Michael, a former strategist at MrBeast and a sci-fi author, breaks down the art of ideation and market analysis for the new era of AI filmmaking. The core message is that "the idea is the ceiling"; no matter how good the production, a story's potential is capped by its premise. The speaker argues that AI has democratized filmmaking by lowering costs, allowing creators to bypass Hollywood gatekeepers and focus entirely on what viewers want. RSVP to future How to Make Your Movie Popcorn-Worthy Workshops here: https://luma.com/3zlbc0xx Join the beta of the Creatorwood platform: https://creatorwood.tv/ Read the Creatorwood book, all about building a movie business with AI, for free: https://www.blog.creatorwood.tv/subscribe Join the Creatorwood Discord: https://discord.gg/tTmWv23C9q Join the Six-Figure Film Accelerator: https://learn.creatorwood.tv/ EPISODE CHAPTERS: 00:00 From Passion to Premise: How to Think About Story Ideas 00:59 Why the Premise Is the Ceiling (Lessons from MrBeast) 03:50 AI Filmmaking Changes the Economics—So Viewers Matter More Than Gatekeepers 05:52 Market Analysis 101: Find What People Already Watch & Read 10:29 Turn Research into a Genre Style Sheet + Format Rule Sheet 13:39 Find Your “Story Gap”: The Unmet Need in the Market 22:19 Bake Virality In: Awe as the Engine of Shareable Stories 29:44 Write for Film by Launching Fast: Episodic Testing & Iteration 33:54 Live Workshop Setup: Collecting Ideas and Picking Susan’s Sci‑Fi Thriller 36:11 AI Writing Workflow: Model Choice Over Prompting (Why Claude) 38:38 Starting the Market Study Prompt for Susan’s Alien-Spy Concept 39:44 Rapid Market Research: Defining the Sci‑Fi Spy Thriller Lane 40:46 Why Amazon.com for Book Data (and How to Search Genres) 41:58 Building a Comp List: Opening Tabs, Skipping Weak Fits, Choosing a Slant 43:39 Expanding the Dataset: Alien Sci‑Fi Thrillers & Avoiding Romance Mismatch 45:01 Film Comps via Google/IMDb: Picking Inception & Arrival 46:59 Feeding Claude: Prompting a Genre Style Sheet from Reviews 50:13 Quality Control: Rankings, Reviews, and Curating What You Learn From 54:24 Context Windows & Efficient Sampling (Why 5–10 Titles Is Enough) 58:52 Reading the Style Sheet: Tropes, Archetypes, Settings, and Plot Rules 01:03:00 From Style Sheet to Series Pitch: Episodic Format + Cliffhangers 01:06:14 Claude’s Generated Concept: Logline, Protagonist, and Core Hook 01:08:42 Q&A: Making Existing Stories More Marketable + Adapting Prose for AI Film 01:13:37 Wrap-Up: Next Week’s Workshop on Characters & Final Links ABOUT MICHAEL: He has published 12 sci-fi novels, helped authors make $1 million+/year in memberships, and even worked on the Strategy Team for MrBeast. ABOUT CREATORWOOD: Creatorwood is the home for storytellers to turn their writing into films, discover new viewers, and run a film business. The Movie Machine by Creatorwood integrates with the top AI video, image, audio, and storytelling models to help transform your writing into immersive worlds, incredible characters, and gripping films with significantly less time and cost. Creatorwood also makes it easy to make money from your films inside our Streaming Platform. Specifically, Creatorwood allows you to upload your episodes, set them as free or paid (any price you’d like). Creators keep 80% of the revenue they earn on Creatorwood,