You know, I was thinking… Elon Musk’s manufacturing framework from SpaceX might be the best filmmaking advice I’ve ever stolen.
The short version: Musk runs every process through five steps in order. Question the requirements. Delete the part or process. Simplify. Speed up. Automate. The order matters. You don’t automate something that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
I read that and started applying it to Heritage Films. The results were uncomfortable, in the best way.
Step one: Question the requirements. We used to do a two-hour pre-interview phone call before every shoot. Why? Because that’s how we’d always done it. Someone told me early on that you need a pre-interview to prepare the subject, so I never questioned it. When I looked at the data, the pre-interview wasn’t making the on-camera interview better. In many cases it made it worse. People rehearsed their stories. They gave me the polished version on camera because they’d already given me the real version on the phone. Gone — we cut the pre-interview.
Step two: Delete the part or process. We had a 14-step post-production workflow. I wrote them all on a whiteboard and started crossing things off. Not “what can we improve?” but “what can we eliminate entirely?” Four steps vanished. Nobody missed them. The films didn’t suffer. Our turnaround time dropped.
Step three: Simplify. Our intake form used to be three pages. It asked for family tree details, historical dates, locations of childhood homes. Thorough and completely overwhelming for the client. We cut it to one page with six questions. The important material comes out in the interview anyway.
Step four: Speed up. Once the remaining steps were lean, we started timing them. How fast can we deliver a rough cut? How fast can we get music selected? How fast can we get a review copy out? Not cutting corners — refusing to let a step take longer than it needs to.
Step five: Automate. This is where AI entered the picture. Transcription, first-pass edit suggestions, subtitle generation, color correction presets. None of it replaces a human editor’s judgment. All of it frees up the editor to do the work that requires taste.
Most creative processes carry too many steps, not because the steps are bad but because nobody ever goes back to ask whether they’re still necessary. Musk’s framework isn’t about being ruthless. It’s about being honest.
We make better films now, and we make them faster. We sacrificed tradition to get there.
By the way, these five steps didn’t come from a podcast. I pulled them from The Book of Elon by Eric Jorgenson. I’ve met Eric a couple of times. He’s the real deal. Cares deeply about helping people figure out how to win, and this book is a testament to that. Worth picking up.
Heritage Films produces personal documentary films for families across the United States and the world. If you’ve been putting off your family’s film because it seems like a massive undertaking, it’s leaner than you think. Let’s talk.