(2024-09-15) Leaked MrBeast memo on Production

A memo/mini-book written by MrBeast to "train" his video staff was leaked. I could make a separate book for creative, a separate book for production, a separate book for editors, etc. but I think that’d be dumb. Everything we do here is interconnected and the more you understand about what others are doing and trying to accomplish, the better set up for success you will be

I need you to repeat this in your head three times: “I will apply everything I read with a grain of salt.”

What is your goal here?

Your goal here is to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible

this is not Hollywood and I do not want to be Hollywood

Youtube is the future and I believe with every fiber of my body it’s going to keep growing year over year and in 5 years Youtube will be bigger than anyone will have ever imagined and I want this channel to be at the top.

We aren’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

Obviously we want grinders that put in the hours and love you guys to death that do. But at the end of the day you will be judged on results, not hours. We are a results based company. Get shit done and move the goalpost!

As I type this I realize it may not be the wisest to categorize everyone into 3 buckets but this is how I believe we should look at everyone a part of the production team. You’re either an A-Player, B-Player, or C-Player

C-Players are just average employees. They don’t suck but they aren’t exceptional at what they do. They just exist, do whatever, and get a paycheck. They aren’t obsessive and learning

Chapter 1: What makes a Youtube video viral?

I spent basically 5 years of my life locked in a room studying virality on Youtube

The three metrics you guys need to care about is Click Thru Rate (CTR), Average View Duration (AVD), and Average View Percentage (AVP).

CTR is basically how many people see our thumbnail in their feeds divided by how many that click it

Now let's jump over to the second metric that matters. AVD

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

After the first minute of content you will have what we call minutes 1 thru 3. This is where you have to transition from hype to execution (generally). Stop telling people what they will be watching and start showing them

Whether it is production, creative, or editing you must always know what minute mark the content you are working on is.

the average mrbeast video is 818 seconds or 13 minutes

The last of the 3 trackable metrics that matters to virality is AVP and tbh this doesn’t matter as much to you. Usually the length of the video will be decided by me or Tyler. I just need you to make people watch as long as possible.

Another non trackable thing about virality I’d like you to know is what we call the “wow factor” and it’s definitely the most subjective

Anytime we do something that no other creator can do, that seperates us in their mind and makes our videos more special to them

CHAPTER 2: Creating Content

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

On top of learning from watching Youtube I'd love for you to read “The Goal” (Eli Goldratt) if you haven’t already. I used to make everyone read it. I know bottlenecks are obvious... You all should deeply understand the work stream from when a video hits the calendar to when it is filmed... I want you to look them in the eyes and tell them they are the bottleneck and take it a step further and explain why they are the bottleneck so you both are on the same page. “Tyler, you are my bottleneck. I have 45 days to make this video happen.

Video everything (programmer's notebook)

I really want us to see producing as a team job, not a solo thing

the easiest way to bring your team up to the same page is to freaken video everything and store it where they can constantly reference it.

SAY THE NEGATIVES

Don’t just tell people on your team or me why something is good. It’s infinitely more valuable to tell us why it’s not good

It’s your fault, track the contractor

you can’t just dump and forget your projects

And you need to then decide whether or not it’s a critical component. If it is, you should also begin working on a backup

Ask him to send videos everyday to spot problems early

I am not always right

there are ways you can help me be right more often

For starters you need to understand the world I’m in and how my mind works

it’s not all I have going on. I have to be the main talent for every Gaming video, every reacts video, every philanthropy video, every tik tok, insta post, and every main channel video

On top of being the main talent I have to work with each channel to make sure the creatives are always evolving and not getting stale and in general be a visionary for them.

you need me networking a lot

So when you need something from me you have to understand that i’m probably not as knowledgeable about a video as you

When getting an answer from me it’s ideal you do the research and come to me with context and options

This doesn’t just apply to me, it applies to anyone high up you expect to make a decision

Critical Components

Critical components are the things that are essential to your video. If I want to put 100 people on an island and give it away to one of them, then securing an island is a critical component. It doesn’t matter how well planned the challenges on the island are, how good the weather is, etc.

Critical Components can come from literally anywhere and once something you’re working on is labeled as such, you treat it like your baby.

Protect it at all costs, check in on it 10x a day, obsess over it, make a backup,

Communication Lines

Ideally when communicating across departments you go up and then over

Creativity Saves Money

People always assume money is the answer and if we just spend more money we can give Jimmy what he wants. Which is wrong, creativity is the answer

Which sounds cooler to you as a prize for a gaming video. $20,000 or a year’s supply of doritos?

every dollar we save allows me to give you guys more stability and hire more people to make your life easier

Always have a backup day (slack)

When you’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars securing a set, renting a tank, etc. make sure you have the ability to extend them in case something goes wrong

Don’t take anything at face value, always dig

This is particularly important when dealing with people outside the MrBeast Production team. If someone says something too good to be true, find out why

Higher form of communication

The worst thing you could ever do when you need something for your critical component is email someone at the company. The best is to talk to them in real life. It’s very important you know when to call people for stuff, grab them in real life, and when to text them.

The more complex what needs to be said is, the higher the form of the communication you should use

written communication also does not constitute communication unless they confirm they read it.

Own your mistakes

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

Nothing Comes Before Your Prios

When you’re being assigned tasks you should have what we call a prio list. (Most Important Task)

nothing on this freakin planet is allowed to come between you and getting those prios done

USE CONSULTANTS

Consultants are literally cheat codes. Need to make the world's largest slice of cake? Start off by calling the person who made the previous world’s largest slice of cake lol.

Math Science Vision Approvals Budget: Everything you need can be solved by one of these 5 things

NO DOES NOT MEAN NO

When dealing with people outside MrBeast Productions never take a No at face value.

what we call “pushing thru no”

Work on multiple videos EVERYDAY

That’s how you fall behind on future videos and create a nasty cycle

Be able to hold a camera

training on our style of holding a camera

1 out of 10 good. 10 out of 10 bad.

Youtube has a feature that compares a new upload’s performance to the previous 9 videos and tells you how the views rank in the first hour, two hours, three hours, 4 hours, etc. T

Random things you should know

Do not leave consteatants waiting in the sun (ideally waiting in general) for more than 3 hours

Spectacles are videos that only the MrBeast channel can do. Not every video should be a spectacle and we realize these videos are hard but that’s the point

I’d rather you be honest with each other then nice to each other

We pivot a lot

Pull all nighters weeks before the shoot so you don’t have to days before the shoot

If something goes wrong on shoot always check to see if it can be made into content. A tree fall over on your car and breaks the 100 vases we needed to give away? THAT’S FUCKEN HILARIOUS AND WE SHOULD MENTION IT IN THE VIDEO LOL

Feasibility is working to see if the critical components of a video are actually possible

Never do anything that could make us look bad from a pr perspective

Chapter 3: Creative

We are a creative-first production company

So I think it’s important you all understand creative

is like cheat codes when in production, camera, and obviously editing

you can’t just say “i’m in production and i’m not very creative” because that’s literally the equivalent of saying I suck at what I do

If a problem appears, always always always ask yourself if your new plan is whats best for creative, not just the easiest bandaid

What is the goal of our content?

To excite me

If I'm not excited to get in front of that camera and film the video, it’s just simply not going to happen

What excites me is what I believe will make the audience happy

This channel is my baby and I've given up my life for it. I’m so emotionally connected to it that it’s sad lol. But this is the one thing I will never compromise on, I have 0 issues throwing away a multi million dollar video

The camera angles need to always get better, the pacing, the story, the jokes, the color, the lighting, the music, the props, the people, our framing, our ideas, literally everything must always be improving and innovating

What Makes Good Content

Literally anything can make good content

even something as simple as a baby doll has an infinite amount of ways you can turn it into amazing, original, and funny content

virality doesn’t just happen

How to measure the success of content

Formats

Let’s use our popular “last to leave” series as an example. These videos have many reasons why they do well but one in particular is the payoff at the end

Another example of a format is what I like to call stair stepping. A good example of this is “I Bought The World’s Largest Firework” this video opens with us showing all the fireworks and then lighting a $1 firework, then a $10, then $50, then $375

hroughout the history of this channel we’ve been through many formats. A big one back in the day was “donating to twitch streamers” and people loved them. I’d go into random streams and donate $10k to a streamer to see how they’d react. All in all we did like 12 of them and when I stopped people still begged for more

The viewer may think they want a format forever, but they don’t.

Who is our audience?

Our content is consumed by everyone at this point. Kids watch the videos with their mom, even though our female viewership is only 30%.

But despite saying all that, at its core if I had to describe it, I'd say the average MrBeast viewer is a teenage memer that likes video games.

You Should Watch Our Videos

If you’re going to be working for the Beast brand you should be a fan of the Beast brand. A lot of very valuable knowledge comes with watching vast amounts of our videos

Brand Deals Are Content

If you watch a lot of youtube you’ll probably notice that when someone does a brand deal it’s boring and sounds like they’re reading a script. We take a different approach to brand deals, we like to integrate them into the content so it doesn’t nuke our retention and boosts conversion

The dip is way less dramatic and for the most part something I can live with to help fund the videos. BRAND DEALS ARE CONTENT! And when treated as such boosts retention. We need to make them in entertaining.

UNDERSTAND CULTURE (pop culture)

What you consume on social media, when you watch youtube, tv, the games you play, etc. are what I like to call your information diet.

Chris Tyson (our first subscriber and the guy in the videos) is a wonderful example of an information diet being used to perfection

His eyeballs exsist to inhail copious amounts of just goofy, dumb, and brain numbing content. And as a result he can quote almost any line from any episode of spongebob

draw from so much stupid shit in his head as inspiration to make jokes and be quirky. As a result he is fucken hilarious

If you’re a writer or director you really need to monitor and perfect your information diet

Talent needs to inhale cartoons so they can be funny, writers need to inhale inspiration

You. Can’t. Get. Inspired. By. Things. You. Don’t. Know. Exist. So how do you learn more about what's out there in the world? How do you stay up to date on the latest memes?

It’s okay for the boys to be childish

If talent wants to draw a dick on the white board in the video or do something stupid, let them. (assuming they know all the risks and aren’t missing context on why it’s not safe) People like when we are in our natural element of stupidity. Really do everything you can to empower the boys when filming and help them make content. Help them be idiots.

We don’t fake things.

I want famous people in our videos.

Don’t ever put me in a situation where I have to lie, because I won’t and it will screw the video.

Chapter 4: Your Career

if you're ambitious and want to dedicate your life to work, you picked the best company in America to do it at

As I write this we have 2 teams, that will grow to 4 in the next year. (and possibly 8 in the next 2 years

We need more leaders in the company

This isn’t a bureaucratic corporate company. You don’t have to do something for 5 years to get a promotion, I hate the word promotion. The more responsibility, risk you help us navigate, and overall bullshit you deal with, the more you make

There is infinite room for you to grow here. This isn’t a stepping stone, this is your final destination. I want nothing more then for you to go all in, obsessive all day everyday, and become so god dam valuable this company can’t operate without you. And in return for becoming so valuable I hope to give you incredible experiences, a fun place to work, and of course, more money then you could ever dream of making at any other company.