Une empathie incroyable, de la gentillesse, de l'entraide permanente, des qualités de pilote et de mécano vraiment phénoménales...tu as gagné l'admiration de tous et ça, c'est TA victoire. Merci à toute l'équipe pour ces partages vidéos, on a hâte de continuer à te suivre dans tous tes défis... BRAVO.
A documentary series that becomes your own media.
Document what you are building through a series that follows your story. Episode after episode, the audience comes back, subscribes, and buys.
Built from zero on the Dakar·35K subscribers·4.2M+ views·100K€+ direct sales in three weeks
Selected partners
KTM
Red Bull
The North Face
New Balance
Millet
Scott
Hit The Road
MaXi-Race
Ducati
Motorex
Helite
What is your audience actually worth?
You already publish: reels, highlights, films, ads, recaps. They get views, then silence. Nothing accumulates, and next month starts over.
Views, likes and subscribers say nothing. A viral clip can reach a million people and never sell; an audience that cares can carry a business.
What counts is what happens after the view: does the audience come back, subscribe, buy?
The goal is to build a format where a high-value audience commits.
Drive to Survive, at your scale.
Drive to Survive turned Formula 1 into a mainstream brand without changing a single race. The mechanism was simple: characters people follow, one episode after another, until watching became a habit and the habit became attachment.
What makes it hold is the seat it gives the viewer. Episode after episode they are inside the thing, at the moment it tips over, close enough to feel what it costs. That is immersion, and no recap can manufacture it.
That mechanism does not need Netflix.
It needs a story that unfolds and a channel to live on. Yours.
Your storyA season, a race, a project. Something at stake, unfolding over time.
A seriesOne episode at a time, published at the pace of the story.
A returning audienceThe habit that recaps and highlights never create.
Yours to keepSubscribers, emails, data, sales. On your channel and your list.
We ran this mechanism for four years. Here is what it did.
Episode 17 · I win the Dakar 2026 · French audio
Proof of concept
Four Dakars, starting with no audience at all.
Vis ma vie du Dakar is the most-watched French documentary series about the Dakar on YouTube: daily episodes, cut at the bivouac, published the same evening. The first episode of 2024 reached #13 on YouTube France trending; the biggest episode passed 172K views.
Viewers stay for 40 to 50% of each 20-minute episode, over a third of the views happened on a TV screen, and in 2026, 24,000 people came back every day for the next episode.
101
Episodes, four Dakars and the preparation rallies
4.2M+
Views across the series
0 to 35K
Subscribers, four seasons
100K€+
Direct sales, Dakar 2026
2023
Season one. Zero to 10,000 subscribers in the first seven days.
2024
#13 on YouTube France trending. Brand partners come on board.
2025
1.2M views over the Dakar window. A 15-minute sponsor segment holds the audience.
2026
Benji Melot wins the Malle Moto class. 100K€+ sold in three weeks: a photo book and online courses we designed and built ourselves, plus series merchandise sold by a partner.
“I hate it when my husband watches motorcycles on TV.Viewer, Vis ma vie du Dakar
With you guys, I was asking him every evening if the episode was out.”
“We lived the real Dakar, better than television.Viewer, under the final episode
Four years of true immersion.”
Vis ma vie du Dakar 2025, final episode. French audio.
Under the episode where he loses the win, on the last stage
1,728 comments, from 47,000 views
Benji, je n’ai jamais mis de commentaires sur YouTube mais en voyant ta déception je ne pouvais m’empêcher de t’écrire en espérant que mon commentaire et ceux de toutes les personnes qui t’ont suivi durant ce Dakar, t’amènent un peu de réconfort. Car tu es un exemple de persévérance pour le monde du sport. Pour nous, dans notre canapé à suivre tes exploits sur le Dakar, tu es un extraterrestre tellement humain et bourré de bienveillance envers les autres. Relèves la tête et prends conscience de ta performance hors norme. Et on espère te revoir en 2026. Amicalement,
Des années que je ne m'intéressait plus au Dakar, je suis tombé sur une de tes vidéos un peu par hasard. Chaque soir j'ai guetté le feed du jour, j'ai kiffé de dingue. Je suis trop dégouté pour l'issue que ça a pris, tu devais gagner. Mais reviens y, tu le feras, c'est sûr. Ta bonne humeur, ta gentillesse, ta disponibilité pour tout le monde t'honorer et te rendent GRAND. Tu peux être vraiment fier de ce que tu fait, de ce que tu es.
Je prends un moment pour remercier Clément pour cette incroyable série. Cette année encore, c’était encore mieux que la précédente ! La bande-son est parfaitement choisie, et le montage, avec le format d’une vidéo par jour, est tout simplement remarquable. Bravo pour ce travail impressionnant ! Un grand merci également à Benjamin. On comprend pourquoi tu es le préféré de tous : professionnel, humble, toujours souriant, et incarnant cet esprit de grande famille grâce à ton sens de l’entraide. J’ai découvert le résultat en direct aujourd’hui, et j’attendais cette dernière vidéo avec impatience. On a tous versé des larmes ce soir, et pourtant, on ne peut qu’imaginer à quel point la déception doit être grande pour toi. Mais le point positif, c’est que cette défaite rendra la victoire de l’année prochaine encore plus belle ! J’ai déjà hâte de vous voir revenir plus forts. Bon retour à la maison les gars, et encore bravo pour tout !
Ça déchire le cœur de te voir comme ça benji !!! Mais franchement tu nous à régalé tout le long du Dakar !!! Félicitations à toi le chouchou du Dakar 💪💪💪💪 . Je n’ai jamais vu un pilote avoir autant d’empathie de la part de tout le monde
Je n’en reviens pas, des années que je ne suivais plus le Dakar, et je ne sais pas pourquoi mais je tombe sur ta série et là je deviens accro. Je te suis au travers de ton aventure, je regarde tous tes épisodes, je fais un petit tour aussi sur ceux de Charlie. Vos vies sont incroyables et on ne retrouve pas ce spirit incroyable chez les pros dans leurs grosses écuries. J’adore ce moment où tous les soirs je vois des gars qui en plus d’avoir enquillés des centaines de bornes ailleurs que sur l’A10, se mettent à vidanger autre chose que leur personne. Grace à ton talent et ton humilité tu donnes de belles leçons de vie à tous ceux qui baissent les bras à la première déconvenue. Pour moi tu es sur la plus haute marche du podium pour m’avoir fait rêver bien au chaud assis dans mon canapé! Bravo à toi, et à tes potes malles moto. Une dernière chose, quand tu te seras reposé, pense à t’inscrire l’an prochain, c’était trop sympa que nous ai permis de partager tout ça et j’ai égayé de revivre cette aventure par procuration. Moi je roule que sur les routes lol. Force à toi💪 Surtout ne change rien. Merci à ton équipe pour les épisodes.
Habituellement je ne m'intéresse pas au Dakar, je ne m'abonne à aucune chaîne et ne laisse pas de commentaire, alors que pour Mister Benji j'ai fait tout ça.... je me surpris moi même...😅 Nan sans déconner, tu m'as fait découvrir la malle moto et je trouve ça incroyable cette course...je n'ai rien raté de ces vidéos que j'attendais avec impatience...! J'ai decouvert un homme qui defend des valeurs qui me semblaient disparues dans le sport, un homme passionné, rayonnant, un bien chouette Monsieur... Mille Bravos pour ce que tu as réalisé, tu peux vraiment être fier de toi !! Bon retour dans notre belle Franche-Comté et au hasard de s'y croiser..! Tchao Mister... Bravo aussi pour les images elles sont très belles...😉
Tu es le pilote français que je ne connaissais pas avant cette série. Tant d’émotions en regardant un épisode tous les soirs, alors que je ne m’intéresse à cette course que depuis l’an dernier. Tu ne peux pas imaginer le bonheur que tu as apporté aux gens pendant ce Dakar… Que tu le veuilles ou non, tu es notre champion. Aujourd’hui, le Dakar est rattaché à toi pour toujours ! Reviens-nous vite ❤️
BRAVO Benji, je ne suivais plus le Dakar .Je suis tombé sur la video de ton prologue par hasard et je t'ai suivi tous les jours avec un plaisir immense ,voir le Dakar comme tu nous l'as montré a été un enchantement jusqu'à la fin , je comprends ta tristesse de finir deuxième au final alors que tu partais 1 er aujoud'hui, tu as fait un monstrueux Dakar aussi bien en course qu'humainement,voir toutes les coureurs ,officiels,VIP venir à ta rencontre c'est impressionnant le respect qu'ils ont pour toi , tu es deuxieme en malle moto et 21 au general c'est pas n'importe quoi .J'ai vecu deux semaines super moi qui suis cloué dans un faureuil roulant à te suivre .Je continuerai à te suivre sur tes prochaines courses .Merci à Clément et son equipe pour toutes les videos (j'attend avec impatience les prochaines) .Merci à Chris pour les analyses journalières .Je vous souhaite à tous bonne chance pour la suite ,ne change rien tu es un mec super avec un ❤ ÉNORME
J'ai 56 et je n'ai pas suivi le Dakar depuis des 10aines d'année Les frères Mareau (pas sur de l'orthographe) Daniel Balavoine, Thierry Sabine, Hubert Auriol, Cyril Neveu.....c'était extraordinaire de les suivre J'ai découvert ton aventure par hasard à travers vos vidéos et je me suis régalé, tous les jours j'attendais la nouvelle avec impatience ! Je suis impressionné par ce que vous avez fait, c'est extraordinaire et ce que tu as fait Benjamin est encore plus extraordinaire et la manière est un pur Bonheur! Merci pour ce que tu m'as fait vivre , merci à ton équipe Bien sur, tu ne peux qu'être déçu de ta deuxième parce que tu devais la gagner parce que la raison est terrible mais tu dois surtout êtres extrêmement fier de ce que tu as fais ! Je vous félicite tous, je vous remercie et après quelques jours de repos je suis persuadé que vos têtes vont de nouveau réfléchir comment gagner le Dakar l'année prochaine ! On the road again 😊 Vincent
Je vous ai découvert comme beaucoup cette année, une véritable claque en pleine poire. Quel kiff bordel ! Je me suis envoyé toutes vos vidéos en quelques jours. À tous, bravo ! J'ai hâte de suivre vos prochaines aventures.
Comments as published on YouTube, in French, unedited.
Rallye du Maroc 2025 with Hit The Road, day two episode. French audio.
The same workflow, for a client
Rallye du Maroc 2025 with Hit The Road, a French collective with a million subscribers on their main channel, backed by Red Bull as project sponsor: six daily episodes, 233K views and counting. FAULN ran the production on the ground, inside the bivouac; Hit The Road kept the edit and released the series daily on their rally-raid channel.
“You're really immersed in the race. You access places only official riders get to see. And with one video per day, every stage is filmed, edited, and uploaded. Respect. It's a truly great series.”Paul Roux-dit-Buisson, Hit The Road, on the Dakar series, before bringing FAULN to the Rallye du Maroc
The series, concretely
Six episodes and up.The story sets the count, the budget sets the depth.
Every series is sized in pre-production: tone, subjects and off-limits topics agreed with you, then the shoot plan. From there we work hand in hand, through the whole production.
Episodes
From six. No ceiling.
Each episode
One moment of the story: a race, a week, a month.
Release
The pace the story sets. Same day on a rally, further apart across a season.
Crew
A director on every shoot. Editor, second camera and short-form editing, sized to the budget.
Underneath
Narrative design, channel strategy, publishing and SEO, episode by episode.
Budget
From 50K€. Shoot days, crew and episode count are what move it.
What you keep
01The channelSubscribers, emails, watch data. Yours from day one, growing season after season.
02The archiveEvery episode stays online and keeps pulling views long after the last one.
03The clean feedThe best footage, no graphics, no mixed audio. For your campaigns and those of your partners, for years.
04The proofEvery number the series produces, auditable in your analytics, down to each episode's retention graph. A monthly report reads them for you.
Competition footage belongs to its rights holder, whether that is the race organiser or your league. It is not in the price, and the series does not depend on it: four Dakar seasons were built on our own footage. If you hold or clear those rights, we cut them into the episodes. And where in-competition footage stays editorial-only, dedicated shoots outside the event give you full commercial rights.
“The series became a daily ritual that brings the community together, on the same level as a Netflix show.Benji Melot, rider, subject of the series for four seasons
During the race, I have neither the time nor the energy to manage production. Everything is anticipated: the team films, edits, and publishes without me having to intervene.”
Before the first shoot
A deep dive into your story.
It starts with a working session on what is actually at stake: what you are trying to build, who carries it, and where your situation is unlike anyone else's. From that comes the angle the series will hold, and the thread that runs from the first episode to the last.
It is built with you. Nobody knows your world better than the people living in it, and the material that matters often surfaces in a detail someone mentions in passing. We listen for those, and give them a shape.
This is also where performance is decided. Platforms reward retention, and retention is a story problem before it is a technical one. SEO, thumbnails, scheduling and channel strategy carry the episode to the viewer. The story is what keeps them there.
A note from Clément Armand
Written after four seasons on the Dakar
What was our Dakar audience actually worth?
I did not set out to sell documentary series. The plan was a film about a rider going to the Dakar, one episode a day, filmed and published from the bivouac.
What the numbers described was more specific than a viewership. Men over 25 for the most part, often watching on a television set, coming back every evening, 50% staying to the end, commenting in the hundreds. The brands around him saw a well-liked athlete with a logo on his jersey, and bought the sponsorship they had always bought. I saw an audience that could feed an acquisition system.
The only way to find out whether it was worth anything was to sell it something ourselves. A photo book at 50€, offered to 35,000 subscribers. 1,400 copies in two weeks. A 4% conversion rate. Online courses and merchandise sold alongside the book. The YouTube CPM on the series ran at 12€, about three times the platform average.
That audience will not get much bigger. Everyone in France who follows rally-raid has already found the series, and the numbers have settled where they are. The 4% proved something else: a documentary can build an audience precise enough to buy, and what deserves to be repeated is the system that produced it rather than the film that started it.
Clément Armand
Co-founder, FAULN
How it pays
Part of the budget comes back.
Add up what you already spend in a year: a freelancer here, an agency there, a photographer, ad creatives. Pieces that never compound. A series is one budget that produces everything, and it carries its own financing.
Series sponsorsNaming, a “series by” credit, product inside the episodes, short-form cut for the brand's own feeds, and a dedicated episode when it fits.
+
Direct salesProducts designed for the audience the series builds.
+
ActivationsLocal premieres with partners, merchandise, events, screenings.
+
Platform revenueModest in a niche, real at volume, on top of everything else.
The Dakar series carried up to seven sponsors a season. The client rarely carries the whole budget alone.
Brands inside the work
Helite sat inside the story for fifteen minutes and the audience stayed. Two years on, its clean feed still runs in campaigns, trade shows and distributor materials. It came with the series.
“On set, the team is responsive and attentive to detail, focused on understanding what the film needs to convey. The result online is real professional work that puts the people on screen in the right light.”Anselme Clergeot, R&D Engineer, Helite
“The visuals they delivered worked in every format: print, social media and promotional video. The quality was excellent across all of them.”Lison Rondi, Digital Marketing Project Manager, Helite
For you
It works wherever a community cares.
The condition is a loyal community and something at stake: a club and its territory, a rider and their race, a founder building in public, an artist composing an album, a brand with a product in development. The ceiling is the size of that market, and we aim for what the market allows, not for millions.
A team, a club, an athlete.
You produce content all season and it gets views, but it never becomes appointment viewing. Your sponsors ask for numbers and you have reach without depth. A series turns your channel into a weekly appointment, and gives your sponsors numbers they can audit, episode by episode.
A brand.
Sponsorship buys a logo on a jersey and a few posts. Inside a series your product lives in the story: after a first season as a sponsor, Helite multiplied its budget by five and took a 15-minute segment inside an episode. The audience stayed. Red Bull backed the Rallye du Maroc series as project sponsor.
Anyone building something.
Someone who wants something, builds toward it over time, with highs and lows, and is willing to show the backstage.
The method transfers
Supported by The North Face
97K views, from under 200 subscribers
Écrins Sauvages, a short documentary about steep skiing in the massif. The film found its audience on its own, with nothing pushing it.
Small niche, high value
3 sold-out screenings
Nos Voisins Champsaurins. 46% of views on TV screens, a 21€ CPM, and a third of the views came from people sending it to each other on Facebook and WhatsApp.
An owned list
141K views, 4,000 emails
An experiment on Clément's own channel, hiking niche: three videos from zero, 2,400 subscribers and an owned list built along the way.
Start
Tell us about your project.
The season, the event or the project, the dates, the channel you have or want to build. Clément or Nicolas reads every message and comes back with an honest first take on whether a series makes sense in your context.
Projects start at 50K€
- Shoot days per episode
- Crew size
- Number of episodes
The budget follows these three variables. Logistics fees are scoped per project. Series sponsors, direct sales and activations can carry part of it.
Dakar series sponsored by KTM, Motorex and Helite. Rallye du Maroc series with Hit The Road, backed by Red Bull.
The alternative
Your funnel already exists. A series connects it.
Without a series
Top of the funnelReels, TikToks, one-off social content.
MiddleOrganic content, posted when there is something to post.
BottomOne-shot ad campaigns. A mailing list of customers you already have.
Each piece is built separately and bought separately, with no link to the next. The viewer who sees the ad has never seen the rest.
With the series
Top of the funnelReels and TikToks cut from the series. On the Dakar, those reels took Benji's Instagram from 5K to 28K, with 2.3M impressions over Dakar 2025.
MiddleThe series itself: episodes, habit, attachment.
BottomAds from the footage, sponsor integrations, a mailing list the episodes keep feeding.
The viewer who discovers a clip watches the episodes, gets attached and converts on an ad carrying the same faces. One shoot feeds every format.
Your own campaigns and dedicated creatives keep their place at the top and the bottom. The series feeds every level of your acquisition system.
Questions we get.
Where does the series live?
On a channel you own, or your athlete's, in official collaboration with yours. Where to host it is a performance decision more than a branding one: an audience that already trusts someone beats a brand channel with no audience yet. Either way the channel, the subscribers, the emails and the data sit on your side of the table, from day one, and keep working after the last episode.
Do the episodes have to be daily?
No. What sets the pace is what a single episode has to hold. A rally stage is a chapter on its own, with its own result and its own cliffhanger, so it gives one episode a day: six on the Rallye du Maroc, one for every stage of a Dakar. A football season runs on another unit, the match or the training week, so the episodes come further apart. What we protect is the habit: the audience comes back for the next one. The rhythm is set with you in pre-production.
Who actually makes it?
FAULN is an independent documentary production group based in the French Alps. We work in house and with a network of trusted, talented freelancers. Crews are sized to the project: three people on a Dakar season, six on the MaXi-Race, and the ground production we ran for Hit The Road on the Rallye du Maroc.
What does the price cover?
Far more than shooting. The strategy layer first: narrative design and editorial framing, channel strategy, post-production setup, project coordination. Then the production: a director on every shoot, editor, second camera and clipping sized to the budget, vertical cuts for your feeds. Then the release: publishing, SEO, thumbnails and scheduling, episode by episode.
On top, options when the project calls for them: original music, clean feed, subtitled editions delivered the day after each episode, advertising assets, a photo pack, drone, custom thumbnails, direct-to-audience strategy. Logistics fees are scoped per project.
We already have a broadcaster. Why a series too?
A series lives next to your broadcast deal, on footage you shoot yourself. A broadcaster lends you its audience; it never becomes yours. You cannot redirect it to your shop, your list or your next project. You give up editorial freedom, and you get no data. Television numbers are not auditable either. On your own channel you keep the editorial freedom, the analytics and the audience.
Do you run paid promotion on the series?
No. The series grows organically: views can be bought cheaply, but the engagement that brings an audience back cannot. What we do deliver is the material for your own paid campaigns: advertising assets and a clean-feed library, with full commercial rights where we shoot them outside competition.
Do you commit to numbers?
No. We show past results; we will not promise figures we would be inventing. Two things we do know. The size of the starting audience matters little, because YouTube pushes what people actually watch. And everything the series does is auditable in your own analytics, down to the retention graph of each episode.
What if it does not work?
There is no guarantee to give, and we will not invent one. What we can tell you is where series usually fail. Making the episode is half the work. Publishing it at the right moment, with the SEO, the thumbnail, the schedule and the relays that put it in front of people, is the other half, and it is the half that usually goes missing. That second half is why this is a performance package and not video production, and it is in the price. Every step of it lands in your own analytics.
Who controls the story?
The frame is set together in pre-production: tone, subjects, off-limits topics, and we work hand in hand throughout, because nobody knows the stories better than your people. Editorial decisions stay with FAULN, and you review every episode for factual accuracy and sensitive matters. The review runs on the clock the release pace sets, agreed before the first shoot day. That balance is what makes a series perform.
Who owns the episodes?
Under French law the production company holds the intellectual property of what it produces and grants you the rights to use it. What those rights cover, on which channels and for how long, is written into the contract before the first shoot day, and it is built around how you actually plan to use the films.
Does it work outside racing?
Yes. What a series needs is someone who wants something, a story to tell around it, the will to build in public, and the nerve to show the bad days. If that exists, the niche does not matter: its size only sets the ceiling.
How is a series financed?
Rarely by one budget line alone. Four sources stack: series sponsors (naming, integrations, a “series by” credit: the Dakar series carried six per season on average); direct sales to the audience (products designed for it brought 100K€+ in three weeks of Dakar 2026); activations around the episodes (local premieres with your partners, merchandise, events, screenings); and platform revenue, modest in a niche, real at volume.