The workshop · Bands, artists & labels Whoever's already filming the road with you isn't there to make content — they're there to build the fanbase that outlives the tour.
The Storylab Workshop teaches your crew, manager or in-house shooter the repeatable process behind music videos, doc series and tour films that work — backed by research, proven with 25 years directing artists like The Paper Kites, Morgan Evans and Simple Plan.
Film school, on the road Upgrade whoever's already holding the camera — crew, manager, or you — with the most comprehensive professional story training in Australia, and anywhere in the world. Film-school depth: story, camera, lighting and edit, taught hands-on, on the gear you already run.
Run by a team whose work has reached hundreds of millions of people, and who still shoot it for a living.
Plenty of the people who take this workshop are the one person already filming the van, the soundcheck and the show. You don't need a department, a budget or a film background — just someone willing to learn the process.
Single, then a video, then a lyric video, then a live take, then the album. Every date gets filled — and somewhere in the schedule, the question quietly changed from what will make someone a fan? to what's due this week?
"88% of the tracks now sitting on streaming services get fewer than 1,000 plays a year."
Luminate · 2025 Year-End Music Report
The volume game — chase the algorithm, post daily, be everywhere — feels like the only way to stay visible. Nobody chooses it on purpose. It's just where the release calendar drifts once nobody stops to ask what the story even is.
What if the answer wasn't more?
Simplify. Make fewer things, make them properly, and measure them by who they turn into a fan — not by how often they ship. Acts that cut volume and invest in one genuinely excellent piece build an audience that stays, not one that scrolls past.
Find the story first. The content follows.
When a release is built as a story instead of a schedule, the brain does something measurably different with it — it stays, it trusts, and it comes back for the next one. Here's what that's worth.
Psychologists call it narrative transportation — get someone lost in a story and their own world goes briefly quiet, so attitudes shift more than any argument can move them (Green & Brock). A character in real struggle releases oxytocin — the neurochemical behind empathy and generosity; in Paul Zak's lab, viewers who felt someone's real story gave away part of their earnings. And during a well-told story the listener's brain activity synchronises with the teller's (Hasson, Princeton). A film with a real before, a real turn and a real after is the exact arc that triggers all three at once.
Sources: Luminate 2025 Year-End Music Report; Luminate Super Fan research; Kate Bush / Stranger Things Spotify data, Tubefilter 2022; Green & Brock 2000 (narrative transportation); Zak, Claremont (oxytocin); Hasson, Princeton (neural coupling). The mechanism is real — Storylab is built to trigger it on purpose.
An exact sample of the craft this training is built on. One song, handed a second life once the story around it changed — and what came back.
The brief: A Sydney band's song, filmed and directed by Peter John, years before a Korean drama put it in front of a continent that had never heard of them.
10.9M views and climbing · discovered by a new generation through screen sync, not a new release · the song never changed — the story around it did.
This song really moves me but breaks my heart as I can relate to the emotions. I discovered you through "Uncontrollably Fond" Korean drama. Thank you both. I gained some strength to keep living.
i will never forget the first time this was played in uncontrollably fond. idk but i cried so much and i never searched for a song so fast
i thought they disband already? i love this band and this song! please stay forever and make lot of good song. new fan here
Everyone talking about Uncontrollably fond in the comments, me who came here cause of Felix and now I am in love with the song
I accidentally came across the song last night and I was awestruck. I'd never heard of these before yet I became a fan within 10 seconds. What a totally stunning song and those vocals are like melting butter on hot toast
My wife and I have only recently discovered this great band! We went to see them live in Manchester just on Feb 17th. They were fabulous! This is one of my favourites now but can't believe it's over 12 years old!
I love the music but this video is something special. To come up with the idea of filming you tour as you tour the world makes it so special. Hats off to your director Peter John!
Isn't it wonderful when you find a band you have never heard before and you find you totally love them? You cannot say that about The Paper Kites... Featherstone was the first track I listened to.
This song really moves me but breaks my heart as I can relate to the emotions. I discovered you through "Uncontrollably Fond" Korean drama. Thank you both. I gained some strength to keep living.
i will never forget the first time this was played in uncontrollably fond. idk but i cried so much and i never searched for a song so fast
i thought they disband already? i love this band and this song! please stay forever and make lot of good song. new fan here
Everyone talking about Uncontrollably fond in the comments, me who came here cause of Felix and now I am in love with the song
I accidentally came across the song last night and I was awestruck. I'd never heard of these before yet I became a fan within 10 seconds. What a totally stunning song and those vocals are like melting butter on hot toast
My wife and I have only recently discovered this great band! We went to see them live in Manchester just on Feb 17th. They were fabulous! This is one of my favourites now but can't believe it's over 12 years old!
I love the music but this video is something special. To come up with the idea of filming you tour as you tour the world makes it so special. Hats off to your director Peter John!
Isn't it wonderful when you find a band you have never heard before and you find you totally love them? You cannot say that about The Paper Kites... Featherstone was the first track I listened to.
Producer, director, filmer, and editor. 25 years refining the craft of story, and a RED Digital Cinema trainer and ambassador. A billion views and millions of comments — a bucket load of data on what works and what doesn't when it comes to creating stories that reach and transform.
Storylab is the process behind that work, taught to whoever's already filming the road with you.
Whoever's filming the tour is usually one person doing five jobs — driving, filming, editing, posting, and still trying to catch the show. Carrying a content quota and a calling to the work at once, with nobody above them to learn from.
Peter has spent twenty-five years in those rooms and on those buses. The work he cares most about now isn't another video — it's mentoring the people behind the camera: helping them find a simpler way to work, get the craft properly under their hands, and remember why they picked it up in the first place.
Fewer things, made well, by people who aren't running on empty.
04 — Where this goes next You've seen the story shape. The Storylab Workshop is where your crew learns to build it on demand — a repeatable process that turns listeners into fans, gig after gig, wherever the tour goes.
Before a camera comes out. What to film on tour, the questions that get past the rehearsed press answer, and the story shape behind every film that's turned a listener into a fan.
The full sit-down setup, hands-on. Lighting a face so it feels like film, framing, sound, and the technique that draws out the real moment — backstage, on the bus, wherever you've actually got ten minutes.
Editing for the hook. The first seconds that decide whether anyone keeps watching, how the story gets assembled, and the finish that carries it all the way to the next release.
The interview setup we build in the workshop is taught on Nikon Z Cinema bodies — compact cinema cameras carrying RED's colour science. Peter is a RED Digital Cinema trainer and ambassador, and has shot artists on fourteen REDs.
The same shape, run the same way on every date — so quality stops depending on who was awake enough to catch it.
Films built to turn a listener into someone who buys the ticket, the record and the shirt.
Simpler is faster. The treadmill stops eating the time you don't have between soundcheck and doors.
The interview setup, lighting and framing under their hands — on the gear you already run.
The next person who picks it up gets up to speed without starting from scratch.
Fewer, better things — the kind that are still bringing new fans in a decade later.
I came in as a musician — media was just a side hobby. I walked out with skills that crossfade straight into my music, and connections you can't get anywhere else.
Isaac AyresDJ · Ocean Grove, Australia I came from a DSLR thinking I was killing it. Pete put a RED in my hands, walked me through all of it — then taught me the real lesson: it's not what or how, it's the why.
Mitch LovedayMakker Studios · Sunshine Coast, Australia I quit film school after two weeks. On location with Pete — a RED in my hands, real shows, real access — I learned more than I ever would have in years of classes.
Sam HarveyHarvey Creative · New South Wales, Australia Before the workshop our church media was fumbling for direction. Pete answered the questions that were holding us back — and pitched it so the whole team could move forward together.
LaurentCasey City Church · Melbourne, Australia I quit my job as a primary teacher to pursue filming and needed guidance. Pete's consulting at Cine Artistlabs was exactly what I needed. He stripped away the noise and helped me finally own my worth, packaging my unique style into something the world actually wants to buy. 10/10 would take the leap again.
Pete DavisPete Studios · Ocean Grove, Australia Book it Tell us about your act and where you're at. We'll come back with dates, what the workshop looks like on your tour or in your studio, and a price — no obligation.
A hands-on intensive where whoever's filming your act learns the full repeatable process — finding the story, the sit-down interview setup and technique, and editing for the hook — so every video works, on every date.
Yes. Plenty of the people who take this workshop are the one person already filming the van, the soundcheck and the show. You don't need a crew, a budget or a film background — just the willingness to learn a process.
No. The principles work on any kit, and we tune the session to what you actually run. We teach on Nikon Z Cinema, but nothing here depends on you owning one.
Yes — we can run it in your studio, or around dates you're already playing. If travel doesn't suit, join an online cohort instead.
It depends on your team size and whether we come to you or you join a cohort. One person filming everything is not priced like a full crew. Tell us about your act below and we'll come back with a straight answer and some dates.
That's Storylab Production — we make the music videos, doc series and tour films ourselves. See the work at /storylab/music.
