Tiago Forte's Blog, page 23

The Dawn of Personal Documentaries: Democratized Storytelling in an Age of Narrative Disruption

I recently discovered a treasure trove of family home videos stretching back almost 40 years.

The earliest video was from my parents wedding in 1981 in São Paulo. The footage was grainy and barely in color, and looked like it was taken by a professional crew. Consumer camcorders hadn’t even been invented yet.

The more than 100 hours of video went on to document my birth and childhood in Southern California, me and my three siblings’ early years through the 80s and 90s, right up until our recent family vacations, birthdays, and holidays. Thousands of precious memories meticulously documented across four decades of life.

The first commercial consumer-grade camcorder, the Sony Betamovie BMC-100P, was released in 1983. It ushered in a revolution in collective memory. For the first time ever, families around the world could afford to document their lives in video form. College TV studios could teach film classes, and amateur video hobbyists could produce full-length films at a reasonable cost.

The Sony Betamovie BMC-100P, the first consumer-grade camcorder

But after this initial surge in innovation, the field of consumer video recording stagnated. Most of these recordings remained stuck in obsolete formats lost in storage. As consumers we’ve lacked the tools to edit our footage together into a coherent story, and to share it in ways that fit into our busy lives.

This has always made the title of “filmmaker” a very rare and exclusive position. You need expensive equipment, and a crew to carry around and operate it. You need a dozen specialized kinds of expertise, which demands a sizable budget. Making a film has required the vision and leadership of a CEO combined with the attention to detail and technical expertise of an engineer. 

Until now.

The technological boundaries that long separated amateur “home videos” from professional movie-making have become increasingly blurred, and even erased.

Through the Internet and social media, we all now have access to a global distribution system unprecedented in human history. Our smartphones have capabilities until recently reserved only for the highest end professional cameras. Our computers are multimedia studios equipped with the same software used by Hollywood studios.

The latest Apple iPhones are the first smartphones to come equipped with Dolby Vision, a technology used by top Hollywood filmmakers for blockbuster feature films.

We are in the midst of a revolution in personalized filmmaking as people awaken to the power of the tools they have access to. It is a narrative renaissance, connecting us back to our deep roots as storytellers out on the primordial savannah. Except this time, unshackled from the limits of space and time.

We are seeing the rise of “personal documentaries” – long-form, personal, narrative-driven videos told through a particular perspective, combining the objectivity of traditional documentary filmmaking with the intimacy of social media.

Most of us have gotten used to sharing small snippets of our lives with our social media networks – an Instagram story of a meal we’re having, a Snap of a fun moment with friends, and maybe even a YouTube video about something interesting we’ve learned. The natural next step is to start to combine these snippets into longer, richer, more engaging and meaningful stories.

A convergence of technological trends is making this kind of synthesis possible for the first time:

Professional-quality smartphone-based cameras (with software-based features like motion stabilization, exposure control, and augmented reality that once required expensive hardware)Plentiful storage space with solid-state memory and cheap cloud storageMobile chips and apps that can handle sophisticated editing right on mobile devicesProsumer software available as an affordable monthly subscriptionSocial media networks designed specifically for video, with options for monetization (including YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch, Patreon, and Onlyfans)Consumer UX design influencing professional video-editing tools, making them much more user-friendly and intuitiveMore powerful consumer computers that can run editing software without requiring high-end upgrades I made this short video about my trip to the Living Computer Museum in Seattle completely on my iPhone, including splitting and combining different clips, audio and video transitions, and text captions. I happened to capture the unveiling of the first working Unix version 0 computer in at least 45 years.

Traditional documentaries are films that “document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record.” Now that we all carry high-resolution cameras with us at all times, documentation is becoming a part of everyday life.

But because the videos we record are personal, they also blur the line between fact and fiction. The goal is not to create a factual record for the history books, but to share an event, a story, or a cause from our personal lives, through our own lens.

I discovered in my own personal documentary film project, on the life and artistic career of my father Wayne Forte, that I could completely change the meaning of a scene through editing. Sometimes the difference of one or two seconds in the placement of a cut could shift it from sad to hopeful, harsh to sarcastic, deceptive to authentic. I quickly realized that there was no “objective” version of events – the narrative had to be crafted, not just captured.

Video is a uniquely powerful medium because it is immersive, while also being shared. It engages both the visual and auditory senses across large numbers of people in a synchronized way, just like the real world. It touches us on an emotional level, allowing us to see through others’ eyes and walk in their shoes. 

Personal documentaries use stories – the basic unit of meaning for humans – to inspire, educate, entertain, and change perspectives.

Narrative disruption

We are living in a time of “narrative collapse.” The “big narratives” told by governments, traditional media, and other large institutions that have always been the guiding pillars of society have broken down.

A new generation of “small narratives” are emerging to take their place. Just as startups “disrupt” established companies in the business world with simpler, more innovative products, these “narrative startups” disrupt official narratives with more tailor-made, flexible stories that react much more quickly to every news cycle.

This fragmentation and loss of a grand narrative has mostly been framed as a negative trend. We’ve clearly seen the impact of filter bubbles and conspiracy theories, as people grasp for any sense of coherence. But I see a silver lining. We have the chance to equip people with the tools to write their own stories, in their own way, through their own lens.

The short-form videos that have exploded across YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok in recent years represented the first wave of democratized video. They’ve demonstrated a stunning level of creativity, but also revealed the pitfalls of “contextless” storytelling.

Clips taken on the street are edited to inflame passions, and spread around the world in hours. Soundbites are extracted from interviews and spun to misrepresent someone’s position. Stripped of their context, these clips lose the details that might give nuance to the story of “what happened.”

I see personal documentary filmmaking as the rebuilding of that context – weaving together a new story about what happened and what’s happening out of bits and pieces of audio and video. It won’t return us to a single, “official” narrative that everyone agrees on. That narrative has shattered into a million fragments. The rebuilding has to take place at the individual level, as we each put the pieces back together in a way that makes sense to us.

Personalized filmmaking

The democratization and personalization of video-making is part of a much broader trend.

Computers became personal computers. Productivity became personal productivity. Finance became personal finance. And of course, knowledge management is evolving into personal knowledge management.

As each of these disciplines have become miniaturized, democratized, and customized down to the level of a single individual, they have unleashed both daunting challenges and priceless opportunities. I believe the tools of filmmaking are crossing a similar threshold.

They will allow us to answer new kinds of questions:

What will happen when people are given the opportunity to tell their own stories?What hidden narratives will come to light once the gatekeepers don’t get to decide what stories are worth telling?How will flows of money, attention, time, and effort be shaped and redirected once those stories are free to emerge?What will people pay attention to and how will they live once they have an abundance of stories to choose from, not just a few?What new professions and even industries would arise if we saw storytelling as a practical craft, with principles and rules and models?

When you change how you pay attention, the things you pay attention to change. Filmmaking is nothing if not the ability to shape how others pay attention. I suspect that that ability is one of the most powerful untapped sources of change in the world today.

What kinds of films could we make?

Here are a few ideas for how personal documentaries could be used, including examples:

Personal autobiographies could be a way of transforming trauma into healing, by allowing people to retell their own stories as victors, instead of victims. They could be empowered to highlight everything that is beautiful and worthy in their lives, even if they’ve experienced terrible abuses. Sharing one’s story can be a powerful route to healing.

In Unrest, Jennifer Brea tells her own story of dropping out of Harvard due to Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (commonly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), and going on a journey to diagnose and understand a condition that none of her doctors recognize. She created it largely while bedridden, collecting the stories of others she found online suffering from the same condition. This film morphs from patient history to advocacy as Brea realizes that millions of people around the world suffer from this misunderstood disease.

You can watch the trailer below, and the full film on Netflix or Amazon Prime Video:

Personal dramatizations could be used to recreate scenes from the distant or recent past, allowing others to feel what it was really like to be there. We could develop deeper empathy for the victims of the Holocaust, or the activists of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, or the victims of the Massacre at Wounded Knee, or any event that played an important part in the historical consciousness.

The Battle of Orgreave is an hour-long film by Mike Figgis on the 1986 reenactment of a clash between striking miners and police during the Great Miners’ Strike of 1984-5. Although it pre-dates smartphones, and is closer in production quality to a home video, it illustrates how we can relive parts of our history and document those recreations for future generations using video.

Personal nature documentaries could show the impact of climate change not just on distant, exotic locales like glaciers or the rainforest, but on the closest local environments. Imagine the impact of a documentary showing how the forests, streams, coastlines, and animal species you see every day in your own town are already suffering from climate change.

In Learning to See: The World of Insects, Jake Oelman documented the life and second career of his father, psychologist-turned-photographer Robert Oelman. While telling the story of how his father moved to the rainforest to become a nature photographer, he also tells the story of his father’s main subject: insects. Endangered and underappreciated, these tiny creatures represent one of the most important fronts in the climate change crisis. By mixing the personal with the universal, Learning to See pulls viewers in from both sides.

Watch the trailer below, and rent or buy it on Apple iTunes:

Personal biographies could document the lives and work of important figures in your local community. There is a vast swath of people who have had a major impact on their community, yet aren’t famous enough to attract a big budget film project. Capturing their stories could help us understand where we came from, how much people sacrificed to give us the lives we have, and inspire future generations of leaders, activists, scientists, entrepreneurs, politicians, and more.

In My Brother Jordan, filmmaker Justin Robinson set out to document the life of his brother Jordan, who had passed away due to cancer. The film is made up of more than 100 interviews with family and friends who knew Jordan, plus excerpts from many hours of home videos. In other words, it used personal relationships, existing media, and affordable equipment to tell a personal story that has been viewed almost 10 million times.

Personal advocacy could see important social issues highlighted in a new way or from a new angle. Imagine watching the story of a teenager struggling with the decision of whether to get an abortion. Or a small business owner trying to stay afloat under the crush of burdensome taxes. All points along the political spectrum deserve empathy, even if you don’t agree that they deserve priority. I think it would help us understand each other more if we understood the stories that led us to where we are today.

Backstage Capital – jOURney tells the story of up-and-coming venture capital firm Backstage Capital, founded and led by Arlan Hamilton. Backstage is on a mission to invest in companies led by women, People of Color, and LGBTQ founders, who typically receive less than 10% of venture funding. Made during the COVID pandemic, it is clearly compiled mostly from amateur footage shot on subjects’ personal smartphones. But it manages to effectively both tell the remarkable story of the firm’s and founder’s trajectory so far, and also advocate for the wider industry to invest more in minority founders.

Personal futurism could be used by individuals or businesses to tell stories about how the future could be. Imagine how much more effective it would be to persuade people to invest in a certain future for a business, product, team, community, or neighborhood if you could portray viscerally “what it will be like” to build that park, invest in that district, or fund that public transport line. We could multiply potential futures, test them out, and compare them against each other using the closest thing to virtual reality that exists on a wide scale, which is video.

This 6-minute YouTube video SpaceX’s Starlink: Global Internet Begins explains the background of the satellite-based internet service called Starlink, currently being launched by space launch company SpaceX. By providing a window into how such a service would function, how it would look, and what it would cost, this video gives viewers a chance to think through the many implications it would have on every aspect of society.

Telling our story

My mom and I decided to make a highlight reel of the best moments from our archive of home videos. 

The footage was valuable because she’d captured everything, but that very fact meant that the gems were difficult to find. There were hours of video documenting entire soccer games, or babies sleeping for 30 minutes straight, or school plays in which we barely appeared. There was far too much footage to watch in any reasonable amount of time.

My mom shipped the recordings – which included everything from disks to cassettes to solid state storage to ancient VHS tapes – to a home video digitization service called iMemories. Within a few weeks they were all converted into digital format and uploaded to a website where we could watch them on demand, like a private YouTube channel.

[image error]The gallery view of the home video digitization service iMemories.

From there, I started watching the videos one at a time, downloading the best of them onto my computer, and importing them into Adobe Premiere to start making edits. I hope to have the first in a series of highlight reels ready by the end of the year, for us to watch together as a family over Christmas.

As I watched video after video, it struck me that our family has a story. It might not mean anything to anyone else, but it is priceless to us. It is the story of where we come from, how we became who we are today, and the moments along the way that were most meaningful. It is a story that I want to be able to share with my children and their children. And with the gifts of technology, I will now have the ability to do so.

The power of immersive, visual storytelling is too great for anyone to ignore. It is the power to change people’s perception of reality, which might as well be reality itself.

The ability for anyone anywhere to tell any story and distribute it instantly for free around the world is as revolutionary as the printing press.

No one is immune.

No one is too late.

Everyone has a story to tell.

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My Interview on Noah Kagan Presents: Behind the Scenes of a $5,000,000 Online Productivity Course

I was very happy to receive an invitation to join Noah Kagan, influential online marketer and founder of Sumo Group, on his podcast. I’m officially on hiatus from interviews this year while I write my book, but I couldn’t say no. 

I remember back in 2012 when I first arrived in San Francisco to start my career, I asked around for who I should listen to about online marketing. Noah Kagan was (and continues to be) one of the most well-known and influential people in this space. He taught me some of my earliest marketing lessons back then, and I’m proud to be able to join him on Noah Kagan Presents.

This was a WIDE-ranging conversation. We started talking about productivity and Building a Second Brain, but also touched on:

How to figure out what kind of online course you should create

The psychology of high-ticket pricing for courses

How to build a strong brand in a saturated niche

My anger management technique using gloves and a tennis racket (though I wouldn’t called it “management” because that implies anger is a bad thing)

How to shoot a documentary on your iPhone

Listen to the interview below, watch a 15-minute highlight reel on YouTube (though I’m not sure why there’s a picture of Tai Lopez in the thumbnail), or visit the episode webpage.

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Announcing the Praxis Fellowship

It is my pleasure to announce the new Praxis Fellowship, a writing residency for emerging thought leaders at the frontier of modern productivity, creativity, and knowledge management.

In December of 2015 I was invited to become a Writer-in-Residence for Ribbonfarm, a niche but influential blog that had made a big impact on my own intellectual journey. I had exchanged a few messages with the Editor-in-Chief of the site, Venkatesh Rao, who offered me the opportunity after seeing my writing on my own fledgling blog.

Over the next year, I would write five long-form essays for Ribbonfarm, in which I developed my ideas on modern productivity. Those ideas had been simmering on the backburner for quite some time. But it was the firm push from someone I looked up to, plus guaranteed distribution to thousands of Ribbonfarm readers, that gave me the confidence to put them into writing.

Those essays became the bedrock of my business, bringing me countless opportunities to collaborate and learn from others. I launched my paid membership off the momentum of those essays, incorporated them into my online course Building a Second Brain, and to this day they still serve as one of the best introductions to my work for newcomers.

I’ve long wanted to offer the same opportunity to promising writers in my field – to give them the exposure and feedback needed to develop new ideas to their full potential. And in the process, nurturing new voices with new ways of seeing things in a field that is sorely lacking diversity. We are living in the midst of an explosion in productivity tools, and my goal is for this Fellowship to push forward and broaden our current thinking on how and why they should be used.

We are welcoming three inaugural Praxis Fellows: Carrie Ben-Yisrael, Frank Anaya, and Christina Luo. All three were formerly Alumni Mentors in our Building a Second Brain course, and we’ve invited them to continue to develop the work they’ve done with our students. They each offer new perspectives that are missing from the conversation about what it means to be an effective person in the world today.

[image error]

Fellows will commit to writing 3-5 essays over the next three months on a topic of their choice, related in some way to the Praxis mission of “exploring the frontier of modern work.” This could include developing a new methodology, introducing a new framework, exploring an unusual angle or approach, or telling an illuminating story – anything that sheds light on the nature of modern work and how to perform it more effectively and mindfully. 

They will receive an honorarium, editorial support, and guaranteed distribution to thousands of members of Praxis and Everything, a publication which includes other writers, of which Praxis is a part. Join either one below if you’d like to see what our Fellows come up with:

Join Praxis ($10 per month)










Join the Everything bundle ($20 per month)

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Tiago’s 21 Notes for Documentary Filmmaking

FOR PRAXIS MEMBERS ONLYIn my in-depth case study How I Made a Documentary Film with Digital Notes, I shared excerpts from the 21 notes I used to complete my first film project. As a perk of Praxis membership, you can download the full content of all those notes in two formats: Evernote (.enex format) and Notion (table).
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How I Made a Documentary Film with Digital Notes

Over the last year I filmed a short documentary on the life and artistic career of my father Wayne Forte. He has been one of the strongest influences on me, not only as a father, but as a prolific lifelong artist.

I wanted a way to share his remarkable story with a wider public, to preserve a record of his memories for future generations, and to better understand the roots of my own ideas.

I used only the most basic equipment: a smartphone, a microphone, a tripod, a stabilizing gimbal, and video-editing software on my computer. I had no film crew, no expensive cameras, and did no post-production except what I could accomplish on my own.

I had never made a film before. I had no real experience with sound, cinematography, lighting, scripts, interviewing, editing, or any of the dozens of specialities that go into making films. I didn’t even have much of a plan when I started. I simply turned on my smartphone camera and started recording.

It took 16 months, more than 100 total hours of work, and 17 hours of footage from 4 countries, all condensed down to 46 minutes.

The full editing timeline for the final film in Adobe Premiere. Each slice is a different video clip.

When I finished the final cut, I premiered the film on YouTube in a coordinated viewing with over a hundred family, friends, and random Internet strangers watching from their homes in the midst of a global pandemic. In the couple months since, the film has been viewed more than 6,000 times by people around the world.

Every part of this story would have been improbable or impossible just 10 years ago. It was enabled by a quiet revolution in our ability to tell long-form stories using video, disguised as a steady stream of hardware and software updates every year.

This is the story of how I did it, what I learned, and the profound implications for the modern creative process I discovered along the way.

The Project

In March of 2019 I received news that an art gallery in Los Angeles would be hosting an exhibition of 30 years of my father’s Biblically themed artwork.

This was a huge milestone for him. And not just because it would be a prominent showcase in the heart of Hollywood. He had had a lot of success with his paintings of figures and still lifes, but the secular, mainstream art world had never embraced his religious art, which has long been his true passion.

Here was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to showcase decades of his most personally meaningful work in his hometown. I was living in Mexico City at the time, and decided to fly back to be there.

From there it quickly became a project.

If I was going to fly all the way back to the U.S., I thought, I might as well film the opening night. If I was going to film the opening night, I might as well do a few short interviews with the friends and collectors who would be there.

And if I was going to do all that, why not just film a few other interviews while I’m in town and tell the story of my dad’s career as an artist?

In my productivity courses I’m constantly advising people to “dial down the scope.” In other words, to reduce the size and complexity of their projects so they have a better chance of finishing them.

But once in a while, a project comes along that is so interesting, so unique, and so meaningful that it’s worth dialing up the scope. The main purpose of keeping most projects small is so that when a really special one comes along, you have the time and space to make it big.

I realized that by making this film, I could accomplish a few different goals at once.

It would be an opportunity to learn how to make higher quality, longer videos to promote my work. I’d long wanted to be more active on YouTube, but without a hands-on project, I never seemed to get around to it. I sensed the revolutionary implications of everyone walking around with a professional-quality camera at all times. I knew I needed to get my hands dirty to be a part of it.

I also had a more personal motivation. A few years earlier, my dad had had a cancer scare. Although he was now fully recovered, it had shocked me with the realization that he wouldn’t be around forever. As I looked forward to starting a family of my own, I wanted to document his life so my future kids would have the chance to know him like I did. And to better understand for myself how his attitudes toward art, creativity, productivity, spirituality, and life in general had so deeply influenced my own.

At first glance, this was an absolutely absurd project for a novice to take on.

I had made a few short videos on YouTube, but nothing anywhere close to this scale or complexity. I didn’t have any special equipment, had never used professional video editing software, and didn’t know the first thing about lighting or sound.

But I did have one trick up my sleeve: my system for digital note-taking, which I teach in my course Building a Second Brain. I knew that I could easily manage the information that I’d need to plan, organize, and execute the project using digital notes.

16 months later, on June 2, 2020, my dad’s 70th birthday, I screened the final cut for my family online. We watched it together at a coordinated time, and had a touching conversation afterward on Zoom about our shared memories.

It was truly one of the most special and meaningful moments with my family that I can remember.

A screenshot from my family’s post-screening conversation on Zoom

A month later I screened the film again for my followers using YouTube’s Premiere feature. I shared the starting time and a link with the subscribers of my weekly email newsletter, and over 100 of them showed up to experience it together.

As promised, I’m finally ready to share what I learned.

From how I managed the whole project using digital notes, to what I learned about interviewing, to what I discovered about creating virtual community, to the future potential of amateur films. I’ll share screenshots of all 21 notes I created along the way, explain how I used them, and give you my best advice on how to make a film of your own.

The role of digital notes

This project simply would not have been possible without digital notes.

From the very beginning, I needed an easy, lightweight way to manage large amounts of information. For example, scenes to shoot, questions to ask in interviews, filming tips, editing guidelines, examples to borrow from, lessons from other films, checklists to follow, and many other logistical details.

There are a few things that make notes uniquely suited to amateur filmmaking:

They are casual, fitting easily into the small moments of the dayThey are multimedia, allowing you to capture text but also screenshots, still frames, pictures of backgrounds or locations, etc. in one centralized placeThey are mobile-friendly, allowing for easy entry and retrieval when you’re out and about filming

There are specialized software programs available for managing full-scale film projects. But I wasn’t a professional filmmaker and couldn’t afford to dedicate myself full time to the project. I didn’t need a sophisticated tool nor did I want to learn a new interface.

What I needed was a quick and dirty way of making small bits of progress whenever I had the time, approximately 1-2 days per month. Notes perfectly fit the bill.

There were five overlapping stages I moved through in this project:

ResearchPlanningFilmingEditingScreening

Let’s examine the notes I used for each one.

For Praxis members only, click here to download the full content of all 21 notes shown below in Evernote and Notion formats. You can borrow from what I learned, explore how I construct notes, and even use my notes as a template for your own video project.

STAGE 1: RESEARCH

I knew right from the start that I would need a lot of exposure to good filmmaking. I had watched many documentaries throughout my life, but now I had a completely different motivation: to borrow the parts I liked and avoid the parts I disliked.

I polled my followers on Twitter and Facebook for recommendations of good documentaries, and within a few hours had several dozen. The popularization of video streaming services has made an endless variety of documentaries available to us at the click of a button. They don’t get as much attention as the latest hit series, but we’ve never had such easy access to the world’s best documentary films. Or as many options for distributing our own.

I put the list of film recommendations into a note, and over the next few weeks drew from this list for my evening watching, instead of the usual endless Netflix browsing. I noted the takeaways from each film below the title using bullet points:

I also decided to take an online course on filmmaking for more structured learning. I was delighted to discover that Ken Burns, one of the filmmakers I most admired, offered a class on documentary filmmaking on the Masterclass platform.

It only took me a couple days to watch the videos and take notes on that course, and I came away with a wealth of practical knowledge and timeless wisdom that Burns had to offer. Here’s a sample of my notes, which I returned to time and again as my experience grew:

From the very beginning of the research phase, I was already capturing footage. I turned on my camera and started filming anytime I was with my family, or when I had some downtime. I experimented with new angles, tried all the buttons, played with all the settings, and played back clips on my computer to see how they came out.

Once I started editing my footage in Adobe Premiere, I quickly realized that I would need to learn how the program works. I watched some free videos on YouTube, but knew that being able to ask questions of someone would help me move a lot faster. I hired a friend of mine, Joshua, to meet with me on Zoom and help me through those roadblocks.

Premiere is an intimidating tool. It bristles with buttons and switches and toggles on every square inch. It is made for professional videographers and filmmakers, and thus offers a staggering array of the most finely tuned capabilities.

Luckily, almost as soon as Joshua and I started going through those options, I realized I would only need to know about 10-15% of Premiere’s features. I had no need for sophisticated video or audio effects, or stitching together multiple camera angles, or adjusting the exposure or color correction (thanks to the iPhone’s brilliant built-in image algorithms).

I only ended up doing three 1-hour calls with Joshua over the course of 6 months, plus a couple other short troubleshooting calls much later when I accidentally messed up my audio tracks.

Here are my notes from our calls:

I also saved a couple notes on potential topics for future exploration, such as how to organize large amounts of footage, how to do video transcription, and tips on how to interview one’s parents.

That was the extent of my research!

In the past, it would have been necessary to dive deep into the technical details of video formats, compression types, frame rates, lighting equipment, audio bitrates, and on and on.

With so much of that complexity now abstracted away behind the lens of my smartphone camera, I was left with far more time for the parts I really cared about: how to ask penetrating questions, how to construct a scene, how to tell a story, how to pack an emotional punch.

Even now, I barely understand most of the technical aspects of filmmaking. It’s simply not needed to get started anymore.

STAGE 2: PLANNING

My default approach to almost any project is to execute it in a “bottom-up” way.

What does that mean?

Instead of spending tons of time upfront creating detailed plans that might have nothing to do with reality, which would be a “top down” approach, I prefer to start taking action as soon as possible, and then see what kinds of plans emerge organically.

This project was no different. In fact, the very first shot I ever took ended up becoming the opening shot of the film. How’s that for getting right into the action!

My planning was thus very light, and almost always done in the midst of filming. For example, I made a bulleted timeline of my dad’s life to make sure I was covering each of the major stages.

Even a short, casual list like this one sparked ideas for people I could interview, places to visit, and questions to ask. I then recorded those new ideas in a separate note, so I had a quick reference and checklist of shots still left to take.

Much later on in the editing stage, I realized I could insert photos into my film, using the classic “Ken Burns” effect of slow panning. I whipped up a note with ideas of photos I could look for, which again served as a handy reference as I went through old photo albums.

These quick, lightweight planning methods provided me with a tremendous amount of direction without bogging me down in bureaucracy. The notes I’ve shared above took mere minutes and served as critical touchstones every time I decided to take out my camera.

STAGE 3: FILMING

As I said before, filming was not a specific stage. It took place throughout the project, from the first day I decided to commit to it, to almost the very week it was screened. But I’ll consolidate all the notes I found most useful here to give you a window into how I used them.

Most of my filming-related notes were made up of tips and guidelines to follow. In the heat of the moment, with precious seconds passing by, I needed to be able to look at a single list or risk being completely thrown off track.

For example, I created this note to summarize the most important settings for my wireless microphone, the Zoom H1n.

It includes the “need-to-know” settings at the top, and pictures of the entire manual toward the bottom in case I needed to find an obscure setting. This is a great example of how useful it can be to create a succinct summary of a body of knowledge, while also keeping the full details close by in case you need them.

I made a similar checklist of “filming tips” to run through every time I turned on my camera, to make sure I didn’t miss a critical step.

STAGE 4: EDITING

Similar to filming, I didn’t wait long to start editing. I knew from experience that the best learning would happen when I tried to take one “slice” of raw footage all the way to a final product, so I attempted to do that as early as possible.

And I was right: only by seeing the footage on a large screen, sitting back and imagining how they would feel to an audience, did I gain fundamental insights into how the original footage could be made better.

Things like how long to linger on someone’s face as they’re speaking, where the cut between shots should go, how fast to pan across a landscape to make it engaging but not too quick, how high or far away from a subject to hold the camera, etc.

It’s difficult to put this kind of tacit knowledge into words. Which is why it can only be gained through experience. It’s an endless list of micro and macro-adjustments that no YouTube video or textbook or course could teach me. I had to make every mistake (in some cases several times) to understand these principles for myself.

“...gut feeling is not a mysterious force, but an incorporated history of experience. It is the sedimentation of deeply learned practice through numerous feedback loops on success or failure."

– Sönke Ahrens

Let’s take a look at the notes I used in my editing.

This note of “editing tips” was my checklist each time I sat down to import and edit a new set of clips. It ensured that I was using the same settings each time, organizing the footage in a sensible way, and remembering the decisions I had made previously.

Later I added some further guidelines as I moved into the editing stage as my primary focus, and uncovered some of the more advanced and subtle features of Premiere.

STAGE 5: SCREENING

After about 16 months of on-and-off work on the film, I was ready to schedule a screening. I knew I needed a looming date on the calendar to give me the accountability for that final push.

This was in the midst of the initial COVID surge, so I knew it had to be virtual. I did some research on livestreaming platforms, captured in this note, to figure out the best way of sharing the experience across the world.

Eventually I settled on YouTube Livestreaming as the best option, since it was widely supported and familiar to an audience that wouldn’t necessarily be tech-savvy.

And then one day I realized that I could skip the complicated livestreaming altogether, and simply upload the film as a normal YouTube video using an unlisted link. At that point, all I had to do was follow the standard upload guidelines, which I took note of, bolding the parts that were relevant to me.

The virtual premiere ended up being quite an event, with more than 100 family, friends, and total strangers syncing up from around the world. I used this note to plan the event and write the email invite, which needed to explain how to access the screening from a wide variety of devices and which settings to use.

All the information needed to bring my film to completion is contained in the notes above, exactly as presented. It amounts to only 62.5 MB, the size of a large Word document. 

This small collection of informal notes is a testament to the incredible leaps filmmaking has made in recent years to make the technology, skills, and knowledge of the craft widely available to anyone with the courage and dedication to make it happen. As well as to the impressive power of digital note-taking for learning new skills and executing creative projects.

Telling the story

Toward the end of this film project, I started creating a different kind of note. I saw that the story of the story – why I decided to do this project, what I learned from it, how I did it – was interesting within itself. These notes became the article you’re reading right now.

For example, I saved a research finding that “kids who know more about their family history had a greater belief that they could control their world and a higher degree of self-confidence.” This was the first piece of hard evidence of something I had long suspected: that knowing more about your past can directly impact your present wellbeing.

One day sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Mexico City where I lived, I had the crazy idea that I could teach a course on how to make a personal documentary. I wrote down this proposed curriculum, which I’ve kept on the backburner since then.

And I started noting down the first inklings of the “big picture” ideas that have led me to believe that personal documentaries represent a profound shift in democratized storytelling.

The final note

The last note I took was about future changes to make. Inevitably, as you share a creative work like this one that touches the lives of many people, the “casual suggestions” start coming in. People want a scene cut or added, they want you to interview just one more person, they want to correct something they said, and so on.

I knew that if I kept making these changes the film would never be finished. So I put them all in this note, knowing that if and when I wanted to make a new cut, all these ideas would be ready and waiting for me.

I want to emphasize that I didn’t know I needed most of the notes above until I actually created them. There was no grand master plan I was following. I got into action as quickly as possible, and captured learnings and insights in my notes as they came up.

What I Learned

Here are the biggest lessons I learned from the experience.

I WAS MORE PRESENT AND ENGAGED WITH MY SURROUNDINGS

One of my biggest concerns with starting this project was that I’d be less present in my life. I worried that I would obsess over looking out for opportunities to “get the shot,” instead of just enjoying everyday experiences.

I was surprised to find that the exact opposite happened.

I started to pay more attention to the little moments. The light reflecting off a dish as my mom placed it on the counter. The reflection in a doorknob as my brother reached to open it. The bubbles rising to the surface of a carbonated drink.

With my filmmaker’s eye, I started to notice that I was surrounded by little moments of beauty and poetry. As these moments became my creative medium, I started to appreciate them much more deeply. Time often seemed to slow down as I zoomed in on a particular scene, sound, or word.

PEOPLE RESPOND SURPRISINGLY WELL TO BEING FILMED

Another concern I had was that everyone around me would feel awkward being “on the spot” all the time. I didn’t want to be that annoying person who is constantly asking people to pose.

But once again, I found that the exact opposite was the case. I was honestly shocked how comfortable people were being filmed.

Virtually everyone I captured on camera was far more vulnerable than normal, because the camera gave them a “reason” to be vulnerable. They opened up and shared memories that I’d never heard. Something about the focused attention of the lens, like a closely listening ear, gave them permission to speak incredibly honestly about their experiences.

PEOPLE HAVE MORE MEMORIES AND STORIES THAN THEY REALIZE

If you ask one of your parents, “What was your happiest memory as a child?”, you’re very likely to get a flippant answer. Not because they don’t want to tell you – they do. But in the humdrum routine of daily life, there just isn’t usually an opportunity to get into such memories. It feels strange for both parties.

But when you turn on a camera, even if that camera is just a smartphone, suddenly everything changes. Suddenly they feel a responsibility to tell you the real answer. They are doing you the favor of “helping you with your film project.” They open up because they have an excuse to.

I often had the thought that I could have put up the camera and only pretended to film, and it would have been worth it just for the depth of conversation it made possible. I was shocked to hear so many new stories from people I’ve spent more time with than anyone else.

I don’t think we realize how deep of a well of memory each human being has access to. Everyday life doesn’t give us many opportunities to revisit those memories. But recording them does.

THERE IS AN ART TO INTERVIEWING

I initially had the idea that interviewing was essentially just asking questions. I would look at journalists and wonder, “How hard could it be?”

I quickly discovered that there is a subtle art to interviewing. I played a major part in the performance of an interview as the “director” behind the scenes. The subject gets to just show up and talk. I am the one that has to plan, prepare, listen, and react to wherever they want the conversation to go.

People tend to drop all kinds of hints about what lies underneath the surface – offhand comments that point to something deeper, inflections in their voice that signal a hidden emotion, shifts in body language suggesting you’re getting somewhere sensitive.

It was in the moments that I noticed those hints, and pushed a little, that magic happened. A comment as simple as “Say more” can unlock an exquisite outpouring. And I think that people secretly hope you’ll ask for more. We all want to be heard, but we don’t want to speak unless we know the other person is listening.

FILM EVERYTHING

I learned early on that it paid to “film everything.” I started out being very picky about what I captured. I thought I needed just the perfect light, the perfect audio conditions, perfect preparation, and the perfect state of mind to get it right.

But I soon noticed that a perfectionistic attitude caused me to miss out on valuable shots, which tend to arise spontaneously in the moment. Sitting down at my computer to review my footage, I realized that there was a world of difference between “footage I had” and “footage I didn’t have,” whereas the difference between “footage I had,” and “the perfect footage” was much smaller.

Having any footage at all was essential, so it was worth getting out my camera and hitting record even if I wasn’t sure what I was filming or why. The magic of editing is that even if there is just one meaningful phrase in an hour-long clip, you know you’ll be able to find it and use it.

There’s a parallel here to note-taking in general. If you wait until you know exactly why you’re writing something down, it’s already far too late. You have to capture it right in the moment, taking advantage of the natural serendipity of the moment. Listening to your intuition about what resonates can give you a shortcut to saving valuable material before your conscious mind even knows what’s happening.

In the end I had a 17-to-1 ratio of raw footage to final cut, which should give you an idea of just how much you need to record in the first place. Professional filmmakers often report a ratio of 40 or 50 to 1.

HUMAN MOTIVATION IS STILL THE BOTTLENECK

Initially I thought my takeaway from this project would be “See? It’s easy!”

But in retrospect that isn’t true at all. In fact, it took every skill in my toolbelt, every ounce of motivation, and a lot of support from others to maintain my momentum and persevere until the end, even with all the technological breakthroughs we’ve seen.

I estimate it took me about 100 hours of work spread over 16 months, broken down approximately as:

10 hours: planning, researching, coordinating30 hours: filming (spread out over about 20 filming days)10 hours: learning, testing, experimenting50 hours: importing files, organizing, editing

Instead, my takeaway is “It’s easier than ever…but still very hard.” That said, I was also learning to make a documentary at the same time I was making it. For the next one, I’ll be able to reuse a lot of what I learned and use my time much more effectively. I estimate I could do it in half the time.

The decisive factor in any creative project is still the human being – their fears, desires, anxieties, limiting beliefs. It’s always been that way, and always will be. I found myself relying heavily on my productivity skills, capturing the many open loops for edits I had to make and tracking them through to completion. I also relied heavily on my note-taking skills, saving all sorts of tips and ideas and guidelines as you saw in the notes above.

I have no idea how I could have completed this project without having all the relevant information saved outside my head. I could only afford to spend a day or two at a time working on it in the midst of my other responsibilities, which meant that every time a bit of free time opened up I had to be able to jump into my notes and pick up right where I left off. I don’t know any other way of doing that besides keeping the “work in process” outside one’s head.

We are living in the midst of a creative renaissance, with every creative medium rapidly becoming more affordable, accessible, and shareable. But in some ways this makes it harder for us to create our own works – we are exposed at all times to the very best creators, artists, writers, musicians, and dancers in the world.

How could we compete with all that? What do we have to say that hasn’t already been said? It’s so much easier to give up our ambitions and spend our days scrolling through the accomplishments of others.

We could try to optimize how our brains work to make the creative process more efficient. We could set rigid schedules and work up the self-discipline to churn through our To Do lists. But I think that’s a mistake. Creativity requires randomness and serendipity, and we run the risk of optimizing the creativity right out of the experience.

I have another idea: we remove the bottleneck. Take the human out of the loop as much as possible, replacing her with a system of knowledge management. Such a system never sleeps, remembers all details perfectly, can connect and communicate with other digital tools, and preserves everything she’s working on so she can step away when life gets crazy and come right back to it later.

IF A STORY ISN’T SUCCINCT, IT’S INVISIBLE

A few years back, my mom paid for a service to digitize several decades of home videos. She shipped off a few boxes of tapes in multiple shapes, sizes, and formats, and a few weeks later we received a login to access them via a convenient web portal.

But even with that convenience, we’ve rarely gone back to watch those videos. There are just too many of them – perhaps 300+ separate videos adding up to hundreds of hours of footage. In most of the clips I’ve seen there’s not much happening most of the time. The exceptional moments are rare and unexpected by definition.

It would take a serious effort to watch, curate, organize, label, and condense those best moments into a compilation video of 1-2 hours. Yet I don’t know of any other way to make those memories accessible in the future. Without such a succinct artifact, I doubt we will get much value out of this treasure trove of precious memories.

Here is what I’ve realized: even if records exist, if they’re not organized and condensed and presented in an accessible way, they might as well not exist. The effort required to weave together disparate clips with skillful editing, transitions and effects, audio and music into a captivating story isn’t a nice-to-have. It is essential to allow that story to survive through time in a way that it touches the lives of future generations.

But time and attention are more scarce than ever. Which makes me wonder whether, despite the many thousands of photos and videos we’ll capture digitally over our lifetimes, we’ll really have as much access to those in the future as we think.

Making our information digital was supposed to mean that we never lost anything again. But in making it so seamless and easy to just “save things in the cloud,” our technology has masked the very real effort required to create artifacts that stand the test of time.

Is it possible that the surplus of digital information is leading us toward a poverty of memory? That our lives will be no better documented than our parents or grandparents, and maybe not even that well?

VIDEO WILL BE THE COMMUNITY GATHERING OF THE FUTURE

Working on this project in the midst of the COVID pandemic, I was struck by how meaningful of an experience it was to watch this film together.

We all have an essential human need to come together – to grieve, to celebrate, to express ourselves, to resolve conflicts, to share our feelings. This need hasn’t disappeared in the digital era. It’s been channeled and amplified by “social” networks, and not usually in a healthy and productive way.

When I look out across the social media landscape I see a desperate, aching need to connect with each other. In the absence of positive connection, people will turn to destructive connection. That is how deep our need for connection goes.

Part of my motivation for this project was to see if I could create a true community experience online. I’d lived abroad in various countries for years, and so maintaining my community of family and friends had always been a preoccupation.

It succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Even scattered across the country and world, the shared experience of immersion in a story created a “living room” experience. We all were watching something, knowing that others were watching it, knowing that they knew we were watching it, and so on in a reciprocal web of thoughts and emotions.

The essential ingredients for virtual community seem to be:

An artifact to gather around and spark conversation (the film)A strong pull of timeliness (an event happening at a particular time at a particular “place”)A reason to come: the ideas and insights and realizations promised by the filmA pre-existing community: my family, friends, and community around my work at Forte LabsA host (to welcome people and “manage the room”)A way to share reactions and feedback (comments during the YouTube Premiere, and a followup Zoom call we did right after)

Video is the most widely available creative medium, as well as the most immersive. It is unique in allowing groups of people, even spread apart in different locations, to be immersed together. I’m fascinated by the potential of using video-based storytelling to bring people together in an era of social distancing.

No longer do you need an MFA or Hollywood internship to tell stories to a global audience.

We are living in a new world of democratized storytelling, but it is only those who take the time to turn their stories into tangible creative works who get a vote.

Thank you to Fred Esere, Shayna Englin, George Gusewski, Carlos Esteban Balderas, and Daniel Chapman for their feedback and suggestions on this article.

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The post How I Made a Documentary Film with Digital Notes appeared first on Forte Labs.

Knowledge Building Blocks: The New Meaning of Notes

One day in your early school years, a teacher probably told you to “take notes” for the first time.

Looking around at your fellow classmates, this seemed to involve writing down what the teacher said, word for word, on lined pieces of paper.

For most of us, this is how our experience of note-taking started: with a mysterious command, and very little guidance in how to carry it out.

If you were lucky, you might have received a few basic note-taking tips. Make two columns. Use abbreviations. Underline key words. Write down the date. But that’s where it ended.

You knew it was time to take notes when the teacher said “This will be on the test.” This declaration implied that “getting a good grade” was the only reason you might want to take notes. The minute the final exam was over, you knew you would never make use of those notes again.

Taking notes in this way might have been the primary way you participated in your education – passively, for the short term, and only for the test.

And then you entered the professional world, and suddenly the whole approach to note-taking you learned in school became obsolete.

Unlike in school, in the professional world:

It’s not at all clear what you should be taking notes onNo one tells you when or how your notes will be neededThe “test” can come at any time and in any formYou’re allowed to reference your notes, but it’s up to you to organize themYou are expected to take action on your notes and turn them into results, not just regurgitate them

Not to mention that the volume of information we are expected to manage doesn’t go down once we enter the workplace.

It explodes.

Every single day is filled with an overwhelming torrent of emails, invites, updates, messages, notifications, reports, reminders, and to do’s…each one screaming for our attention.

Once again, we are left on our own to somehow tame this flood tide. And again we are given precious little training or guidance. Even if we are lucky enough to have good note-taking habits left over from school, those habits don’t serve us in the radically different environment of work.

The new meaning of notes

Luckily, the same technology that has fueled an explosion in the volume of information coming our way has also equipped us with the tools to manage it: digital notes apps.

Now that our notes are digital, they can become durable. They can last for the long term, supporting our long-term goals and ambitions without relying on our fragile memory. 

But to fully embrace this digital future, we need to flip the definition of note-taking on its head, and leave behind the outdated approach we learned in school.

Here is my proposed definition:

A digital note is a “knowledge building block” – a discrete unit of information interpreted through your unique perspective and stored outside your head. 

It could be a passage from a book or article that you were inspired by, a photo or screenshot with annotations, or a bullet-point list of your thoughts on a subject, among many other examples.

Once a piece of information has been interpreted through your lens, curated according to your taste, translated into your own words, or drawn from your life experience, and stored somewhere outside your head, then it’s a note.

Unlike a long, formal document, a note is discrete – it makes a single point, comes from a single source, or serves a single purpose. This gives each note clear edges and makes it easy to directly compare and contrast with other notes.

Like a LEGO block, a knowledge building block stands on its own and has intrinsic value. Yet each block can also be combined with others into greater works – a report, an essay, a website, or a video for example.

And just like LEGOs, these building blocks are reusable. You only need to put in the effort to create a note once, and then it can be mixed and matched with other notes again and again for any kind of project you work on, now or in the future.

When you take a digital note, you don’t have to worry about where it fits in. There doesn’t need to be any comprehensive table of contents. Just save any idea that resonates with you that you might want to reflect on, reconsider, or reference in the future. They can easily be moved, retitled, or edited later.

All you have to do is craft a single building block of knowledge each time you read or learn something, and save it in a central place. You can leave it to your future self to figure out what to do with it.

This approach simplifies our note-taking while also making it more valuable and flexible. It relieves us of the burden of sticking to a grand strategic plan, and frees us to focus on what really matters: the present moment, here and now.

Every digital note is like a bookmark reminding you of something you’ve learned in the past, and pointing you back to the original source if you want to recall it. Your notes are like a garden full of familiar, winding pathways, but also secret and secluded corners. Every pathway is a jumping off point to new ideas and perspectives.

Technology doesn’t just make note-taking more efficient. It transforms the very nature of notes.

No longer do we have to write our thoughts on Post-Its or legal pads that are fragile, easy to lose, and impossible to search. Now we write notes in the cloud, and the cloud follows us everywhere.

No longer do we have to spend countless hours meticulously cataloguing and transcribing our notes. Now we collect knowledge building blocks, and spend our time imagining the possibilities for what they could become.

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The post Knowledge Building Blocks: The New Meaning of Notes appeared first on Forte Labs.

My Complete Gear Kit for Filming a Personal Documentary

This guide details the exact gear I used to make my personal documentary film Wayne Lacson Forte: On My Way To Me. For the full story behind the film, read here.

My priorities were:

The most minimal and affordable gear possible, since this was an experimentProducts that were highly adaptable and could be repurposed for other usesProducts that were as lightweight, compact, and portable as possible, since I knew I’d be traveling with this gearA filming setup I could easily carry and operate completely on my own, without requiring other people

I was surprised to discover that there were essentially only 4 categories of gear I needed:

CameraMicrophoneTripodVideo-editing software

Below I’ve explained each item I used in my own film project, how I used it, and whether I would use it again. I’ve included “basic” and “advanced” options, labeled accessories as “required” or “optional,” and suggested alternatives when possible.

Here’s the complete kit, with affiliate links to buy each item:

[image error]Essential items are labeled in red




#1 Camera (smartphone + $300)









1. Camera: Apple iPhone 10 XS, 512 GB storage capacity

$1,350





2. Freefly Movi Cinema Robot Smartphone Stabilizer

$300

Optional accessory for use with any smartphone

#2 Microphone ($27-275)









3. Basic option: PoP voice Premium 16 Feet Dual-Head Lavalier Microphone

$19





4. Apple Lightning to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter ($8)

$8

Required accessory for PoP voice mic

5. Belkin F8J212btWHT 3.5mm Audio + Charge

$39

Optional accessory for PoP voice mic

6. Advanced option: Zoom H1n Portable Recorder

$120





7. Rode SmartLav+ Omnidirectional Lavalier Microphone

$76

Required accessory for Zoom H1n

8. Movo MC4 TRRS to TRS Adapter

$13

Required accessory for Zoom H1n

#3 Tripod ($20-198)









9. Basic option: UBeesize Mini Tripod S

$20





10. Advanced option: Vanguard VEO 235AB Aluminum Travel Tripod

$150





11. Glif Quick Release Tripod Mount for Smartphones

$28

Required accessory for mounting smartphone on any tripod

#4 Video-editing software ($300 + $32/mo)









12. Video-editing software: Adobe Premiere Pro subscription

$32/mo





13. Red Giant Pluraleyes 4

$300

Optional accessory for Adobe Premiere

The total cost of the items above was $2,416. $1,350 of that was the smartphone, which most people are likely to have already. Which means that beyond the phone, my total expenditure was only $1,066.

If cost is your main concern, and you already have a smartphone, you could do perfectly fine with this alternative kit of the essentials, for as little as $47:

Essentials kit ($47)









1. Basic option: PoP voice Premium 16 Feet Dual-Head Lavalier Microphone

$19





2. Apple Lightning to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter ($8)

$8

Required accessory for PoP voice mic

3. Basic option: UBeesize Mini Tripod S

$20





4. Free video-editing program

$0

Pre-installed programs like Apple iMovie or Microsoft Movie Maker, programs with free versions such as DaVinci Resolve, or open-source programs like OpenShot or Kdenlive

Read on for my full recommendations and lessons learned.

The CameraApple iPhone 10 XS, 512 GB storage capacity ($1,350)

The first and most important element of your personal documentary filmmaking kit is your smartphone. This is your camera, main storage device, and note-taking tool. It’s also the device you’re most likely to already have.

The good news is that almost any recent model smartphone will do just fine. The latest generation models from Samsung, Apple, and others now come with HD (or higher) resolution cameras, advanced algorithms for calibrating exposure and color, plenty of storage space, and increasingly, professional-grade and wide-angle lenses built right into the phone. To my amazement, I found I didn’t need lights or exposure calibration for the great majority of situations, because there was so much intelligence built right into the phone’s default camera app.

I opted for the most recent Apple iPhone at the time, which was the iPhone Xs. I wanted the smaller size so that I could always carry it in my pocket, and sprung for the largest capacity version which was 512 GB. I wanted all the space I could get, since I would be filming at 4K resolution (4 times standard HD quality).

A minute of footage at 4K and 30 frames-per-second takes up 170 MB of space. So the approximately 30 hours of total raw footage I recorded took up about 300 GB. You could get away with less if you regularly offload clips onto your computer, but I didn’t want to worry about running out of space.

In retrospect, I would have chosen the larger size iPhone Xs Max, because it’s hard to see what you’re recording clearly on a smaller screen. If you’re in the market for a new smartphone, I’d also consider less expensive alternatives such as Android phones. I’ve heard you can get similar quality for much less money.

Verdict: the smartphone is the central element of your kit, and it’s worth investing in the largest size and highest storage capacity you can afford, especially since you need a smartphone anyway.

Optional accessory: Freefly Movi Cinema Robot Smartphone Stabilizer ($300)

I had previously experimented with a stabilizer, often known as a “gimbal,” during a video shoot I was working on last year. Within a couple minutes of playing with it, I saw the potential. The Movi allows you to mount a smartphone and then stabilizes the phone as you move, so your shots look smooth instead of jerky. This lends a much more polished, cinematic feel to the footage.

Although I had a lot of fun with this device, I ended up not using it very much. It is bulky and awkwardly shaped, with a carrying case the size of a small toolbox. Even when I remembered to bring it with me, setting it up took a couple minutes and as time passed I increasingly chose just to spontaneously start filming rather than get it out.

Plus, the built-in video stabilization that now comes standard on smartphones is so good that it’s difficult to tell which shots were stabilized by the Movi, and which by the phone itself. As long as you don’t have very jerky movements, the phone can automatically detect movement and stabilize your shots for you. Adobe Premiere also has a tool called a “warp stabilizer” that allows you to add stabilization later.

Verdict: the Movi was an entertaining experiment, but isn’t really necessary to film a personal documentary now that smartphones have built-in stabilization.

Here’s a good third-party review of the Movi if you want to know more:

The MicrophoneBASIC OPTION: POP VOICE PREMIUM 16 FEET DUAL-HEAD LAVALIER MICROPHONE ($19)

The one thing that software can’t do is record high-quality audio. There is no algorithm or plugin that can correct bad audio afterward if the original recording wasn’t good. That’s why having an external mic is crucial.

As cool as wireless mics are, they are also a bit cumbersome. You have to make sure they have charged batteries, that the settings are correct, that the input levels are right, that the person has the lavalier mic threaded up through their shirt, that it’s positioned close to their mouth, etc. It’s a lot to remember and set up, and highly prone to error.

I started my project using the wireless Zoom H1n described below, but midway through I discovered a much simpler solution: a wired microphone that directly connects to the smartphone. It honestly couldn’t be easier: you plug one end into the adapter below, which then goes straight into the lightning jack. The other end is a lapel mic that can be threaded up through the subject’s shirt and clipped to their lapel.

The only downside is that there is a wire, but if you’re within 16 feet of the subject and not moving around, that’s not an issue. This also means that the audio is already synchronized to the video, meaning you don’t need the Pluraleyes plugin detailed below (and can save $300).

I chose this 16-foot cable so I wouldn’t have to worry about the length, and a double-sided version so I could record a two-person interview or conversation (or myself asking the questions). It worked beautifully, was impossible to mess up, and if I had to do it again I’d be tempted to try and use this mic alone.

Verdict: if you want to economize or just keep things simple, and don’t absolutely need wireless recording, I’d go with this product for your audio needs.

The video below shows how this microphone works:

REQUIRED ACCESSORY: APPLE LIGHTNING TO 3.5 MM HEADPHONE JACK ADAPTER ($8)

You’ll need this adapter to connect the wired mic above to your smartphone. It is the standard Apple adapter for connecting standard (3.5mm) audio cables to the lightning port on Apple mobile devices.

OPTIONAL ACCESSORY: BELKIN F8J212BTWHT 3.5MM AUDIO + CHARGE ($39)

I haven’t used it myself, but I’ve seen many others suggest this alternative adapter from Belkin that allows you to charge the phone while recording, which is very useful since there is only one lightning port available.

ADVANCED OPTION: ZOOM H1N PORTABLE RECORDER ($120)

The Zoom H1n is an industry standard that I’ve seen recommended by many videomakers. It’s small, lightweight, versatile, and not too expensive. I bought it on the recommendation of a videographer friend, who suggested I use it with the Rode SmartLav+ lavalier microphone below so that I could record audio wirelessly. Wireless recording comes in handy if you want to be able to move while filming or if you won’t be close to your subject at all times.

The H1n records in WAV or MP3 formats, has several built-in features for things like limiting wind noises, and requires a microSD card which you use to transfer the audio files to your computer. There are lots of other technical details and settings available for this device, but the important thing to know is that it records at more than enough quality for any video project you might want to take on.

The one mistake I made with the H1n was relying on the “auto-levels” feature. The device can detect the volume of the person speaking and automatically adjust the input levels, but it takes several seconds. My dad has a pretty loud voice, so in many clips the first few seconds were too loud as the audio “peaked” and got distorted. I suggest adjusting the audio levels manually, and looking out for the red warning light on the front of the device which indicates peaking. Unfortunately your ability to fix peaking after the fact is limited.

Verdict: an external mic of some kind is essential. If you’re going to be filming outside, while moving, or in situations where the subject isn’t close to you, then you’ll need a wireless solution. The Zoom H1n is an effective choice, and I’d definitely use it again.

Here’s a good review of the Zoom H1n if you’d like to know more:

REQUIRED ACCESSORY: RODE SMARTLAV+ OMNIDIRECTIONAL LAVALIER MICROPHONE ($76)

The SmartLav+ will be needed if you want to use the Zoom H1n described above. The SmartLav+ is a “lavalier” (or “lav”) microphone that plugs into the H1n, and can then be threaded up the subject’s shirt and clipped to their lapel so it’s nearly invisible. Ideal placement is about 6 inches from their mouth, pointed down (not up, which tends to cause peaking).

An alternative would be a “directional” mic, which can be mounted on the top of a camera, or held slightly offscreen by an assistant. But I was using a smartphone as a camera, and wouldn’t have anyone helping me, so I went with the lav mic.

Watch the video below for an in-depth overview of how to use the SmartLav+:

REQUIRED ACCESSORY: MOVO MC4 TRRS TO TRS ADAPTER ($13)

This adapter is needed to connect the SmartLav+ to the H1n, both described above. I don’t really understand the details of why, but I can assure you it’s not optional. One of the biggest mistakes I made was forgetting to use this adapter for a two-hour, very meaningful interview with my dad. The recording didn’t have good enough audio, and I ended up not being able to use most of the footage as a result, which was very disappointing.

The TripodBASIC OPTION: UBEESIZE MINI TRIPOD S ($20)

On some occasions I didn’t want to bring the Vanguard tripod, or just didn’t happen to have it with me when a good opportunity came up. In such situations, the UBeesize came in handy. It’s tiny and weighs almost nothing, with adjustable legs and a mount that fits most phones. I filmed several interviews by putting this mini tripod on a table.

Verdict: as a cheaper and smaller alternative to the Vanguard tripod, or as a backup, this mini tripod is very useful to have.

This video shows an unboxing and basic how-to for this tiny tripod:

ADVANCED OPTION: VANGUARD VEO 235AB ALUMINUM TRAVEL TRIPOD ($150)

I knew from the beginning of this project that I needed everything to be compact and ultra-portable. I would be flying to California from my home in Mexico City, and also knew it was likely I would want to film during trips we had planned to Brazil and the Philippines.

This tripod is a professional-quality piece of equipment, and folds up into a very small package that can fit in a small suitcase or backpack. I used it anytime I needed a fixed shot, such as for interviews or time-lapses. It has adjustable legs and adjustable height, up to about 6 feet tall, which is eye level.

Verdict: for a full-featured professional tripod that is also small and light, I highly recommend the VEO. Especially since it can be used with different cameras and will serve you for many years in a wide variety of situations.

Watch the video below for a review of the Vanguard VEO 235AB:

REQUIRED ACCESSORY: GLIF QUICK RELEASE TRIPOD MOUNT FOR SMARTPHONES ($28)

You’ll need the Glif to mount your smartphone to the Vanguard tripod above. Most tripods only come with mounts for dedicated photo and video cameras, if any at all. The Glif is very simple to use and fits any size phone with an adjustable slider. It has threads on both sides that screw directly onto a standard screw mount.

Watch this video for an overview of the Glif mount:

Video-editing softwareADOBE PREMIERE PRO SUBSCRIPTION ($32/MO)

I’ve long used Adobe’s Creative Suite of apps, which are by far the industry standard for photo-editing, video-editing, illustration, and other media.

Creative Suite programs can be bloated with too many features, which makes them a challenge to learn. But by sticking with Adobe, you know that the program will always be supported and compatible with the widest array of formats and plugins (such as Pluraleyes, which I discuss below).

I pay for it as part of Adobe’s annual Creative Cloud subscription, but you can also pay for it with a monthly subscription of $32 per month. If you can squeeze your editing into just a month or two, this cost will be significantly less. You could even use that as an accountability tool to get it done faster!

You could also use free video-editing programs such as Apple iMovie or Microsoft Movie Maker, programs with free versions such as DaVinci Resolve, or open-source programs like OpenShot or Kdenlive. Although I can’t vouch for their quality or compatibility.

Verdict: it’s hard to go wrong with the industry standard for creative software. You’ll need to watch some YouTube videos to learn how to use it, but it’s a worthwhile investment to learn the basics of video editing.

OPTIONAL ACCESSORY: RED GIANT PLURALEYES 4 ($300)

While it’s nice to have a wireless audio recording device like the H1n, it also introduces a problem: you have to “sync” the audio from the external mic to the video being recorded by your phone. In the past, this required techniques like the stereotypical black-and-white “clapper” seen in Hollywood movies, or in more modern times, simply clapping your hands a couple times in front of the camera so that you can match the audio to the video later.

But if you’d like to do that matching automatically, there is now a very nifty software tool called Pluraleyes. It is kind of magical honestly. You just dump all the video footage you have into a project timeline in Adobe Premiere, then dump all the audio you have into the same timeline, hit a button, and 30 seconds later…voila! All the audio is perfectly synchronized to the video. This saves hours of highly tedious and error-prone manual matching, and I highly recommend it if you’re using an external mic apart from your phone.

Verdict: while expensive, Pluraleyes will save you many hours that are much better spent on creative editing.

Here’s a demo of how to synchronize your audio using Pluraleyes 4 from within Adobe Premiere:

To get an idea of what it looks like to synchronize manually or using Premiere’s built-in tools, watch this video which demonstrates a few different methods:

Go forth and film

That’s the kit!

For a relatively small investment of between $79–$1,066 beyond a smartphone you likely already have, you can create a film that just 10 years ago would have been completely out of reach of anyone except professionals.

The one other expense I had beyond the gear described above was a couple hours of consultation with an experienced videographer. I hired a friend of mine to walk me through the basics of Adobe Premiere on Zoom for $150 (2 hours at $75 per hour). Although this was very helpful, it ended up being mostly a form of accountability and encouragement for me. The basics of Premiere can be learned easily and for free by watching a few YouTube videos.

We are living in the midst of a quiet revolution in filmmaking. The tools to create beautiful, immersive, moving long-form stories with video are no longer limited to the few.

We have the opportunity and the responsibility to take advantage of the powerful cameras we carry in our pockets and the multimedia studios in our computers to tell the kinds of stories we want to see in the world.

And don’t forget to have fun!

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The post My Complete Gear Kit for Filming a Personal Documentary appeared first on Forte Labs.

Launching Your Book

Everything you’ve done up to this point has been preparation for this singular moment: the launch of your book.

An incredible amount of time, energy, money, and attention has been invested by many different people. The foundation has been laid for sales of your book to reach thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or maybe even millions of copies.

You will have 6-12 months from the time you submit your final manuscript to seeing it appear on store (and digital_ shelves. That gives you plenty of time to work on the items below. And you’ll need that much time!

The launch meeting

Once the book is ready to be released, it’s time for the launch meeting. This is a grand gathering of everyone involved in the publication and promotion of your book, including:

Your publisherYour editorYour publicistThe head of publicityThe head of marketingA representative from online marketingThe head of sales (along with divisional heads for certain markets)A representative from special salesSub-rights representatives for first serial and foreign sales (if relevant)

The only person related to the book who won’t be there is you. This is why it’s so important to make a favorable impression on all these people beforehand. Their level of excitement and enthusiasm for your work directly impacts its success.

Marketing vs. publicity vs. sales

The difference between these departments can be blurry, but here is a rule of thumb: Publicity is what you get for free, and marketing is what you have to pay for.

An article in The New York Times is publicity, while an ad on their website is marketing. Being on Good Morning America is publicity, while sending pamphlets to their staff is marketing. Having your book on the nightstand in a primetime TV show is publicity, while paying for it to be there is product placement, or marketing.

You’ll generally have much more contact with the publicity department than with marketing. In fact, you’ll probably have your very own publicist. This is because publicity depends on you as a speaker or interviewee, whereas marketing is in charge of ads, postcards, and search engine optimization across many authors.

Large publishing houses have their own internal sales departments that sell to independent bookstores, large chains like Barnes & Noble, online merchants such as Amazon, mass merchandisers, and more. Another department for “special sales” is in charge of making deals with corporations and other non-bookselling retailers. Regional sales reps cover sales to specific regions. The sub rights department focuses on excerpts in magazines and newspapers. And the person who handles foreign rights will reach out to subagents with contacts at foreign publishers.

Your publicity and marketing budget

The size of your budget for marketing and publicity largely depends on how the launch meeting goes. This is why you want to have prepped your editor and other publisher contacts with as much supporting information as possible.

Here are some things you can do to maximize your publisher’s ability to promote you and your work:

Get blurbs: Especially from well-known people, blurbs (or endorsements) have a remarkable impact on people’s willingness to look at your book more closely, from salespeople all the way to buyers. If you know someone influential, try to get an early blurb and include it with the proposal.Make a Top 10 list of desired endorsers: In case anyone in the room knows anyone on the list or knows someone who knows one of them.Share ideas for reading/speaking/events: Book tours are quickly becoming a thing of the past, but if you have ideas or opportunities for in-person events, share these with your editor to open up the possibility of getting a budget for those engagements (especially if you have ways of getting lots of people to show up).Present creative marketing techniques: Make a case for the marketing efforts you believe will be most effective based on your audience, experience, and network. Frame these efforts in terms of return-on-investment.Give your editor a list of book chapters you think could be excerpted and publications and websites most likely to excerpt you: This will show you’ve done your homework and make the people handling first serial rights very happy.Identify specific countries that might be fertile markets: If your book has a connection to a certain country or region, let the sales reps know.Tell your editor about communities or groups you’re a part of: If you are part of a professional networking group, a club or membership organization, a linguistic or cultural group, or something else, this will give the publisher’s staff favorable channels to go after.Provide positioning: One of the best tools you can provide to the sales force is proper positioning. By laying out the bestselling lineage of your book, along with successful but not directly competitive titles, you help them connect your book to existing audiences.Summaries: Salespeople don’t have time to read every book they represent, which means anything you can do to help them understand it saves them time and increases your chances for exposure. This could include slides, digests, cheat sheets, bullet points with the main takeaways, or a short trailer video.Provide a list of places or companies where your book stands a good chance of selling: This could include places mentioned in the book, companies who are favorable to its message, or groups that are likely to be interested in the topic.The publisher’s catalog

A book’s catalog entry is basically its coming-out party. Great catalog copy can be the difference between minimal and huge orders. Libraries, independent bookstores, gift stores, and universities all look at catalogs as they make their purchasing decisions.

Generally, the entry contains just eight or nine nuggets of information, including publication date, price, cover image, and author photo. Be sure to include a clause in your contract that gives you consultation rights on the catalog copy. 

Publication date

Think about the best time of year for the book to come out, ideally to tie in with holidays and seasons. Fall is the most difficult season, because that is when publishers release their big, blockbuster new titles. Off-peak periods such as late August or February can actually be good for new releases, since there is so little competition.

Finding a category

Every book has to be put into a certain category so that bookstores and libraries know where to put it. Shockingly, many books are miscategorized, leading to obscure placement far from where people look for it.

The first time you see your book’s category will probably be in the catalog. Look for it, and if it’s incorrect, tell your editor. The submission of forms by your publisher gives them a chance to sway the category it’s ultimately placed in.

Pricing

Publishers have some leeway in how much they charge for the book at retail. They may increase the price to cover extra costs for illustrated books. Often, they will charge just under the average cover price, but this can be a turn-off for buyers and even cause discount chains to not order it, because they need a certain return on their investment.

Catalog spread

The presentation of your book in the publisher’s catalog says a lot about what they think of it. If it has a two-page spread, an announced first printing of 50,000 or more, and a long list of publicity and marketing commitments, you can be sure they’re putting their full weight behind it. This in itself is also a form of publicity, and printings often end up being much smaller than originally advertised.

Author photo

You will usually be required to pay for and provide a professional headshot to be included on the back flap of the book. As tempting as it is to find a friend or amateur to take a quick snapshot, don’t do it! Find a professional and invest in headshots as valuable business assets.

Six-month meeting

About six months before your publication date it is a very good idea to have an in-person meeting with the people who will be instrumental in making your book successful. By bringing together your editor, publisher, publicist, and anyone else relevant to the launch, you can get on the same page and sound out what they think will be the biggest challenges and opportunities. Don’t expect anyone else to take the initiative and make this meeting happen. 

Since this might be the only meeting you have before publication, come prepared. Have your polished pitch, publicity and marketing ideas, and questions ready to go. Share any new endorsements you’ve received or been promised. Share with them what you’ve already done or accomplished: speaking engagements booked, journalists contacted, magazine pitches submitted, websites published, communities partnered with, etc. Make your team see that they are working with a seriously organized, dedicated, and passionate author who will make the most of their time and effort.

After talking about what you’ve already done, tell the team what you would like to happen. You could share a list of your “Top 10” most desired publications or endorsers. Someone in the room just might know one of them, or know how to reach them. They might also be willing to give you a budget if you have a solid rationale for why you need Amazon ads or a book tour. But also be sure to have “safeties” that are well within reach.

Most important of all is your pitch: the most succinct and powerful delivery of what your book will do for its readers. You should practice this to perfection and use it to inspire your team, who will adapt it for their own use and to inspire the sales force. 

After the meeting, talk to your agent and ask them for feedback on your performance and what you can do to improve. Send thank you cards to everyone who attended. And ask your agent to send a follow-up requesting all the publisher’s promises in writing to make sure you’re both on the same page.

The sales conference

Three to six months before your book comes out, your publisher will hold a sales conference. Anyone who has anything to do with the selling, marketing, or promotion of your book should attend. The editor or publisher will pitch your book to the entire sales force in under three minutes. 

This is a crucial moment: They will likely hear pitches for 600 to 800 books in this one meeting, and yours has to stand out and make an impression. Hopefully, you’ve spoon-fed your pitch to your publishing team because this is their shot to sweep everyone up in the enthusiasm of your idea.

The sales reps will leave this meeting armed with your tip sheet, which includes the basics of your book (title, subtitle, ISBN, publication date, etc.), plus all the marketing and sales information such as comparison titles, audience, and which other similar books that audience bought. Note how much of this information you’ve been tracking and developing since day one. The tip sheet is the single most important sales tool in your arsenal.

Hitting the road

As early as six months before your book is published, sales reps begin their quest to convince booksellers to order your book. Some will focus on a specific region, such as the Pacific Northwest. Others sell to national accounts, such as Barnes & Noble or Costco. But in every case, they will have no more than 30 to 60 seconds to spin their magic for you. And they can’t overhype or exaggerate their claims – at the end of the day, all they have is their reputation.

Despite the prominence of ebooks and online retailers these days, these early pitches and the book orders they produce in some ways determine how big your launch is, from the publicity and marketing budget to the size of your first print run. They are an early test of the attractiveness of your book and its pitch.

There is more than one way

This series has focused on the most traditional path to publishing a book. It should be clear that this is not an easy journey. In some ways it is more difficult than ever, with more competition on all fronts than ever before.

But the existence of alternative paths provides a beacon of hope for all aspiring writers. If you are dedicated to publishing your writing, you can rest assured that there is a pathway for you. It might not be the one you prefer, but access to the machinery of book publishing has been completely democratized by the Internet.

Instead of looking at traditional publishing as your one and only chance to “make it,” you can pursue it knowing that there is an attractive Plan B. And Plan C and Plan D. 

It is no longer a question of “whether” you will get published. It is only a matter of how.

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Writing the Book

After all this work and finally signing a deal…it’s time to do the thing you’ve been asking for, and write the book.

Leave plenty of time to do this — more than you think you need. And then, add additional time for unexpected rewrites, reviewer feedback, finding photos and illustrations, securing permissions, doing followup research, and interviewing people.

It’s helpful to construct a master calendar or timeline showing what needs to happen each month, from signing all the way until publication and beyond. This will come in handy not only for making consistent writing progress but for marketing and promotional events and deadlines.

While a lot of what goes in in writing is mysterious, there’s a few things you can do to make it as painless (and even fun) as possible.

Join a writing group

Consider joining a writing group. Writing groups and writing partners can be a great source of inspiration, accountability, feedback, and moral support.

It’s hard to take on all the roles you’ll need to become successful – brilliant writer, excellent editor, superb proofreader, social media guru, salesperson extraordinaire, graphics genius, and perfect publicist – all by yourself. You need to build a team, even if you ultimately decide to self-publish.

Documenting your research

Keep track of everything. Whether you are gathering information from historical documents, interviewing experts, getting photos and articles online, or using excerpts from books or magazines, write down everything relevant: publications, exact dates and times, photographers’ names, page numbers, etc. You’ll need these details for footnotes, the bibliography, and for tracking permissions.

For interviews, the best documentation method is to record them. Be sure to ask for permission, and to test your equipment before starting.

If you want to reprint more than one or two lines from a poem, song, essay, or book, you’ll likely need written permission from the copyright holder. You’ll certainly need permission to reprint a photograph, illustration, or painting. If you don’t, your publisher will ask you to remove the material in question or they won’t publish your book. Don’t pay for permissions until the last possible moment, in case you end up not using them.

Feedback

As you write, it’s important to get feedback from people whose judgment you trust. After writing and rewriting as much as you can, step away from the book so you can get some distance. Give the draft manuscript to diverse readers and ask them to tell you what they liked, and what didn’t work.

Here are some questions to ask of reviewers:

Did the book deliver on its promise?Was anything confusing or awkward?Was the information easy to understand?Was any information missing?Did the arguments make sense?Where does it flow? Where is it choppy?Was there enough humor? Too much? Did any jokes fall flat?

Once the manuscript is near completion, read the whole thing out loud. This will take a long time, but the process is invaluable for catching mistakes, unnatural language, and wordy passages. Your voice will naturally find the point of emphasis, and you’ll find ways to add your own personal rhythm and inflection.

Working with your publisher

Publishing houses are made up of humans and thus operate with all the idiosyncrasies and foibles native to our species. They are hierarchical organizations, with power and authority flowing from the head of the publisher down to the editor-in-chief, editorial directors, executive directors, senior editors, editors, associate editors, assistant editors, and finally, editorial assistants.

When a senior executive at a publisher makes you an offer, they are making a big statement about you within their organization. Acquiring and publishing a book often takes years and involves a lot of people, so the offer represents a big bet on you. Because they’ve put a lot of trust in you, it makes sense to put a lot of trust in the editor you’ll be working with.

A good first step is to set up an onboarding call and get to know each other. Prepare a list of practical, substantive questions. Here are some examples to choose from:

What would you like me to know about how you and this process work before we begin?Do you want to see chapters as I finish them? Or would you prefer to see a completed manuscript?Do you prefer telephone or email communication?Do you have any general or specific editorial suggestions before I start? Is there anything in my argument/presentation/information/plot/characters and/or tone that needs work? Did you see any stylistic problems in my sample writing/manuscript that you would like me to work on?How closely should I stick to my outline? Would you like me to let you know about any outline changes?What is the ideal publication date? Are there certain key holidays or events you want to plan my book release around that will affect my deadline?

As you establish a working relationship with your editor, don’t forget to maintain contact with your agent. Keep them updated on the state of your manuscript, since they will know when and how to manage expectations with other stakeholders. Use your agent as a sounding board for concerns or questions you want to bring up with your publisher.

Copy editing and proofs

Once your manuscript is received and accepted, it will be handed off to a copy editor. Their job is to nitpick your spelling, punctuation, grammar, clarity and consistency of language, and accuracy of facts. Depending on the size and complexity of your manuscript, this could take a week to a month or more.

They will send you back a copyedited manuscript, which you then go through in detail, approving or rejecting every change. You typically have a week or two to do this. If you disagree with changes, you may need some back and forth with your primary editor, though you almost never have direct contact with your copy editor.

Once you approve this final manuscript, you won’t be invited to make any further changes. The manuscript will now be on its way to the typesetter to be turned into page proofs, a set of which will be sent to you for approval. After this point, all you can do is point out typesetting errors or make small, last-minute adjustments.

While you’re checking the page proofs, the printer is turning them into bound galleys with pages cut to size. These will go to a number of book reviewers, who are warned not to publicly quote anything as they are still subject to change.

The last thing you’ll see is a “blad” (an acronym for “book layout and design”), a pamphlet-sized sampler of your book sent to reviewers and media people for a first look.

Once you’ve submitted your final manuscript and reviewed the last few items, it’s time to switch gears to launching and promoting your book. You’ll have plenty of time for this, as it can take between 6-12 months for a final manuscript to show up on store shelves.

In the next post, we’ll look at the most effective ways of getting the word out about your book, with the ultimate goal of selling as many copies as possible.

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Negotiating Your Contract

Once you’ve accepted an offer for the publishing rights to your book, it’s time to draw up and sign a binding contract.

Many of these contract details have standard provisions, but you can always ask about and negotiate for them. The more you understand about the implications and subtleties of these clauses, the more empowered you’ll be in your negotiations.

Bonuses

Bonuses typically come in two forms: bestseller bonuses and earn-out bonuses. They can be included in the contract and are simply added to the amount advanced that you have to earn out.

Bestseller bonuses usually revolve around hitting the mother of all bestseller lists: the New York Times. For this kind of bonus, the higher on the list you reach, the more you get paid. You typically get paid for the amount of time it stays there, up to a certain limit.

Here are some standard New York Times bestseller list bonuses:

$2,500 per week for each week the book occupies any of the #6-#10 positions$5,000 per week for each week the book occupies any of the #2-#5 positions$10,000 per week for each week the book occupies the #1 position

The earn-out bonus is given if your book earns out its advance or sells a certain number of copies within a certain amount of time (usually a year). For example, if you earn out your $25k bonus within the first year, you could be given an additional $10k advance. This can be a feasible addition to your contract since it doesn’t add risk for your publisher: They only pay if you outperform the advance.

Royalties

Royalties are payments made to you by the publisher as your share of the book’s revenue. They vary based on three main factors:

Format of the book (hardcover, paperback, ebook, illustrated, four-color)Buyer of the book (independent bookstore, mass merchandiser, special sales outlets)Terms on which the book was bought

The format of the book impacts royalties because it changes production costs. For example, if you have full-color illustrations, the publisher will want to lower your royalty to absorb those costs.

Here are standard royalty rates:

Hardcover: 10% for up to 5,000 copies; 12.5% for up to 10,000 copies; 15% thereafterTrade paperback: 7.5% for all copiesMass market paperback (cheaper paper, often sold through special distributors like magazines): 8% for up to 150,000 copies; 10% thereafter

An “escalator” is a provision in your contract that your royalty goes up if you hit a certain number of sales. For example, if you sell more than 50,000 copies your royalty rises from 7.5% to 8%. If you can get an escalator added to your contract, you should do so.

Unfortunately, escalators can also go down. If your publisher reprints a limited number of copies, your royalty could be reduced to make up for the higher printing costs of the smaller run. To minimize the impact of this, try to stipulate that:

The escalator only applies to the smallest number of books possibleIt can only take effect once per yearIt only applies two years after publication

It might seem shocking that the author of a book only gets to keep 5% to 15% of the sale price of their own book, while the publisher keeps 85% to 95%. But they sometimes earn even less than the author. If a book has a retail price of $15, and the average wholesale price is $7.50, then the remaining $7.50 has to cover all the publisher’s costs. This includes your advance, your royalties, production costs, warehousing costs, shipping costs, any outside staff, and of course, their very large overhead.

In any case, fight for the highest royalty you can. Even half a percentage point can make a big difference if your book does well: For a book that retails for $20 and sells 100,000 copies, a half a percent higher royalty means $10,000 more in your pocket.

Royalties for ebooks have gone through major changes in recent years, partially due to some drama between Amazon, Apple, and the U.S. Justice Department. But the result is that most major publishers pay authors 25% of the amount actually received from retailers for your ebook, referred to as “net receipts.” This is because publishers now have only partial control of pricing in an age of Amazon domination. Independent publishers have much more variability, offering between 20% and 50% of net receipts.

Discount chains like Walmart and Costco account for a growing percentage of book sales. They typically negotiate deep discounts on their book purchases, but the upside is that they purchase very large quantities, and their stock usually isn’t returnable. The royalties for these sales usually run about ⅔ the standard royalty rate.

Delivery and acceptance

Your contract will stipulate when you will need to deliver a final manuscript for publication. Be sure to leave plenty of time to actually write the book. Though publishers are used to deadline drama and will usually give you an extension, if you miss your deadline and an extension wasn’t approved or you miss your extension, you are technically in breach of contract and they have the right to cancel your agreement.

Typically, you will go through at least one round of revisions before your manuscript is officially accepted. You may have to make anything from minor cosmetic changes all the way to radical restructuring. But once your manuscript is handed over to the copy editor, it is considered accepted and your acceptance payment can be processed.

You should also decide on a publication date, especially if your topic is timely or needs to be released in conjunction with a season or holiday. You should count on at least nine months between the time you submit your final manuscript and books shipping to retailers.

Because of these long timelines, you may need to finish writing your book before your contract is signed. This means that you put in all the work and deliver a finished manuscript long before the money promised to you is in your hands. So, if something goes wrong and your contract is cancelled, you’ll have nothing to show for it. To prevent this, be sure to get a deal memo (explained earlier) before you start writing, and don’t turn anything in before the contract is at least signed. Also, don’t be afraid to ask for a rush on your contract and check.

Your contract will state the circumstances in which your work can be rejected. You want to be sure the publishers can only do this for editorial or legal reasons. This means that they can’t cancel it due to changing market conditions, or a disagreement about the material itself, or because another book was just published on the same topic. They will need to have a due cause, such as the manuscript being editorially unacceptable or violating plagiarism laws. If not, you will have grounds to sue.

If your book is cancelled for legitimate reasons and you’ve already received part of your advance, you’ll have to pay it back by the date stipulated in the contract. In the best case, your contract will say that you only need to pay it back out of the proceeds if you sell the book to another publisher. But most current contracts now demand repayment within 12 to 18 months of cancellation.

Copyright

Always retain the copyright to your book. Some publishers will state that they “may” register an author’s book. Or that they own the copyright outright. Neither situation is acceptable. Under all circumstances, you want it stated explicitly that the publisher shall register the copyright in your name.

Subsidiary rights

Your publisher has “primary” rights to print and sell it in hardcover, paperback, and ebook versions in North America (assuming it’s being published in the U.S.). Sales of the book in other formats – such as audiobook, large-print, or movie rights – or in other regions – like Japan, the United Kingdom, or Brazil – are considered “subsidiary” rights (sub rights).

The royalties for sub rights are open to negotiation but typically follow royalty conventions pretty closely. The first number represents your share of the pie:

First serial (the appearance of an excerpt from your book in a magazine just before or coinciding with its publication): 90/10Second serial (the appearance of an excerpt from your book in a magazine after publication): 50/50Book club: 50/50Permissions (the use of part of your book by another author): 50/50Paperback: 50/50Special editions: 50/50Foreign-language translation: 75/25 (50/50 for illustrated books)United Kingdom: 80/20 (50/50 for four-color illustrated books)Textbook: 50/50Large-type edition: 50/50Ebook: current rate is generally 25% of net, but ebook pricing is very much in fluxMultimedia adaptation of a book (which may use some of the text and/or illustrations, or additional text or illustrations as well as video or sound added): 100/0Audio recording: 50/50Commercial and merchandising: 100/0Performance (film, TV, stage): 100/0Storage and retrieval: 50/50Calendar: 50/50

You should try to retain certain sub rights in totality (the ones marked 100/0 in the list above). If granted to your publisher, these rights will likely die a sad and lonely death, but you and your agent could do something with them. If you can sell them, 100% of the proceeds go directly into your pocket. Many agents have contacts with foreign “scouts” who look for titles to bring to their country.

Returns

It may be hard to believe, but the sale of a book to a retailer isn’t final. If your books sit on the shelves and no one picks them up, the retailer has the right to return these books to the publisher for a refund. To compensate for this, publishers hold up to 25% of your royalty payments back as a “reserve against returns.” Try to limit this to 20%, and to stipulate that it cannot be reserved for more than two royalty periods (each royalty period equals six months).

Out-of-print clause

Books don’t really go “out of print” these days. Although your publisher may not do a giant print run a couple of years after publication, they will probably still make it available as print-on-demand or as an ebook, since that doesn’t require any overhead. But this means that if they don’t help market your book and the book is still deemed “in print” according to your contract, you cannot take back the rights.

To avoid this, set a “performance standard” for your book. This states that if the book doesn’t sell a determined number of copies (for example, 500) in any and all formats in a certain period (such as a year), the rights either automatically revert back to the author, or, more typically, the author can request a reversion of rights with a set time limit for the publisher to reissue the book or decline.

Warranties and indemnities

Most publishing contracts require you to “warrant” that everything you’ve written is yours. In case it’s not, you “indemnify” (protect) your publisher from damages in case someone sues. This applies even if you borrowed someone’s words by mistake, so be sure to cite every single source you use. Make sure that anyone assisting you does the same.

Author copies

Your contract will state how many free copies of the printed book you will receive as the author. This can be as few as 10. If you want to give additional copies of your book to friends, relatives, customers, or promotional partners, you’ll need to purchase them! Luckily, you get an author’s discount, which is usually 50% but sometimes as low as 40%.

Some publishers will also agree to give you many more free copies for promotion and marketing. Be sure to ask for this in your negotiation, and tell them to whom you plan to give them away. You could secure 250 free copies if you have a lot of media contacts. Sometimes you will need to send them a name and address and they will send the books directly.

If your company plans on buying a large number of books (over 1,000 copies), you may be able to secure a large discount. If you can make a direct sale to a company through your connections, you might be able to increase your royalty on these sales. Be sure to negotiate these terms upfront.

The cover

Try to secure “consultation rights” for your cover, meaning they have to run the proposed design for the cover, interior, flap, and catalog by you. Although this only gives you a chance to view it and doesn’t give you a right of refusal, at least this will give you the opportunity to fight for what you want. If possible, include a clause in your contract that you and your publisher will mutually agree on a cover.

One way of doing this is to collect visual examples of what you’re looking for: typestyles, other book covers, artwork, photographs, and palettes. But besides your personal taste, the cover has to accurately communicate what the book is about. The same is true for the spine of your book, which is often overlooked but has a dramatic impact on its visibility when it’s sitting on a crowded bookcase.

The title

When it comes to your title, you want to pick something you will be comfortable saying many, many times for many, many years. Be sure to include either “approval” or “mutual agreement” on the title in your contract.

If it comes down to advocating for or against a particular title with your publisher, here are some mistakes to avoid:

Don’t say “but everyone I talk to hates this title”: Unless you are polling a very large number of people, or they are very influential people such as booksellers, this doesn’t carry much weight.Don’t fixate on one word or phrase: Even if it makes your hair stand on end, personal dislike isn’t enough of a reason to reject a title. You are not the audience for your book.Options

Publishers often ask you to give them an “option” to buy future book projects before others have the chance to bid. To make sure you don’t sign away too much, include some limits:

Only your next fiction or non-fiction bookOnly a book written solely by you, not with a co-authorOnly extend the option for a certain period that begins with acceptanceOnly for 30 or 45 days after showing them your next proposal, after which you’re free to shop the book aroundOnly if you can agree on terms within 30 daysIf you’re luckily (and skilled) enough to reach this stage, you’ve climbed the Mt. Olympus of book publishing. The vast, vast majority of writers never get close to this point. You’ve sold your book – now the only thing that’s left is to write it!

In the next post, we’ll talk about the process of putting pen to paper (or more likely, finger to keyboard) and writing the book you’ve already put so much effort into.  Subscribe below to receive free weekly emails with our best new content, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube. Or become a Praxis member to receive instant access to our full collection of members-only posts.

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