Bentonville entrepreneur Joe Payne is becoming a member of the fast-growing marketplace for NFTs with an over-arching aim to additional the message that Northwest Arkansas is a horny area for movie and tv manufacturing.
Payne is a part of the founding workforce behind the interactive media firm The Society of the Hourglass. Among the many initiatives they’re concerned with are constructing a web3 media model and dealing on an animated collection. They’ve additionally launched an NFT assortment and are engaged on an illustrated seek-and-find guide.
NFTs (brief for Non-Fungible Tokens) are data of possession representing digital and real-world objects like membership entry, artwork, music, in-game objects and movies. Proof of possession is saved on a blockchain (Ethereum, within the case of Society of the Hourglass), a publicly digital database.
“The core of what we are attempting to do just isn’t the NFT,” Payne mentioned in a latest interview. “That’s merely the means we’re utilizing to deliver the model to market.”
Payne has been a part of the area’s inventive tech group for years. He helped launch the print and design company Moxy Ox in Tontitown in 2009, then joined Bentonville software program agency RevUnit in 2015 as inventive director and ultimately was appointed COO. He left the corporate in March 2021.
“I took a while off to realign and rediscover issues that get me excited and enthusiastic about,” he mentioned. “I had been tangentially conscious of NFTs and accomplished a little bit of crypto shopping for again in 2017. I discovered NFTs on the proper time. It’s so filled with alternative for those who capitalize on it and have the correct perspective and strategy. The remainder of the group I began the Society with felt the identical approach, and we’re making a go of it.”
One of many Society’s companions is Josh Stanley, head of Bentonville-based Cartwheel Startup Studio. In December, Cartwheel introduced a partnership with Los Angeles-based manufacturing studio Jumpcut Media to pitch and government produce an animated collection primarily based on the Society NFTs.
Payne mentioned the Society’s narrative universe — constructed round historic figures leveraging the secrets and techniques of time journey to result in important societal developments, well-known historic occasions and extra — might be entertaining and academic.
Possession of Society NFTs will give every proprietor a task to play inside the inventive course of. Neighborhood members may even vote on author pitches for the animated collection to determine who’s employed.
“We’re speaking to an extremely excessive caliber of writing expertise relating to our animated collection,” Payne mentioned. “Jumpcut has already met with greater than 40 writers as a part of the screening course of. Emmy Award-winning writers and others whose previous initiatives embrace issues like ‘DuckTales,’ ‘Winnie the Pooh,’ ‘Inexperienced Lantern: The Animated Sequence,’ and ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.’”
To assist the animated collection, Payne mentioned the Society workforce is in search of grant funding to try to deliver the mandatory jobs to create and produce the pilot to Northwest Arkansas. Initially, that will create 25 to 30 jobs.
“We’re working to have a reasonably complete draft of the [grant] proposal able to flow into and start pitching by the tip of this month [June],” Payne mentioned. “We’re evaluating a number of potential monetary companions and potential funding sources that we expect might be excited concerning the financial worth proposition for Northwest Arkansas.”
“A part of the explanation we’re beginning with The Society of the Hourglass right here is that animation jobs within the trade are usually longer than live-action shoots, that are usually gig-based. By establishing an extended pipeline of labor, ideally, we will make a big dent within the infrastructure hole that exists in manufacturing. We begin with our [animated series], then they’ve what they want for one more manufacturing after which one other, then it begins from there.”
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The first availability report for Arkansas basketball’s (11-3, 0-1 SEC) matchup against the No. 23 Ole Miss Rebels (12-2, 1-0 SEC) was released by the Southeastern Conference on Tuesday.
Introduced over the offseason, availability reports will be filed one day before contests, with an additional update on game day.
According to the SEC, student-athletes will be designated as “available”, “probable”, “doubtful” or “out” for their next game. For additional clarity on game day, student-athletes will be designated as “available”, “game time decision” or “out.”
Below is the first availability report of the week ahead of Arkansas’ game against Ole Miss, which will tip off at 6 p.m. CT at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville:
The Arkansas Razorbacks (11-3, 0-1 SEC) can bounce back if they defeat the No. 23 Ole Miss Rebels (12-2, 1-0 SEC) on Wednesday at Bud Walton Arena.
Led by second-year head coach Chris Beard, the Rebels are off to a solid start to the 2024-25 season. Ole Miss owns wins over teams such as BYU, Purdue, Louisville, Georgia and others with a veteran-filled squad. Ole Miss is coming off a 20-12 (7-11 SEC) overall season that saw it miss the NCAA Tournament.
“Ole Miss is one of those teams that is really tough,” associate head coach Chin Coleman said Tuesday. “They recruit to their system. Another game in which we’re going to have to be more physical than them. We’re going to have to obviously do a better job on the offensive glass. They’re systemic in terms of their motion and everybody is a weapon. They can go one-on-one from one through five. So they have a balanced attack in terms of their offense because of their style of play.
“So it’s going to be a challenge for us. But for me and for us as a staff and our team, no matter whether you win or you lose it’s always about our response. So I’m excited about our response. I was excited about our response in our first possession of practice. I’m equally excited for our first possession of practice today and so on and so forth. Just a challenge. Another challenge. We’ve got to be more prepared for this one than we were the last time out.”
A major storyline entering this game is the chess-move battle between John Calipari and Beard, who was reportedly one of Arkansas’ top head coach candidates to replace Eric Musselman during the offseason.
“(Beard’s) been running that motion since Texas Tech,” Coleman said. “Probably got a little bit of that from the late great Bobby Knight. That motion is unpredictable. The freedom of movement, cutting, screening. It’s hard to scheme against. It’s hard to scout. It’s hard to put a scout team through that. There is no absolute. When you have a random based offense that you’ve got to guard the whole game, you’ve got to trust your rules. You’ve got to be connected.
“You can’t break. You’ve got to be alert. You’ve got to know you are going to be screened, but at the same time you’ve got to watch the ball because here comes a guy driving. They’ve got playmakers all over the floor with one through five. Their fives are like fours. Their fours are like threes. When you have multiple guys on the floor that can dribble, pass and shoot, it’s tough to defend against.”
After a non-conference schedule filled with middling crowds, Coleman said he’s ready for Arkansas fans to unleash Bud Walton Arena into its full form for the SEC home opener.
“We need the fans to support the Razorbacks the way that they’ve supported them, what we’ve seen when we were with the opposing team,” Coleman said. “Now we’re family. We’re Razorbacks. We wanted it to feel the way it’s felt when we’ve come in here as an opposer, as the enemy. We need the building rocking. We need the building turned all the way up to help our men feed off that energy.
“I’ve seen it before. I’ve witnessed it before, where you can’t even call out… I’m normally one of the loudest persons in the building on the sidelines. Our guys hear me when I scream out different calls and when I scream out different schematics. Everybody hears me. I have been in this building before where I have not been heard, so that is what I need for that building, and what we need for that building to feel like.”
Here’s a closer comparison of Arkansas’ and Ole Miss’ stats, efficiency ratings, projected lineup for the Rebels and more ahead of Wednesday’s game, which is set to tipoff at 6 p.m. CT on ESPN2:
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