“We’ll Fix It in Pre…” There’s an old Hollywood adage every filmmaker has heard: “We’ll fix it in post.” For decades, it was spoken with a kind of swagger—part joke, part promise, part surrender. It captured the idea that filmmaking is messy and unpredictable, and that the magic (or triage) happens later, in dark edit bays with coffee-fueled editors and armies of VFX artists. But that era is ending. According to analysis from McKinsey & Company, the phrase that once defined Hollywood problem-solving may be replaced by a different mantra for the AI age: “Fix it in pre.” And if you’re a filmmaker, storyteller, studio executive, or someone whose life story might one day be adapted for the screen, this shift represents the single most important change in how films will be made and who will have the power to make them. We’re entering a moment where what you do before production may determine everything: cost, quality, speed, risk, investor confidence, and ultimately whether your story breaks through in a crowded, consolidating entertainment landscape. It’s a moment that validates what we are building with STORYSMART® Films and STORYSMART® Studios. It is the idea that the front end of a project is no longer only creative, it's strategic, financial, and foundational. And that the studios who thrive in the next decade will be the ones that master development discipline, own their IP, and use AI as an accelerator rather than a shortcut. A New Center of Gravity in Filmmaking McKinsey & Company’s research identifies something that industry insiders have felt for years but didn’t have the data to quantify. Half of a film’s total budget now lives in preproduction and postproduction. That means the two biggest cost centers are the parts the audience never sees. Historically, budgets ballooned in post because that’s where problems became visible: scenes didn’t cut together, the story didn’t land, reshoots became necessary, continuity broke down, edits ran long, VFX costs exploded, and weeks or months of work disappeared into the “salvage bucket.” But with AI now embedded across previsualization, storyboarding, 3D set design, shot planning, scheduling, VFX previz, and automated rough cuts, the industry is waking up to a simple truth: The cheapest moment to fix a problem is before it exists. The smartest moment to invest is before the cameras roll. The most valuable work in filmmaking now happens early. This is where the leverage sits. This is where waste disappears. This is where creative clarity becomes competitive advantage. And this is exactly where our true story studio model is being planted by design. Development is the Highest ROI Stage of Filmmaking For years, development was treated as a necessary prelude. Important, of course, but not where the money was. Not glamorous. Not urgent. I believe that mindset will bankrupt studios in the AI era. Here’s why. AI will multiply the value of every decision made in development. A tightly structured story? AI-enhanced storyboards and previsualization will amplify its coherence. A weak or unfocused story? AI will not save it, but it will expose the gaps faster and more brutally. Clear character arcs? AI will help build stunning sequences that reinforce them. Messy arcs or half-formed motivations? AI will render your confusion in real time. In the past, fuzzy development led to expensive fixes later. In today’s AI-infused workflows, fuzzy development leads to chaos immediately. This is the new power position. This is the new choke point. This is where a smart studio wins, and where an unprepared one collapses. When a filmmaker can use AI to A/B test shots before shooting, you no longer have the excuse of “we’ll figure it out on set.” Every inefficient choice becomes self-inflicted. The work you do in development isn’t invisible anymore. It shows up in every pixel of the finished film. AI Is Shifting the Economics of Filmmaking McKinsey & Company forecasts that AI will lead to 80–90% efficiency gains in VFX and 3D asset creation. That number should make every studio CFO lightheaded. But efficiency doesn’t automatically mean lower costs. Hollywood has already learned this lesson: when VFX got cheaper, movies didn’t get cheaper, they just looked better. What this shift does mean is that capital allocation inside a film’s budget will change. Money will move from back-end correction to front-end design, borrowing best practices from the tech start-up ecosystem. What this will look like practically is that: Less money burned on reshoots Less money wasted on unused VFX Fewer overstaffed production days More money spent on story architecture More invested in development More resources directed at rights acquisition, archive licensing, and IP protection More intentionality in marketing and distribution planning The studios that fail will be those that cling to the old model: underdeveloped scripts, rushed prep, and hope-as-a-strategy. The studios that succeed will be the ones that treat development not as a cost but as capital investment—one that multiplies the value of everything that follows. For us, this shift isn’t just theoretical. It’s baked into the DNA of how we will build our slate. We will front-load development because it’s where the creative advantage is. Front-loaded development is the financial advantage too. IP Ownership Becomes the Most Valuable Asset AI introduces a new competitive layer that didn’t exist before: the need for IP-protected training models. McKinsey highlights Adobe’s “commercial safe” models—AI systems trained only on materials the creator or studio has full rights to. Here’s what that means in practice, if you want to use AI to generate AI-enhanced pre-visualization, historical reenactments, stylized sequences, motion elements from still photographs, character expressions, backgrounds or any other proprietary creative, then the safest and most powerful way to do that is by training AI on assets you own. This changes the stakes and your focus. It makes developing your own copyright protected storytelling source material critically important. Having an IP bullet-proof digital archive will be vital to success in the space of true storytelling. Suddenly: Home movies aren’t sentimental —they’re training data. Family photos aren’t just keepsakes —they’re intellectual property. Memoirs aren’t private —they’re story engines. Oral histories aren’t anecdotal —they’re IP foundations. Archive collections aren’t clutter —they’re competitive advantage. This is why STORYSMART urges public figures, families, athletes, founders, and others we work with to build digital archives and protect their IP on the front end. AI doesn’t diminish the value of these materials. It radically increases it. In a world where AI can recreate the past, the people who own the past hold the power. An Opportunity for Independent Filmmakers Today’s media headlines tell us everything we need to know: consolidation is accelerating, legacy studios are merging or being acquired, and risk tolerance is dropping across the board. This leaves three consequences: Fewer greenlights for unconventional stories. Fewer buyers for mid-budget films. Fewer opportunities for emerging or diverse voices. But AI flips this dynamic. A small, rights-disciplined, development-driven studio like ours can now compete visually with studios 10x our size, prepare more thoroughly and cheaply, deliver cleaner budgets, eliminate waste, create sophisticated marketing assets in-house, and distribute through flexible, audience-driven channels. With a great story, a smart development framework, and the right implementation of AI, a small studio can now punch far above its weight. This is what we are building STORYSMART for, not to chase studio scraps, but to redefine how true stories become powerful, commercially viable films. AI Can’t Replace Human Creative Judgment For anyone who fears that AI will automate creativity out of filmmaking, let me offer this reassurance: Great stories and great storytelling will always matter. AI can generate images, but it can’t generate integrity. Sure, it can simulate motion, but it can’t simulate meaning. Yes, it can accelerate decisions, but it can’t make the right ones for you. The creative vision, the ethical line, the narrative precision, the commitment to truth all remain human responsibilities. The filmmakers who thrive will be those who hold the line on story clarity while using AI responsibly to elevate their craft. A Practical Playbook for True Storytelling Here is the emerging blueprint for success in the AI era: 1. Start with Story Source Material Gather archives, photographs, journals, recordings, manuscripts, letters, and testimonies. These are not “nice to have”—they’re the core of your IP advantage. 2. Build Chain of Title Early Rights disputes kill films. Resolve them before you write a script or approach investors. 3. Use a Development-First Framework Structure your story deeply before you visualize it. Clarity is the cheapest and most scalable asset you can create. 4. Use Proprietary, IP-Safe AI Workflows Do not feed your materials into open models. Protect your story from unwanted training and misuse. 5. Create Investor-Ready Story Packages AI allows you to create mood boards, sample sequences, and previs early. Use this to attract investment on solid ground. 6. Think Like a Studio, Act Like a Startup Be lean, decisive, and development driven. The big players are too slow to seize many of the opportunities AI is unlocking. This is the heart of the STORYSMART model: helping people own, shape, and develop their stories into assets—before anyone talks about production. The Future Belongs to Those Who Prepare AI is not reinventing filmmaking. It’s reinventing where profitable filmmaking happens. The center of power has moved to the front of the process, into the place where our framework thrives: development, rights stewardship, ethical clarity, and disciplined story design. The future will not be defined by who has the most expensive toys or the biggest crews. It will be defined by: who owns the story, who understands the story, who structures the story, and who prepares with enough clarity to let AI amplify that work. Fix it in pre isn’t just a new production philosophy. It’s a new economic model. It is the new creative paradigm, the new competitive advantage. And for those of us building a new studio model, it is a once in a generation opportunity. The tools have changed. The process has changed. Now the question is are we prepared to lead in the era where story development is the power position? At STORYSMART®, we are. And we’re inviting the next generation of storytellers, families, public figures, and creators to join us. About the Author Ron Watermon is a filmmaker, author, and founder of STORYSMART®, a story development film studio that helps individuals preserve, protect, and profit from their true stories. He is currently directing Steak Guerrillas: The Dr. Arturo M. Taca Story , a documentary exploring courage, truth, and the cost of resistance. Learn more at storysmart.net, ronwatermon.com and steakguerillas.com

Friday December 5, 2025 - St. Louis, MO - I was almost giddy with excitement when I saw the story in Variety about a new documentary film studio planning to use AI to bring archival photos to life. As a digital archival nerd and documentary filmmaker who is currently using archival materials to bring a true story to life on screen with Steak Guerrillas , this development makes a lot of sense to me. Call it confirmation bias, but when I read Unfeatured Films’ announcement that they were using artificial intelligence to animate archival photographs and restore old footage, I felt a jolt of affirmation. Their pitch of “cost-effective AI-driven innovation” that could “restore and resurrect archival footage in ways never before seen” is a signal to me that we are on the right path at STORYSMART®. It is also a sign that documentary filmmaking, especially the kind rooted deeply in history and personal testimony, is about to enter a new era. For filmmakers like me who work archival materials, this moment matters. In my documentary project Steak Guerrillas, we’ve been wrestling with a familiar challenge: how do you visually reconstruct moments that were never filmed? How do you help the audience see and feel the tension of history when the camera wasn’t there? How do you bring a story to life in an entertaining way with a minuscule production budget? AI is now offering an answer, but with that answer comes responsibility, risk, and a new competitive landscape for storytellers. This is post is my attempt to make sense of that landscape before we all rush headlong into it. The Bottleneck AI Is Finally Breaking Documentaries rooted in history often face the same limitation: there simply isn’t enough video. Until recently, filmmakers had only three choices: 1. Use still photographs, 2. Create live-action reenactments, or 3. Rely on animation, which can be both expensive and stylistically limiting. Unfeatured Films is proposing something different: using AI to add motion, dimensionality, and continuity to archival images, essentially transforming still photos into sequences that can play like raw footage. Clarke, the studio’s founder, frames it not as a shortcut but as a breakthrough—one that “allows us to tell the past with the vividness of the present.” This is a profound shift. It means a filmmaker no longer needs a miracle discovery of lost reels to bring a historical moment to life. The image itself can become the seed of a cinematic experience. For under-documented communities, for immigrant families, for grassroots movements that never had the luxury of filming their lives, this is a transformative development. AI has cracked open a closed door. The Promise: Cinematic Power for the People This democratizing potential is exactly what industry analysts are beginning to recognize. McKinsey & Company recently posted an article entitled “How AI could reinvent film and TV production” that I urge you to check out. Let me give a shout out to the DPA and my fellow member Joe Schroeder for sharing this in the November round up. The McKinsey team noted that AI could transform not just how films are made, but who gets to make them. For independent filmmakers, the insight is especially significant: AI may allow small studios with limited budgets to produce compelling visual content without raising massive amounts of capital. Think about that for a moment. A small team with a collection of photographs, letters, and audio recordings can now create what once required a wealthy large studio with a VFX department, an animation team, a budget for actor reenactments, and the resources to sustain months of postproduction. This technology moves documentary filmmaking closer to a world where talent, discipline, and careful story development matter more than access to expensive infrastructure. As someone building a new kind of independent studio, one focused on truthful storytelling, owned IP, and disciplined development, this is game-changing. The Risk: When Animation Looks Real, Truth Becomes Fragile To co-opt and tweak a line from Spiderman, with great power comes a pressure we’ve never quite faced before. Documentary filmmakers are custodians of truth. We are Truthstorians (stealing a line from the lead character of The Lowdown, journalist/writer Lee Raybon, played by Ethan Hawke). I love that made up word as it fits so perfectly here. As documentary filmmakers we’re not just creating content. We’re shaping how people understand real lives, real events, and real history. Truth matters. When AI can animate a face that never moved on camera, or follow someone down a hallway where no videographer ever stood, we must ask: How close is too close? When does enhancing the past become rewriting it? Unfeatured Films says their model will remain “human led,” using AI only within a responsible, creative process. That’s the right instinct. But that won’t be enough for the industry as a whole. We need standards. We need transparency. We need disclosures. We need the documentary equivalent of nutrition labels. An insight shared in the McKinsey post. The danger isn’t simply that AI-generated scenes might mislead an audience; it’s that they might mislead a memory, especially for viewers who trust documentaries to show things as they truly happened. This responsibility becomes even heavier with true-crime stories, civil rights histories, political narratives, or testimonies of trauma. These are not playgrounds for generative flashiness. They demand precision and respect. The IP Issue: Who Owns the Story That AI Learns From? Just as important, maybe even more so, is the issue of rights and source material. The McKinsey team makes a crucial point that is going to define the next decade of filmmaking: the industry is moving toward commercial-safe, IP-protected AI models, systems trained only on content a studio legally owns. Why? Because creators and studios are discovering that when you feed your footage or archival assets into large, publicly accessible AI models, you risk losing control of them. In a competitive industry, that risk is existential. For families, journalists, public figures, athletes, estates, and storytellers of all kinds, this means something simple but transformative: The most valuable asset you own may not be the story itself, it may be the archive behind it. Your photos, home movies, documents, audio recordings, letters, memoirs, notes, curated scrapbooks and other ephemera matter. These, along with your investment in developing storytelling source material (ex. Documentary interviews), will be critically important going forward. If you own them—and if you protect the rights to them—you hold leverage in a world where AI needs material to learn from. This is one reason STORYSMART’s emphasis on “storytelling source material” is more important than ever. AI doesn’t diminish the value of these artifacts; it multiplies it. The AI Reallocation of Power in Documentary Production One of the most interesting insights in the McKinsey analysis is that AI may reallocate value pools across the industry. In plain English: Production houses, VFX teams, Postproduction vendors, and Distributors will see the flow of money shift. I will not disappear, but it will move. And documentaries will feel this shift first. That's because documentaries lean heavily on the three areas AI is already transforming: 1. Archival processing and restoration 2. VFX-light but style-heavy visual storytelling 3. Lean budgets with high creative demands If AI can automate parts of postproduction and elevate the creative quality of archival material, the balance tilts toward studios that: · develop well, · work efficiently, · own their materials, and · operate with speed and clarity. In short, the future belongs to those who control their stories and prepare deeply on the front end. A Case Study: How We’re Using AI with Steak Guerrillas Our film, based on the memoirs and archives of Dr. Arturo M. Taca, sits right at the intersection of these shifts. We face the challenge shared by many historical documentaries: much of the story lives in memory, testimony, photographs, and moldy archive items. There are no video recordings of the most dramatic moments. We must reconstruct them respectfully and accurately on a minuscule budget in a compressed timeframe. Our approach has been simple: · Use AI-enhanced animation where the memoir and source material supports it. · Avoid inventing scenes not anchored in the factual record. · Ensure all materials are used within a rights-secure workflow. · Make transparency a core storytelling value. AI helps us illuminate the truth, not embellish it. It allows us to widen the lens of history, but not to fictionalize it. The Independent Studio Advantage: This Is Our Moment Massive consolidation is underway in Hollywood. Netflix acquiring Warner Brothers is the latest example. As studios merge, their risk tolerance shrinks. Fewer films get greenlit. Fewer directors get chances. Fewer unconventional stories see the light of day. But AI flips that dynamic for independents. Suddenly, a small studio with strong development discipline, ethical clarity, and rights-secured archives can produce a film competitive in quality with mid-tier studio output. This is the opportunity for STORYSMART®, and for every filmmaker who believes in honest, ethical storytelling. AI Will Not Replace the Truth. It Will Test Our Commitment to It. AI isn’t the threat. AI isn’t the danger. AI isn’t going to replace documentary filmmakers or erase the need for careful research, deep empathy, and rigorous ethics. The real threat is careless stewardship. When you animate history, you become responsible for how that history is remembered. When you use AI to bring the past into motion, you must ensure you are not distorting the truth you set out to preserve. In the next era of documentary filmmaking, the winners won’t be the people with the best technology. They will be the people with the best stories. Stories that are protected, clarified, ethically stewarded, and grounded in real human truth. AI will reshape how we work. But our integrity will define what we make. And that is the future worth fighting for. -- Ron Watermon

How Real Reporting Becomes Big-Money IP

An Insatiable Appetite for True Crime It was eye-opening to hear Dave Rutherford, the Director of Photography for Steak Guerrillas , a film I’m directing, talk about work he does for news agencies. When I told him about our plans to develop a true-story film studio that would include true crime stories in our slate of projects, he enthusiastically endorsed the idea sharing that many times he has covered the same true-crime story for half a dozen networks. I knew there was an almost insatiable appetite for true crime stories, but to hear Dave put it into those terms was validating. Dave has routinely filmed interviews covering the same story for six different networks. I couldn’t shake the irony. Every outlet got their own version of the footage. Every producer got their own show. Every streamer got their slice of the audience. But the guy who lugged the camera, and stood behind the yellow tape? He got a day rate. That conversation has stayed with me because it exposes something bigger than one job (or six DP jobs for one salacious story). It reveals a structural truth about how media works and how ownership, not access, decides who wins. In the modern true-crime storytelling economy, everyone can tell the same story, but only the people who own the rights get paid long after the cameras stop rolling. The Reality Monopoly For decades, big media conglomerates have enjoyed an advantage. Their newsrooms feed the story pipeline, while their studios and streaming platforms monetize it. It plays out this way. A murder happens and the news breaks. The network’s investigative team covers it for nightly news. Months later, a “sister company” announces the limited docuseries. The reporter who uncovered the case, built trust with sources, and chased leads for months? They get thanked in the credits or interviewed for the documentary if they’re lucky. That’s not a conspiracy; it’s simply the media business model. A very profitable one. When news divisions sit under the same corporate roof as film studios and streaming platforms, stories don’t just inform the public, they fuel a content supply chain and balance sheet. The people doing the hard, dangerous, emotionally exhausting work rarely share in the upside. I’ve seen that model up close. I think it’s time to challenge it. Facts Are Free. Ownership Isn’t. You can’t copyright reality. You can’t own a crime, a scandal, or a court case. But you can own the way you investigate it, interpret it, and shape it into a compelling narrative. The intellectual property exists in the telling or “expression” of the story. When a journalist like T.J. English writes The Corporation or The Last Kilo, he’s not just reporting facts. He’s crafting a work of authorship, his unique expression of that story that is protected by copyright law. That expression is what studios pay seven figures to adapt. You heard me right, seven figures. Look it up. It can be lucrative if you are a gifted storyteller who puts in the hard work of crafting the story in an emotionally compelling way. T.J. isn’t alone. The same goes for David Grann, whose book Killers of the Flower Moon began as meticulous reporting. When Apple Studios bought the film rights, they weren’t buying history, they were buying his expression or telling of it. Ownership lives in the expression, not the event. That’s what most journalists never realize until it’s too late. How Big Media Keeps the Rights Inside legacy newsrooms, the system is designed to strip ownership from creators. “Work-for-hire” contracts make the company the author of record. There is nothing nefarious in this arrangement. It is simply smart business. Your investigation might be brilliant, but the corporation owns the footage, the notes, the transcripts, even your emails. They paid you for your work. They own it. You don’t. If that same company later adapts the story into a docuseries, you can’t claim a share because technically, you created it as their employee. The corporation didn’t steal it. They structured it that way from day one. Like I said, nothing nefarious is going on, it is simply a smart storytelling business model at work. It’s also why many of the most talented investigative journalists end up with impressive résumés but limited leverage. They generate value, but they don’t own it. But if they decide to write a book and work independently, well that’s a different story. Possibly, one with a seven-figure potential. The Rise of the Journalist-Producer A quiet rebellion is underway. In a world where more media is created by the masses than by mass media, independent journalists are starting to treat their investigations like creative properties instead of disposable assignments. They’re filing copyrights, writing treatments, self-publishing e-books, and launching narrative podcasts. They are creating assets before ever approaching Hollywood. Once the story is codified as an authored work, it becomes something that can be licensed or sold rather than simply covered. It is a smart approach. That’s how T.J. English built a career that moved seamlessly from crime reporting to producing. It’s how Sarah Koenig turned Serial into a franchise that redefined the podcast landscape. It’s how small investigative teams behind shows like Dirty John and Dr. Death parlayed journalism into multi-platform IP. The formula is simple, but powerful: Do the reporting. Shape the narrative. Secure the rights. Then choose your partners; don’t let them choose you. My Own Lesson Earlier this year, a promising project collapsed at the eleventh hour, which taught me an expensive but valuable lesson about story ownership and our business model. When I launched my company, I positioned it as a fee-for-service storytelling firm. We helped clients own their stories, first through video projects, then later through higher-end productions designed to help them monetize those stories. In 2023, I approached a labor union with a bold idea: preserve its colorful history and build a foundation for a true-crime-style series. The union’s past included fascinating characters, corruption, and organized crime — everything a filmmaker could ask for. For two years, I worked to move the project through their leadership. By September 2024, they approved the concept and asked for a contract. Then the deal stalled. For six months, I tried to get it signed. Finally, in January, one board member torpedoed the entire effort. Disappointing? Yes. But also clarifying. The same union official who killed the deal introduced me to a crime writer who had already done the story work. That’s when it clicked. We didn’t need the union’s permission to tell the story. Their cooperation would have been helpful, but the value of the project was never in their ownership of the history, it was in the telling of it. That’s what Hollywood pays for. The reason studios pursue journalists, authors, and screenwriters is simple: the creative expression is the asset. A well-crafted narrative, not the raw events, is what commands seven-figure deals. I realized I’d structured my business backward. By centering the “client,” I was giving away or undervaluing the most valuable part of the process – the storytelling. Authorship. Expression. That is us, not them. The better approach is to commit to the story, build the team, and then approach those who lived the story to see if they want to be involved. That is an entirely different offer. The smarter path, and the one we are developing with our independent film studio is creator-driven storytelling: partnering with writers, journalists, and filmmakers who already own or can create the underlying story material and then connecting with sources like the union. That’s the Hollywood model. Option the story, develop it, and protect it through copyright. Own the production process. There is no need to validate that model. It’s how a growing three-trillion-dollar global industry already builds enduring value. I just wish I’d realized it sooner. Our Storytelling for ALL Philosophy At STORYSMART®, we believe creative ownership shouldn’t belong exclusively to media giants with legal departments and distribution pipelines. It belongs to the people who lived the story, researched the truth, or invested the time to tell it Well. That includes journalists, authors, documentarians, families, and even victims’ advocates. We see it as creator collective that shares ownership with investors and story sources. Our philosophy is simple: Ownership is participation. The people who build the story should share in the reward. We believe transparency builds trust. Equity and collaboration prevent exploitation. Shared success creates sustainability. A fair deal today means more truth tomorrow. We’re developing an independent studio that partners with journalists and researchers who already have access, relationships, and deep work behind them, giving them the production and financing support to finish strong without surrendering creative control. The old model says: “We’ll buy your story.” Our model says: “Let’s own it together.” A Quick Reality Check for Journalists If you’re an investigative reporter, author, or filmmaker sitting on a powerful real-life story, here’s a simple checklist: Document Your Work . Keep research logs, interview transcripts, and a clear outline of your narrative. That becomes evidence of your authorship. Create an Original Expression. Write a treatment, an article, or a manuscript that shapes the facts into your storytelling lens. Once it’s expressed, it’s protectable. Secure Releases Early. Get written permissions from sources or subjects to use their likeness, materials, or interviews. It costs nothing now and saves everything later. Register Your Copyright. A $45 registration with the U.S. Copyright Office turns your effort into a recognized creative work. You still have protection without filing, but filing provides additional benefits. Explore Partnership Models. Don’t default to work-for-hire. Find collaborators who offer shared ownership or back-end participation. Equity isn’t just for investors — it’s for creators. Why This Matters Now We’re living through a moment when truth itself feels commodified. Disinformation spreads faster than facts. Outrage outperforms nuance. And yet, audiences crave authentic, deeply reported storytelling more than ever. That tension makes true-crime storytelling one of the few places where journalism, art, and commerce collide. The question isn’t whether these stories will be told. It’s who gets to tell them and who profits when they’re told. Independent storytellers are proving that ownership doesn’t require a newsroom behind you. It requires discipline, courage, and a basic understanding of how value moves through the entertainment system. When you treat your story as IP, you don’t just protect your work, you amplify its impact. You ensure that the people who uncover truth can afford to keep doing it. The Democratization of Story Power For most of history, the means of production (cameras, crews, edit bays, distribution) belonged to highly capitalized corporations. You needed real wealth to create wealth through production. Today, the means of production fit in your backpack. You can shoot, edit, and distribute globally for a fraction of what it once cost a network. You can crowdfund, self-release, or partner with equity-minded studios. The gatekeepers are still there, but their gates are rusting. That’s why this moment matters. We can finally democratize truth-telling, not by tearing down journalism, but by giving journalists ownership in the stories they create. That’s the future I’m betting on with the development of our storytelling collective. From Reporting to Royalties Let’s be honest: most journalists didn’t choose the profession to get rich. But that doesn’t mean they should stay broke while others cash in on their work. The current media model rewards corporations for scale, not individuals for integrity. It’s time to flip that script. If you’ve put your heart, risk, and reputation into uncovering a story, you deserve more than a paycheck and a headline. You deserve a stake. That’s the promise of independent, equity-based non-exploitative storytelling. A world where truth-tellers are not just heard but compensated fairly for the work they do. The future of storytelling will belong to those who stop renting their talent and start owning their work. Because in a world overflowing with information, truth is everyone’s, but the telling is yours. That is where the real value lives. About the Storytelling for ALL™ Newsletter The Storytelling for ALL™ LinkedIn Newsletter is a guide to making the most of your true story. Twice a month, I'll share proven strategies, creative approaches, and industry-tested tools to help you take control of your narrative, protect your rights, and collaborate with great storytellers to bring your vision to life. You’ll get practical, actionable insights to adapt your story into a book, film, documentary, or legacy preservation project — using the same approaches that top professionals rely on, now made accessible to you. Whether you’re an athlete, public figure, entrepreneur, or someone with a story worth telling, this is where you’ll learn to share it — on your terms. Join the conversation with #StorytellingForALL and reach out to me personally if I can help.

The Theater of Revelation I didn’t expect to get emotional in the movie theater that afternoon. But as the credits rolled on Truth & Treason , I sat in the dark with my wife, profoundly moved. The film chronicles the real-life courage of Helmuth Hübener, a German teenager who defied Hitler’s propaganda by distributing leaflets of truth. He was executed for treason at seventeen. It’s one of the best films I’ve seen in a long time. Watching it, I realized it wasn’t just about Nazi Germany. It was about what happens when fear, fatigue, and convenience persuade decent people to stay quiet while bad things happen around them. In that sense, it was a message to me about what I need to do as a filmmaker, a business owner, and as an American. That is why I’ve decided to violate one of my Cardinal rules of business with this article. For years, I’ve believed in civility. Diplomacy. I built a career around respect, meeting people where they are, avoiding politics, and finding common ground. My diplomacy-first approach has served me well for most of my life. But I also know that my tendency for conflict avoidance is a fault. Lately, I’ve started asking a harder question: At what point does restraint, conflict avoidance, and staying silent become complicity? My work these days centers on helping people take control of their stories. But watching Truth & Treason made me realize something deeper: stories don’t just reflect who we are, they shape who we become. And in an age where lies move faster than light, maybe telling the truth is the most radical act of all. My Documentary Director's Perspective

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ve heard me beat the drum about taking control of your story. About owning your rights. About protecting the intellectual property that comes from your life experiences. I’ll keep beating that drum because your story is one of your greatest assets. But here’s the counterintuitive truth I want to explore today: simply living a great story isn’t where the real value lies. It isn’t inherently valuable as a blob of ideas or past experiences. From a financial standpoint, your “story” is worthless without “storytelling.” It is the creative process of sharing or producing a story that drives most of the value of that story. The harsh truth is that the real value of a film or TV series based on a true story lies primarily in its production. The quality of the story's telling drives more of the financial value than any other factor. The life rights and cooperation of the subjects of true stories have some financial value, but it is typically disproportionate to the most critical investments in driving monetary value. More than ninety percent of the value of a story comes not from the fact that it happened, but from how it’s told. That explains why there is such a disparity in how much securing rights accounts for in most Hollywood projects. Life rights and related expenses are typically less than five percent of the overall budget of a film based on a true story. Now, that fraction would likely be different if you were Taylor Swift or some other big celebrity. A crap story about a celebrity can sell and make money. And a great one can too. And it is fair to say the celebrity brings more to those projects than to the typical “true story”. They can typically demand more than 5%. But even in most of these cases, the life rights don’t exceed ten percent (10%) of the overall budget because the most important investments with the highest return on investment are creative. That may sound surprising coming from someone who’s consistently talked about the importance of ownership. But stick with me on this, because this is where balance, not being greedy, and not being selfish, comes in. While understanding your rights and the advantages of controlling the process are essential, to maximize the profitability of sharing your story, you must recognize the critical role of the creators in crafting your narrative. They will typically bring much more value to it than you will. The storytelling team and their work will drive most of the real value of your story. The value of storytelling lies in the creative craft of storytelling. The High School Summer Vacation Essay Analogy Think back to high school. Imagine you had the most epic summer vacation of anyone in your class. You traveled to places your classmates had never seen, you met fascinating people, you had experiences that would make for an unforgettable story. Now picture the teacher assigning an essay: “Write about your summer vacation.” Just because you lived the best story doesn’t mean you’ll tell it well. Your essay might read flat, while a classmate with a far less exciting summer writes something so engaging it has everyone laughing or tearing up. The fact that you lived it and can share your account doesn’t mean your telling will do real justice to the truth of what happened. Frankly, you can do more harm than good if you share it poorly. You could turn an epic story into crap with bad storytelling. That’s the point. Storytelling is a craft. Done well, it unlocks value. Done poorly, it leaves potential on the table. If you are serious about making the most of your story, then your most important task is building a great creative team to produce the storytelling. Michael Jordan and The Last Dance Take Michael Jordan. He lived one of the most remarkable basketball careers of all time. Six championships. Back-to-back three-peats. A cultural icon beyond the court. But what made The Last Dance — the documentary chronicling those final two championship seasons — a global hit wasn’t just his career stats. It was how the story was told. Jordan was smart. He controlled the rights to the footage. He waited until the timing was right. And when he finally moved forward, he chose the creative storytelling team he wanted. He demanded excellence from the storytellers. He provided access, but then he let them do their work. The result? A ten-part masterpiece that captivated audiences around the world. Jordan wanted control, yes. And he took his rightful share of the profits. But he wasn’t greedy. He understood that value multiplies when you pair the raw story with the right storytellers. That is the lesson for you. T aylor Swift: Beachfront Property Analogy Now, not everyone starts from the same place. Taylor Swift is the rare example of someone who could put out a shaky iPhone documentary, and millions would watch. Her fandom guarantees it. That’s beachfront property in the world of stories if storytelling were real estate development. Her land is so prime that people will line up no matter what you build on it. But here’s the thing: even Taylor doesn’t stop there. She hires the right creative team to undertake the work at her direction. She invests in quality storytelling. She crafts eras. She layers her music with symbolism. She produces high-quality films of her concerts, transforming a live show into something fans will relive for years. She proves that even when the land is prime, the right development makes it exponentially more valuable. She is STORYSMART®. Jordan and Swift are showing us the way. Where Balance Comes In So where does that leave the rest of us? Owning your story doesn’t mean hoarding it or being greedy. When it comes to professional storytelling at the highest level, selfish is stupid. It doesn’t mean going it alone. But it also doesn’t mean handing it over to someone else and hoping they’ll do it justice. Great storytelling requires creative collaboration. That concept of smart, creative collaboration drives our work. The STORYSMART® Way is about balance, inclusion, and bringing together the best of what exists in storytelling today. It’s about honoring the authenticity of your lived experience while recognizing the immense creative lift it takes to transform that experience into something that resonates with audiences. It’s about forging partnerships that elevate the story while preserving its integrity. That’s why I talk about an ecosystem. One that rewards the person who lived the story and values the storytellers who bring it to life. Balance, not greed. Partnership, not exploitation. Creative collaboration. That’s where actual value lives. It is also what sets our framework apart from anything else you’ll find in this space. It is about bringing professionals in and giving them equity in telling your story. That is the most radical – and I’d argue, the most sensible – aspect of our approach. You don’t face an “either or” binary decision of selling out or doing it yourself. There is another way that marries the best of both into a hybrid approach – a collectivist or joint venture approach that has the potential to take your story to a transcendent level. The Real Estate Analogy Think of it like real estate. Land has inherent value. Beachfront will always be worth more than a rocky hillside (unless it has a killer view). But raw land doesn’t generate returns until you bring in architects, engineers, and builders. Quality development happens when a multi-disciplinary team collaborate like an elite level symphony performing a masterpiece. Storytelling is the same. It requires collaboration. In this analogy, your lived experience is like the land. The storytellers — the writers, filmmakers, producers, editors — are the architects and builders. Together, you collaborate to create something that multiplies the value of both. Even the best land will underperform if developed poorly. And average land, in the right hands, can become something extraordinary. Why This Matters Now We live in a time when technology and access to information have democratized storytelling. Anyone can pick up a camera, start a podcast, or self-publish a book. That’s exciting. However, the reality is that the signal-to-noise ratio is high. There is much crap out there. Millions of stories are competing for attention. Only the ones told with skill, craft, and excellence break through. That’s why quality matters more than ever. If you’ve lived something meaningful, you don’t just need to protect it — you need to tell it well. And telling it well requires recognizing the innate talents of storytellers and respecting the creative process. That starts with understanding the financial potential of the right creative collaboration. That’s the philosophy behind STORYSMART. We’re not here to replace Hollywood or declare traditional studios “bad.” Quite to the contrary. We love creators and the art they create. We’re here to pioneer a new model. One that blends the best practices of the creator economy and independent filmmaking. One that says: • The true story matters. • The storyteller matters. • And together, we can share in the value we create together. A Radical New Way Forward I don’t see the current system as broken. I see it as incomplete and corrupted by winner-take-all greed. For too long, the rewards of storytelling have tilted toward whoever controlled the intellectual property. That’s just how the business has worked. But the future is about more than control. It’s about creative collaboration. It’s about sharing. It’s about building an ecosystem where the source of the story and the team that tells it both benefit fairly and equitably. High-quality, professional storytelling for all. That’s the vision we have for the creator-owned story development studio we are pioneering. For us, it’s the way forward. In the story we are writing as we build our studio, we don’t see a villain other than systemic greed and selfishness. I see it like the movie Jaws. If you ask most people who the villain is in Jaws, most will say the shark. But they would be wrong. From a storytelling standpoint, the “villain” of that story was the town’s greed. After discovering the remains of a shark attack victim, Police Chief Brody wanted to close the beach to swimmers, but the city pushed back because it was their busy season. Don’t Be Greedy – Collaborate with Creatives If you want your story to reach the audiences it deserves, remember that more than ninety percent of the value comes from how it’s told. That means you should be investing in building your storytelling dream team, just as you would be if you were the head of your own film studio. Attach the right names to your project. Trust me when I say that having a Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, or Taylor Sheridan wanting to help with your story will only add value. Think like that. Find the right team. The right writer. The right producer, the right director, and so on. Reject the outdated thinking that you have only two choices. Sell out or do it yourself. Selfish is stupid when it comes to storytelling at the highest levels. Embrace creative collaboration. Think partnership, joint venture, shared equity, and mitigating risk by building a dream team. At STORYSMART®, we help you navigate the path of turning your story into a film while maintaining control of your narrative. If this resonates with you, I encourage you to join our FREE STORYSMART® Storytelling for ALL™ Community, pick up my book STORYSMART Storytelling for ALL: How to Take Control, Own Your True Story and Profit Like a Hollywood Insider, or reach out to me personally. About the Storytelling for ALL™ Newsletter The Storytelling for ALL™ LinkedIn Newsletter is a guide to making the most of your true story. Twice a month, I'll share proven strategies, creative approaches, and industry-tested tools to help you take control of your narrative, protect your rights, and collaborate with great storytellers to bring your vision to life. You’ll get practical, actionable insights to adapt your story into a book, film, documentary, or legacy preservation project — using the same approaches that top professionals rely on, now made accessible to you. Whether you’re an athlete, public figure, entrepreneur, or someone with a story worth telling, this is where you’ll learn to share it — on your terms. Join the conversation with #StorytellingForALL and reach out to me personally if I can help.

In the digital media age, outrage is currency. Not just emotional currency, but authority, engagement, and sometimes market value. What if the anger you see bubbling up on social feeds isn’t purely organic, but instead the product of a manufactured campaign — run at industrial scale, with bots, trolls, and fake accounts fanning the flames? That’s the story behind two recent flashpoints: the Cracker Barrel logo debacle and the Charlie Kirk killing in Utah. The common thread: replay of a familiar playbook in digital influence operations. I first became aware of this issue when I oversaw social media for the St. Louis Cardinals. We were victimized by trolling that we later found out where fake accounts controlled by someone with an agenda. It happens more than you realize. It is important to understand that much of what you see online isn’t necessarily what it appears to be. I ‘ve been trying my darndest to educate my son about this troubling reality. The Playbook: From Real Trigger to Manufactured Tsunami A typical sequence: a genuine event or brand decision appears. Then somewhere in the feed, suddenly, an initial wave of harsh commentary. But this is amplified by networks of automated or semi‐automated accounts: fake profiles posting a high volume of posts, repeating identical talking points, deploying hashtags, creating the impression of a massive grassroots revolt. Humans then amplify the outrage further — natural users who treat the commentary as genuine, join in the pile-on. Media notices. The target reacts. The narrative crystalizes and people believe it as gospel. This dynamic has been studied in academic research: for example, social bots increased exposure to negative and inflammatory content during the 2017 Catalan referendum . The pattern has been labelled “ rage-farming ” — taking a benign or business decision, stripping context, and turning it into a cultural event by generating outrage. Case One: Cracker Barrel’s Rebrand (or “Crisis”) In August 2025, Cracker Barrel introduced a minimalist redesign of its iconic logo — removing the figure of the man leaning on the barrel, simplifying the brand. What followed, on social media, looked like a cultural backlash — waves of posts accusing the company of erasing “Americana,” capitulating to “woke” agendas, and provoking a boycott narrative. But data suggests the backlash was largely orchestrated. Research from PeakMetrics found that 44.5% of posts on X on the first day of the controversy were posted by “bots or likely bots” — nearly double the normal rate for brand discussions. Another analysis by Cyabra found that 21 % of the profiles attacking Cracker Barrel were fake accounts, generating 4.4 million potential views and correlating with a roughly 10.5 % drop in the chain’s stock price (≈ US$100 million in market value). In short: what may have started as a legitimate brand evolution was transformed into a crisis — arguably by actors seeking to create the appearance of consumer revolt rather than organic outrage. Pull this thread back and you’re looking at an influence operation using brand identity as knock-on effect weaponry. Case Two: The Killing of Charlie Kirk & the Disinformation Cascade Divides Us When conservative activist Charlie Kirk was killed in Utah in September 2025, the immediate social media reaction was chaotic and fast. But analysis reveals that part of the reaction to the podcaster’s killing was not spontaneous: foreign adversaries and bot networks seized the moment to amplify narratives of American dysfunction, civil war, and conspiracy. For example: over 6,000 mention clusters across official Russian, Chinese and Iranian channels within a week of the event. The U.S. state-level warning was immediate: Utah Governor Spencer Cox said “We have bots from Russia, China, all over the world that are trying to instill disinformation and encourage violence.” One article summarizes: “America’s adversaries have long used fake social media accounts, online bots and disinformation to depict the US as a dangerous country beset with extremism and gun violence.” The mechanics? Bot and troll networks inserted themselves into the conversation when the topic was searing. This was a breaking news dynamic. The news had not yet fully solidified, facts were still emerging. In that void, false claims proliferated: about who the shooter was, their motive, links to Ukraine, Israel, trans-ideology, etc. These narratives served broader purpose: to stoke domestic divisions, diminish trust in institutions, and disrupt public discourse at a moment of crisis. Why This Matters for STORYSMART® Practitioners For storytellers, consultants, brand strategists and communicators working in a high-noise online world, this dual trend — manufactured outrage + influence operations — poses multiple red flags and opportunities. 1. Perception vs. reality. Just because an online backlash looks huge does not mean it’s genuine. The data from Cracker Barrel shows how nearly half the early posts were automated. Without discerning bots from humans, brands or agencies may mis-read audience sentiment and mistake a manufactured wave for real consumer demand. 2. Narrative acceleration. In the age of bots + algorithms, once a narrative is injected it can spread from inauthentic accounts to real humans to media headlines — creating feedback loops that feel authentic but are engineered. That acceleration can force brand decisions (reversals, halts) under pressure. Cracker Barrel reversed its logo and remodel plans within weeks. 3. The wild field of breaking news. Big, fast news events (Kirk’s killing, natural disasters, etc.) are ripe targets for influence campaigns. Facts are incomplete; emotions are high; bots can fill the vacuum. If you’re communicating after such an event — whether as a journalistic storyteller, brand communicator or community-manager — you must assume noise is amplified, manipulated, and multi-layered. 4. Trust and narrative ownership. If 21 % of the profiles attacking a brand were fake (as with Cracker Barrel), then the “public opinion” you see may not be public at all but engineered. For storytellers using social listening data, this demands scrutiny: Which voices are real? Which are bots? The narrative you amplify might be the product of manipulation. 5. Media literacy and storytelling ethics. As a STORYSMART® framework practitioner, this is a perfect teaching moment. Your audiences (clients, teams, communities) need to know not just how to create stories, but how to see through manufactured ones. Because the cost of mis-reading the field is high: brand equity, public trust, even stock value can be sucked into the vortex. Key Signals: How to Spot Manufactured Outrage Here are some warning signs to watch for: A sudden spike in volume from accounts with little profile history (new accounts, no followers, generic avatars). Identical talking points repeated across multiple posts in short time. For example: #BoycottBrandX, #BrandXIsFinished. (Cyabra found this in the Cracker Barrel case.) The narrative pivots quickly from a product/brand detail (logo change) to culture-war framing (betrayal of tradition, woke agenda, etc.). Geographical spread and targeting: foreign state media or foreign language accounts join the conversation immediately after an event. (As in the Kirk case.) Rapid transition from social media to mainstream media coverage, with headlines referencing “outrage” and “backlash” even though underlying data may be murky What You Should Do Integrate authenticity analysis: Don’t assume all posts are equal. Use tools or manual scans to look for high-volume bot activity before concluding a backlash is real. Delay action until you understand the narrative origin: If a brand feels under attack, pause for five minutes to look at the data — is it genuine critics or orchestrated storm? Frame proactively, truthfully: If you manage the target brand or stakeholder, ensure your communication makes clear what you know, what you don’t know, and how you are listening. Silence or knee-jerk reaction plays into manufactured narratives. Teach your audience/stakeholders: In your STORYSMART® work, build into messaging the idea that not every “viral outrage” is grassroots. That meta-narrative — about how narratives are constructed — becomes part of the story. Monitor ripple effects: As we saw in Cracker Barrel’s case, the manufactured outrage had an actual financial cost. Public trust and brand value aren’t immune. Final Thought In the age of bots, troll farms, programmed outrage and attention-economy weapons, the line between “public sentiment” and “manufactured sentiment” is increasingly blurred. Whether you're working on a family-history documentary, a brand relaunch, or a social media campaign, the same rule applies: the source of the buzz matters. If that buzz has been engineered, you risk mis-reading the narrative, mis-allocating your voice, and playing into someone else’s story. For the STORYSMART® audience, this is a prime example of storytelling in practice: not just what story is told, but how it is seeded, amplified and weaponized. The more we understand the machinery behind the outrage, the better we can shape stories that are genuine, strategic, and resistant to manipulation.

When Deadline first reported that Bruce Springsteen’s Deliver Me From Nowhere was headed for the screen, I expected it would be more than another typical music biopic because it was based on a book that focused on a sliver of Springsteen’s life. That “sliver” was a singular defining period of Springsteen’s life. When I wrote my book, I took note of the fact that when Hollywood came calling, they first reached out to Warren Zanes who wrote the book and not Springsteen himself. I was trying to make the point about the importance of securing storytelling source material. The real work in telling a story is that of the author. Writing a great story isn’t easy. When it happens, someone in Hollywood is bound to notice. What I didn’t fully appreciate until now is that Springsteen’s story to screen journey is a masterclass in focus — a case study in how a single defining period, a writer who truly understands his subject, and a team of champions can move a story from the page to the screen in record time. Zane’s book was published 2023. A little more than two years later, the film is being released. That is amazing in of itself, but the approach to the story told is also instructive. Most people think you need your whole life story to make a film. Springsteen — and Warren Zanes — show us you don’t. It can be a sliver. The story behind this storytelling is a Boss lesson in storytelling that help you deliver your story from nowhere. 

Your Clear Eyes, Full Rights, Can't Lose Playbook.  If you’ve ever watched Friday Night Lights, you know the phrase: Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose. It’s the mantra Coach Taylor preached to his team. But when I look at the 35-year storytelling journey of Friday Night Lights—from a reporter’s notebook to a bestselling book, then a film, a beloved series, and now talk of a reboot—I see a slightly different mantra: Clear eyes, full rights, can’t lose. Because underneath the inspirational football story is a lesson we can draw from in how one journalist’s immersive reporting became a durable, multi-platform franchise. And for me, it’s a perfect demonstration of a pathway we advocate for at STORYSMART®. It all starts with investing in good clear-eyed journalism. It is the single most important investment you can make in developing a true story. When you take control of your source material to tell a true story and develop your story properly, your story can live on for years far beyond the page. I’m a big proponent for adopting a story franchise mindset when approaching storytelling projects. That is why I tell clients to think like a studio executive by adopting a media mogul mindset. When you open your mind to that, it opens the doors of possibilities. The storytelling journey of Friday Night Lights helps illustrate what is possible, as well as offer other lessons on what to do and not do in designing your own professional storytelling path. How a reporter’s notebook became a franchise In 1990, journalist Buzz Bissinger published Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream. It wasn’t just another sports book. He moved his family to Texas to immerse himself in this story. Bissinger spent a year in Odessa, Texas, embedded with the Permian High School Panthers, capturing the obsession, pressure, and community identity that revolved around high school football. He conducted hundreds of hours of interviews and built his narrative from a deep archive of source material. Every interview he conducted is his work product, what I often refer to as copyright protected storytelling source material. Make note of that. That depth of Buzz’s reporting gave the book credibility. It also gave it power as intellectual property. It was a fantastic book that was a hit.