This was either leaked or released by Mr. Beast and it's awesome. It reminds me of Facebook's Little Red Book.
It shows what operating at a high level looks like, regardless of career or creative discipline. The whole thing is worth reading, but here are some of my favorite excerpts and an attempt to summarize parts:
Your goal here is to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible. That’s the number one goal of this production company. It’s not to make the best produced videos. Not to make the funniest videos. Not to make the best looking videos. Not the highest quality videos.. It’s to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible.
Which is why I say we are not Hollywood. 99% of movies or tv shows would flop on Youtube. On top of that they'd be wildly unprofitable, have no flexibility, and long lead times that can’t adapt to trends. We arn’t here to make a small movie once or twice a year, I want to make one a week lol. Which is why you need to be nimble and produce content OUR way, not the way you were taught before.
You’re either an A-Player, B-Player, or C-Player. There is only room in this company for A-Players. A-Players are obsessive, learn from mistakes, coachable, intelligent, don’t make excuses, believe in Youtube, see the value of this company, and are the best in the goddamn world at their job. B-Players are new people that need to be trained into A-Players, and C-Players are just average employees.
He breaks down videos into 4 critical sections, after establishing the title and thumbnail should be excellent and known before hand, with the earliest parts of the video being more important than the later parts:
- 1st minute is the most important
As with almost every video on Youtube, the first minute has the most loss (go look). This is why we freak out so much about the first minute and go so above and beyond to make it the best we freakin can. [...] The first minute of each video is the most important minute of each video.
- 1-3 executes on the hype accelerating through the story's timeline abnormally fast in a "crazy progression"
Let’s say we have 10 minute video about a guy surviving weeks in the woods. Instead of making the first 3 minutes of the video about his first day then progressing from there like a logical filmmaker would. We’d tried to cover multiple days in the first 3 minutes of the video so the viewer is now super invested in the story. They’ve seen this man survive multiple days in the woods and emotionally now want to see how much further he can go.
- Then around minute 3 they do "re-engagement"
A re-engagement can be described as content that is highly interested that fits the story and makes people genuinely impressed. Another way to look at this is it’s a segment that “only MrBeast can do this”. It’s important to re-engage the viewer around this time because they could get bored of the story and click off. These re-engagements are usually spectacles and sometimes need lots of time and money to perfect.
- Then around minute 3 they do "re-engagement"
- 3-6
This is where you plan out all the most exciting and interesting content that is also very simple. This includes lots of quick scene changes and highly stimulating simple content that reflects the story. The goal is to make them fall in love with the story, the people in the video and the overall video itself.
- 6 minute mark has another "re-engagement"
- Then the "back half"
But in general once you have someone for 6 minutes they are super invested in the story and probably in what I call a “lull”. They are watching the video without even realizing they are watching a video. Typically the not as good content would be in the back half of the video.
Whether it be production, creative, camera, or editing I want you to be obsessed with Youtube. Get rid of Netflix and Hulu and watch tons of Youtube, it will without a doubt in my mind make you more successful here. The more invested you are in our world on Youtube the more you’ll understand trends, how we can stand out and be more original, what we could do better, etc.
That's only about half of it, and the whole thing is a gold mine. Some from the next immediate part:
- "video everything" when you're scouting or anything so the team can see everything
- "say the negatives" so it can be dealt with because there's nothing actionable about "this is great"
- focus exclusively on "critical components" essential things that nothing matters without until they're secured
- "higher forms of communication" preferring in-person conversations for really important things
... there's so much more, but I'll stop with one of my "yes kween" paragraphs:
I hate excuses and I despise with my entire soul when people just try to save face instead of learn from how they messed up. Mistakes are okay! Genuinely they are and I expect you to make a lot. That’s perfectly fine. Every veteran here has cost me a million dollars at one point or another, and you can go ask them yourself if I ever held it over their heads. The reason i’m okay with fuck ups is because I know that’s how you learn. I see it as me investing in you and your brain. (hence why I have 0 tolerance for C-Players and they must go immediately. Those fuck ups could be done by an A-Player that will retain the information learned). I just beg you that you learn from every mistake and try not to repeat it, that’s when it gets annoying. I’ve never ever ever once fired someone on the spot for messing up, you have nothing to be afraid of. Own shit so we can address how to fix it and then move on.