Minted: Nick Bruckman on the Artists Behind the NFT Boom

What happens to an artist when a new technology turns them into a millionaire, and then the market crashes?

In 2021, a digital artist known as Beeple sold a single NFT for $69 million at Christie's, and artists who had struggled for years suddenly found collectors paying for their work. Nick Bruckman started filming right around that time. His documentary Minted: The Rise (and Fall?) of the NFT follows artists through that boom and the crash that came after it: Beeple; photographer Justin Aversano, who by the end was also a million-dollar artist; music video artist and rapper Latashá; and Karina, a painter in Cuba whose government made her cover up her political paintings, and who used NFTs to sell her work abroad and finally leave Cuba with her daughter.

In Episode 223, Christian Taylor welcomes Nick back for his second visit, with co-host Jason Rugg out again. They begin with Ady Barkan, the subject of Nick's film Not Going Quietly, who died in November 2023. Nick tells how he and Ady's team took the film apart into short pieces for the memorial service, and how it ended: the room joined Ady in one last mic check, using the scene where he says, "My voice is weak but together we can be louder." Nick also remembers driving three hours in a hot RV to a campaign stop, somewhere like Utah, he thinks, where four people came to hear Ady speak. Ady wasn't let down at all, Nick says; he'd made real connections, and what was the difference between that and speaking to a thousand? Christian shares how her family reminded her of the lives The Girl Who Wore Freedom touched, even when the audience felt small, and Nick adds that touching one life is really meaningful.

Then Minted. Nick explains what an NFT is in plain terms, a token like a Bitcoin that can stand for a piece of art, and why the film uses definition cards on screen. He talks about remote-directing a local crew in Lagos, Nigeria, not knowing who his main characters would be while he was filming, and thanking every person he interviewed in the credits, even those who didn't make the cut. On fear and doubt in the middle of a project, Nick turns to the Serenity Prayer, and Christian shares a detail from Ken Burns's MasterClass: Burns keeps binders of rejection letters. They talk plainly about money: none of his films they discuss has earned back its budget, Nick says, and his company's commercial and brand work is what keeps his features possible. At the time of recording, Minted had premiered at Tribeca and in Copenhagen and was close to a deal with a streamer.

WATCH THE FILM

Minted: The Rise (and Fall?) of the NFT is streaming on Netflix: https://peoples.tv/minted-streaming-netflix/

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How Ady Barkan's memorial ended with one last mic check
• Why Ady didn't mind speaking to only four people
• What an NFT is, in plain terms
• How Beeple's $69 million sale shook up the art world
• How Nick chose four main characters from hundreds of hours of footage
• How Karina used NFTs to get around censorship in Cuba
• How to treat people who don't make the final cut
• How Nick handles fear and doubt in the middle of a project
• Whether documentaries make money, and what keeps Nick's films going
• Whether filmmakers should mint their own art as NFTs

CHAPTERS

0:00 Ady's Last Mic Check

6:35 Speaking to Four People

13:09 Finding Minted a Home

16:01 What Is an NFT?

21:08 Beeple's $69 Million Sale

24:49 Boom, Then Crash

29:10 Nigeria, Cuba and Karina

33:52 The Cutting Room Floor

36:27 Fear, Doubt and Rejection

46:21 Do Documentaries Make Money?

51:45 Should You Mint Your Art?

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is the documentary Minted about?

Minted: The Rise (and Fall?) of the NFT is a documentary directed by Nicholas Bruckman about artists who were thrust into the spotlight by NFTs in 2021 and then lived through the market's crash. It follows Beeple, whose NFT sold for $69 million at Christie's, along with photographer Justin Aversano, music video artist and rapper Latashá and Karina, a painter in Cuba. It premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Festival.

What is an NFT, in simple terms?

On Documentary First, Nicholas Bruckman explains that the NFT, or non-fungible token, grew out of cryptocurrency. Just as a Bitcoin is a token that represents money, an NFT is a token, a string of code, that can represent something in the real world, most famously a piece of digital art, and that can be owned or sent to someone else. The technology underneath it is the blockchain. His film Minted uses on-screen definition cards to explain it.

Do documentaries make money?

Nicholas Bruckman told Documentary First that none of his films they discussed had earned more in revenue than its budget, and he calls that the fundamental challenge of the industry: documentaries are expensive to make, and buyers rarely pay big premiums. He keeps making features with income from his company, People's TV, which makes commercials and documentaries for companies, and he urges filmmakers to build a steady income in or near the industry.

Should artists mint their work as NFTs?

Bruckman says he owns some NFTs but has never minted one. He sees them as an interesting tool for artists who can already market themselves and have an audience, pointing to Justin Aversano's collection of 100 photographs, but he warns they are no cure-all: you still need collectors who want your work, and anything that looks like a get-rich-quick scheme probably is. For step-by-step help, he points to Latashá's NFT course for artists of color.

SPONSORED BY ARTILLERY SPORTS

This episode is brought to you by Artillery Sports, which makes durable sports equipment and uses a portion of its profits to help care for the nation's veterans. Use the code DocFirst for 10% off your first order. https://artillerysports.com

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ABOUT THE GUEST

Nicholas Bruckman

Director and Founder of People's Television

Nicholas Bruckman is an Emmy-nominated director and the founder and CEO of People's Television (People's TV), a creative studio in New York City and Washington, DC. He directed Minted: The Rise (and Fall?) of the NFT, which premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Festival, aired on PBS Independent Lens and was released on Netflix in 2025, and Not Going Quietly, winner of the Audience Award and a Special Jury Award at SXSW 2021. He produced Valley of Saints, a Sundance Audience Award winner, and co-directed the docuseries The Price of Milk with Yoni Brook.

Website: https://nickny.com

People's TV: https://peoples.tv

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicholasbruckman/

X: https://twitter.com/Nick_Bruckman

ABOUT DOCUMENTARY FIRST

Documentary First is a weekly podcast about the people behind documentaries and how the work changed them. Host Christian Taylor, director of the award-winning The Girl Who Wore Freedom, talks with filmmakers from Ken Burns to first-time directors. Listen Notes ranks the show in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide.

THE NICK BRUCKMAN SESSIONS

• Episode 211, Nick's first visit, recorded the week after Ady Barkan died, on Not Going Quietly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw-MV2SGJFU
• Episode 265, Nick's third visit, on The Price of Milk, getting into Tribeca and how Minted reached Netflix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5-ZYwbQgh0
• Related: Episode 208, Ken Burns on The American Buffalo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBLZYk6xgYo

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Minted at the 2023 Tribeca Festival: https://tribecafilm.com/films/minted-2023
• Minted on PBS Independent Lens: