The workshop · Church media teams Your team isn't about making content — they're about reaching people.
The Storylab Workshop teaches your team — regardless of its size — the repeatable process behind testimonies that actually reach people and transform them — backed by research, proven with 25 years of industry experience.
Film school, in your building Upgrade whoever holds the camera — volunteers, interns, staff — with the most comprehensive professional training in Australia — and anywhere in the world. Film-school depth: story, camera, lighting and edit, taught in your own room, on your own gear.
Run by a team whose work has reached hundreds of millions of people, and who still shoot it for a living.
Plenty of the teams we train are two or three young people who volunteered and are working it out as they go. You don't need a department, a budget or a background in film — just people willing to learn.
Everyone is overwhelmed. More posts, more clips, more platforms — the feed always wants feeding. And somewhere in the volume, the question quietly changed from what will this do in someone's life? to what are we posting this week?
"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
Romans 12:2
The volume game — chase the algorithm, post daily, be everywhere — is the world's pattern for content. The church never chose it. It drifted into it, one Sunday deadline at a time.
What if we didn't need any of the external stress?
Simplify. Make fewer things, make them well, and measure them by what they do in a life — not by how often they ship. Teams that cut volume and invest in one genuinely excellent piece see attention and trust go up, not down.
Renew the mind first. The content follows.
When a testimony is built as a story instead of a summary, the brain does something different with it — it stays, it trusts, and it acts. Here's what that turns into.
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 a father's 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 testimony — a life before, an encounter, a life after — is the exact arc that triggers all three.
Sources: Classy (campaign funding); published nonprofit-video and story-led giving research; 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 what the Storylab training produces. One testimony, built as a story — and the outcomes that followed it around the world.
The brief: Worship leader Joth Hunt's cancer testimony, directed, filmed & edited by Peter John (Planetshakers, 2019).
Republished worldwide by GOD TV, the GMA & Christian press · the song it launched with passed 2.7M views and charted on Billboard US Christian Airplay · viewers replied not with likes, but with their own testimonies of healing.
I felt the power of faith in your testimony. I sensed the anointing.
So blessed to hear your testimony! Thank you for being a very big part in our lives as Filipino families.
Our God is not man to lie. I'm believing Him for my healing too — though the doctors say otherwise, I'll still trust Him like you did, Joth. God bless you.
So inspiring! Goosebumps! Hallelujah to the Great Physician of all time. This testimony is so powerful.
An amazing testimony. So blessed to hear this. God is our victory, and He is the only way.
Wow, so good. Thanks for sharing with us. Blessings from Belgium.
God makes a way where there seems to be no way. Such a miraculous testimony — the story behind each song inspires us to grow in His presence.
Thank you for being with us, Mr Joth, on that day. I am moved by what God had done in your life. Sending blessings from the Philippines.
Praise God for this miracle in your life, Joth. Nothing is impossible to Him. After knowing the story behind the concert, there's even more to thank God for.
Wow, such an amazing testimony. Thank God for His marvelous healing. Amen.
I felt the power of faith in your testimony. I sensed the anointing.
So blessed to hear your testimony! Thank you for being a very big part in our lives as Filipino families.
Our God is not man to lie. I'm believing Him for my healing too — though the doctors say otherwise, I'll still trust Him like you did, Joth. God bless you.
So inspiring! Goosebumps! Hallelujah to the Great Physician of all time. This testimony is so powerful.
An amazing testimony. So blessed to hear this. God is our victory, and He is the only way.
Wow, so good. Thanks for sharing with us. Blessings from Belgium.
God makes a way where there seems to be no way. Such a miraculous testimony — the story behind each song inspires us to grow in His presence.
Thank you for being with us, Mr Joth, on that day. I am moved by what God had done in your life. Sending blessings from the Philippines.
Praise God for this miracle in your life, Joth. Nothing is impossible to Him. After knowing the story behind the concert, there's even more to thank God for.
Wow, such an amazing testimony. Thank God for His marvelous healing. Amen.
Producer, director, filmer, and editor. 25 years refining the craft of story. 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 those who want to reach and transform the world and make it a better place.
Whoever makes the videos at your church is carrying a weekly deadline and a calling at once — often two or three volunteers, with nobody above them to learn from. The result is gifted people quietly running on empty, convinced the problem is that they aren't working hard enough.
Peter has spent fourteen years in those rooms. The work he cares most about now isn't another film — it's mentoring and coaching 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 team learns to build it on demand — a repeatable process that produces the same transformational outcome, week after week, whoever's holding the camera.
Before a camera comes out. Who to film, the questions that get past the rehearsed answer, and the story shape behind the film you just watched — as something your team can plan before every shoot.
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 instead of a prepared one.
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 end.
The same shape, run the same way every time — so quality stops depending on who was free that week.
Stories built to move the person watching, not just document the person speaking.
Simpler is faster. The treadmill stops eating the time your team doesn't have.
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 people remember long after the week they were posted.
Laurent Lamberty is on the media team at Casey City Church — a small one, like most. We brought the Storylab Workshop into their room for a day. This is what he says it changed.
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 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 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 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 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 shot Backstage to Broadcast on fourteen REDs.
Book it Tell us about your team and where you're at. We'll come back with dates, what the workshop looks like in your room, and a price — no obligation.
A hands-on intensive where your media team learns the full repeatable process — finding the story, the sit-down interview setup and technique, and editing for the hook — so every video works, whoever's behind the camera.
Yes. Plenty of the teams we train are two or three young people who volunteered and are working it out as they go. You don't need a media department, a budget or a background in film — just people willing to learn.
No. The principles work on any kit, and we tune the sessions to the gear your team actually runs. We teach on Nikon Z Cinema, but nothing we cover depends on you owning one.
Yes — we run it in your building, in your own room and on your own screen. If travel doesn't suit, your team can join an online cohort instead.
It depends on how many of you there are and whether we come to you or you join a cohort. Small teams are not priced like big ones. Tell us about your lot below and we'll come back with a straight answer and some dates.
