DOCUMENTARY
BLOCKCHAINS INC
I won a triple bid to write and direct a $2 million documentary for Blockchains Inc. about Web3ID, a Self Sovereign Identity platform designed to give people ownership of their digital identity.
It was an ambitious idea and one that risked feeling abstract, highly technical and easily mistaken for vaporware.
As an early adopter of the internet, I've watched it evolve from static websites to social media and now AI. Despite its pervasiveness,
The challenge wasn't simply explaining Web3ID. It was placing it within the broader story of the internet's evolution, revealing why technologies like this are emerging now and why they matter.
The project's scale and budget gave me the freedom to think ambitiously. Over three months of development, I immersed myself in the technology while researching the historical ideas that shaped the internet, tracing a narrative that stretched from the Renaissance to Web1, Web2 and the emergence of Web3.
THE BRIEF
CREATIVE APPROACH
THE STORY
My first creative decision was to move away from a traditional product documentary in favour of an original story. Inspired by Werner Herzog's Lo and Behold, commissioned by Netscape, I wanted the film to explore ideas first, with Blockchains Inc acting as the champion and steward of a global conversation about digital rights.
Simplifying a highly complex technology was at the heart of my approach, yet its real promise lay in creating greater justice and self-sovereignty for individuals. To explain why, the film traces the evolution of power, knowledge and identity from feudalism and the Renaissance to Web1, Web2 and the emergence of Web3, showing how the internet's missing identity layer gave rise to today's surveillance-based advertising model and why digital rights are human rights. I interviewed leading computer scientists and thinkers, including blockchain pioneer David Chaum and economist and philosopher Yanis Varoufakis.
FROM FEUDALISM TO THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION
visualizing the INVISIBLE
How do you film the internet?
Rather than relying on familiar clichés of glowing code or dark server rooms, I reimagined the internet as a modern-day panopticon, a physical metaphor for invisible surveillance. I wanted the visual language to reflect how our physical and digital lives are now inextricably linked. Production design, live projection and lasers came together to create an immersive set at Utah Film Studios. Much of the imagery projected throughout the installation was original footage we captured across Utah, Arizona, California and Switzerland, seamlessly blending real-world landscapes with bespoke visual effects.
INTRO SEQUENCE
The internet is an alien life form. David Bowie, 1999
The film opens with a lone woman walking towards a mysterious structure in the middle of a white desert. Inspired by Bowie’s words, I wanted to keep the film rooted in documentary while expanding the genre through the visual language of science fiction.
the panopticon
Through a series of portals, our character reaches the heart of the internet: a panopticon. Conceived by philosopher Jeremy Bentham in 1787, the panopticon is a prison design in which a central watchtower can observe every inmate without them ever knowing when they are being watched. The uncertainty encourages people to regulate their own behavior, making it a powerful metaphor for the internet as the largest surveillance technology ever created.
The set was the most ambitious part of the project. It took months of meticulous pre-production to design and build, integrating live projection, lasers and bespoke visual effects into a single immersive environment. It was an intensely collaborative process involving the cinematographer, production designer, VFX artists, laser specialist and live projection team.
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
The complete set featured a series of interconnected environments that our protagonist journeyed through, each requiring its own design, construction and visual language.
LASERS
I wanted to give the protective nature of Web3ID a physical presence. Lasers became a recurring visual metaphor, their halo-like quality embodying the technology's 'cloak' function while naturally complementing the film's science fiction aesthetic. They shield our protagonist throughout her journey through the internet and reappear whenever the narrative explores the laws of identity and ethical principles underpinning self sovereign identity. Working with lasers is notoriously delicate, so every cue was meticulously choreographed, allowing us to execute complex practical effects safely and efficiently.
INTERVIEW ENVIRONMENTS
To maintain a consistent visual language, every interview took place within this same imagined world. Recreating elements of the set across multiple locations became a key production challenge, requiring meticulous planning and adaptable production design.
VISUAL EFFECTS
Creating the visual effects was one of the most labour-intensive aspects of the project. Many had to be completed before the shoot so they could be projected live within the environments we built, while others were developed during post-production. Working with long-time collaborators Breeder in Brisbane and We Are Covert in London, we created bespoke visual effects that blurred the boundaries between the physical and digital worlds, visualized the encroachment of surveillance into everyday life and reimagined archival imagery and classical artwork to support the film's broader historical narrative.
final result
The complete film is available upon request.