Film 1 of 9 · Today · 5:24
Make a channel people come back to
A promise, a format and three rules in the bible: what brings viewers back, on Every Nine Seconds, then on a channel of your own.
Transcript
Why would anyone come back for your next episode? Because you made them a promise, and you keep it. In this video, you'll write three things for your own channel: a promise, a format, and three rules.
Our example is Every Nine Seconds, a one-minute show we made in Kiju. It ships with Kiju: on the Welcome screen, choose Open the sample channel. It's read-only. You can read it, play it and export it, but you can't change it or make new takes, and the prices are what we spent. To try things, choose Make a copy to work in. The copy is yours. It opens on Today, the channel's page, and the sample's old costs never touch your budget.
Every channel is a folder on your Mac: its name and promise, its rules, its cast, its episodes, and every take, with its pictures, video and voices. All of it is files you can open and back up. No Kiju account needed.
Start with the promise: what viewers get from every episode. Here's ours. One night a week, six sweeps of a lighthouse beam. The lighthouse guesses wrong in the dark; the last sweep shows the truth, in silence. To write yours, choose Edit channel and finish one sentence: every episode... THESE viewers... get THIS. Then say who it's for, and how it speaks.
Next, a format: the shape every episode repeats. Ours is six shots of nine seconds. About five seconds of light, then four of dark. The voice speaks only in the dark, and the last shot has no words. Viewers learn the shape once, then they play along. For yours, choose a length, an order and an ending. In Kiju, a format is a rule in the bible.
Then the rules, in the bible. Ours start with the format: six sweeps, the first already lit. Then one for the picture: we only see what the beam lights. One for the voice: the lighthouse speaks only in the dark. And one for the story: one new fact per sweep, sound off. A rule can also carry a reference picture, so every new image starts from the same look.
When the writers' room suggests a rule, it arrives as a proposal, and none is in force until you approve it. In this practice copy, two of our rules are proposals again. Approve one, with a line saying why... and it joins the rules in force.
When a proposed rule doesn't fit the show, set it aside, with its reason. This one put the cormorant in every sweep. But The Fog, our second episode, needed sweeps without the bird.
So, before a single shot was made, we set it aside, with one line saying why. It stays in the bible, struck through: you can always see what changed, and why.
Now, yours. From the channel menu, choose New channel. Name it, give it a tagline, and pick A new world: an empty bible and cast. Kiju asks where to keep the folder... and your channel opens.
Say it's a comedy about a snail courier, one parcel a week. In Edit channel, write the promise: every week, families watch the slowest courier in town deliver one impossible parcel, just in time. Then who it's for... and how it speaks: a cheerful narrator, and a snail who only sighs.
Then, in the bible, choose Add entry four times: once for the format, and once for each of your three rules.
The format, under Rule: the order, three obstacles, and the delivery, just in time.
The picture, under Visual: a bright clay world, seen at snail height.
The voice, under Voice: the narrator talks. Shelby never does.
And the story, under Rule: every parcel arrives in the last five seconds, and something small goes right.
Pause here, and write yours: one promise, one format, three rules. Next time: a cast that stays the same, from one shot to the next.
The film is in English, with English captions. Filmed on the Kiju desk, version 0.1.0. The images, the video and the voices in the films are AI-generated.