Question 1

What does the Placelore subscription cover, and what does the studio handle each cycle?

Accepted Answer

The subscription covers an always-on production backbone: signal scanning, a cohort brief, participant recruiting and scheduling, crew call sheets, field production, rough photo and video cuts, review and redrafting, public-facing installs or screenings, and a settled payout ledger. Your group brings the questions, the place, and the access; Placelore keeps the cycle moving. Cadence can be weekly, monthly, or seasonal depending on the program.

Question 2

What is included in the Cohort, Museum, and Collective tiers?

Accepted Answer

Cohort is $480 per month for civic groups building a Documenters-style program with schedules, call sheets, and weekly rough cuts. Museum is $1,250 per month for seasonal, locality-rooted portraits reviewed with curators and staged at partner venues. Collective is $2,400 per month for activist collectives running a steady stream of issue-grade footage, same-week rough cuts, and organizing-friendly installs. All three use the same production backbone; the tier reflects the audience, cadence, and level of programming you are running.

Question 3

Who owns the stories, footage, and other content produced with our community?

Accepted Answer

Editorial control, reuse rights, and permission for portfolio or Story Atlas publication should be spelled out in the agreement for your program; they should not be assumed from the subscription alone. In the current flow, the cohort reviews the work before anything is published, and no rough cut becomes public without that review. Ask us to document exactly who can edit, reuse, exhibit, or publish each story and how participant permissions are handled before the first shoot.

Question 4

How does a story move from the brief and rough cut into the public Story Atlas?

Accepted Answer

A cycle starts with a brief that sets the issue, place, and questions. The crew then returns a rough cut, and the cohort reviews it with the studio so context, access, and participant wishes can be addressed. Only reviewed and explicitly published rough cuts appear in the public Story Atlas; a draft or an item still awaiting review stays out of the public view.

Question 5

How long does onboarding take before the first cycle ships?

Accepted Answer

Plan on roughly six weeks for the first run. That time covers the kickoff, defining the place and questions, confirming access and participant needs, recruiting and scheduling the crew, preparing the brief and call sheets, and getting the first field work into review. The exact timing depends on how quickly your organization can confirm neighborhoods, participants, venues, and editorial sign-off.

Question 6

What happens after we complete Stripe Checkout?

Accepted Answer

Stripe sends you back to the hosted app at /checkout/success with a session reference. The app then verifies that session asynchronously with the billing service; it does not treat the redirect alone as proof of payment or promise immediate activation. Once verification succeeds, the billing handoff can show the confirmed plan and period. If the provider record is still arriving, keep your receipt and return to billing shortly while the verification finishes.

Question 7

What information does the studio collect about community participants, and why?

Accepted Answer

The current participant intake asks for a full name, email address, neighborhood, a short note about the project, and an optional portfolio link. Those fields help a crew lead understand fit, coordinate contact, and prepare the right story conversation; the portfolio link is not required. We aim to collect only what the production needs, and consent and access are handled as part of the pre-shoot work. The intake does not ask for a participant’s demographic profile or other sensitive fields.

Question 8

Can we pause or cancel, and when does the change take effect?

Accepted Answer

Pause and cancellation timing should be confirmed in your program agreement rather than inferred from the checkout screen. Contact the studio before the next renewal so we can confirm the requested change in writing. Your account can show the current billing period end; unless your agreement says otherwise, ask us to schedule the pause or cancellation against that paid period instead of assuming a mid-cycle change or refund.

Question 9

Is Placelore a fit for a civic group, museum, or activist collective?

Accepted Answer

Yes, when your organization has a real place-based question and wants a repeatable way to make it public. Civic groups use Cohort for recurring community reporting, museums use Museum for curatorial portrait series, and activist collectives use Collective for issue-grade footage and public-facing organizing moments. If you are unsure, start with the intake and tell us the neighborhood, people, and question you want to work around.

Questions before the first brief.

The practical answers, in one place.