LEAN FORWARD
Clarity. Craft. Retention.
I write and edit long-form YouTube documentaries built to hold attention — through evidence-led storytelling, precise structure, and disciplined reveal control.
Whether I’m scripting from scratch, story-producing a draft, or reshaping an edit, the goal is the same: keep the viewer leaning forward without resorting to hype or speculation.
My work sits at the intersection of documentary integrity and audience engineering: hook design, escalation, jeopardy management, curiosity loops, and earned payoffs — executed with creative precision.
Show people something real — and they will lean in.
Three ways I can build your documentary
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Script & Structure Audit
A forensic pass that diagnoses what’s flattening tension — and fixes the spine.
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Documentary Script Build
Research → beats → draft → revisions, engineered for hold and credibility.
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Edit / Story Producer Pass
Restructure the cut to keep momentum: re-hooks, escalation, and earned payoffs.
Why Documentaries Fail (Even When the Material Is Strong)
Most channels don't have a research problem — they have a structure problem.
Great stories collapse on screen when answers arrive too early, when context floods the opening minutes and flattens the jeopardy before it has time to build. Reveals land without preparation. The edit explains instead of unfolding. And mid-film — where retention lives or dies — there's nothing pulling the viewer deeper, because the narrative engine was never defined.
A strong documentary spine fixes that.
It controls when the viewer learns something, how uncertainty is sustained, and why the payoff feels earned. The result isn't clickbait retention — it's the audience experiencing the story with clarity, tension, and forward momentum.
My work focuses on cutting through noise and building films that move: define the narrative engine, tune the structure, then express it cleanly through script and edit.
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they'd had and synthesize new things.”
— Steve Jobs
