coming up in around 10 minutes�* time, we'll have newswatch. but first on bbc news, here's click. los angeles, the place where anything is possible — even the weird stuff that i've got up to here over the years. it's a town that revels in the new and right now, that town seems to be talking about nfts. now, as a reminder, nfts are a way of recording who owns what — mainly digital art and music. frankly, the mind still boggles every time i remember that this image by beeple sold for almost $17 million at auction. so, i thought i'd jump on the bandwagon. now, anyone can create — or mint — an nft. in fact, i've just minted myself, which was refreshing! that means that this mini animation now has a unique identifier, which has been recorded on... ..the blockchain! an indisputable record of who owns it and who buys it afterwards. 2022 looks like being the year that hollywood sits up, takes notice and decides, "yeah, i wouldn't mind a bit of all that!" simon hancock's been talking to some of those hoping to mint some films to print some films and make a mint. that sounded better in my head. over to you, simon. for over 100 years, hollywood has been the centre of the movie—making world. this is the city of angels, the city where people come every year to turn their dreams to reality. but those dreams, of course, don't come for free. while those in hollywood may be more used to massaging egos rather than breaking down the blockchain, it hasn't stopped them spotting an opportunity and if there's one thing people here love more than anything else, it's opportunity. six months ago, i thought nft was a football club in germany — i'm not kidding. nft stuttgart or something. as a producer working with martin scorsese on the likes of the irishman and silence, nielsjuul is used to spending years trying to get films made. and despite the rise of streamers like netflix and apple, he believes it's getting more and more difficult to secure money for independent and mid—budget films. a movie like kramer vs kramer, for instance, or any big, great 0scar movies that we all love and cherish, today — or at least in the last six years — would never have been made in this climate because it's simply not possible to raise the money for it. and if you do, it's an average time of five to six years to get it financed, because it's a complex operation and it's complex how it works. his next film, though, won't be financed through traditional means. with several other investors, niels has started nft studios — a studio he believes can democratise film financing with tokens being minted and bought by an online community. when i heard about this, there was two aspects of it that was really, really interesting. one is that these are communities that are very engaged in art and music and, you know, film, etc, but also, that they are engaged investors. and how interesting it would be to have people invest in something where they have an excitement to be involved in from it from an art perspective or from a movie perspective. and then we started thinking, "oh, boy! "there's a marketing hub in every investor" and as a producer, that's the best you can get. the studio plans to make a $10 million budget movie called a wing and a prayer that focuses on the british adventurer brian milton and his quest to travel around the globe in an ultralight aircraft. the film's star will be announced next month and cameras are set to roll in malta onjune1li. those willing to part with their hard—earned cash will secure tokens in the film and, a bit like some crowdfunding campaigns, will receive perks, depending on the level of their contribution. they will also have a say in how the studio is run as part of a decentralised autonomous organisation, or dao. we don't want to have to put every single process to the dao, right? how much we're gonna pay the cameraman? how much are gonna allocate for catering when we're on malta, filming this movie? the decisions are too small and the process is too long to leave everything up to the community, right? so what we want to do is let the community have this creative direction. what scripts are we gonna play? who's gonna compose the score? and, like, have that feeling of involvement without having to really deal with the really nitty—gritty stuff involved in this. coming from even like a marketing standpoint, there is no, like, "we must target this exact demographic, "from the ages of 16 to 29 with this salary, "from this place." that isjust not the case anymore. we're — it's creating a decentralised world where people — everyone can be involved in the arts. you don't have to have millions of dollars to be involved in a film anymore, and that's what's so exciting. but buying an nft can't force anyone to make a film and with all the risks in the movie game, what guarantees are there for contributors it will ever happen? we will make this movie, and i don't have a choice — we don't have a choice. we came out and said we're gonna do it, we're gonna have to do it — that's just how it is. and so, if i have to sell two of my children out of three, that's not so bad. i will sell — i don't know which one yet. i'll have to get back to you on that. no, but we will get it done. it's gold rush time for nfts, and notjust films. the market for movie memorabilia is potentially huge. and in this new frontier, that means headaches all round. this week, quentin tarantino put scans of handwritten pulp fiction script notes up for auction. i have the entire pulp fiction script, written in my own hand. the nft drop has led to a bitter legal battle between the film—maker and miramax. mother... ! ..the company behind the film. kal raustiala is a professor in international law and has written extensively about nfts. he believes hollywood will be watching the outcome of the tarantino case closely. you know, there's so much money potentially to be made. but if it keeps flowing, there's gonna be disputes and the disputes, again, will turn on what does the given contract say? and no—one anticipated any of this. so this will not necessarily decide the issue, because every contract�*s a little bit different, but it will certainly help shape some of the debate in the courts and also what's happening right now in town, here in la — how are contracts being written today? and then, will people team up to make the money or will they argue over the money? there's an air of desperation around nfting anything possible in the hopes that somehow, money will rain down. i'm not convinced that all of these things will work, but some of them may. so far, the big companies have been reluctant to abandon their usual financial methods in favour of community—led collaboration. that may well change if the nft space continues to attract deep pockets. my good friend phil said — he quoted me from moneyball, this movie moneyball, where he said, "if you want to be the first man to walk through a wall, "you're going to expect a bloody nose." and we feel that way! but we are happy with it because we know that this industry needs some disruption. the financial system of this is broken. it hasn't kept up with a digital streamers at all. so, it is an industry that is lagging behind modern world, digital world, streaming world and new financings worlds, and so, yeah, we are the first and that's why also, we have — we feel the pressure. it's clear that change is on the horizon. whether nfts are part of that long term is a question that only audiences will be able to answer. shang—chi and the legend of the ten rings, one of the films from last year that proves there are glimmers of life returning to the box office. now, this is a marvel superhero origin story that combines impressive choreography with equally impressive visual effects, and after seeing it, well, we had to see how it was done, didn't we? you are a product of all who came before you. the legacy of your family. you are your mother. and whether you like it or not, you are also your father. music builds we did the final battle with the good versus evil, the demons versus the humans. it's got everything that you really want to work on as a cg artist. it has, you know, dragons and beasts and massive effects and kung fu fighting. i mean, it's pretty much everything you could possibly want. you know, it's this insane action, it's this crazy beats action going on, dragons, and then it's like, "oh, yeah, but make it — try and make it realistic "at the same time" and so, that was sort of our challenge is to always try and, you know, as fantastical as it is, try and ground it a little bit as well and not — not, yeah, not — not push it too far in either direction and, you know, from an emotion standpoint, just trying to keep it — that movement somewhat grounded in reality. and, you know, if you've got, you know, these two huge beasts fighting, you're — luckily, you have these two human characters there also, so you try and, you know, stick the camera around them, try and frame it from their prospective, which, luckily, gives you a lot of scale as well. we looked at a lot of reference, even for things like, you know, dragons, it was — we are trying to always find something that would give it an element of realism. like, we are looking at, you know, sea snakes and iguanas sort of moving through the ocean and how they sort of push their tail and move around, so it was some element of, yeah, realism despite all the craziness that was going on. it always starts with good intentions. we have had a few of these on marvel shows where they shoot something and then, the story kind of changes a little bit so they — more than once, we have had to just roto the actors off the plates and replace it with an entirely cg environment. it's still a bit tricky to make it feel not quite stage lit, you know, when you have an enclosed environment or a semi—enclosed environment, making sure that you can adjust the plate lighting to match the cg lighting and vice—versa, is a bit tricky at times. aside from the characters, we had to replace the entire environment. to get a rough idea of how render—intensive this show was, the water especially, the shot where the dragon encases the beast and all the demons are feeding him to power him up, the water alone would have taken a single—core processor 25 years to render. you can-t — outrun...who you really are. that is it for the shortcut of this programme from la. the full—length version is waiting for you. we are on social media on facebook, instagram, and twitter. thank you for watching and we will see you soon. hello and welcome to newswatch with me, samira ahmed. not for the first time, the bbc�*s political coverage comes underfire for an alleged lack of balance. we asked fran unsworth, soon to leave the corporation after four years after leaving its news division about impartiality, accountability and making the most of a shrinking budget. it's been a significant week for a bbc, with monday's announcement from culture secretary nadine dorries that the licence fee would be frozen for the next two years. bbc chairman richard sharp reacted like this. what it means for the bbc is with less money in real terms, we are going to have to address how we do what we do differently. and there will have to be changes and consequences. if you diminish capital resources there are going to be effects. now, the bbc has already had ten years of real reduction by about 30%. the news department has not been exempt from those cuts, with an £80 million savings target to be met by this year. and that's meantjob losses in areas such as political and business news. some viewers have been detecting an effect on the output over recent months. with hannah fearn tweeting... well, let's talk to fran unsworth who first joined the bbc in 1980, starting in local radio, but who rose to become its director of news and current affairs and she retires next week. thank you, fran for coming on newswatch. it's a pleasure. would you say you're leaving bbc news in a better place than it was when you first started working here? well, it's a very different place then when i first started working here because of course we do so much more output. so, when ijoined bbc news it was just radio and television. and now there is the website, there's social, the app, there is continuous news tv, radio continuous news,