So, you might have heard about A.I ?

What's the big deal?

Are the robots finally taking control from their fleshy, squishy overlords?

Will we finally see the prophesied rise of Skynet and be plunged into a cyberwar? 

Hopefully.

But for the moment we have ChatGPT, Midjourney and many other rising platforms.

Come With Me If You Want To Live.

Why is there a big fuss in our industry?

A.I in video brings a lot to the table, you will have seen over the course of the past few months high quality A.I generated images, videos being made from A.I made content and scripts being produced through chosen word prompts. 

One of the highest profile use cases of A.I tools - Marvels Secret Invasion.

All these tools appeared in the space of a couple of months and people were quick to flock to the doomsaying surrounding them, yes I agree it is quite scary seeing A.I produce images that would normally take a team of set designers to make or a 3D artist hours to render, but I think and believe that A.I should be used as an extra tool in our arsenal.

Jason Allen’s A.I.-generated work, “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial,”.

I don’t think A.I produced visuals are a replacement for professional artists, not yet anyway. Instead I think they can be used to make our jobs easier by cutting out the mundane tasks that we all dislike and even give us new ways to express our creativity.

How is A.I being used to help

Over the past few months I have seen some very innovative uses of A.I that I feel have huge potential for uses in the creative spaces.

For video editors especially there is a tool called AutoPod which will automatically sync multiple cameras and cut out pauses and silences from the timeline, being an extremely useful tool for people who edit podcasts, presentations and any other long form content. 

For VFX/Compositors, I have seen photoshops A.I autofill feature used to extend background, creating a bigger scene, allowing small budget artists to make shots that normall would require lots of money, permits and all the usual things that stand in the way of creative expression.

In the 3D world I have seen tools such as Skybox, an online 3D prompt based tool that you can use to generate an environment HDRI for use in your 3D projects.

For designers and artists, Adobe's Firefly A.I tool generates images from Adobe’s own database and library of stock footage, enabling you to create concepts for your projects with A.I without stealing from artists.

Adobe’s A.I creation tool.

The Ethical problem with A.I

The main problem with using A.I, and A.I generated content is the question of ethics.

Some A.I engines train themselves on artists' works available online to make their content. Taking the work and jobs from artists, designers, illustrators and using their work without compensation or consent. 

There will be a lot of interesting discussions taking place around this in the next year. 

Will companies forgo using graphic designers when they can get an intern to use prompt based engines to create their artwork? How will A.I generated work be flagged and what will the rules and laws of copyright come into play?

I personally think that if A.I generated content is used more commonly, people and companies need to be clear of how the content is being generated, are they being ethical and training an A.I engine with custom made images and compensating the artists accordingly or are they just smashing prompts into an engine and hoping for the best?

How am I using A.I 

Personally, I’m using A.I as a tool to help enhance my storyboarding process.

I have always struggled in getting the vision from my head onto a storyboard, as I’m not a graphic designer/traditional artist I find it difficult to visually express my idea until it's actually made, but with the help of Adobe Firefly I can create concept images for my storyboards to show my vision. 

One of the images I used to help visualise the mood and setting I had envisioned in my head.

Adobe Firefly utilizes Adobe’s vast library of stock footage and also exports the A.I generated content with a watermark to tag it as A.I produced and not useable for commercial purposes. I recently did a project where I utilized Firefly in my storyboard process to better help myself plan out the framing and style of the shots I wanted to create.

This process was extremely beneficial to me, it allowed me to better understand my own vision by letting me visualize my project and tweak it slightly before spending hours creating the wrong product.

Final scene from my project ‘OverDrive’.

What does the future hold?

Although all these amazing tools are being brought to the market by A.I.

Trained (human/terran) professionals are still highly needed to use them and implement them correctly, there will be some businesses who see a tool like AutoPod and think why do I need to pay a video editor to edit my podcast anymore?

Well you still do, a video editor will still need to check the cuts have been done properly, monitor the sound levels and input from different recording devices, understand how to grade the footage for different skin tones, know the correct export settings and have the knowledge and experience to troubleshoot the hundreds of different problems that can arise during a post-production workflow. 

A.I tools will only get better with time, but it’s down to us to adapt to these new tools and learn them as they develop.

Humans are very adaptable creatures, if we can’t keep up with new workflow methods and tools, maybe the robots deserve to take us over?