chain Radio, Layer 2.
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Welcome, gentle plebs, to episode 7 of Pleb Chain Radio Layer 2.
I'm your host, Avi Burra.
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Today, we're joined by filmmaker Alana Mediavilla, the director of Dirty Coin,
a feature documentary that goes on location where Bitcoin meets energy, infrastructure, and real people.
She spent years filming across multiple countries to capture what mining looks like beyond just the headlines.
We'll talk origin story, field craft, energy nuance, the business of indie film.
Alana, welcome to Plep Chain Radio.
Avi, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.
great well alana why don't we start here by uh you telling us a little bit about yourself and what
led you to filmmaking and indeed to bitcoin wow to filmmaking that's a beautiful story my father
is actually a photographer and he used to work for kodak back in the day in marketing like back in
the day i was a little girl and because he worked at kodak we had all this film in the house so
I was film rich in the house and we had great cameras and my father was a Nikon guy. I became
a Canon girl. I had to kind of change my ways a little bit, but I wasn't smart about that because
the lenses then his lenses didn't fit me. But you know, that was, but anyway, I got a Canon
and I got a Canon to take pictures and videos of my daughter. And I was 21 at the time. And
And I just wanted to take good pictures of her.
And I knew I didn't want to continue to do film because film is expensive.
And I was paying for my film at the time.
Fast forward to 21.
And so I had this really great camera.
And it was actually one of the first DSLRs that came out.
And, you know, it was a photo camera.
But it just had this handy little, you know, this is 17 years ago.
I had this handy little button that you could just like move to video and you can grab video.
And, you know, here I had expensive lenses like my whole life.
I've been taking pictures. I love the black room.
It's, you know, photography had always been something that I grew up with.
But then because of my daughter, I just wanted to capture her.
and I realized that I had these beautiful lenses that made it look so cinematic and so beautiful.
Like all her pictures. It's funny because I took pictures of her as a baby, my 17 year old with
that camera. And then I took pictures of my second daughter that's 10 with the iPhone and the pictures
of my first daughter and the videos of my first daughter are like way better, way more beautiful.
Because ultimately I was just, you know, the best camera is the camera you have on you. So I just
transferred to you know kids doing something cool you take out your phone instead of your nice camera
but anyway I got into filmmaking that way and I was working for a video game company and I was
doing their graphic design and it was a small company so as you know we can fast forward to
20 I'm 23 and I'm working for this video game company Emilia's to still have the camera and
we needed marketing videos for our video games. And I was like, we couldn't afford an agency.
We couldn't, um, you know, that, that was at a point where it was still very expensive to get
videos done. But I was like, you know, I have a camera that does video. I am going to start making
our videos, like our marketing videos for the company and, and I'll just bring it in. And so
I had this nice wide lens that I could hold the camera myself and also hold. I was the model and
the photographer. So I had on my left hand, I'm holding the camera and with my right hand, I'm
like playing the game on the phone and I'm just extending my hand out outward. And the videos
looked great because I had, you know, a fast aperture lens. And so it was, you know, nice,
blurry background, my hands in focus, I'm playing the game. And so suddenly we had like the coolest
marketing videos for our you know super indie video game company and the company i was in
campbell at the time which is in silicon valley and like in santa clara and there were other other
other startups in the same building as the building that we had our office in and they were like you
make videos and i was like yes i guess i do because i have like 12 of them on youtube and they're like
you know how to upload things to YouTube? That's how early it was. And I'm like, yep,
I've been uploading our videos to YouTube. And, you know, I just started getting hired by the
different companies there that also had other things going on. And I started investing in my
gear. And yeah, and so I basically started my company 13 years ago. Like after that, after I
realized I really liked it. I really liked editing. I really liked doing motion graphics.
so I would do the whole thing
I would take the video, I would edit the videos
I would add the motion graphics
I would sometimes do the voiceover
if I needed a voiceover
then I started getting tired of my voice
not because I don't like my voice
but because not everything should have my voice
you know, not every video should
sometimes it needs a deeper voice
or a man's voice
or other things
so I started working with professionals
and I couldn't quite be the animator
that my mind's eye could envision.
And so I started hiring animators to do the work.
And I continued to do the storyboarding,
actually, for Dirty Coin.
I did the storyboarding for all the animations.
But I hired a way better artist than me
to do all the illustrations.
And I hired a way better animator than me
to animate everything for Dirty Coin.
And so, yeah, so I started from, like,
doing absolutely everything,
from closing the client,
coming up with the creative
of what the video was going to be about.
We were doing a lot of tech adoption,
so I got really good really early
at basically describing technology
in a way that wasn't dumbing it down.
I really feel like the difference from me and other people
is that other filmmakers would see it as
we need to dumb down the tech so people can get it.
But for me, it was never about dumbing it down.
It was about communicating it in a way
that related to your audience in a way that they cared.
and it's really not about dumbing it down.
These people are smart.
They're just maybe not technically savvy,
but they are smart,
and so you just need to meet your audience
where they're at,
and so I got really good at communicating
how new tech works,
and it was a huge part of the cloud adoption
in Silicon Valley.
I started getting some clients in cloud,
and then that's when Google Cloud noticed my work,
and I got recruited by them,
and I worked for Google Cloud for five years,
producing their videos, their tutorials, their commercials.
But my favorite was always customer stories
because that's where, you know,
just how does one person use the tech
was always so much more inspiring to me
than how the world will change,
how the billion users, it's like, wow,
that's like so much to think about.
I want to know how one person handles the tech.
How does it affect one person's life?
Because that is ultimately what we're talking about.
then we can multiply that experience times a billion.
But what does that experience even look like
when we're saying that we're changing paradigms
or disrupting?
And what are we disrupting?
And what does that look like?
And so, yeah.
And so that's why that was my passion work.
And when I decided to leave Google in 2020,
I finally left 2021.
I knew that I had to,
I had already done the coolest job I could ever have.
So I was just going to have to fully go solo.
and see if I could make it work.
And four years later, I'm still paying the bills with my work.
So, so far, so good.
That's quite the story there, Alana,
starting with photographs of your first child
and then solo entrepreneur, solo filmmaker via Google.
Love it.
When did Bitcoin happen during this journey?
well my daughter again actually i met her ballet class and my friend his daughter is also
at the ballet class and this was the campbell community center and we would always hang out
and talk and it was both of our jobs to leave our jobs early that week and take our daughters to
ballet so we would sit together he was he was early facebook he was early to a lot of different
companies. And he was just retired and investing at that point. And I, you know, I'm not an accredited
investor. I did have a job. I still have to work my ass off, still do. But he and I thought very,
very similarly. And I knew I wanted to invest as well. I already knew a lot of investors in Silicon
Valley that had done well, obviously. They were in the right place at the right time. And they
were visionaries. But anyway, I told him like, hey, whenever you come across something cool,
like let me know I'm ready to invest like tell me I got some money set aside and I'm ready to invest
and and so he was just not tell me he would invest in the weirdest stuff and one day he tells me like
we're talking he's like Alana you have to put in as much money as you can lose into Bitcoin like
today like right now like like just you're gonna go to this website and you are going to as much
money as like it kind of hurts but you can lose it like it's like a weekend in Vegas you know you
You spent it.
You had fun.
You felt it, but you're fine, you know?
And I'm like, okay, all right.
Well, at the time, Bitcoin was $200 each.
And I was like, okay, I think that I can,
we can buy three.
You know, that's something that I can do.
You know, because I was all talking about
wanting to invest, right?
I couldn't just invest 200 bucks.
I was like, all right, I'm going to invest 600 bucks.
And at the time, I was, you know,
I've always been really good at making the money.
and my husband has always been really good at administer,
administrating the money at home.
And so he's the one that, you know, I bring the money in,
but he does all, like, he pays for everything.
He knows what we're investing in.
Like he the brains behind how that money gets used And so I and I love it that way He handles all the account stuff He does all that I just focus on you know putting it in the bank And so that
good for me. And so I tell him, all right, we're going to buy three Bitcoin and we're going to use
this website and the website. I don't recall the website at the time. I need to ask Brad again,
and see which one it was.
But it looks super janky, and we buy the Bitcoin,
and Rustin gets the wallet.
That's my husband.
He gets the wallet.
He does everything.
I do the whole transaction with him.
And then that's it.
That's it.
That happened.
And this whole time, I'm thinking, well, we have three Bitcoin.
We have it.
I didn't think of buying more.
I didn't really pay attention to the price or anything.
I just knew that we had three Bitcoin.
And so whenever there was news articles about Bitcoin, it always caught my attention because I thought that I had Bitcoin.
And so one day I'm at Starbucks with my family and on the front page it says Bitcoin hits $10,000.
And I'm like, holy crap.
We have three of those.
That's fantastic.
We're rich.
We have $30,000.
And my husband looks at me and he says, well, actually, I sold those a long time ago.
We don't have Bitcoin.
And I'm like, wait, what?
What do you mean?
What do you mean we don't have Bitcoin?
We have three Bitcoin.
He's like, no, no, I sold all of it.
I'm like, you're kidding me.
Like, I'm literally, I just gained and lost $30,000 in like, you know, 20 seconds.
So I was like, just my hormones, my adrenaline.
I mean, it was, I was like, what are you talking about?
When did you sell them?
And he was like, well, you know, we bought them and then they went down and we were under
for a while and that like he was following the price and so i believe that like it was i don't
know almost a thousand or 800 bucks or something and then he sold all three of them and and that
was my first lesson and like not your keys not your cheese you know like i and i was so mad at
him for having done that because that for me was like really my hair brain like insistence in
getting it and and so i'm like okay fine all right so we don't we don't how do we get it again
um and at that point it was i well that that was that was a different rabbit hole because then it
was really learning how to do it because it's like okay well then we started with robin hood
to start building it up again and you know then i realized that what what what that really meant
to buy it on robin hood and that we weren't really owning it uh i was really upset at my husband
still for having you know sold the through bitcoin but then um because i think at that time
we didn't even buy it like right away we took a while before we even started buying in again
because i was like well whatever it peaked that's it that's the bubble it's just that 10 000 was it
like we would have i would have probably cashed completely out at 10 000 i'll probably not i
would have left one i would have probably just sold two um but then after the years and speaking
to so many people that bought around the same time so many people lost their wallets or their
passwords and they
lost the computer
or they sold the computer that had their Bitcoin.
So in a way, I'm kind of impressed with my husband
for still being able to sell it.
So that's pretty good.
And slowly we've been
rebuilding and
using and
rebuilding and using.
So it doesn't really grow
and stay high for too long.
That's great.
And you mentioned your husband, Rustin.
There's a funny story here, Alana.
So maybe two or three weeks back,
I was at Pub Key in New York for an event
and a very well put together gentleman,
and young looking, I should say,
gentleman who happens to be my age,
but that's a separate story,
comes up to me and says,
hey, you're Avi Burra, right?
And I'm like, yeah, do we know each other?
I'd completely forgotten.
So that was Rustin.
I had met him briefly at the Warsaw Film Fest.
last year, right, when we all met.
And he recognized me from there,
and then I think he'd recently watched
the pilot of my show, Finding Home.
He said, you're the guy from the video
who ate at the Somali restaurant, right?
So we had a great conversation.
We ended up leaving Papki
and going for a cigar in Midtown.
Had an absolutely lovely chat with him.
Great guy.
I did not know that he sold three Bitcoin
at under 1,000.
I would have given him a hard time at that cigar lounge.
But yeah, that was fun.
He would have laughed.
He has heard that story for so long.
Obviously, it's a story that comes up because it is my origin story with Bitcoin.
That is what happened.
But of course, he's just so tired of hearing it.
He's like, oh my God, here's the story of me selling the Bitcoin again.
And I'm like, well, whatever.
We've also sold it.
I mean, again, I feel like I would have probably lost the keys, to be honest, you know.
So I don't know.
Hindsight's always 20-20 as well.
And because he was following the price, he was a little bit more in tune to that.
But for me, I just thought like, because I remember my friend also said like, buy it and forget it.
And it was almost like a hypnotic command because I like bought it and like forgot it.
Like I didn't even think about the price or anything.
I just would see articles and I would be like, yes, Bitcoin every once in a while.
And that would be it.
So, but yes, he's a wonderful guy.
My husband.
And the other guy who told me to buy Bitcoin too.
Great.
So you made your first Bitcoin movie.
It was called Stranded, correct?
What is the story behind it?
That was before Dirty Coin.
Yeah, so I was doing, I was working on Dirty Coin
and I needed to release something
that explained what I was doing
because there were a couple of really key interviews that I wanted.
And, you know, nobody knew me in the Bitcoin space at all.
Like being in Bitcoin in Silicon Valley was kind of almost like a dirty word.
It meant like you were on the Silk Road.
You were probably buying drugs.
You know, it was it was not really something that people would necessarily talk about too much.
And and so I wasn't really a part of any kind of community or anything like that.
I know at Google sometimes there would be like little Bitcoin meetups.
And I'm like, what are they going to talk about?
I never went.
Well, I think maybe I went once.
But, you know, it wasn't really something that I was, I had any kind of interest because I didn't think I was going to be, I didn't know you could code on Bitcoin.
I didn't really know what it was.
I just thought it was something that went up and down.
It was just internet money, magic internet money that had an arbitrary price in dollars, you know, like it was, that's what I thought at the time.
And so I decided to, I was actually going to work on a documentary called Deciphering Web 3 because I was already, you know, I knew what cloud did and I knew what the, or I was convinced at the time what the blockchain could do for technology.
And so this is 2020 and I'm really plugged into everything that's going on with NFTs, with virtual real estate, with Ethereum.
I see this whole thing blow up and I'm like, well, this is definitely not going to go away because this is a casino.
This is a great way for people to rub two pennies together and get $100.
And it's decentralized, so it's going to be really hard to put a stop to this.
And, and so I was like, but what is it? And then everybody that the term what three was already starting to come up, like what was web three? And I'm like, well, deciphering web three, because I also was in Silicon Valley long enough to see the startup boom that occurred.
that was this bubble of startups where basically anybody with any idea would get a crap ton of
money. And, you know, I don't even know if people were expecting their money back. So that's,
that's, I had seen that happen in Silicon Valley and I saw the same people just kind of move into
crypto. And, and, and so I wanted to also kind of expose some of the areas where I also felt the
hurt going back to that one person I felt the pain of somebody getting rugged you know I saw it
with inside and people I saw it in my friends and you know guys don't get to get too upset right
because they're a little bit better with risk but they're but they're still like losing this money
and they're okay with like losing it and continuing to lose until they like figure it out and get it
right but I feel like as a woman I was like when I would lose it I would be like what and it was a
rug and what you're kidding me this is preposterous you can't do this it's illegal like I was like
it's just so um but at the same time it was a it was it was a degeneracy that got me there to put
the money in to begin with you know there wasn't this like this understanding of the technology and
what it did or anything like that and and so that's when I started like just learning more about
Bitcoin and kind of understanding the difference between like Bitcoin and crypto. And cause I was
still, you know, 2020 for me, Bitcoin is crypto. It's just one kind of crypto. And in 2021, 2022,
I start separating those. And so with Deciphering Web 3, I realized that I actually didn't want to
give, I knew I wanted to make a short documentary because tech documentaries should be short.
they should not be long and there's only so much air time that you have when you've decided that
you're for sure going to make a short documentary and it's it's still long dirty coin is 69 minutes
but it's still not like you know three hours it's just an hour and change and i knew that that was
like the attention span of the of the person that i was making this film for and and so with this
deciphering web 3 every time i would write kind of like what are what my minute breakdown was going
to be. I was going to have to give so much airtime to so much crap. And one of the chapters was
Bitcoin mining, like one of the chapters of deciphering Web3, because I knew that the whole
Bitcoin mining FUD was BS. And so that was going to be one of my chapters. But in doing research for
all the different chapters and interviewing different people, the people in Bitcoin mining
and people in crypto and people in NFTs, I kind of preferred the conversations that I was having
with the Bitcoin miners and the energy people because I spoke with everyone. I interviewed 78
people on camera and off camera. Every day I would schedule meetings with people that were in the
space, tangentially in the space, and just Zoom calls, Zoom calls, Zoom calls. And I appreciate
absolutely everyone that took a meeting with me. And so kind of getting back to your question,
So I decided to just hone in on Bitcoin mining.
And I realized that there was this huge disconnect between the crypto community and the Bitcoin community about what was Bitcoin mining.
And even the Bitcoiners didn't really understand what Bitcoin mining was.
Now, I just happened to come from Google Cloud.
So I 100% understand what a data center looks like.
And I 100% understand the trajectory of the energy consumption of AI and data centers.
And so I kind of got alarmed with the fact that because nobody really looking at Bitcoin and Bitcoin is this you know easy easy to attack vector then this is a great opportunity to introduce regulation that is going to basically regulate
math. It's going to regulate computers. It's going to decide who gets an electron and who
doesn't get an electron. And all of that is going, all of that can be introduced or could
be introduced through handling Bitcoin. And of course we want to handle Bitcoin because Bitcoin
is for criminals and Bitcoin is for money launderers. And if, and if Diamond was the
president, he would shut it down because he doesn't at the time, right now he's obviously
changed his tone. But at the time that's, that, that was the reputation of Bitcoin, that it was
dirty, that it was something not virtuous, right? Now, 2025, that's going to sound funny to a lot
of people because now it is what it is today. So nobody is disputing Bitcoin's value anymore,
or at least nobody legitimate anyway that is paying attention is disputing the value anymore.
but then the the the point of attack was you know we have a new crypto and it uses way less energy
way greener than bitcoin because bitcoin is not green and so now you had all these other cryptos
the cousins of bitcoin or that or the whatever their relatives for sure attacking bitcoin for
its energy consumption and so whenever you would bring up bitcoin oh yeah i love bitcoin but it's
so bad for the environment bitcoin is really cool but it's so bad for the environment have you heard
of cardano or xrp and and then i was like you know what fuck any other argument that i wanted to make
about nfts or anything there's like 30 million filmmakers creating documentaries right now about
nfts there's 30 million filmmakers making documentaries about the blockchain all of these
companies are making their own documentaries nobody's going to make a documentary about
bitcoin mining and bitcoin mining is here getting attacked and a lot of other filmmakers have
done chapters in their film or there is this machine greens which is a documentary a short
documentary on bitcoin mining so it's not like nobody had done it but i also felt that a lot of
these including this machine greens it kind of still pandered to this um idea sorry and i hate
to say that it's very that sounds very critical but it is actually how why i felt compelled to
make my own i did not want to greenwash bitcoin either because i knew and now i know and time will
only prove us right that this whole green energy um movement was never green it was never green
and those of us that kind of it's okay it's innovation it's science i mean it's a technology
it's flat pack things out of china i mean who doesn't have things from ikea so i'm not i'm not
disputing it as an industry completely because I would be a hypocrite because I still participate
and in very non-green industries but I also don't want to hype it up as something that it isn't
so I'm not going to vilify it but I'm also not going to you know hype it up and so I felt that
some of the other documentaries they'd be like but bitcoin consumes so much green power green power
look at all these solar fields look at them and it's like you know okay great that's fantastic
You know, that's really awesome that you are consuming wasted energy.
That's fantastic.
And you can consume wasted energy that's also methane, and it's from a landfill,
and you can consume it in a methane at an oil field.
And you can consume a river that has a hydroelectric plant,
and you can consume wasted energy there.
You can consume all kinds of wasted energy,
And that's really the thesis here is the fact that, you know, Bitcoin can't Bitcoin mining makes profitable, non profitable energy solutions.
Number one, it helps stabilize and again, use it by consuming waste.
It can stabilize the energy in the load and in an energy grid.
And there's a lot of different use cases for how it actually changes and morphs depending on whether you're looking at Bitcoin mining in Texas on the grid.
if you're looking at Bitcoin mining in Montana off-grid, if you're looking at Bitcoin mining in
Kenya or in Malawi, or if you're looking at it in Paraguay with Itaipu, you know, or in Finland,
it actually looks completely different. And it's always kind of filling and solving
a problem. You know, either we need heat. Oh, we can create heat and we can take electricity there,
but our heat doesn't get there oh well we can do that and so that's the and so for me i felt like
i just wanted to drop everything and everything else from deciphering web3 only focus on dirty
coin i knew that that was the reputation i knew that i would get oh and at the time there was this
whole movement on cleaning up bitcoin and a clean up of bitcoin meant it you would only bitcoin's
mind with quote unquote green energy would be like clean coins and only OFAC compliant wallets
could transact. And that would be, that would clean up Bitcoin. But would that still be Bitcoin
if you're deciding which energy is the righteous energy and, you know, which are the righteous
people that can also use it? That's literally the antithesis of, of Bitcoin. And so in a way for me,
you know when people say is it dirty or is it not i'm like well i mean there's so many definitions
of dirty that that was one of the things that i wanted to play with but the when i looked at the
alternatives of what it meant to clean up bitcoin i say keep bitcoin dirty you know keep it peer to
peer keep it the the way that it was the why it was created and so and so for me obviously the name
was very intellectual.
I thought about it a lot.
And also very clickbaiting.
So I think it was, you know,
it was an important name for me.
But a lot of people didn't want to give me interviews
because they thought that I was just going to,
they didn't know me.
They thought I was just going to bait and switch them.
You know, I was going to use their interviews against them.
And so I really stranded because there was all this,
oh my God, there was even this rumor going around
for a little while that I was a CIA agent
And then I was just fighting out information, posing as a documentary person, because I worked on Dirty Corn for three years.
So a lot of people, like they saw me in the space, they saw me poking around and they didn't like see much coming out.
And so I was like, all right, I'm going to really strand it with what I have filmed so far so that I can get a couple of last interviews.
And at that point, I already had Senator Lummis. I already had Jeff Booth. I already had like really powerful interviews.
and so all I needed was just like a few more to round it out
and so I decided to, I didn't want to do a teaser,
I wanted to do a proper short film
and kind of test the film festival circuit
and see if they would like it
because it was a long shot.
I mean, I knew that, you know,
already I hadn't received any grants for Dirty Coin.
Nobody wanted to touch just because now 22 happens,
2020, 23 happens, FTX happens, Luna happens. So suddenly crypto is imploding and I'm working on a
crypto film, which is how everybody, everybody thought that I was doing. Nobody thought, no,
she's not making a crypto film. She's making a Bitcoin mining film about the energy consumption.
Like nobody knew that. So to this day I'll build, I'll get people like, oh yeah, you're the one with
a crypto film and i'm like oh my god yes i guess but like no it's a it is literally about energy
and the earth and data centers and it is so relevant that i can't even um i can't urge you
enough to please watch it and and continue to understand that this is the way that the world
is moving um it's yeah so then i really stranded and then the festivals loved it and it's still
it's still winning awards it's still going to a lot of festivals i released that one
in september of 23 dirty coin i released on the day of the having in warsaw you were there so epic
and on 4 20 2024 and and yeah and since then we've been screening in cities all over the world
at conferences at festivals at meetups we use a website called kinema that's phenomenal for
independent filmmakers that want to make the film available, but also keep it secure. Um, but for
screenings. And so people can just go up there and depending on the amount of people that are going to
go to the screening, they can say, okay, 10 people, I'm going to invite 10 people over. It's a small
meetup or it's a conference and we're going to have 2000 people that we want to be able to have
see it. And so we'll, and then it's a sliding scale of price and it's all on industry standards.
so where I would have probably done that with a distributor I can do that directly with people
and I'm not having to give the distributor necessarily that percentage so there's a lot
of really great tools out there I'm still deep in tech and not just in bitcoin mining and that's
my background my friends my interest so I've been able to combine not just using bitcoin and raising
bitcoin and paying you know people can pay in bitcoin they can do screenings we have people that
do screenings in other parts of the world and they pay for their screening in bitcoin and it's much
easier than you know wires or and having to explain what it is and honestly with a name like
dirty coin it raises a bunch of flags we can't dirty coin can't even have a paypal account
all the names like all the when i put in my name and the description of what the movie was
it was like immediately it said you cannot create an account and it's like dirty coin a bitcoin
mining documentary and we haven't been able to have paypal we had a bank that also they asked us
a crap ton of questions before like way more than any a company i've opened up a lot of bank accounts
for my businesses and uh or maybe not that many but enough and i've never gone through that kind
of scrutiny and i know that it was because you know what is it it is a bitcoin mining documentary
It's like flag, flag, flag.
So it's been fun.
Awesome.
You know, I have another anecdote here, Alana,
of how I first found out about you and about DirtyCoin.
And we have to run the clock back to the fall of 2022.
It is in a park in Amsterdam.
Actually, let's rewind it a few hours earlier.
It's earlier in the day.
and I'm at Bitcoin Amsterdam,
the inaugural Bitcoin Amsterdam in 2022.
And this guy comes up to me.
His name is Zasha.
And we have a really nice chat.
And he says,
he takes this little token out of his pocket
and he gives it to me.
He says, you're a good guy.
So I'm going to give you entry,
free entry tonight to an exclusive VIP event
I'm hosting at this exclusive again,
nightclub called radio i think it's called radio radio in and it's in this beautiful park in in
amsterdam he says you know i involved in bikon manning i doing these amazing things in paraguay and you know know I just inviting really cool people such as yourself to this I was like fantastic Hey someone thinks I a cool person
and he's given me a secret handshake,
this token that I can take with me.
So I show up there that evening,
dutifully handed my token and I'm ushered in.
And then there are a few people in there already.
Then the door slams shut.
If I'm not mistaken,
I might have heard even the latch close behind it.
No.
No, no, maybe I'm exaggerating here.
But in any event, I'm in there,
and then suddenly this lady gets up on stage,
pulls down this screen and turns the projector on.
And of course the lady is you.
And I'm like, wait a second,
I thought I was being invited to this really cool nightclub,
you know, some exclusive event.
Instead it's a film screening.
And then you start talking,
you start talking about the movie you're making.
And I can't remember back then, Alana, if it was you were promoting Stranded or Dirty Coin.
I suspect it was Dirty Coin.
Yeah, Dirty Coin.
Yeah, yeah.
So it ended up being a really cool event.
But I thought it was funny how the buildup to that happened.
So that was the first time I heard about the movie.
And I think we very – you probably won't remember this.
We had maybe a three-second conversation saying, hey, cool movie.
I want to watch – I'll keep an eye on this.
That was that.
I think we properly met at Warsaw last year at the Film Fest.
Which, by the way, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this.
Dirty Coin won the Best Picture Award at the Golden Rabbit, as they're called, at the Warsaw Film Fest.
Yes, yes, yes.
It was epic.
It was so epic.
I mean, the night of the screening there, it was full.
It was like every chair was full.
The stairs were full.
um everybody was there watching it um it was a roaring applause after so for me it was
like that night alone I just felt like so many years to get to that moment to
figure like see what people will think and for it to be so like um just so roaring you know it was
really awesome. Like that's it. That was like, okay. All right. I did. I, somebody liked it.
Somebody liked it. And then, and then the next day, cause I didn't show it to anyone. I didn't
even show it to any of my investors. That was super clear on my, on my contract. Like you're
investing in this film and I'm going to make it and I'm going to try my hardest to do a really good
job and but and i'm a bitcoiner but if i see something that isn't you know like i'll see i'll
put what i see and if there's anything that leads me off course and actually bitcoin mining is the
worst i will say it like i will i will put it i mean at this point i'm just investigating this
thing and you know i'm i i see a positive which is why i'm going in but i'm not saying that it's
gonna all be positive because i'm a realist and it isn't uh anyway so nobody had seen it and it
was nice and then the next day to win best movie it was like ah and i knew that the the the judges
actually if i'm not mistaken were you a judge for that one i was yes you were yeah so the judges
were very esteemed and it was you i remember it was dj val it was also um this other producer out
of LA Terrence Michael yeah so it was you know it was also Bitcoiners that I really respected and I
know that you guys have seen everything in the space you know from a I knew you were you were
very familiar with the like the the content in the space and so it was an additional kind of I
knew that the audience liked it and then to know that the judges liked it as well was it felt good
It felt like I did do something that, like I accomplished what I wanted.
And that was just kind of like the beginning of honestly seeing it unfold.
Because in the last year, we have screened in, we're already in five languages.
We're translating into four more languages.
We have confirmed screenings coming up.
We have screenings that are in the process of being confirmed and tightened up with dates and stuff coming up.
and this is basically to create something that was so needed in this space and that was why i
did it i did it because i was like nobody else is going to do do it like this and not everybody's
going to like it but the people that need to just talk about the energy consumption point foot point
of bitcoin mining the the people that this is important for them they'll find it really like
a really useful tool to be able to just kind of explain what this whole industry is in 69 minutes
and it's something that has taken us that we've been in the industry for years and a lot of the
people that are in bitcoin mining before they were in bitcoin mining they were in energy or they were
in data centers so they have to suddenly explain to their friends or their family and in a
conversation what they have seen in person what they have listened in podcasts what they have met
other people doing you know there's it's hard it's really hard and so i'm really happy to have
been able to create something that my mom went to see in the movie theater and i was totally
expecting her to fall asleep and i even told her mom it's totally fine because she falls asleep
during anything like we can go watch mission impossible and she'll fall asleep and and i knew
that she was going to feel guilty that to fall asleep and i'm like i will not don't worry mom
this is super technical and my mom is a very non-computer person too like you start talking
to her about tech and she starts falling asleep like she is just not she's no not a tech person
at all and and she was not just watching it i could tell she was actually engaged and i was like
oh my god she's actually she's not just like trying to stay awake i can say i can see and
then she was like when the credit started going she's like that's it it's over and i'm like oh my
god you didn't fall asleep and you would have watched more that's crazy amazing so that was good
how many hours of footage did you have for dirty god i mean you've shot this over three years
almost right that's what you said yeah must have been hundreds of hours of footage hundreds of
hours yes and 78 interviews so each interview was an average of 45 minutes some were longer
like Alex Drew Vee that was a two hour interview actually three hour interview
and there were a few people that were much longer and all of the b-roll and we also had additional
animations that I had to cut out because we just didn't have the the budget to to do and I wanted
I rather do less animations than more that are shittier and so I wanted the artists because we
had a heart deadline of the premiere in warsaw so we had to finish the film i couldn't just keep
working on it i knew that i had to give myself a deadline i work with deadlines and warsaw was
the deadline and we actually finished it a couple days like before we asked ask tomek i sent him the
file he was like i need dirty coin i'm like i need it too it's not dumb like i we're we're almost
there and i was in poland already when i downloaded the final file and i arrived a couple days before
so i think it was 418 and we premiered at 420 and they had terrible internet and their airbnb
and i mean that was drama like that was drama we didn't even have it fully loaded and tested
um for like like a few hours before we before we premiered it so that was
Did that end up being the final, final version,
or did you tweak it after that?
No, I actually haven't tweaked it at all.
The beginning, I have a new logo in the front
because we had a production company called Four Emotions Entertainment.
They're out of Zurich, Switzerland,
and they're a production company, Indian-Swiss.
And so actually now with them,
we're going to be entering the Asian market,
which I'm super excited about.
I just needed to enter Asia.
I know how big Asia is.
It's very large.
It's a huge market.
And markets, many.
And so I wanted to first do, like, this first year,
just kind of get U.S. and Europe and America,
like a little bit of South America, too,
under our feet before we can get into Asia.
But anyway, I put their logo in the front
because they gave us a grant to market the P&A,
the advertising of the film.
and yeah, and that's it.
And then I fixed some typos in the credits
of some people's names that I wrote wrong.
But I am currently working on a director's cut
for Dirty Coin because currently in Dirty Coin
in the Silk Road chapter,
the very last sentence that Eric Dale says
about Ross Ulbricht is,
and he's committed to die in jail.
And we end with his sentence.
And as we know, Ross is free.
and so that is an updated scene that i want to create and not only is he free i saw him at
freedom fest i saw him at the bitcoin conference and i also saw him speak at freedom fest and he
is really going for cruel sentencing and the status of the prisons in the united states
the speech that I heard him give at Freedom Fest was heart-wrenching.
And I feel like not just Ross, but the fact that we are the judicial system,
the banking system, they're creating these exemplary kind of sentences
so that other people don't want to innovate the same way that Ross did.
And Ross is not the only one.
There are other people that are currently being made examples of, and the conditions of our prisons are awful.
So we are sentencing people to torture just so that we can set an example.
And that is not the way that a high civilization operates.
And so I do think it's time to raise the IQ, stop talking about wars, stop talking about all this BS,
and actually act like the civilized society that we are, not funding these wars,
making sure that our prisons, I mean, what are we doing, doing anything foreign when domestically there's, there are so many issues.
And so I really appreciate where he's coming from.
And, and that is something that not only do I want to say, do I want to give the update that he is out,
I really want to kind of make a point of what's occurring right now and really shine a light at how these unjust,
different lawsuits
and even prison time for people
is just not something
that we should be able to accept
in 2025.
And so it's not going to be a long scene.
It's going to be pretty short,
but it's going to be basically
Ross is free,
and this is what he's up to.
And this is what's happening.
And Ross is not the only one
that went through
this kind of cruel sentencing.
And we're going to highlight some of the other people that are, again, being made examples of and, you know, what people can do about it.
And so I feel like that's something that Dirty Coin is worthy of a director's cut.
And there's just a couple of interviews that I feel that are also that maybe belong.
So there's a few technical things as well that I need to handle a couple of times where the volume is just every time it happens.
I just want to like, like whatever I have in my hand is definitely being crushed in those different parts of the movie.
So there's a couple of parts that really irk me that I just need to fix.
And then this particular scene and then Dirty Coin will meet its final form.
And then that is going to be what we're going to be selling in DVDs.
We're going to we're going to have DVDs.
I know a lot of Bitcoiners like to own their media.
And so and not just Bitcoiners, but libraries and schools.
and I have a phenomenal sales agent
that he wants to get our DVDs across all the libraries
that he can get us into.
And libraries are still buying DVDs.
And it's interesting to see that DVD sales
are actually going up.
So yeah, so I'm excited about that.
I'm excited about getting the directors
cut into the DVDs.
And then we're also translating
into the four additional films.
And then we're going to go to TV markets in Asia
and around the world.
as well.
Love it.
Can't wait for the director's cut.
Do you think it's going to be
longer than 70 minutes
or 69 minutes?
Yeah, yeah.
It's going to have to,
I'm going to have to lose
the cheeky joke
that it's 69 minutes long.
Yeah, but it's okay.
It has to happen.
It's still not going to be
much longer.
The new scene,
I'd like to cap it
at three minutes
depending on,
if we were to get
an interview with Ross,
then, you know, my heart will tell me how long it needs to be.
But right now, I like the fact that when it ends,
people feel like, oh, that's it.
You know, you don't want them to get bored.
You don't want them to be like, oh, finally.
So I do want to keep that feeling of, wow, that's it.
So I don't really want to extend it too much.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, makes sense. And, you know, one other interesting thing about the movie itself is that you don't appear on camera at all, other than if I'm if memory serves right in a very brief, maybe two or three second shot in the Alex de Vries interview.
Was that a conscious choice to keep yourself out of the camera?
yes yes it's it's the way i've always made my documentaries i've never been in any of them
i always just my my documentaries were always about the person that the documentary was about
and sometimes you would hear my voice and especially because sometimes people would
say something and i would say something as a response like let's say i'm interviewing you
and the camera's on you. You're giving me an answer. And then you finish your answer. And then
suddenly I say, wow, that's so cool. You're so amazing. And then you give me like the most
genuine smile I've ever seen in my life. And it was those moments that I wouldn't cut my voice
out because I wanted my audience to know what my subject was laughing at or why they were smiling
so hard. Because usually when you compliment somebody, I mean, you just get this, when you
genuinely compliment somebody, which I feel like I genuinely give compliments. I don't just tell,
I don't, I don't just glaze just to glaze. It's like I, if I say something, I mean it.
I'm a mother. So I also say like a mom, you know, I have that love that only a mom I feel can
develop that tone of love and respect. And, and so I, I tend to give really good acknowledgements
And I tend to get really beautiful smiles out of people after that.
And that, and I like, again, I just like for my viewers to know,
like why did they give me that beautiful smile?
It's because they felt acknowledged.
They felt seen.
They felt heard.
And it was the right thing to say.
And so there's a couple times, like in the final, in the end of the film,
I actually, in the end of Dirty Coin, the final scene currently is a moment like that
where you can hear me.
Um, and then you get to see art smile after, after I say what I say.
And so I, I, that is how I kind of stand Lee myself in two things.
You know, I, I, I, you see me in the back.
Um, you often see my hands, especially with tech stuff, you know, you would see my hands
doing things.
But other than that, I just don't feel like, um, I don't feel like my space is in front
of the camera.
I feel like it's behind it.
And if I'm in it, I'm too conscious of the fact that I'm in it.
And when I'm not in it, it's not about me.
It's not about, it's about what I see.
Because I feel more like a quilter.
Like a quilter doesn't make fabric.
They don't make the patterns.
But they choose the patterns.
And they decide how they're going to quilt that pattern together.
and so that's that's more how I see myself I don't feel like I am part of the fabric I feel
like I am the quilter and I am choosing a little bit of this fabric and a little bit of that fabric
and a little bit of this and then I'm creating a a cohesive design with all of these different
fabrics um and that's my art piece that's me my me I am the quilt but I there's no particular
but what's interesting is is really the fabric it starts with the fabric it starts with
with that being being there um and and really all i'm doing is kind of assembling it in a way that
becomes one thing that all these different uh pieces become one piece one cohesive piece
um and so yeah and very little voiceover narration too i only have a joe nakamoto for
like i think it's like 18 seconds i had a lot more vo but i just i i don't know i felt like
the people i interviewed said everything so well that i mostly just wanted to weave their words
together and and not lead people i feel like sometimes i watch documentaries and and this is
mostly what I what I've been seeing a lot at different festivals it's it's a narrator and a
bunch of b-roll and a couple of interviews and then just the narrator and for me it's like well
at that point it's just kind of like it should be called this person's thoughts you know like
this person's thoughts and that's fine like Anthony Bourdain's thoughts like they're it's okay to do
that if that's the thing but for me the subject is what I want to highlight not what not my opinion
about the subject not what I want to write about the subject is what is the subject and so in tech
I always disliked the voiceover because it always sounded too like a commercial like the second that
we didn't we would introduce a voiceover to any of our videos it would do so much worse it would
perform way worse on YouTube. And, you know, at Google, we would drill everything. It wasn't just
like, oh, we're done. That's it. Like we would be done. And then we would have to look at,
we would have meetings with, uh, analytics teams, our marketing teams, and we would see
which videos were performing the best. Uh, like we had it down and, you know, some things I wasn't
agree. I wouldn't always agree with everything. You know, there were my favorite videos weren't
always the ones that had the most views it was mine were kind of tended to be in the middle
but you know that unilaterally it didn't matter how beautiful our video was like our cinematography
and our color and our animation as soon as we would put vo we would get drop off and again it
was google so it was different it was kind of like different but then any of our films like our short
videos that short films that were just the subjects they always performed better and so
and I always felt like I liked them better too and so with Dirty Coin um I it was really just
kind of me doing what I've been doing for a long time which is I've I'm not in any of the
of the things that I've produced again you might see my hands or you might see me in a background
but unless you know me you wouldn't know that that's also me because I don't make it a point
of like, this is the director.
It's like, I'm just kind of in the background.
But yeah, but if you know me,
it's that Stanley moment where it's like,
oh, hey, there she is.
Love it.
So Alana, you filmed 78 interviews, right?
Presumably 78 people.
You must have tried to get other interviews as well.
Which of the interviews was the hardest yes
to get a sit down?
and which was the most surprising no?
Hardest yes was Alex Debris.
That was the hardest yes.
Oh, and two of them.
There was another one that was really hard.
And he is Stephen.
I can't believe I forget his last name.
From Upstream Data.
Steve Barber.
There it is.
I knew I knew it.
Steve Barber was very hard to nail down because he is very pro coal, you know, doing coal correctly.
And he has basically done presentations on how coal in many ways is greener than solar.
And so that's his whole thing.
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, but definitely it was a voice that I wanted to have because I didn't just, again, going back to,
I didn't just want to pander to the green narrative. I wanted to really talk about what is most efficient, what is the best. And per situation, there isn't one size fits all when it comes to these solutions, which is why it's so important to have a true scientific and open mind about the energy conversation, because it might look better to have a particular solar in a particular area than something else.
you know? And so that's why there's no good or bad. It's, you know, what, what is the most
efficient in the particular place? And so I wanted to have Steve and Steve said no a bunch or just
didn't get back to me. And then, and I was able to get him and then same with Alex. I would say
the most surprising no was, um, Adam back because I, I built almost like a whole chapter around
proof of work and
you know how
the history of it because I also
wanted to make a point that proof of work
wasn't invented
for dirty coin for bitcoin
it was why did it come
up you know and I went into the history
of it and there was this whole chapter that I was
going to make and Adam was going to tie it all together and I knew so many people that knew him that I just kind of thought that it was in the bag I was like yeah And then I going to interview Adam and then we going to you know he going to talk about this part and then he going to talk about this part and like
early proof of work and why did he make it? And like, who else was using it? Was it just Bitcoin
or like, how did it catch on? Like I had this whole kind of a timeline situation there. And then,
and then yeah he just kept saying no a couple of people asked him too on my behalf and because I was
so I was so like positive that he was eventually gonna say yes and no he never I mean I respect him
he just stayed with no and no meant no and so yeah I mean it kind of sucks because it's like I feel
like I would have his chapter would have been like so dope and it would have been like really so great
But since I also didn't have his interview, it didn't like the whole chapter fell apart and we had a little animated scene.
And then but the scene didn't quite fit in between anything in the film.
And so that was one of the animations that we decided that that whole chapter I decided to cut.
I was a darling that I was like, well, you don't miss it if you don't see it.
So I'm just not going to put it in and we're just going to focus on energy and not not really tackle proof of work.
But it would have been cool to get into that chapter.
But other documentaries have definitely done that one.
So it's not like it needs, if I don't do it, it's not going to get done.
It has been done, and I'm sure it'll get done again.
So no biggie.
That is odd, because he spent a lot of time with Money Electric, that HBO movie.
The one that, I can't remember the name of the director,
but it claimed that Peter Todd was Satoshi, that one.
And Adaback had a lot of time on camera there.
And I dare say in a far inferior movie, Alana, Two Dirty Coins.
So it is odd.
Yeah, but nobody knew what I was going to do.
He didn't know me and he didn't know what I was doing.
and he was, he has given interviews to a lot of people. Like I see him on a lot of videos
of different YouTubers and stuff. And I'm like, wow. Okay. So I don't know. Maybe I said something
once that also, maybe it was me. I don't know. I don't know. There's so many. So I'm very honest.
I don't, I don't have a very big filter. So it is possible like that I, you know,
overstepped at some point and said something on Twitter. I don't know. Honestly, nowadays,
who knows it could be anything and like i said there was a cia rumor and i was like what you look
at my work you look at my life how could i ever be an agent but okay um i it was it was funny but i
don't know how far that went you know i don't know who was actually saying that so i understand to be
cautious is fine
no heart no no bad blood
yeah well
we never know
what the reason could be but it is
odd in my mind
Alana let's talk about
independent film but maybe
more narrowly Bitcoin
and independent film obviously Dirty Coin
was perhaps the first of its
kind which
you know you laying out things the way you did
certainly when you started filming it must have been
the first of its kind, right?
And you explain the different concepts
about Bitcoin, about mining and so on
as you let these people tell their stories.
What do you think the current landscape
of independent film in Bitcoin,
I mean, it's all independent, right?
But a Bitcoin film looks like,
it seems like a lot of other films
are taking this track where
you go through this process
through animations you explain you know the difficulty adjustment or you explain blocks
and all of that and then you have people telling stories what are you seeing
well i think that we're going to see a lot more filmmakers as we as we get more filmmakers into
bitcoin we're going to see a lot more movies about bitcoin in different ways and because you know
when you're a hammer everything is a nail and if you're as we get more filmmakers and we're all
going to want to make our film you know the film that that we think is missing in bitcoin and
frankly there's many you know there's there's i i personally i want to work more in bitcoin fiction
but more like fiction that has bitcoin as an element i think that that's really where where
we want to do product placement it's not necessarily about the whole like i don't know
For me, I would do a Dirty Coin 2 in eight years or something when it's two halvings later.
How has the industry changed?
How is it different?
Who are the players now?
That's when I would do a Dirty Coin 2.
I'm not chasing it right now.
I'm going to let the industry do what it does and the network do what it does.
And then we'll see what it looks like in a decade.
And if I'm around, then I think that that would be lovely to do.
but for the moment i think that as we see more filmmakers a um i i suppose it's a matter of also
kind of dividing content creators from filmmakers and the reason why the like even though it's an
mp4 at the end of the day they're both mp4s and i have seen some incredible work on youtube so it
is no knock at all so the quality even there's some bad quality movies that that are still movies
you know and you can have a great quality youtube video but it's still a youtube video and
and the reason why the distinction and and again you could even make more money off your youtube ad
on youtube so it's not even like a financial thing one's better than the other it's just two
completely different industries youtube or social media you have to you know it is it you have to
publish a lot you have to publish quickly you have to if you know you're you're playing a a
a constant numbers game.
You can't just put up one video and,
and ride it forever.
You know,
you have to continue to put up more content.
You need to continuously be active on the platform because that is the way
that those platforms are designed.
But a film,
you know,
I finished,
I exported dirty coin for 18,
you know,
2024.
And we've continued to really build a movement around one film.
And I feel like that's a major difference between the film industry and,
and,
content creators because a film, a filmmaker creates, you know, one film and they're touring
the world with it. They're doing festivals. They're going to markets, you know, then they
make another one. Then they make another one. Then they take all three of their films to the
festivals and the markets. And then they have their library. Now they have their five films.
And, you know, but the, the lifespan of a film of one film, like dirty coin in 20 years can still
make me and will still make me money. You know, it's the same movie and it'll still be in festivals
that are like oldies, you know, like oldie tech docs, you know, in San Francisco or something,
and it'll be DirtyCoin. And unfortunately it won't be a better YouTube video. There might be like a
YouTube, just because it's a different industry. It'll, it's not, it's not going to pop up. And,
you know, I say this, of course, anybody building a festival can do whatever they want and they can
queue up whatever they want. But ultimately there is a very large division between the social media
industry and the filmmaking industry. And I can tell you as somebody that was deep in the social
media industry, working directly with YouTube, directly with Facebook, within both of these
companies, um, it is a different beast, you know, it's in order to, to be a successful producer for
a producer that produces videos for social media, it is, it looks very differently than a successful
film producer because you're going to different conferences, you're going to different events,
you're going to, like your life's, even though again, at the end of the day, you're raising funds,
however you're raising funds and you're making a film and you're exporting it as an MP4,
where you take it and how you move it is completely different than social media.
and and so when I and I and I say about making that division because I believe that social media
is fine these guys are amazing and ladies there's a lot of great content that's popping up daily
they are totally doing the social media game there you have Isabel Santos you have a bit
finance you have bit finance I always get confused with his name you have obviously Joe Nakamoto you
have a lot of, and actually in DirtyCoin, I have a nod to the YouTubers. And I put their, you know,
they gave me their B-roll and I put up their channel so people can continue to look them up
because there are some really great creators out there that are, you know, they're getting out
there, they're creating great content. They're putting up their QR codes. They're using lightning.
They're showing how to use lightning. I mean, they can be faster to respond to things because they
also don't have just the one film or two or three or four that they're, you know, they're working on.
With the videos, they're much quicker. So I think that on the content side, I think that we're good
and it's only going to get better and worse because of AI creators. Again, better and worse
even with AI creators. But on the film side, we're going to need more producers and we're going to,
I mean, I'm definitely going to produce more films, not just of mine, but of other people that are, you know, that see not just Bitcoin, but like values that, you know, you look at Angel Studios and Angel really nailed it because their family content was just kind of starting to become a grooming content so that you're fine with the gay shit that you're going to encounter when you're an adult because everyone is gay now.
It's like, well, I don't really want to have that conversation with my kids yet.
You know, like there's just certain things that I just don't want.
I don't want to like any kind of sexual anything, honestly.
Like I have a 10 year old and a six year old.
So certain conversations are questions that come up.
It's like as a parent, I get to choose when I want to have them.
And Disney, we don't even have Disney Plus because we just kind of feel like it's like this grooming platform.
And so Angel Studios comes in.
They have Tuttle Twins, for example, which is such a cool show.
like I,
everybody in my family loves it.
My husband,
me,
my 17 year old,
my 10 year old,
my six year old,
we love it.
And so angel studios has really cornered this market,
but it's also very Christian and not the title twins.
The title twins,
I would say is not very Christian,
but the rest of their content is very Christian and that's fine.
But I feel like I kind of stand in a middle ground where I'm like in no man's
land where I don't,
I'm not personally Christian,
totally respect Christianity and religion,
but I'm not Christian.
and I love a lot of their Christian films by the way.
I'm just not always in the mood for a Christian film
and or any kind of religious film for that matter
because I also like religious films
of other religions as well
just to kind of see what's going on there.
But mostly I just like good stories you know and sometimes a good story that person Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Scientologists or whatever they are and that just kind of part of the story but it not it not really the purpose it not really why i there just like again like with bitcoin i
don't want to make a movie that's a big and then about bitcoin just bitcoin is a tool it's something
that gets used it's something that's in the background ultimately people come for the story
what's the story that's the thing that we all need to be really focused on and and so i think
that the future for Bitcoin films is there's, there's going to be a couple of different things
when it comes to Bitcoin films. Um, as a company, I'm not going to stop accepting Bitcoin. You know,
even if my content has nothing to do with Bitcoin, we will continue to accept Bitcoin.
We will continue to hold Bitcoin. We will continue to, um, do licensing around the world
and continue to license the film as Bitcoin being a way that a payment, a form of payment.
so you can be a production company that integrates bitcoin without having to have
any kind of bitcoin content and i think that every single production company in the world
should start keeping looking at what other companies are doing and do the same have a
bitcoin treasury have a you know do whatever you can to to incorporate bitcoin as a medium of
exchange in your company. So that's, I see that happening probably faster than a bunch of Bitcoin
movies. But I think that as Bitcoiners come in and they even, or people that just start using
Bitcoin and become unofficially Bitcoiners, not necessarily in the culture or the conferences
and stuff, but just Bitcoin users, ultimately the Bitcoin constant is going to follow.
And so I see it as an inevitable. And it's really right now, just a matter of like who figured it
out first and, and, and that's it. I mean, it's, it's, it's just not a lot of people in tech and
film, um, except, you know, people like me that are from Silicon Valley, there's definitely enough.
There's a lot of us, but we're, we're the nerds. Like we're the ones that happen to come from
Silicon Valley. We're the ones that happened to, you know, or, or, or, or similar, similar place.
So yeah, it's just going to take a little while for, for non-nerds to catch up, but they will,
and they're going to have, they're going to be really good on other, about other things, like
probably better business minded even than us. And they're going to kill it. So I think it's going to
be, I think it's fun. It's, it's super fun. Bitcoin doesn't sponsor events like con. So I do also,
I have met a lot of filmmakers that are completely, were completely burnt by some film three bullshit.
And so when they tell me like, do you have an NFT project? Well, I'm like, I don't.
um but i did bill in bitcoin so i just stuck sats and i i you know crowdfunded in bitcoin
from eighteen thousand dollars up and this last time this last 18 and you know paid for my cruise
in bitcoin it paid for travel in bitcoin i mean i was able to uh really have a leg up over fiat
And definitely over having to convert a bunch of people to some unknown coin so that they can buy the coin, so that they can buy my token, so that they can then buy my thing, so that they can put it in a wallet, so that one day they can sell the thing for the coin.
No, just give me the Bitcoin.
Let's just avoid five steps here and just, you know, I'll take the sats.
And I would say that that was a good call on my end.
at that point.
And I didn't know if it was for me,
I was just simplifying my life.
I thought that I had missed the NFT bubble and the NFT train,
like when it was happening.
And then now I am noodling an inscriptions collection.
I'll be honest.
Because I do,
I do think that,
you know,
this,
that particular like collectors,
digital collectors didn't go away.
That there's a,
for the most part,
they,
they're not as degening as much and the different blockchains and the delay.
There's,
you know,
the NFT scene isn't what it,
what it used to be,
but in a way the bear market kind of defined the ones that were kind of
creating something that was meaningful to them.
And you still have collectors all the way.
So I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm still thinking about it for the moment.
We just keep it simple.
We just,
you know,
accept Bitcoin.
Um,
and for the most part,
that's just where I tell everybody to begin.
Just start accepting Bitcoin.
This is how you set up your wallets and, and boom, you know, sell stickers in Bitcoin, accept Bitcoin donations, use products like Indie Hub or Indie Studio.
You know, there's going to be a lot of different tools also that are going to make it really appealing for people to come into Bitcoin.
If, if just billing in Bitcoin is not appealing enough to people, there's going to be different platforms that are going to make it even easier.
so I think the future is bright for
Bitcoin and filmmaking and
ultimately I hope that what that leads to
is a renaissance
in film
like just oh my god
like to have filmmakers that
can just create and they
have the means to do so
and an international community willing to
exchange for that
oh my god I mean I just
hope that what that means is
that we
the best movies are ahead of us and not behind us,
which for a long time,
I really thought that the best movies were behind us.
I really did.
And I think that Bitcoin can help change that.
You know, it's interesting you say that, Alana.
So last week on our regular Pleb Chain Radio show,
we had Zach Mahoney, the creator of IndieHub,
IndieHub Studio on,
and he was making a similar point
along the lines of
he doesn't see the era
of like these massive budget
Hollywood movies
lasting for too much longer
just given how fiat
that whole setup is.
And I asked him,
I said, does that mean that
you can't have grand stories anymore
because these big budgets are gone?
His view was
it's because it will likely shift
to something like a Bitcoin standard
or maybe just a Bitcoin standard itself,
you'll see a lot more efficient filmmaking,
meaning you'll still see the grand stories.
It'll just be on a much smaller budget.
I don't know if you,
what do you think about that perspective?
Yeah, I mean, first of all,
I think Zach is, he's one of my favorite humans.
So yes, Zach and I talk a lot about this stuff
and we both see it.
We see that bright Bitcoin future for Hollywood.
and when I mean Hollywood,
I mean more established communities of filmmaking
and not just Hollywood,
but definitely the Atlantas and the Londons of the world.
And the thing is that there's such big dominoes
that when they move,
I mean, it's just inevitable that everybody else will,
you know, just one executive in LA needs to make a decision
and suddenly all movie theaters accept Bitcoin
all over America, for example.
So these are important places to orange pill, so to speak.
But I think that, I mean, we see it, the fact that you can make things much cheaper now.
So now it really does come down to story more than ever before.
It was story and budget back in the day.
But now it's just story.
Like Flow, for example, is an independent film that was made with open source animation software.
And it is one of the best films that would have never been able to be made before.
But the story is what is so incredible about flow.
And it is a story about a flood.
And again, one cat's experience through this flood is so freaking beautiful and incredible.
And ultimately, the barrier to entry is much lower.
Now, you can create a 3D animation mostly by yourself, a feature film mostly by yourself.
and you can use free software to do it.
And now you can also use AI to help you with certain scenes.
One of the AIs that I use is called Runway.
And with Runway, you can bring pictures to life.
You can take an old picture and you can bring it to life.
It's not just AI generation.
There's budget, but like from a documentary perspective,
you know, there's a lot of archival footage
that either is low res
and you try to like up res it as much as you can
and you pay for that.
or, you know, it's an old picture
and then you give it movement,
you know, you give it that Ken Burns effect.
And, you know, that's an animator
that you have to pay for.
And that's, now that animator can easily use AI
and in one day,
because I would still give it to the animator, right?
That's still like,
I feel like this is where a lot of people kind of,
they get like, oh no,
what will happen to the animators?
Like, well, now the animators,
I guess instead of one animation per day,
now they can knock out like 50.
You know, they can actually be
a lot more efficient. How is that going to look? I don't know. We're all moving forward together,
but it's not all bad. You know, like the fact that with a few prompts and an old picture,
you can bring it to life and you can colorize it and you can say only bring the green, the trees
green and you can iterate and you can move quickly and that can be cheap. Ultimately now from a,
from a technical perspective, it's very, very cheap to create something. Now it's really
survival of the best storyteller and the best producer. That's one thing. I mean,
at the end of the day, you can have an incredible film, but you have to move it. You have to market
it. If people don't find out about it, it is nothing. Well, for the world, definitely something
and it's something for the creator and it's good to have created it. But if the intention of that
thing to be created is to be seen, then that's where the producer comes in because a producer
doesn't give up on their film. And when I, I was recently at Cannes this year and I was
blessed to be able to join the producers network that is for producers that have had a box office
release in the last two years so it has to be super fresh and you know i had dirty coin in the
box office here in puerto rico for a week and i we were also in 200 cities so i have a box office
record for dirty coin so i was able to to to go this year to con and one thing that kept coming
up over and over and over and over and over again and all of these producer panels and
and Fireside Chats and all these different things
and very successful producers that are producing today's best top films
from all over the world.
And these people all say you have to be relentless
and not give up on your film.
You know, it is, you are competing against every other producer
and now social media.
And social media, everybody gives it away for free with ads,
except for you.
but you know you have it's it's it's it's hard but you have to as a as a producer it's your job
the the the success of that film is your job and there are producers that are so good at what they
do that they will make bad films successful they'll make them cult classics because they're so
good at what they do and that is where i whenever i feel like you know we we we struggling or we or we not hitting the the targets that I set myself I know who to blame it me and I know the movie
good I know that it has been well received uh since Warsaw we have screened in hundreds of
cities almost 500 cities around the world and the every single time most people love it I can't say
everybody because I'm sure there's at least 20% like statistically impossible for every single
person to love it. But for the most part, everybody, most people in the room have a very,
very positive reaction. And people have sent me videos of standing ovations. I mean, it's been
amazing. And I'm not even in the room. So yes, it's good. But as a producer, I need to move it.
I need to get it in front of people. I need to create the teasers for it. I need to create the
deck that explains what it is the website that says what it is i need to you know it that's the
producer's job the director alana the director she hung her hat last year and hopefully the producer
alana can give her some money so she can work on the director's cut but director alana right now is
out of work but producer alana is the one that's moving the film and that's something that i really
want to impart to filmmakers is that it's not just about making it good if you if you want to get it
out there if you want to see return on your investment or if you want to see how many people
like it you want to see how far it'll go even if it's free how far you can get it um you that's the
producer's part and you have to get up every day and it was so it was such good confirmation to hear
the top people in my industry and film saying the same thing saying like you know and they're
competing they're like i'm competing with leonardo dicaprio on the other line you know
with obama that wants to get into film i mean there's there is competition for for people's
attention everywhere so if you want to get anything done you just you just have to be
relentless about it like you just gotta continue to do it and so i'm excited for for what's to come
and my next films and, you know, I'm going to these markets.
I want to bring other films with me.
There's a lot of great filmmakers that, you know, they can't.
They can't go to the markets.
They can't move the way that I've moved.
Their families can't take the restraint that I've had to put my family through
in the last few years because I know that the time that I put in now
to make these connections, to meet people, to see where the industry is heading,
to see how I can be ahead of that,
to see how we can create incredible films
that are right at the right place at the right time,
just like Dirty Coin.
It's going to require, you know,
it's going to require, you know,
not having all the same luxuries that we had
when mom worked at Google
and she also had all these big clients
and we had all this money coming in.
But, you know, it's just, I don't know,
for me, it wasn't the money, right?
It was, it's not about the money.
It's about the life.
And so for me, I'm casting a vote
for everything I've done.
I've done completely 100%.
And for me, it's like,
I'm going to go to these markets.
I'm going to sell Dirty Core.
I'm going to sell my next films.
I'm going to sell other people's films.
And I'm excited to meet more filmmakers
that need a producer like me
that will not stop until success is met.
I mean, that's when we stop.
And even then, when we meet success,
we have to define it
so we know exactly when we're there
so that we can define a new goal.
We're not going to just stop playing.
then it's you know what's what's the next wave of this what is the next thing that we want to do
with this and so super stoked to to apply everything i've learned to to other properties
because i feel like that's when i'm really going to see exponential growth um for myself and for
the people around me which is like really the most exciting part so alana if you were to give
advice to an aspiring
bitcoiner who wants to become a filmmaker
maybe it's a film
about bitcoin, maybe it's
a bitcoiner who wants to make
just a film about a topic they're interested in
and they want it to be really high quality
their first calculation
is going to be, well there are costs involved
I likely need a couple
of people
one camera person, good equipment
I need lighting
I need to pay for travel costs
if they're trying to do something
like Dirty Coin, for instance,
to be able to travel the world and tell people's stories.
Post-production, that is, you know,
maybe I've captured hundreds of hours of footage
by traveling through all these places.
Now that's thousands of hours of work
of whittling all of that down to find the signal
and then stitch it together nicely.
None of these things are free.
And they have this grand plan and they, you know,
we touched upon how the big budgets era might be over.
But, I mean, a budget is still needed, right, to pay for these things.
So how does a filmmaker go about something like this?
Well, I mean, you just touched on everything.
So number one, I mean, do you, why are you making it?
It's so important.
Just always start with why.
Like, why, why, why are you making it?
Why is it needed?
Why does the world need this?
Why are you making it?
Why do you need this?
And, you know, after you answer that question,
you can then kind of work backwards. For me, I want to be a very successful producer and
being a successful producer also means a producer that gets paid like a crap ton of money because
I'm making percentages off the successes of my films. So if I'm very successful, I,
I then have to, you know, make money. Otherwise there's no doing that job, you know,
You're not a very successful real estate agent and not sell any houses.
There's a reason why you're a successful real estate agent is because you sell a lot of houses.
So a successful producer is a producer that has successful films, financially successful films.
And what that means is that in the future, investors can invest in my films because they know that they're going to get their money back.
It means that actors want to act in my films.
because they know that those films are going to have box office opportunity all over the world,
which is going to be good for them. So for me, I make films because I want to be at the top of
this industry with excellent, excellent films, working with the best people, the best directors,
the best directors of photography, the best actors. And that's my goal, right? I do this
because I feel like that level, I can create content that is independent, yet mainstream enough
that we can reach a very, very wide global audience.
And I'm not just complaining about
the same crappy movies that are being made.
I am a part of the difference.
I am a part of creating something
that isn't the same gay shit.
And again, I'm not against gays.
In fact, I'm so not that it's like,
I can't wait to incorporate a gay character
in one of my films because it really is beyond my point.
It's the grooming part that I have a huge issue with.
And being a mother of a 17 year old and the 10 year old and the six year old, I get to see it so much that it's like it's just too much.
So anyway, but again, I have really no issue with the gay stuff.
It's just, you know, you go to some of these festivals and it's like every single movie has to do with some kind of LGBTQ situation.
And it's like, are there no more stories?
Like, seriously, there's literally no more stories.
These are the only stories that matter.
And so, you know, that to me.
And then, of course, I'm like, and you didn't want dirty coins.
So you just wanted this.
So there's there's a little bit of pettiness there probably as well.
But ultimately, I want to be a part of the difference.
I want to be a part of not making the same movie that's been made a million times and
being a part of that and to do that successfully for the rest of my life.
That's my why.
But if somebody's why is like, well, I just want to, like, tell the world about Bitcoin,
then that's a very different why.
Right.
It's a completely different industry.
so you're not going to be going to con necessarily for that you want to go to maybe ces or maybe you
want to go like there there's other places that you want to go so you like really defining why
are you doing what you're doing why should this be done and why do you want to do it then you move
backwards and then because you don't want to do what i'm doing if if what you want to do is you
know spread uh like i don't know information about how to be healthy because you just want the world
to be a healthier place and you just want to create things that are seen and you know that
all you care about is health okay well then that's not you don't follow alana you know because that
i mean obviously i want people to be healthy too but that's not my why and so defining that
individually is super duper important so that you're not copying people that are not on your
same path. You want to, you, like I, I met a lot of producers that their why was just because they
really wanted to create. And you know, they're a single man. They don't have kids. They just want
to travel the world and create beautiful content. And that's amazing. But I have three kids at home
and a husband, so I need money. So for me, like I could never be that guy. I've been a mother since
I'm 20. I was pregnant when I was 20. So for me, I needed to get put diaper, get, get diapers and
put food for a long time. So for me, that isn't my why. I can't follow the steps of a person that
all they want to do is be a nomad, a single nomad. I'm not a single nomad. So it's so, but it doesn't
mean I have nothing to learn from this person, right? This person might have killer things to
say about thumbnails that are extremely important, right? And that's, and so there's something to
learn from everyone. Don't close anybody off that's not on your path, but don't blindly follow
everyone because everybody's on their own path and ultimately that's going to lead us to different
places. So that's number one. And that really kind of comes to how are you going to raise funds?
If you're going to make a movie that you feel like you can make money with this movie,
you can put it in movie theaters and people are going to talk about it and they're going to go,
or they're going to, they're going to watch it. They're going to rent it. You think you have a
solid business case for a, for a film or for a TV show, get investors, talk to producers,
Talk to people that know how to make movies make money.
Do that.
If what you want is to reach a very wide audience,
then what you want is you want to hang out with the people
that are creating that content.
I don't know if you noticed, a lot of these YouTube creators,
Instagram creators, they go to the same parties,
they go to the same places,
and then they can benefit off each other's followers.
And so, you see, that's a different strategy
because these followers are not going to give you a hundred thousand dollar check in this in the case
of a movie a movie you know you see so where you spend your time is very important and it's
extremely tied to what you want it's like for me once i realized that social media was a i was just
done i was just completely burned out on social media after being in the industry for so long
and realizing that a couple of likes and pats on the back did not pay for my trips or my
cinematographers or my animators or anything.
I spent a lot less time on social media and a lot more time on the phone calling people,
talking to people.
I want to make this movie.
This movie, Dirty Coin, is important for me.
I think it's important for us to not regulate the use of electrons in this way because who
Who gets to decide who is worthy of the electron?
That's the part.
Would I prefer to not have electrons go towards bad things?
Absolutely.
But who defines what is bad?
In 2020, I didn't want to get jabbed and I was considered bad because of that.
So because I don't trust the arbiters of good and bad, I don't think that we should introduce more regulation into energy.
So you see, this for me is extremely important.
This is important for my children.
and so instead of writing all that on twitter and getting three likes i picked up the phone and i
called people and i told them i want this is why i'm doing this and i need money and would you like
to invest in a movie and so you know that's what i would so if it worked for me it can work for
anyone so i would say that would be my advice for anybody that like that wants to make a movie
and if you want to make content, then the path there is you just want to get eyeballs. You want
to be constantly active on these channels and you want to, you know, you can crowdfund from these
channels. There's tons of phenomenal crowdfunding tools and one benefit that, you know, being big
on social media has, one of the benefits is that you have a huge following. So whenever you want to
sell something or have a crowdfunding campaign, you now have a lot of people. You have a huge
email list. Like my email list is 4,000 people. That's how much DirtyCoin has.
But there's influencers that have 40,000 followers. That's 40,000 people. Now, I
personally rather have a 4,000 person email that is my 4,000 person email than 400,000 people that
I don't know that are just like, you know, this number on the screen, which has been in some of
my jobs. Like I, we used to manage huge YouTube pages, but you know, they were just kind of
numbers for us. Like we had certain people that commented frequently, so we kind of knew them,
but for the most part, it was just numbers. And so, you know, taking DirtyCoin to places,
meeting the people, getting a hundred emails here, getting a hundred emails there, getting a hundred
emails there. I mean, I felt every single one of those, uh, of those, of those email acquisitions.
And, and so I decided to go this particular route. Um, and so, and that I would recommend
going that route, but again, that's if you want to kind of carve out more signal that's more
interested in like maybe long maybe you know investing in my next film or their interests obviously like my work So they want to they want to follow me and they want to see the work when it done Maybe they experts in a particular field and there a documentary idea
that they want to run by me
that maybe that's something that I would want to produce.
So for me, there's only so many people
I can actually work with.
So I don't need 400,000 followers
that I'm working with.
I need 40 key people or 400 key people.
and so how do you find those key people and then and just make really great work together
that's that's where i'm at and that's what i would do but again that's my recommendation for
i was super honest about what my future goals are um which is you know go up the carpet con
get the palm d'or for one of our films uh you know continue to just really dominate the film
festival circuit and be that voice that I feel is missing. That's my path. And then, but yeah,
there's other paths and other people will give you other advice. Sounds very simple, Alana.
Have a vision, really believe in it, find your 40 key people and pick up the phone and call them.
And then you manifest the reality you want to live in. Amazing.
Yes.
Great.
Alana, you've been very generous with your time,
and this has been a fantastic conversation.
Before we close out,
any last comments on what to expect next from you,
from your work, where folks can find you?
Yeah, they can find me on LinkedIn and X.
Those are my two major platforms.
I am also on Instagram
but I'm not there often
but you can feel free to follow me there as well
I'm also on Nostra
you can follow me on Nostra
LinkedIn and Nostra are my dailies
Instagram I'll only open a couple times a week
and Facebook even less
but at least once a week on Facebook
but I really don't friend any new person
I just kind of keep the same friends that I always had
but from a professional perspective
right now I'm developing a slate
of original films
and original documentaries
there's two documentaries
that I'm doing ongoing research for
and that's it
I have discussed them on other podcasts
but I'm going to start not
talking about them as much
because they are in flux I can tell you that one is about energy and the other one is about AI So that really all I can say that relevant But it not what you think with either of them hopefully
And hopefully I can add something of value.
But I want to really take my time.
I really enjoy taking my time with DirtyCoin.
I feel like had I just decided, like, okay, I'm going to travel around the world in a month.
And I'm going to film all this.
And I'm going to put it together.
it wouldn't have had the depth of meaning that it has because it really did take three years of
I and I did this full time I did not take on any client work I did not do anything else I really
just focused on I raised the money that I needed to raise to really just focus on dirty coin
and what that meant was you know my whole day was dirty coin you know who am I going to talk to
where am I going to film what am I going to do like it was it was really just being reading every
article seeing everything every every new study that was made when the satoshi papers came out
i was like fuck now i need to read these and we were in the middle of a post-production but i was
like i can't miss something good and and so which i didn't i got a few quotes from there for the film
and i of course attribute them to him and and so with these two films these two documentaries i'm
just going to continue to to to meet people and explore and take my time with those but but going
more aggressively towards my fiction content um just because the the fiction content is a lot more
marketable and it's really where we can we can we can decide what that story is from the beginning
we can decide which actors we want to work with from the beginning and um dirty coin like you said
I mean, weaving through hundreds, thousands of hours of content was like just amazing.
But it was so much work.
I mean, there were there were three editors in me.
It was it was it was a lot of work.
And I don't know, I feel like it was also my first.
So there was only so much that I knew how to do.
Next time I wouldn't interview that many people.
um but anyway i would say what's next is i have those documentaries and then focusing on my fiction
work i there's the the editor of dirty coin is also a director and so he has written and directed
a really awesome series called caribbean terror which is kind of like a black mirror series but
every like every episode is like a short film like a 45 minute film and each episode is a different film about a different Caribbean legend and so we going to go to different islands and we going to basically explore our folklore and our
our old myths and he already has six films already written we're going to be working with local
directors local actors I also really want to capture our accents I feel like being Caribbean
we have a different accent than you know mexican central americans south americans and it's not
really an accent that you hear much of course unless you listen to bad bunny but if you don't
you don't listen to puerto rican music then it's an accent that is very very unique and so
it's important for me that we really get to capture that that accent and that the film is
that each film really sounds like the island that it's from.
And so we're going to do the same with Jamaica.
We're going to do the same thing with the Virgin Islands.
And we're going to work with local...
He's going to co-produce it with me when he's not the director.
He's going to direct the Puerto Rican and the Dominican episode.
So, yeah, I'm super stoked about that one.
I feel like that one is really coming together.
And the fact that it's a bunch of short films,
it's really one project, but it's a lot.
You know, all these different people that we're still working with.
but I'm really excited about that one so that's that's one that is really taking up a lot of my
my mental bandwidth these days and of course the the director's cut for dirty coin if people have
already seen it I recommend that they watch the director's cut they catch that you know try to
decipher what I did differently and and I do hear that people like it better even better a second
time so imagine that I've that's pretty crazy that enough people have seen it two and three
times to even tell me that but i have heard it quite a bit i can certainly vouch for that uh
alana i being part of the bitcoin film fest jury i got to see the movie once before the festival
and then once during the screening it does get better the second time so i would urge folks
if you haven't seen dirty coin already find a screening go watch it and wait with bated breath
for the director's cut.
Yes, yes.
Alana, appreciate you once again
for taking this time,
educating us the way you have on filmmaking,
on your journey,
and looking forward to catching up soon
and seeing more of your work.
Thank you.
Thank you, same.
Maybe I'll join you guys next time for that cigar.
Excellent.
Yes.
Okay, thank you, Avi.
I appreciate it.
Of course.
Thank you.