Field notes
What we learn running the engines
Working notes from a studio that renders YouTube video every day. Every post is built on something we measured, not on advice we read somewhere.
Shelves
Faceless channels
Starting and running a channel that never shows a face: picking the subject, judging whether a niche is really saturated, and what the format costs to sustain.
YouTube SEO
How discovery actually works on YouTube, and which parts of the metadata are worth your time versus which ones creators over-invest in.
Shorts
The vertical format on its own terms: cut rhythm, the first two seconds, and why a Short that holds attention looks nothing like a trimmed long-form video.
Scripts
Writing the thing before filming it: hooks that are not clickbait, structure that survives the middle, and how much of a script is worth writing at all.
Tools and costs
What the software stack around a channel really costs, what each tool is for, and where the categories overlap enough that you are paying twice.
Growth and money
Subscribers, watch time and revenue: reading your own analytics without flattering yourself, and what changes between the first hundred and the first thousand.
- Shorts · 4 min read
We measured the cut rhythm of Shorts that work. Here are the numbers.
Ten high-retention vertical documentaries, measured shot by shot: how long they run, how often they cut, and how long a single shot is allowed to sit before attention leaves.
- Tools and costs · 3 min read
What one AI Short actually costs to make
A production-ledger view of what a finished vertical documentary costs to produce, measured across 20 real jobs with the range, median and delivery time shown.
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