Wow! What an amazing week!

Can I take you on a little journey with me?

This past Friday morning, Yetta and I jumped on a plane at Dulles and flew out to LAX for a screening of Revolutionary America at the Reagan Presidential Library. The evening was a screening followed by a panel Q&A with Tom Selleck, Dr. Larry Arnn, Jeremiah Regan, and me.

Confession: during the screening, I almost fell asleep (we’d been up since 4:00 A.M. AND I’ve watched the film about a thousand times, ok!?)

But then the movie ended and they called us up on stage. And man, what a rush!

There were around a thousand people at the sold-out event (check out the photo below!).

(The crowd sits under Reagan’s original Air Force One jet. Thank you Yetta for taking all of the photos of the event!)

That’s crazy! And as I contemplated that, two thoughts came to mind:

• First, our country is still full of wonderful, patriotic Americans who genuinely love learning about our history.
• Second, people really love Thomas Magnum and Jesse Stone (and its fun to see the audience’s enthusiasm for Tom’s incredible career).

Anyhow, I walked away feeling incredibly blessed to have been there. One of the biggest takeaways from the evening was the responsibility we all share to carry forward the stories of our past and of who we are as a people. It’s often said that a people who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. Whether or not that’s the exact quote, the principle is certainly true.

That’s one of the reasons I’ve felt called to filmmaking for almost twenty years.

The stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell about ourselves shape the kind of nation we become. And they shape the kind of individuals we become. Stories quietly answer questions about what is worth loving, what is worth sacrificing for, and ultimately what it means to live a good life.

By my estimation, that’s the kind of storytelling that leads to human flourishing.

I’m incredibly grateful to Hillsdale College, the Reagan Presidential Library, Tom Selleck, Dr. Larry Arnn, Jeremiah Regan, and everyone else who made the evening possible. They’re preserving stories worth remembering and reminding all of us why those stories still matter.

Check out some of these additional photos from the event!

Also in unrelated news: This week I’m speaking with some friends at the 2026 Bridge Conference in Washington DC.

I have a session with Allen Thornburgh (Sublimity) and John Darnell (Global Outreach International) on Thursday at 11:35am. It’s titled “Attention That Converts: How Audience-Powered Film Changes Minds and Grows Your Nonprofit.”

We’ll be talking about the way we strategically developed a film that helped position Global Outreach International to get a letter of intent from Angel Studios for an upcoming series. If you’re going to be at the Bridge Conference this week, hit me up! I’d love to see you there!

Here’s to Human Flourishing!

-Ian

My film Revolutionary America released two Sundays ago, and one question I’ve been asked repeatedly is “How do you feel about it?”

The honest answer is: It’s complicated!

On one hand, it performed well! During its three-day theatrical run, it generated nearly $1 million at the box office. Not bad for a documentary. Most people don’t go to theaters to watch documentaries the way they do blockbuster films, so we’re grateful for the response.

Our goal was to give patriotic Americans an opportunity to celebrate their country together on the big screen during America’s 250th anniversary. By that measure, the film succeeded. And, according to audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes, it was the highest-rated film in theaters for two weeks.

On the other hand, the work of a filmmaker never really ends.

In many ways, you’re only as good as your last project. That reality has driven generations of filmmakers. I suspect it’s one reason so many directors continue working well into their 80s and 90s. They love storytelling, and they believe the next film can always be better than the last.

So when people ask me, “How are you feeling?” my first thought isn’t, “I’ve achieved my dream.”

Instead, I think, “I can’t wait for you to see what we’re working on next.”

One of the strange realities of filmmaking is that the work audiences see today is often a year or two behind where you are creatively. The film playing in theaters now was likely written, shot, and edited long ago. The projects that excite me most today are the ones the world won’t see until next year, or perhaps the year after.

That’s not to say I’m not proud of Revolutionary America. I am.

I’m proud of the way it honors the story of freedom-loving Americans and the generations who came before us. I’m honored when audience members tell me they were moved to tears. And I’m grateful to have played a small role in preserving and sharing the story of this country, its achievements, its struggles, and the ideals that continue to inspire people around the world.

But when I really think about the question, “How do you feel?” my mind goes to a book called The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy.

A few years ago, my business coach Chad Johnson spent a lot of time discussing this idea with me. The premise is simple:

If you measure your life by what you haven’t accomplished yet (“the Gap”), you’ll often feel frustrated and unfulfilled.

If you measure your life by how far you’ve come (“the Gain”), you’ll have a healthier perspective on your progress.

This doesn’t mean ignoring what remains to be done. Ambition is good. Goals matter. Growth matters.

But there’s wisdom in honestly holding both realities in mind at the same time, recognizing how far you’ve come while remaining aware of how far you still have to go.

One gives you gratitude. The other gives you hunger. Together, they provide both the confidence to keep moving forward and the humility to keep improving.

So here’s to living neither in the future nor in the past, but in the present. Here’s to holding the future and past in tension with each other. Here’s to being grateful for the opportunities we’ve been given and the blessings we’ve received. And here’s to remaining hungry for the work that still lies ahead.

Here’s to Human Flourishing!

-Ian

There’s often a moment on set (maybe you’ve felt it in a boardroom, marketing meeting, or on a stressful project) when your inner voice gets very loud and brutally critical. Mine hit hard the day I was directing Tom Selleck.

Yeah. THAT Tom Selleck. Magnum PI. The man who defined “Mustachioed Heartthrob.”

Only we weren’t on set. He was in a recording studio in Burbank. I was sitting in a borrowed office on Zoom while the team and I were in the middle of set construction and prelighting for a new series.

Tom was an absolute gentleman. Kind. Thoughtful. Invested in the narration. He had spent the weekend prior to our recording sessions studying the script (He read through it three times over the weekend). He was a consummate professional. It made immediate sense why he has become a legend – He cares deeply about the craft. And somehow, his professionalism and dedication to excellence made me feel even more unqualified.

Look, over the years, I’ve gotten pretty good at being direct with talent, giving notes, and working with them to get the performance we need. I don’t often get super nervous with famous individuals. But man, this time hit different. And listening back that first night of recording, I cringed almost the whole way through listening to playback.

Imagine a pre-pubescent boy who is trying to nervously give notes to one of the acting legends and trying desperately not to offend said legend with notes that come across demeaning or critical in any way. That’s a pretty good mental picture of how I sounded during that first three hour long recording session.

And that first night at 11:42pm, I made a decision: “Be the professional everyone expects you to be. Give the direction you were hired to give. Tom is bringing himself fully to the recording session. You owe it to him and the client and the investors in the project to be the director they hired you to be.”

The next two days I still struggled with whether my notes were “right” or not, but darn it, I gave the notes! Push the emotion here. Be more reserved there. The characters are thinking “this at that moment.” etc. The role of the director is to be part psychiatrist, part philosopher, part storyteller with the actor, so that the actor can access the sort of weight, emotion and pacing needed by the film. It was a great reminder for me that day. It doesn’t matter what the inner voice is telling you (positive or negative), you still have to show up and do the job you were hired to (and hopefully do it excellently).

What I didn’t know at the time was that Selleck was working through his own version of that same voice. In his book You Never Know (you grab a copy of here), he writes about how everyone (in front of and behind the camera) wrestles with whether they’re good enough for the moment. The doubt is a part of the job. It doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.

Since those three days of working with Tom and the recording team, I’ve had the privilege of reading his book. It’s a great autobiography by one of the greats. And I think it will be encouraging to you as well if you pick it up and give it a read.

AND, the powerful narration that Tom delivered earlier this year? You can check it out for three days only in theaters starting this Sunday (May 31). It’s not guaranteed to hit streaming before July 4 and this is the only three days it will be in theaters! So if you want to inspire your family with the tumultuous and inspiring history of America’s revolution on the eve of the 250th, we’d love to see you at the theaters this weekend!

Check out Tickets and showtimes here!

Here’s to Human Flourishing!

-Ian

If you’ve known me long, you know that I’m a HUGE goal-setter. One of the conversations I often find myself in at the beginning of each year is with people who ask “But what do you do when you don’t accomplish all the goals you set each year?” And admittedly, I usually don’t accomplish most of my goals each year (like over 50%). But, for me, goals don’t act like taskmasters beating me over the head. They act as friends reminding me what I’m working toward and for. If I can revisit those goals each week, each month, I have a better chance of landing where I want to land over the coming decades.

Among the over 30+ goals I set for 2026, two stand out that I want to share with you today. The first was to have a film open in theaters before the end of the calendar year. And the second was for that film to succeed at the box office.

Now, for the first time, I can say we’re one step closer to both (at least the first one). And completion of the second is up to you.

On May 31, the documentary I’ve spent the last year and a half making will be released in theaters nationwide.

Revolutionary America tells the story of the founding conflict of our country – the men and women who risked everything to establish a nation unlike any the world had seen. We made it in honor of the 250th anniversary coming up in July and I really hope you’ll join me to see it in theaters on May 31!

But more than telling you about the film, I wanted to give you a peek into making a feature-length theatrical documentary.

The film really began to take shape in January of 2025. We were filming in Michigan (one of several locations we would shoot over the course of the year). What made that moment distinct was that we were actually producing two projects at once: this film, Revolutionary America, and its prequel series, Colonial America, which explores the settlers who first came to this continent and why they risked everything to enter an unknown world.

From the beginning, one question drove the entire process: what kind of people would put everything – their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor – on the line against the most powerful nation in the world? On paper, it was suicide. So why would they do it?

Directing this film has been about chasing that question. And that’s not just an abstract philosophical question. To me, it was a very human one. Imagining what it would take for me to put my entire life on the line brings this point home to me personally. And so my goal has been to bring the audience close enough to these individuals that their decisions don’t feel distant or inevitable, but personal, costly, and necessary.

But what people often don’t see is how demanding that process really is. A documentary like this begins long before the camera rolls. You’re writing, outlining, and trying to shape a coherent story out of something incredibly dense and complex. Each historian and expert we interviewed spoke with us for anywhere from three to nine hours. And each usually ended their sessions ready for a nap (or a stiff drink). It was exhausting. By the end, we had around forty hours of interviews alone.

But the harder work comes after that.

Taking all of that material and distilling it into a clear, compelling, ninety-minute narrative is its own challenge. A documentary especially is made in the edit. It involves months of shaping structure, refining the story, and cutting anything that doesn’t earn its place. Even after the edit is locked, there’s still a long road: color, sound design, theatrical mixing, visual effects, motion graphics. Every layer matters if you want the audience to feel fully immersed.

One of my personal goals for this film was that it put audiences into the history in a way that they’ve never experienced before; and I think there are some uses of both old and new technologies to help us achieve that goal that will pleasantly surprise audiences. To create something immersive like that, even a “simple” documentary requires a long, collaborative effort across dozens of people. This film was made over two years and a budget 1/30th of last year’s Ken Burns documentary series about the American Revolution. Different approaches, different forms. But it gives you a sense of the scale.

I think the reason we were able to pull off a project of this scale at the budget and timeline we did was twofold: 1. the Distant Moon leadership has built an incredible internal team that punches way above its budget class and 2. Hillsdale: Hillsdale team of researchers and historians brought an immense knowledge of the subject to bear. I was talking with my friend Jeremiah Regan (Executive Producer of the film) and he made the remark that for filmmakers like Burns, perhaps as much as half of the time it took to produce their series was spent learning the material to the level that they could piece together the story arc. Our partners and many of our teammembers have spent the last decade studying, learning and understanding the history before ever working on the project. Having partners who can speak to the history with confidence and mastery was vital to the timeline of this project.

With that in mind, I’ve been incredibly grateful for the partners who made this possible: Hillsdale College, Jeremiah Regan, Fathom Entertainment, and the team at Distant Moon. Films like this don’t happen without people who believe deeply in the work and are willing to carry it forward over a long stretch.

We made this film because we believe these questions still matter. Not just what happened, but what it required, and what it might require of us today.

The film will be in theaters for three days only: May 31-June 2. If audiences show up, it extends. If you’re curious about how to help us bring this film to even more audiences, hit me up! I’d love to talk!

And, if you’re curious, you can watch the trailer now!

Here’s to Human Flourishing!

-Ian

There’s a strange thing about the life we say we want…

It comes with complications.

And most of the time, those complications feel like interruptions. You know: things to push through, complain about, or survive… But I’ve been thinking this week:

What if the complications are actually the clearest evidence of the blessings?

People with no complications live quiet, simple, undisturbed lives. They’re also, almost always, empty.

Because everything that makes life meaningful (people, responsibility, purpose, creation) brings friction with it. Even other human beings are complications! They interrupt us. They challenge us. They demand something of us. And yet, none of us would choose a life without other people. right?? 

This idea hit me again this week while we’re finishing a feature-length documentary that’s heading to theaters at the end of May (I can’t share details yet, but soon!).

On Tuesday, I worked an 18.5-hour day. On Friday, I worked until 2am…again. By the end of the week, I felt like death. And if I’m honest, I was tempted to be irritated. Short. Grumpy. The kind of attitude that whines, “Why is this so hard?” But then I remembered a line from Mark Batterson’s In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day and the idea behind it: The very thing you’re frustrated by might be the thing you once prayed for.

(Pictured Above: A screenshot of the timeline for the feature documentary part of our team is working on. Every little sliver of color is a different clip…)

I’ve wanted to make films that go to theaters for as long as I can remember. And now it’s happening. So what would it mean to be annoyed…when the dream is finally becoming real? That long days aren’t an obstacle to the dream. They were a direct result of and a requirement for the dream.

And the longer I live, the more I realize this truth applies more broadly to all of life.

• The late nights.
• The responsibility.
• The pressure.
• The complexity of relationships.
• The weight of building something that matters.

These aren’t detours from a flourishing life. They are the evidence of it.

So here’s the challenge I’m giving myself (and maybe you too, haha): When you feel the friction this week, pause and ask: “Is this complication actually a sign of blessing?”

And if it is…if it’s tied to something you once hoped for, prayed for, or worked toward, then don’t just endure it.

Be grateful for it.

Because in many cases, the complication is not the problem. It’s the proof of blessing.

(Pictured Above: Just a quick glimpse of the team in it – heads down, putting in the kind of work that never looks glamorous but makes everything possible when you’re working toward the dream.)

Here’s to Human Flourishing.

— Ian

Hey gang! For the last few years I’ve wanted to find ways for Distant Moon to invest in organizations, brands, and nonprofits who are also fighting for human flourishing around the world. Our mission at Distant Moon is “Human Flourishing through storytelling,” and we want to help you become more effective at reaching your audience!

So, I’m really excited to personally invite you to the Film Impact Summit, hosted by Distant Moon on September 12, 2025! I even recorded a little video about what you can expect if you attend.

This one-day event is limited to the first 50 people to register, so secure your spot today.

In-person will be far more insightful and impactful than watching it online later. You’ll have the chance to be in the room and engage directly with executives from:

• Kingdom Story Company
• Hillsdale College Online Courses
• Freethink + Big Think
• Top agencies behind successful nonprofit and issue-based campaigns

This is where the future of story-driven impact in education, philanthropy, and media converges.

And I want to give you a sneak peak!

I thought: how can I keep this from being just a “marketing email?” How can I bring value even to those who won’t be able to be in the room with us?

So between now and Monday, I’m going to send four simplified insights from our upcoming event straight to your inbox here. These are insights that you can use right now to transform the way you think about film, story, and impact.

On Monday I’ll talk about:

• Using true stories to turn viewers into advocates (and)
• Turning Your Story into a Box Office Success
  

And today I’m discussing:

• How to leverage audience-powered film instead of blind storytelling (and)
• Finding your niche, accepting risk, and leading your industry.

Let’s jump in!

1. Audience-powered film outperforms “blind storytelling”

Most filmmakers and storytellers wait until their project is finished to invite the audience in. That’s a mistake. Audience participation shouldn’t start at release of a film or video; it should begin in the earliest stages. When people help bring the project to life, they don’t just watch the film, they own it.

How to put this into practice:

• Message-Test Early: Share short written versions of your message (taglines, one-minute pitches, concept art) on email, social, or in small focus groups. Ask: What part sticks with you? What feels forgettable? Don’t wait until the whole film is locked to learn what resonates.
• Develop with Feedback: Create rough teaser clips or short prototypes of your story in different formats (animation vs. live action, interview vs. narrative). Put them in front of your audience and ask them what emotion they felt watching it. Did they laugh? Did they feel hope? Did they feel nothing?
• Always Share the Why, Not the How: Nobody falls in love with a process. People connect when they understand why this story matters and why their involvement will shape the outcome. When you communicate purpose, your audience feels part of the mission instead of spectators.

(This is something my friend Allen Thornburg and I have been shaping for months: Audience-Powered Filmmaking. I’m working on a much more thorough walk through of this process. If you’re interested in getting an in-depth first draft of this guide, let me know and I’ll pass it along when I have the first draft finished!)

2. Find your niche, take the risk to invest, and become the front-runner in your industry.

Hillsdale College didn’t just stumble into millions of learners. They took a bold risk. Years before there was evidence of demand, they poured time, money, and energy into developing cinematic online courses. At the time, the idea of turning a college lecture into a binge-worthy video series sounded untested (even risky). At the time, nobody except a new startup called “Masterclass” was even trying to create this new category. Hillsdale took the plunge. They created a new category: Cinematic Online Learning like Masterclass, but with a documentary-style immersion and a classical liberal arts devotion to truth. Nobody was doing this. Now, eight years later, everyone tries to copy them.

The lesson: there is no meaningful storytelling or audience-building without risk, but the best risks create their own category and define it as the first entrant.

How to apply this mindset:

• Find your WHY, create an industry-defining product, and invest before you see returns: Past performance doesn’t indicate future success, but Hillsdale is a case study in defining a new category and then taking calculated risk to invest before there’s a guaranteed audience. Make your story as if millions will watch, even if only a hundred do at first.
• Bet on Quality: Hillsdale didn’t just record professors at a lectern. They built sets, filmed with professional crews, and treated education like cinema. That upfront risk created an experience audiences actually wanted.
• Understand That Risk is the Soil of Growth: If you’re waiting for certainty before investing in film, you’ll always be behind. Risk is the unavoidable price of breakthrough.

Hillsdale’s courage created a platform that now serves millions annually. Their success proves the power of creating your own niche and then being willing to take calculated risks. This combination is not optional. It’s essential.

OK! So those two insights are just a sneak peak (and trust me the presenters at our event are going to be way more gripping and insightful than my little summaries)! Next week, I’ll share how the most effective campaigns use true stories to turn passive viewers into lifelong advocates, and why even blockbuster hits follow a set of storytelling “rules” you can’t afford to ignore. These two insights could change not only how you tell your story, but whether anyone actually listens.

I’ll see ya then! But in the meantime, sign up for our in person summit now before seats fill up!

Here’s to Human Flourishing!

-Ian

Join Us at the Summit!

These are just starting points. At the Impact Film Summit, we’ll dive deeper into frameworks, show examples from inside campaigns, and give you tools to build films that inspire and sustain growth.

Date: September 12, 2025
Location: Hotel Burg, Leesburg, VA
Register Now—Limited to 50 People
Want to learn more? Watch the video below!

https://distantmoon.com/film-impact-summit/#video

Ok, gang. this is a long one, but I think it’s valuable. I also think that if you start practicing what I unpack below, it could start serving your organization, projects, and storytelling immediately. I hope it’s as valuable to you as it has proven to be for me and the team over the past few months. So with out further ado, here we go!

Introduction: The Problem No One Wants to Admit

In mid-May 2025, I had the honor of attending the Webby Awards in New York. (I promise this is the last time I’ll mention this in our newsletter, ok!?) Our team at Distant Moon, alongside our technical and agency partners, had just won Best Multimedia Storytelling. It was a moment of celebration, of creative validation, and of anticipation – because I was about to meet the minds who had supposedly shaped the internet over the past year.

But what I encountered instead was a culture standing at the crossroads.

One by one, the honorees paraded on stage. Not for their world-changing vision or stories that stirred the soul. But for content that was – at best – amusing. TikTokers. YouTubers. Instagrammers. A guy who went viral posting squirrel videos. A woman whose performance art could be summarized as “very demure, very mindful.” There was no shortage of attention, but I couldn’t help wondering: To what end? Where were the stories that shaped people’s lives for the better?

Ironically, at my own table sat people whose work did that – projects that gave voice to peacemakers from every nation, or helped viewers understand the experiences of others from radically different backgrounds. But they weren’t the creators on stage. The spotlight went to the spectacle, not the substance.

Why?

Because Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan were right. “Who are Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan?” I’m glad you asked, more on them in a moment, but in short, they’re famous for the well-known aphorism: “The medium is the message.”

Today’s dominant media – TikTok, Instagram, YouTube – were built for attention, not transformation. These platforms reward brevity, not depth; spectacle, not soul. And when you try to tell meaningful stories in a medium designed for distractions, the medium wins. This is not to say that NO longform and insightful content can capture attention on these mediums. In fact, as you’ll see, we’re convinced that with strategic and mindful (but not demure) processes applied to the traditional film and content creation process, you can co-opt inherently distraction-prone media platforms for soul-enriching and message-delivering content.

But this requires a rigorous and often ignored approach. One that helps brands with something truly worth saying break through all the noise.

Section 1: The Hidden Architecture of Modern Media

In his prophetic book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman warned us that the greatest threat to truth wasn’t censorship, but entertainment. He built on Canadian philosopher, Marshall McLuhan’s insight that the form of communication – the medium – shapes the content it conveys.

McLuhan put it bluntly: The medium is the message.

Postman took it further: in a television-dominated world at the time of his writing, even serious subjects become entertainment. In our era, the dynamic is supercharged. TikTok doesn’t just favor the trivial. It penalizes the profound.

The result? Content that actually matters struggles to survive. It gets buried under waves of viral fluff.

And this is where many brands (especially purpose-driven ones) get stuck. They have stories that matter. But they try to tell those stories through platforms that trivialize everything.

Section 2: Why Traditional Film Still Doesn’t Cut It

Some might say, “Just make a long-form film. Invest in quality. Tell the story cinematically.” And sure, that’s better than a TikTok video. But traditional film storytelling, when applied to messaging and brand-building still carries a fatal flaw:

It’s broadcast. Not a conversation.

Even beautiful films can fall flat if they’re built on assumptions about what an audience wants or needs. Films that are made for an audience, but never with them.

This one-directional approach often leads to heartbreaking outcomes: high-effort films that miss the mark, don’t connect, and fade into oblivion.

The brand-building and media landscape is littered with more examples of failure than success. Just look at the graveyard of branded videos on YouTube and Instagram that never reach beyond a few dozen views. For every viral campaign that breaks through, there are thousands of high-effort, high-cost pieces of content that vanish into the void. But this dynamic isn’t unique to marketing; it’s foundational to the entire storytelling industry. Hollywood, the very machine built to manufacture dreams, is structured around failure. In fact, it’s not an exaggeration to say the business model of Hollywood relies on the rare success subsidizing a sea of flops. According to industry analyses, only about 20% of Hollywood films manage to achieve profitability, leaving approximately 80% failing to break even at the domestic box office.

This means that most films lose money. And I’m not talking about obscure indie projects. I’m saying some of the most anticipated, studio-backed films with A-list talent and nine-figure budgets regularly underperform or outright bomb. The 2023 box office saw colossal losses on titles like The Marvels, which had the lowest opening of any Marvel Cinematic Universe movie and lost an estimated $237 million, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which, despite massive marketing spend and global recognition, is estimated to have lost over $100 million.

So if even Hollywood, with all its data, budgets, and storytelling talent, struggles to connect with audiences, what hope does a mission-driven brand have of breaking through without a radically different approach?

Section 3: A New Way Forward – Audience-Powered Film

When considering these hurdles, I began talking with a good friend of mine who is a well-respected audience-analysis expert who has spent over 25 years in experience marketing. We  started discussing what filmmakers can do to overcome the significant risks that clients face in funding new film projects. The result? Something we call Audience-Powered Film.

It’s a storytelling model rooted in Human-Centered Design (HCD). At its core, HCD flips the creative process on its head: instead of assuming we know the answer, we design with the user, not just for them.

We’ve adapted this approach for film on several projects over the last year, and the initial results have been extraordinary.

Here’s how it works (warning, the steps seem shockingly obvious, and yet few people practice them):

1. GATHER (Insights)

• Interviews with stakeholders and subject matter experts
• In-depth interviews with real audience members
• Audience, story, content, and format hypotheses

2. IMAGINE (Co-creation)

• A 2-day concept summit with creatives and clients
• Co-creating multiple film concepts
• Testing the best ideas with audience members
• Final script and story plan crafted with real feedback

3. DEVELOP (Film & Experience)

• Shoot and edit a rough cut
• Screen that cut with audience members
• Revise based on real-world reactions
• Deliver a final film shaped not just by creative vision, but end audience

Section 4: Why This Works When Nothing Else Does

We don’t just connect with audiences. We build with them.

That’s the difference.

• When an audience sees themselves in the development process, they’re not just viewers – they’re participants.
• When the story reflects their real fears, hopes, and beliefs, they don’t just watch it – they share it.
• When the medium is tailored to their habits and their hearts, it doesn’t just break through – it lands.

Section 5: Who This Is For

This isn’t for every brand. But it’s exactly right for:

• Cause-based organizations that want to shift minds and move hearts.
• Philanthropic leaders who believe storytelling can scale good.
• Culture builders who know that the best ideas don’t go viral unless they’re designed to connect.

Section 6: How You Can Use Audience-Powered Film

Feel free to steal anything of value in this newsletter! First and foremost, I want to bless all of you reading this, so if something sticks and is helpful, it’s yours to use!

But if you’re thinking, “This sounds like a lot of work and I don’t want to do this myself,” we’d also love to help you. We’re offering a limited number of Audience-Powered Film pilot projects, with early-stage pricing to refine and validate the process.

Timelines:

• GATHER & IMAGINE: 2-4 months (driven by availability and audience access).
• DEVELOP & GO-TO-MARKET: Varies by scope but typically 4-12 months.

If you’re leading a brand or initiative that has something truly worth saying, let’s build something that actually breaks through.

Here’s to Human Flourishing!
– Ian