2024: A Look Back To Look Forward

As we approach the end of December, it is time to look back on the year so we may look ahead to 2025. Reflection on the past can be invaluable in creating a path towards the future. Some of the stories that I write involve me taking a deep look at the world. In fact, several of those stories are even more prescient now than when I wrote them. One of them stands out because of recent world events. It is a post-apocalyptic thriller meant to reflect the present and the past into an imagined future. A cause-and-effect story that may need to be shopped around in the new year. 

It's one of a dozen such stories where I used the present and the past to imagine what the world might be like in the future. Along with writing anthologies, this has become an undeniable trademark of my writing over the past twenty-five years. Writing anthologies is something I have talked about at length here over the past decade. That came about out of necessity and respect for the format.

Writing about the future is a way of dealing with what I have learned and experienced. I can't properly do that by just talking or posting about it on social media. You can get tangled up in people's opinions and beliefs and lose track of what your purpose was for bringing it up in the first place. Discussions are good and part of the process, but once you have a story that you can't stop thinking about it has to be told by you. 

Storytelling is my favorite way to express myself. I like to imagine the story, determine if it is worth spending time on and then crack on with it. That said, I have sat on stories for a decade. So, cracking on with it sometimes happens right away, but it may also mean when the time is right. The rules are always evolving with creativity. Stories often arise from observations of life or deeper research. I have sat at a cafe for a few hours and plotted out multiple stories or discovered a creative path that will take years to complete. I then proceed to follow this new path to completion years later. I like to believe that my personal barometer for determining which projects to pursue has improved through the years. Whether that is true or not may be open for debate.  

The plans I make for myself are often in an attempt to make time for creativity. When you come to realize that you are one in 8 billion people on a massive rock whirling around an invisible race track in the dark expanse of a seemingly infinite universe, you can get lost in the numbers. Storytelling is my vessel to explore it all. Whether that be through writing, acting, directing, or designing. When you walk the path of creativity you tend to become the path after a while. 

Big ideas become plans. Ideas and plans change based on the situation. Big plans become projects that get attention. Projects become accomplishments. And by the end of the year, you reflect on it all and see that progress was made. Then you make adjustments and plan for the year ahead. You have 365 days to move the ball -- a metaphor for your creative work. We are not Sisyphus, we are not being punished for our imagination. The process of creation is meant to be one of toil, yes, but also one of joyful self-expression. As painful as it can be to be rejected, creating something that would not exist without your imagination feels glorious. This year was no different. I started the year by releasing an illustrated version of the book Michaelmas. This marked my first attempt at integrating AI images into my work. After I released the book I thought I might focus on illustrating another book or work on a graphic novel.

Then in February, we got the tease from OpenAI for SORA. If I am being honest, I wish they had not teased it so early on, because my whole view on what I should be doing in regards to AI shifted. As a result of my excitement, I began thinking more about AI video possibilities instead of what I could do with AI images. 

By this time, I had already begun work on a pitch package for a TV series, something I had been tinkering with off and on for a year. Pitching the story had been in the works for a few months and I got a bit sidetracked while focused on illustrating the book. However, once I saw those first SORA videos my mind started racing. Up until then, the AI videos I had seen were easily dismissed as not up to par. But some of those SORA vids made me dream more than I should have. I was blown away like so many others. Ideas about how such a tool might be used with my TV series flooded my imagination. So, I changed the pitch package to reflect how I thought AI Video might be used in the post-production of the series. This is an example of me using the same imagination I often use to tell fictional stories about the future in the real world. The rise of AI has had me trying to predict its story arc. In my self-deluded mind, that would have seen the production of the TV series wrap in the summer or the winter of 2025 with an eye towards a 2026 release. 

At the time, I was focused on gathering interest to get the show made on film with actors. There were things we could do with AI tools once filming was done that would make the series both interactive and immersive in ways I had not imagined were possible before seeing those early SORA videos. The video above is a recent SORA video of an Open World game. I imagined two such games or levels to one game for the TV series that are edgy and reflective of the material, with a more intimate and immersive experience set in one charming Disney-esque location. Could they all be part of one larger game? Yes. However, I want people to have the option to do them separately. 

I created a robust Pitch Package, which included an in-depth Show Bible and a more concise Pitch Deck. To those who don't know anything about these, the Bible for this story is fifty-one pages in length and goes into detail about the entire series, from the pilot episode, the first season, to the entire series. It is filled with visuals and references that paint a clear picture and feel for the series. I prefer these to a treatment, in which you are essentially telling the entire story but without dialogue. They can be very effective. However, I love a creative and robust Show Bible. My current favorite is Stranger Things, originally titled Montauk. 

If you thought writing screenplays was just about the script; well, you would be mistaken. Some people (mostly writers/directors) may be able to get away with that, but when you try and sell that project you need to provide a lot more information than the script. In reality, the Show Bible and Pitch Deck for a TV series are just as important as the Script. That is because you are selling a feeling, and in the case of this series a unique vibe. It is not a traditional show with one clear beginning, middle, and end. In this case, there are multiple overlapping stories in the first season that take place in the same town over a 20-year period. 

We are emotional beings and the key to our hearts is through our feelings. But the way to the mind can be more complex. You have to touch a chord within people beyond knee-jerk emotional responses, it is more about frequency in that regard, where you know what some people like and then create something that will be in the same vein as what has worked before. Feelings are easy. That's why some say that drama is easier to do than comedy. I mean you don't see many daytime comedies.  

I have queried hundreds of people through the years, sent out pitch packages for dozens of movies and TV shows. The process is time-consuming and nothing is quite as humbling as trying to sell a spec screenplay. AI will change and is changing this process in a BIG way. 

Soon, those of us who have walked this path, and those who are drawn to it now and in the future, will not hit the same walls as those who came before -- those walls I know too well. Because we are being liberated to become the 1st generation of multimodal storytellers. 

Within a year or so all screenwriters will have options to either sell our stories the old-fashioned way or learn the skills to make the films and TV shows ourselves. However, there is an emerging new type of collaboration with a team of AI artists working on a single project. It is similar to indie films except there will be more rapid turnover. So, a traditional team may make 1-5 films during a year. Roger Corman managed to produce and/or direct an astounding 9 films a year all the way back in 1957. An AI team will be able to create a dozen or more a year, easily matching that of Corman and likely well surpassing his impressive output. You gotta think this will be a popular option. I know it is for me because I have dozens of stories ready to be told with AI tools, and new ones that are begging for attention. While I will certainly create many AI productions on my own, I love to collaborate with others on a shared project. You are your own limitations in this new paradigm. If you want to create it you will be able to do so. 

Speaking of limitations, Google just gave a few AI artists access to Veo 2.0. They teased Veo 1.0 back in May. It looked good then in the few videos they released. However, this new version is phenomenal. It is a new SOTA model and is leaps and bounds better than any other model out there, and that is with all of the other models having improved dramatically over the past year. That is saying a whole hell of a lot.

The dream for artists is to have one tool to help you with all of your creations. As of right now, even though Veo 2.0 is amazing, there is a need to use multiple tools. By the end of 2025, you've got to think that ideal tool will exist in public or in some AI video lab. 

After Sora was released I was disappointed. I mean it was great to finally have access to it after they made us wait nearly a year. Aside from the speed with which it creates the videos, the quality is the same as what we saw back in February. That means they either hit a wall or they are holding back their improvements and just focused on the UI for the rollout. 

With Sam Altman's belief in iterative deployment and Open AI's willingness to hold back Sora until the election played out, I think there is likely a much better model that they are sitting on. If not, they may have just lost the AI video war to Veo after a week. Maybe Veo 1.0 was also better than Sora. It's hard to tell by the limited examples Google released back in May. Either way, Veo 2.0 is a far more useable tool, and it has me dreaming again. I can't wait to get my hands on it.

The public release of Veo 2.0, whenever that may be, may mark the moment I begin to turn my focus to the production of a short film, and the first step towards a collaboration with others. I have been tinkering around with all the tools (except Veo 2.0, which is not publicly available) without being too focused on making anything. 

Even Veo 2.0 isn't perfect; you wouldn't be able to make a believable lifelike AI movie worth watching with it just yet. However, with Sora, Veo, and all of the other quickly-improving models the time to hone the craft of AI filmmaking is here. That way once the impossible becomes possible, we can be up to speed and ready to crank out some exciting new content. 

I figure once all the tools are good enough, which feels like we are there or nearly there for AI animation and getting closer with lifelike AI, I may be able to create several AI films on my own within a year. I'd like to start doing that in 2025 with AI animation. That way, by the end of 2025, I would be ready to collaborate with others. Why wait? I want to be able to do all of this myself before I even attempt to try and bring others on board. Who knows, maybe I will even work on other people's projects. Being able to do it all myself with the help of AI is a current dream I have, which is based on what I have seen from AI, what I have already done creatively over the past 20 years, and my eagerness to put on to screen much of what I have written. My second objective is to be able to work with others to help expedite the production of unpublished and unproduced stories in my library. This way I can also learn new techniques and improve upon what I can do on my own. The productions themselves will likely be better as a result of collaboration. Always improving is key, as is tearing down barriers instead of building them. 

I've mentioned this before, but my writing partner on the pilot episode for the TV series I pitched earlier this year said to me, after reading the pitch package I had created for the series, "If you pull it off you'll have a media empire at your fingertips." I could sense his doubts, yet I assured myself that what I had laid out was ambitious, yes, but plausible. Was I reaching into the ether for the impossible? I had kept up with all of the AI updates and knew that what I had discussed in the pitch package may be possible within a year or so. I based the AI aspect of the pitch upon what seemed to me and others would be true by the summer of 2025. 

I was seeing AI podcasts, AI games, and immersive experiences where viewers could choose their own adventure or virtually walk in the town I had set the story. I jammed a whole hell of a lot into the pitch package. The story is ideal for all of it. But unless I could help one of the great directors and producers I respect see my vision as their own, it would all never happen as I had originally envisioned. And that is what it is like to be a speculative screenwriter. Wish in one hand, and... well, you get the idea. 

By mid-June, I realized that I had just spent a quarter of the year trying to get someone else to make my story and had not gotten much traction. I started to reflect on that time and it became clear that Hollywood was not open for business. The strikes from last year, the impending crew strike, and the uncertainty of how AI would affect things had ground the business to a halt. 

That was the moment I thought back to what my writing partner had said, and I thought, why not use AI to do exactly what he had said and create a company? A media empire is beyond what I could handle on my own. So, my own AGI test will be me starting a media empire with the help of a variety of AI tools. Not with a focus solely on a TV series or film project, which is all a part of the grand plan, but also on what else I can do with AI to create a business beyond just making films and TV series. 

We have entered the realm where these AI companies will start passing benchmarks every other week. We are still at the front end of acceleration. I consider the pre-AGI period the front end because what comes after will be incredibly different. Will it be like Sam Altman's iterative deployment where things increase at a gradual pace or will we all share that GPT-4 type moment where we all agree that AGI has been achieved?

Google and OpenAI dropped a ton of updates this month. Google dropped information about Willow (Quantum Chip), Gemini 2.0 Flash Experimental, Google 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental, and a number of other impressive updates including Veo 2.0. OpenAI, on the other hand, released o1, o1 Pro, Projects, o3 (Benchmarks), vision in Advanced Voice, and several other updates including Sora. These two companies changed the entire AI landscape with their updates. And open-source models are improving rapidly as they reverse engineer what closed-source companies are doing behind closed doors. 

My ultimate goal may be to tell stories but I also have ideas on ways to help others thanks to AI. In fact, one of the first things I thought of back in the Spring of 2023 after GPT-4 dropped was a way in which I could use AI to help others. And so, by mid-August, after spending a month focused on AI video, I began doing research on what kind of company I would want to create with the help of AI.

Other than a desire to be able to create films, TV series, graphic novels, and books with illustrations, I had the App idea that I had been kicking around for a year and a half. As I started doing early research on creating an App, I realized that I didn't have just a single App idea but several ideas for multiple Apps. 

A "media empire" sounds intimidating. However, now that I have begun work on one I can say that even with the help of AI it is a hell of a lot of work. All of these AI updates are brilliant and are making what I am doing possible, but I am interested in also finding out if Agents can help me do even more than I had planned. My timelines may shorten and my plans for 2025 may change because of new tools being made available.

During August I realized that while AI Video had made some fantastic advancements, no matter which tools I used it still looked like AI video no matter what I did. The same was true for what I was seeing others do as well. I had been working on creating a life-like trailer for the TV series but was disappointed that I could not make it look real. I have long thought animation with AI would deliver the best early results and that has proven to be true. Since August, Hailuo Minimax released an update that is great for 2-D animations. I think it is safe to say that we will get an outstanding AI-animated movie by next summer. 

While Veo 2.0 may change the landscape for AI video, it is not yet public. Whatever effect it will have will happen in 2025, and that will also push these dozen or so other companies to step up their game. The talk is about physics and how Veo 2.0 nails it and the others fall short. The fact that Google has made the first gigantic leap with the physics in Veo 2.0 is very exciting for someone like myself. That means that by the end of 2025 I will likely have created something on my own using these tools that is at least close to how I had imagined it when I wrote the story.

After seeing tools like Replit and Cursor help non-coders create Apps, I  realized that the App ideas I had back in the Spring of 2023 might be something I could create and deploy. From there things have blossomed a bit. I have already created a prototype and done early testing on the first App. 

If AI Video was capable of creating TV series and Movies that people might be willing to pay for then I might be down that hole like a number of others. Many of them are creating some amazing content, some of which is being used for music videos and ads. Cool stuff but not what I am interested in doing.  I am still not all aboard the AI Video train just yet. Even if Veo 2.0 were to be released in January, it would not change my early plans for the year. However, by April I may be open to working more on AI video. We'll see. I am open to change based on AI updates, but I won't alter my plans until it makes sense to do so. 

I had been thinking that the trailer for my TV series would be animated. Veo 2.0 may change that plan. In fact, I have three other animated projects in mind. These updates keep happening so fast. Animation seemed like the best path for 2025 until Veo 2.0 previews started to drop. It could be that by summer life-like AI Video is indistinguishable from real life. 

In the meantime, I will continue to focus on the creation of the business. It is meant to eventually help support my creative efforts. A SaaS company with a few AI-wrapped Apps is one part of the business. My creative side is of course another part of it. In between, is not necessarily me being a content creator. While there are plenty of amazing content creators out there, that is not what I want to be focused on. That said, I will be creating some content to go along with the Apps. Some learning materials as well as marketing content. I have no intention of showing my mug all over the place; I am too old to be faking a smile for you. You may be hearing a good bit of my voice though. 

It has been a good year. Plenty has been achieved. Much has been planned for the new year. Buckle up, 2025 is sure to be another eventful year. I wish you all the best in 2025 and hope you will join me on an adventure that has been a lifetime in the making. 

Old Glory

It has been quite the year. I do not like to talk about politics on public forums. There are enough people out there who are doing that. I try to keep informed about the views from both sides. As a creative person, I try to see things from everyone's POV.

The country made a choice this Tuesday, and for good or for bad we will all have to see where it takes us over the next four years. We are all in this together after all. Thanks to our military might, the United States of America is the most powerful country in the history of the world. We have long been viewed as "the shining city on a hill" because of the opportunities available to people here. Let's all hope we can maintain our strength and remain a beacon of hope that many in the world still look up to.

As those who have kept up with my blogs will know, I embraced the changing AI landscape last year. I have prided myself on my ability to adapt to my surroundings over the years. And yet, looking back, there are times when I tend to stay in situations that I do not jive with and it has cost me. 

Last week, someone said I had midwestern sensibilities. They were referring to my preference for routines. Routines can be a good thing. My tendency is to settle into them a bit too deeply sometimes, even when they go against my best interest. It can be a bit of a flaw for me. I have stayed in situations I should have left long before I did. What can I say, I like the comfort and familiarity of routines. They have made it easier for me to settle into periods of work and creativity. 

Now is the time to turn the page on the noise of the past year. There will be no more annoying political text messages or ads in the mail. The cacophony of pleas for attention will fade to a murmur as we begin to look forward and plan for the days, weeks, months, and years ahead. America has made her choice and we will see where that takes us. 

My plans will not change, largely because I have worked so hard to create them and I am a creature of habit and routine. But also because I knew well before the elections that whatever happened on Tuesday that AI would continue to advance in all fields regardless of who won. It has been clear for a year and a half that with the billions of dollars being pumped into all of these AI companies things would continue uninterrupted on the path towards AGI. That is why I knew my plans, which don't necessarily rely on us reaching AGI, would not change as a result of the elections. I just need the Gen AI tools required to create movies and TV shows to improve just a little bit more and I'll be happy.  

I'm a simple man who loves to create stories and share them with others. Making movies and TV series has been my dream for a quarter century. I don't need fame, but I would like to share stories that I believe people might enjoy. With Gen AI that is possible. Without Gen AI it is far less likely, if not impossible. It's that simple. And like I said, I'm a simple man. The path has been clear for some time now. I'm just waiting on all the right tools to drop so I can proceed. We are getting so close. 

You can see on Twitter (X) that people are leaving in droves. Some probably stuck around just for the election. Would they have stayed if the results had been different? Maybe, maybe not. It is my favorite platform -- has been since 2010. It is still the platform for all things AI, even if it may become less of the world's town hall than it had been for nearly two decades. I need those updates so I can keep up with the changes in technology that have begun to reshape the world at an accelerated rate.

I am still debating whether to pay for a subscription. We'll see. If I feel I can start my business within the next few months, I may pull the trigger by the end of the year. I have several irons in the fire, so to speak, so I will have to see how things play out over the next few weeks. Whether I can start my business as I have been planning these past few months or not, I have every intention of using AI to create movies and TV shows. Which will eventually be its own business. However, while the tech is getting closer and closer to where I need it to be, it is not quite at the point where I can actually start producing full productions at a quality level that viewers will accept. 

At the minimum, next year I hope to create at least one short film and one trailer for a movie or TV show using only AI tools. There are plenty of good-quality AI shorts and trailers out there now. As I predicted a year ago, AI animation is leading the way. I am confident we will see an exceptional animated feature-length movie created with only AI tools within the next month or two. And viewers will be unable to tell that it was made with AI. The Pixar-style stuff looks unbelievable today. It's only a matter of time before someone puts something worthwhile together and it gets picked up by a streaming service. 

I still have a lot to learn before I can create something like that. Pixar is not really the style I would be going for, but I am not ruling out making something with an Animated style first as opposed to life-like. I think feature-length life-like content is still six months off. Minimax and Runway have some amazing new tools that you should check out if you haven't already and are interested. And I have a feeling Sora could be dropping any day now. The elections are over and there is no longer any reason to hold it back.

It is time for me to refocus my attention on my personal goals instead of stressing about the future of the country. Election day is over, and the dye has been cast. I hope we all can come together and face the future in a positive way. 

Early Days of Autumn

It has been six weeks since my last blog post. The season has changed and the temperature is starting to cool as we head towards the end of 2024. A few years ago, I was only posting a couple blogs a year because life was just ticking by. I was releasing a new book every few years and working on screenplays and such but it had all become pretty routine. Over the past year and a half things have become far more interesting, and so I found myself wanting to communicate more about it all.  

Six weeks ago, I was wrapping up my review of AI video models. Since then AI Video has taken further steps forward. Runway, Luma, and Kling have improved. Models like Minimax have also been released. I am finally seeing some emotion in the generations. I wouldn't call it acting as the emotions seem more like commands than actual human emotions in response to anything. But it is the first real step towards AI acting out a role. 

I haven't done much with the trailer for the TV series over the past six weeks, mainly test shots with the new features rather than trying to piece things together into something resembling the script I wrote for the trailer. And of course, keeping up with all the updates. My focus has largely been on the APP I have been thinking about for a year and a half. 

To my delight tools like Replit and Cursor have made vast improvements over the past six weeks, which has done nothing but validate my decision to focus on creating my first APP. When I made that decision to focus on the APP as opposed to using GenAI tools to help me create a trailer, or illustrate another book, I had no idea that it would get so much easier for people like myself (someone who has only taken one basic coding class) to actually create an APP. But then that is why I decided to pursue AI with such vigor because it was evident that AI would help in ways that I had thought of and ways I had not, and that the change would continue for the foreseeable future. 

My process remains the same despite these great advancements in APP creation. It will just make it easier for me and may limit how much outside help I will need along the way. I won't be talking about the actual APP until it is fully ready to go but I am more than happy to talk about my process. 

One week after my last blog I saw a video with a young child using Cursor to create an APP. That's when I knew for sure the APP was the best thing to focus on. That was also the same time I had some real-life stuff take precedence for two weeks limiting what I could do regarding R&D with the APP. While I got some planning work done during those two weeks the hard yards were delayed as I dealt with some things. 

I had decided in mid-August that I would use ChatGPT to create a GPT as the first test phase for the APP. During that final week in August, I took another class on Coursera: OpenAI GPTs: Creating Your Own Custom AI Assistants. Once I had completed the course and September rolled around, I was ready to focus on the APP in earnest. 

While I have created several GPTs over the past ten months and thought I had a good grasp on them, I wanted to make sure I was getting the most out of them. The plan was to create the GPT, test it, and then transition to taking what I had learned and separately creating the APP. 

Once I realized that I liked the results I was getting from the GPT, I began testing it and getting some feedback from others. It was behaving how I had hoped, for the most part, and others were seeing the value it provided and appreciated my plans for the APP. 

Because I liked what I was seeing from the GPT I began to wonder if I could use the GPT in the APP or if I had to start from scratch and independently build the functionality I was getting from the GPT. Turns out I can use the GPT in the APP and that my APP will be what is called an AI Wrapper, something I didn't really understand until recently

I asked o1: What is an AI Wrapper? 

o1: "An AI Wrapper is a simple software layer that makes it easier to use an AI model by providing a straightforward way to interact with it. It acts like a protective cover that simplifies complex AI functions so developers can use them without dealing with the intricate details."

Until earlier this month, I had thought of AI Wrappers in negative terms because I believed they were just chatbots masquerading as APPs. Then I began to do some research. I have come to realize that there are a number of really good AI wrappers out there. Some of which I use with regularity but hadn't realized that they were AI Wrappers. The more you know. 

While the APP will likely contain some version of the GPT I have been building and will continue to update, there will be other AI features built into the APP. It is geared to help people and will have Free and Paid features. Hopefully, the new Advanced Voice Mode will be a part of the GPT. As of today it is not. It's only been a day since its release and I can't see releasing the APP for a while so there is a chance.

I don't know what I will charge for the paid services, but my goal is to be able to help people and hopefully make a little money in the process without overcharging people. I have no idea if people will even use the APP, let alone pay for the paid features. 

This whole thing may fall flat and no one ends up using the APP. I would take some positives from the experience either way. I will have learned how to create and release an APP and I fully expect to make others after I finish this one. Another big plus is that I am already using the GPT myself and benefiting from the results. Having done some early tests it has already helped me do something that I have wanted to do for over a year. So, even if I were to abandon the whole thing right now I have already gained something from the experience. But I don't plan on abandoning the APP any time soon. I can see how it can help people and it is now up to me to finish it.  

My goal is to have this APP ready for the public after the election. There is too much chaos to try and wade through right now and it's not anywhere near ready for deployment. I'd like to have it ready for the holidays when people are gathering with their families. I think that might be a good time for release. We'll see if I can actually deliver it by then or if it gets postponed until after the new year. 

Beyond the creation and release of the APP, I am still scouring the internet to keep up with AI advancements. While the APP means a lot to me other aspects of the multimedia company I am trying to create mean just as much if not more. I am a storyteller after all and I want to share the stories I have already written and those I have yet to put on a page. 

Having finally seen some emotion in AI video generation over the past few weeks confirms that progress is still being made and that it will continue. Last week AI Video company Runway signed an agreement with Lionsgate to train a model on their IP. That's huge and won't be the last production company to do such a thing. Mixing live action with AI generations is happening now. Some might say it has been happening for years. It is the way of the future despite all the protests. 

One of the greatest film auteurs of our time Guillermo del Toro is not a fan of AI at all. And who can blame him, he's still at the top of his game and has not needed it up until now. While I respect the hell out of Guillermo I cannot make a pledge to continue on as I have for 20 years with little traction and expect things to change for the better. I would just have more scripts sitting on a shelf that would never get read let alone made into movies, especially with fewer and fewer production companies refusing to use AI. That's why when I saw James Cameron was joining the board of Stability AI, I felt there was a balance to be had with GenAI when it comes to filmmaking. One that will likely continue to shift over the next year or so. There will no doubt be companies that will refrain from using AI, but that number will continue to dwindle. 

The window to the past is narrowing but the one to the future is expanding by the day. Nothing would have brought me more pleasure than to have had the chance to work with someone like Guillermo on one of my stories, but that just hasn't happened. Yet I still have a desire to tell my stories and if you think I'm going to play the Hollywood waiting game anymore when I don't have to then you are fuckin' crazy. I need to see my stories come to life and I won't let the current opinion of one of my idols keep me from pursuing my own dreams. 

Yes, I will keep working on the APP, but creating Movies and TV shows with the help of AI tools is getting closer and closer every day. As of six weeks ago, I thought that you could only make a believable AI movie in animated format by the end of the year. Now, with these recent advancements, we are getting closer and closer to AI live action movies. We're not there yet but things may still advance enough in the last three months of the year that we may cross that line of believability that the general public will accept as real. There likely won't be enough time to make that movie by the end of the year but the tech may be advanced enough by then for the production of that first believable AI movie to begin production. Maybe. 

If last year was anything to go by, the release of GenAI improvements will slow the closer we get to the end of the year and may not pick back up until February or March. So, if we don't see some cool new upgrades by early December we likely won't see them until a couple months into the new year. But what do I know? I'm just trying to keep up with it all so I can continue to course correct when it is appropriate. 

And with the help of Cursor and Replit creating and deploying an APP has never been easier, which is why that has become my main focus for the time being. I owe it to myself to stay the course with the APP until its release, despite any AI video upgrades between now and then. Thanks for reading. 

In Flux

Been doing some thinking over the past two weeks. I spent much of July focused on the current state of AI video and was trying to determine its limitations and capabilities. That meant researching Gen-3, Dream Machine, and Kling. There are others but those are the main three so far. There is great potential. No doubt. But, to get the best results you need to use Image-to-Video, preferably with one or two images. I can see generating between a series of single images in a longer sequence as a thing. Having one at the start and one at the end of a 10-second clip is wicked cool, but I've heard of these tools being able to do 2-3 minute sequences. Imagine adding 120 single images and next thing you know you have a whole scene created without needing to be so tedious with these shorter clips. Not all the models are doing these beginning and end frames yet but they will soon. Oh, and FLUX is giving Midjourney a run for its money as far as realistic images. 

I love all of that. Imagining how it will progress is just as fascinating to me. It's amazing to watch. New use cases are rolling out every few weeks. For instance, you can shoot a video with your camera and take an image from that video to add a VFX sequence that can be edited into the live shot using editing software. After I saw that I realized I could go back and test on old short films I made years ago. I am discovering these brilliant techniques people are coming up with and testing them to determine possible use cases. 

Like many people who have realized over the past year that we have entered a new era-- one that seems likely to change society and the way we live our lives, I have been trying to determine how to pivot. While I am no longer a young man, I still have dreams and aspirations similar to those of that younger version of me who returned from California with a creative fire burning in his eyes 25 years ago. The stories are the key. They reveal the lessons learned along the way, and the possible futures based on the world as it is perceived.  

Give me an hour at a cafe with a cup of coffee, a good book, my phone, a notebook, and a pen and I couldn't be happier. It's a pocket of time when I am free to let my mind wander. While some of my best story ideas happen while I am out for a walk, so many of those ideas are fleshed out at a cafe. The constant change around me, people coming and going, as I sit there observing while looking inwards, making connections, recalling the journey, and trying to predict and plan for what comes next. 

I have given myself till the end of this week to assess AI Video models to see what I could learn and then determine how that might impact me creatively in the near future. I still have another week, and there are likely to be many new use cases to discover, but I feel I have made my mind up already.

I am not in this space to be the guy who is the first to discover new techniques with these GenAI tools. I do not feel obligated to post content every day to keep my engagement metrics up. No, not yet at least. I want to see how others are using these tools to learn from them so that I can tell my stories in new ways. I think we are in a new frontier-- creatively speaking, and I consider myself one of those pioneers. My goal is to create a multimedia company. Or a "media empire" as a friend recently joked after reading my most recent TV series bible. It lays out big plans for the TV series that involve a few new ways of interacting with the content. 

Simply put, the goal is to work with Gen AI tools to be able to do more. Two things came to mind last spring when I began to immerse myself in the Gen AI space: How do I use these tools to help me creatively? And, how do I use this technology to help others? 

I am by no means an altruistic saint who thinks only of helping his fellow man every second of every day. Far from it. We are a screwy species and it is often best to mind our own damn business. But I do come from a long line of educators so maybe genetically that is where it comes from. Anyway, an APP was one of the first things I thought of last spring after sitting down with GPT-4 for a month. I have been researching ever since. 

While I won't go into detail about the APP at this time, it is interesting that other than creating moving and still images to accompany my written words that I thought of creating an APP to help others. The idea just made sense. Even more so now. Not only can I help others with it but I can also help myself as well.

As I was assessing the current state of AI Video tools last week I realized something. 

If I am serious about starting a multimedia company, I can't expect AI video trailers/ short films, or graphic novels to fund the way forward... yet. AI Video has gotten a whole hell of a lot better than it was this time last year. However, it's not easy to tell a substantial story. And while the trailer I am working on means a lot to me, it cannot be my main focus. These tools need to get a lot better. Right now you need to be a patient and persistent puzzle master to piece together a worthwhile 2-minute trailer. You'll need to pay out your ears for all the tools needed to create something special. But it can be done. Within a few months, folks will start creating longer works where they have pieced together using the same methods from shorts to create something special. We'll learn their process and cringe at how difficult it was. And yet that will be the most difficult it will ever be. By this time next year, it will be so much easier to do all of this.

There is a window that has opened for AI Video creators and those like myself who are gradually learning more about it every day. The familiarity with these current tools and the proven results of using them may help during the big run to create content that will likely arise next year once AI Video takes its next big leap forward. That leap should be to provide the ability for these models to take a script from a scene, ask you questions about it to make sure it understands what you are wanting and then generate the scene. Once these models can communicate with us like LLMs do using chain of thought then we will see a massive explosion of AI-empowered storytelling. 

For the time being, AI Video is still too unstable, both with its outputs and the overall process. These tools have only become worth my time since June. Sora was in February, but that doesn't count because we still haven't gotten our hands on it. Again, I am not here to discover all the techniques and share those. The people doing that are amazing and I thank them for what they are doing. Their work will be a road map for all of us. They are the OG pioneers, charting the path forward for the rest of us. 

As far as the APP, I can help people with it while working in the background on the more creative side of things. I want to avoid going the clickbait route where I create disposable content to feed a metric. I prefer substance not only with my creative output but also with the APP. The goal is to provide a service that people need.  I want to create value for others and I fully plan on doing a free version of the APP, which may be all people ever need. And that is great! But, I also see charging a monthly fee for premium services for those who need more than the basic service. 

The decision to focus on the APP is not the one that I wanted to make. If I was calling all the shots, then I would have access to all AI video tools that are being held back for the election. That would mean I might be able to go full-steam ahead on making movies and TV with AI tools. Something that I may be able to do now with animation, which, as I have said before, has more room for error than the life-like AI content. But I am not in the animation mindset yet. Once I transition to the comic book series/ graphic novel then I might be more open to focusing on AI animation. Thinking about that now maybe I should focus on the comic book sooner rather than later. Food for thought. 

My evaluation with one week to go in my AI video assessment period is that with the publicly available tools you can make comics, illustrated novels, commercials, trailers, music videos, short live-action films, and longer animated projects that most people would never know are largely AI-generated. The VFX part of this can't be overlooked. That means those who have been filming live-action sequences but have been strapped financially, can actually do some amazing things right now with AI tools. That is all great but these are not my main creative focus. While this company I am creating will include illustrated novels and comics, these current capabilities are still short of where I would need them to be to create realistic AI TV series and movies. That said, in the meantime, I can focus on all the other things I can create using AI video and audio tools, which is a lot. For me, it is all training for TV and movies, though.  

If I had access to all the tools that are being worked on behind the scenes I would likely have a different take on things in this moment. I like to think I have some idea of what may be in the pipeline, but you never know for sure. The good thing is that it is highly likely that these tools will only get better, and fast. So, it makes sense to focus more of my attention on creating the APP for the next few months. Once the dust settles after the election, it will be the perfect time to shift my main focus back to AI Video. Not that I won't be working on AI Video at all between now and then. No, I just need to prioritize the APP for now to try an make some headway before Fall. 

This time last year, I was thinking that we would be right about where we are with video. A short scene is not a performance, though. Not yet, at least. Consistency and stability are nearly solved and performance will be the next big hurdle. Or at least I think it should be. I believe we may have an AI-animated movie out by the end of the year that will be indistinguishable from a traditionally animated movie.

While I want to be able to do all of these things, I am not attempting to be the first. I want to keep learning about all of it because my goals are more intricate than just trying to be the first to create a proper AI movie. That said, I have thought about what that might be like-- the first AI movie that most people cannot tell was created using only AI tools. It could be a hybrid that actually has some live-action. That seems likely to happen soon, which will raise a lot of eyebrows. And that may open the door for the first all-AI movie that generates enough buzz to create some acceptance and appreciation from the public. The Blair With Project always comes to mind when I think of this. 

That said, these AI tools will continue to improve with each passing week. While my main focus will be on the APP, I will keep working on the trailer for the TV series. I won't be sharing a lot of details about the APP until it is ready for public testing. My initial goal is to have it ready for initial testing by November. Rolling out the APP after the election is a good target. It seems likely that even better tools will become available then. This will allow me to adapt the APP based on any updates before final testing and release. 

I'll keep pushing with the trailer and the illustrated novel series in the background. If I am to create a proper multimedia company I need to have a lot of content. I am also open to doing more with these tools in ways that may not be top of mind at this moment. I may get adept enough with these tools that others may want my assistance with their projects. I could grow fond of creating commercials or fall in love with AI animation. Maybe I decide to create a video game. Who knows? 

The one thing I would stop everything to work on is a new form of storytelling entertainment. If the tools get good enough that I can do all I laid out in the bible for my recent TV series, then that will be my top focus. In reality, I am building towards that anyway. So it is best that I take this step-by-step approach toward the likely inevitability of a more immersive entertainment experience. 

It is a process. A process guided by imagination and fueled by rapid technological change. Embracing it was much easier than expected. Some are vehemently against any use of AI for anything involving creativity. Again, I get it. However, the dreams I have had for over 20 years were stifled in the pre-AI era. My creative visions had remained only partially realized through the written word. The chance to create more with these stories may allow me to fulfill the creative goals that I began setting out for myself when I returned from LA at the turn of the century.

I am an independent artist, and through the years I have grown to value my artistic freedom more than I felt a need to sacrifice it all for someone else's idea of success. I just love to create stories. And with AI I will be able to create all the worlds I've ever imagined while maintaining my artistic autonomy. And that's all that matters. Thanks for reading. 

All At Once

I love Time Bandits. A TV series based on the movie is coming out tomorrow on AppleTV, which I didn't realize until I started looking for the GIF. Hope it's not what caused AppleTV to essentially shut down. Anyway, I love the original. So, what does this have to do with anything? 

Today, I got up early and went to the store for a few things. That was when I saw an odd wreck. Some guy ran his car over a curb, between two poles, through a flower bed, and into the stone wall/ sign for an apartment complex. 

Went right between two poles and smashed right into the wall, which you can see in the picture cracked upon impact. The guy was talking to the cops. I'm guessing one of his flip-flops got stuck and he couldn't stop or he was intoxicated. A peculiar accident to see at the beginning of the day. 

When I got home I took out the trash. As I was putting a new liner in the can, a story idea came to me. Ideas sometimes develop over days, weeks, or months. This one came all at once. I normally don't Tweet about ideas, but this one was one of those amazing ones that comes almost fully developed. 

Is it too late to be thinking in terms of Classic Hollywood? 

For a decade, with the rise of streaming, I rarely thought in terms of movies, but stories just decide on their own what they want to be. This story is either an anthology movie, a mini-series, or a holodeck experience.

A what?

By the time I get around to actually writing this story Gen AI tools may make it possible. Nothing wrong with thinking ahead. If this is to be a new frontier we are entering, and it sure seems like it, then we need to think beyond what has been possible up until now. A holodeck or a truly amazing immersive video game-like XR headset experience are what seem the most likely next big steps.

As a storyteller of fictional worlds, I have long wondered what it would be like to tell stories in a gaming format. The worldbuilding on my recent TV series got me thinking about the creation of a gaming world. This was before the era of AI started last year. 

Again, I write a lot of anthologies. I do this because I have a lot of stories brewing at any given time. Most of which have been on the backburners for years. One has been sitting there on simmer for 2 decades. It too is an anthology tale but on the grandest of scales; it feels like the time has to be right, like I have to earn the privilege of writing that story. And I haven't yet. 

Many of the other stories that are waiting their turn upon the stage are stand-alone stories. As time passes while I am working on other projects, these stories will sometimes magically coalesce into something greater than their parts. An Anthology is born. What once could have been three to upwards of a dozen or more, otherwise stand-alone, stories come together like a pod of killer whales ready for whatever the ocean might bring. 

Good grief, I'm mixing metaphors here. What it means is there are certain tales within the fictional world of my current TV series that a gamer may want to explore, especially one of the three interwoven stories in the first season. The same could be said for this new idea I'm so excited about, but also the one that's been sitting on the back burner for 20 years. 

Today's new story harkens back to the early 2000s once again. An era my mind gravitates towards. So many of my beliefs about the world were carved during that period. It was a time when I started to think more like a writer and less like an actor. The new millennium began with so much drama, much more than any of us could have expected. This is likely why the first decade of the 21st century so deeply resonates with me. 

The reason this new story idea triggers my recollection of that time is because it has similarities to both Monarch and Psykosis. The Monarch similarities are because of the story Cipher, which actually echoes back to the 90s when I was studying philosophy and poetry. Therefore, this new story echoes back to those days when I was kicking around Hollywood and Los Feliz. 

Why do so many of these stories always seem to be anthology-type tales? I am not sure I can pin that down. With this current idea, could it be a movie? Yes, of course. Could it be a series? 100%. It really is a collection of stories that make up one story. Sound familiar? An anthology. 

The TV series I am creating a trailer for is the same. However, this new story might be better served as a movie. In fact, even though there are a ton of storylines it might be better to put it all into this one overarching story. I think people will relate to it. A full series might dilute the multi-story potency if not done right, but a mini-series might be another option. I've been surprised by how many movies I once wrote have evolved into miniseries. The specific nature of this new story's overall tale makes it perfect for a future holodeck expedition or a video game. It will be very personal.

The stories I have been comparing it to since this morning are all movies. If it were to be a series, I think it would be better as a limited series than one with multiple seasons. The multiple-story aspect would likely be better served in a more contained format (a movie or a handful of episodes) instead of a sprawling 8 to 14-episode season.

I will probably develop it as a movie and expand if needed depending on how it feels once completed. 

And that's kind of how these things develop. An Idea pops and the next thing you know you're making plans on how to write it. I keep wondering if I will have a normal story idea stir my soul like this one day. But then what is a normal story? A Norman Rockwell painting comes to mind. Hallmark movies and Romantic Comedies too. I'm not sure any of that is normal anymore nearly a quarter of the way into the 21st century.

Nowadays, everything seems to be perceived through a superhero filter, but that's not normal. Normalcy is no longer one view of the world. The most normal story I created over the past decade was not received well. My writing partner thought it was boring, and then I used up one of my last contacts from my time in California with it as well. I thought it was something that it wasn't or had a hard time making it come across. I can't help but think it was too much like an episode in a telenovela. Which was too bad because it was meant to tie into the Monarch universe. Oh well. We go again. 

Okay, it's time to get back to working on the Trailer for the TV series. Need to get some traction on that by the end of the week. I finished the script over the weekend and started working on visuals yesterday. 

I probably should have paid for unlimited generations when I signed up for Runway Gen-3 at the beginning of the month. That way I could just keep generating and generating without concerns for running out of tokens. However, by having spent most of the month focused on getting the script for the trailer right I have also been reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of the model based on the outputs of others. 

We'll see how this week and next week go. Apparently Kling will become available worldwide very soon. I have been reluctant to jump through hoops to get access. It's a Chinese company which gives me a bit of pause but it was the technical hoops I would have to jump through just to use it that has really kept me from using it so far. 

If I can achieve all I want with the trailer using Gen-3, Luma, and Hedra then I will. But Kling may be better than all of those models. We'll see in just over a week what I've got and go from there. And I can't help but wonder if all my new ideas will be geared toward a holodeck or a cinematic videogame. Thanks for reading. 

Summer: Let's Do It!

The past year has been so interesting. A year ago, I believed I would continue on with just writing books and screenplays. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. I had been doing it for fifteen years. Not going to lie, things had become... stagnant. Why? I knew the outcome before starting: excited about the story, mild response, and repeat. I lacked options and the willingness to change my routine.  

GPT-4 drew my attention in February of 2023. And then I dove into research mode about AI. I haven't come up for air since. There is so much to learn and the landscape seems to change every few weeks, often within only a few days or hours. It took me a few months to gain a broader view and see how things were unfolding.

You can see what is possible in the short and long term with just a little research, but you have to be willing to dig. And I love research. A large part of writing is research. It never really stops. 

There are different fields that I have an interest in when it comes to the emergence of AI. Not only do I have an interest in how these tools can creatively help me as a storyteller, but I also think about how these advancements may affect the world. 

Creative Path: AI images, AI Video, AI Voice, and AI Music

World Path: AGI, ASI, Education, Health, and Security

The Creative Path is self-explanatory. I am a storyteller and these are the tools that I need to tell my stories differently than by just writing them, which is why I started writing in the first place. Not to be read but to have a story fully experienced as a viewer.                        

Beyond the worlds within my head that motivate my pen, the World Path is more about us as humans being aware of how computer intelligence will affect us more broadly. My own angle will likely focus on Education.

There is a chance we may all become much smarter as a result of these advancements. We may even be able to live longer and figure out ways to have clean energy to meet the world's needs. It would be nice if we could also figure out a way to keep a handful of greedy people from profiting from the destruction of the planet. 

I am not saying computer intelligence will change human nature. It may, but it might take some doing. And we can be a stubborn lot. But there may be a chance we can clean up our act and become better stewards of this rock. I'm not sure we can do it without evolving in some way. Maybe if we can better educate all people and extend lifespans, allowing more people to become at least wiser if not smarter, maybe we can keep up with computers. Maybe. 

I know my current limitations. I am not the greatest writer in the world. I do not crave the limelight and often move on to a new project before I have exhausted all efforts to sell something. These are flaws I constantly work on. The act of creation is my main purpose. Each evolving story and her menagerie of characters are a mystery for me to solve and the source of my inspiration. The process is the point. Even if I do create a brilliant movie or TV show with the help of AI tools, I will need to be able to entice people into watching, and I loathe shaking my ass. Shake it, Pitters, shake it. Gross. 

I try to keep it simple and do no harm to others. Writing is a way of dealing with the world as I have come to know it. And my path has completely changed since the spring of 2023. The simple, well-worn writing path I had been treading for a quarter century has forever been changed.

AI destroyed that path and I couldn't be happier. 

I know these tools will update within months, but I am committed to learning what I can about them before they do. The tools I have needed to allow me to realize all the creative dreams I have had for decades are here. I have been released from the shackles of my own creative limitations. I cannot draw the images I need to create the graphic novel I've always wanted to make, and I can't create an entire "REAL" movie or TV show without a ton of help. World-building is one of my favorite parts of writing, and I've always wanted to use that passion to create a video game but lacked the wherewithal to attempt it. The tools now exist to help me compensate for those deficiencies. 

For years, I have had images in my head that I have wanted to share, to express in a way that I could be satisfied with and that might allow others to take something away from the experience. The act of writing has had to suffice for a long time. Words are one thing. Images another. Adding images, video, and audio allows me to present stories in ways I have long dreamt of. And they will only improve, maybe even create some new form of entertainment. Would I have loved to have had these tools 25 years ago? Of course. But they are here now and only getting better. 

They will soon be so good that I hope to be on the frontline of a new form of creative storytelling. Ever since I started packaging the TV series this year, I've been imagining exactly what that will be like. There is still so much to learn but the tools are here and a path is clear.

While I try to get up to speed with all of these tools, I fear I may have to push out work on the next illustrated novel series and the graphic novel. Since I already knew how to write a book before AI and I now know how to create a graphic novel with the help of AI -- something I learned over the past year, I can no longer just write books and screenplays when I can also get more involved in creating movies and TV shows. In case you weren't aware, I started writing to create the kind of stories I wanted to be cast in as an actor. An actor? I know, right. 

However, thinking about the story from a character's perspective has taught me a lot. By the mid-2000s I came to think of myself as a method writer. What the hell does that mean? I was never a "method" actor, my teaching was grounded in the work of Stella Adler who preached personal experience and imagination over emotional memory. Over time, that not only helped me understand the motivations of my characters, but also opened my mind to imagine all kinds of stories. 

The sheer volume of writing work I have cranked out over the years has gone largely unread. With 75% of that material meant for the screen, it is not surprising that I always visualize a story for the screen, even if I am writing a book. I see the movie play out before me, all around me. I live those moments with my characters as I write their stories, even to this day. Therefore, to now have the ability to visualize stories for the screen is like turning back the clock to Day 1 of my writing journey. Not that I want to act in anything ever again, but to have control of the sound and images of a story is both exciting and terrifying. 

The terror comes from knowing that it's all on me now. I can't just toss a new story onto the dust heap and say, "I tried to convince people to help me create the movie or TV show but there wasn't enough interest. Oh well, I guess I'll try again with something new." No longer. I'm breaking the cycle. The pile is too tall and I have new tools to work with. 

While my first objective is to create a teaser and a longer trailer for my current TV series, I would like to try and make the series the old-fashioned way while we still can. The long-term goal is to revisit some of these other stories using AI tools. Whether as movies, TV series, or this new hybrid storytelling format that is emerging. Very exciting! 

I mentioned the dusty pile of stories from the past 25 years. That is not a joke. Maybe that's just me laughing so as not to cry. Either way, I have several dozen stories that I can use to build a video library, with new tales waiting in the wings. That is why I have completely changed the path ahead. I can't see myself fully focused on an illustrated novel series while learning how to use the tools needed to create a teaser and a trailer, which may be more like a short film. 

Once I have a handle on these tools, I can start to divvy out more time for the illustrated novel series. My hope is that it will only take until August to get up to speed. When considering that I have written, directed, produced, edited, and arranged the music for several short films, maybe that will help me learn on a bit of a curve. We'll see in August. Until then it's time to accelerate my AI video research. Next stop? Teaser. 

July

June was interesting. July is already intriguing and it's only the first day of the month. Buckle up! 

I spent much of June waiting for OpenAI and Google to release all of the features they had both pimped out to us in May. OpenAI did come out and say that the Voice model will gradually roll out and that most of us plebs won't see it until the fall. Whether that means after the US presidential election or not who knows. But that was not the only new feature. I also need to try the image creation capabilities they teased. Especially to help me create a graphic novel or illustrated novel. I prefer to use only a few tools to create everything I need for these image-heavy projects. I like Midjourney a lot more for image creation, but I keep hoping that OpenAI will improve either Dall-E 3 or provide a new image generation tool with better quality and more capabilities. Not sure where Google's updates are either. I especially wanted to try the video model Veo and Project Astra. Oh well. I guess this is yet another lesson in how patience is a virtue. 

While the big boys have been overpromising and underdelivering in a timely manner, we now have a few new AI video generation models to fawn over. I touched on this in my last post. However, I have had time to think on things since then. On Friday, Runway started to grant access to more people, namely those in the Creative Partners Program. While I did apply to this last week, I was too late to get access. Hopefully, I'll be allowed to join the CPP program at some point so I can get early access to future tools. After seeing what GEN-3 could do I was thrilled to see  GEN-3 Alpha rolled out to everyone today. I am all signed up and ready to start using these new tools. Perfect timing. Thanks, Runway. 

Over the past year, I was reluctant to use the existing AI video tools, something I have mentioned here several times. The quality was not good enough. My focus for part of the last year had been on AI images. Even my writing plans have been guided by the great quality of AI images and the ease with which they can be created. My main focus after the recent two-month query period for a TV series I created was meant to be on a two-part illustrated novel series and a graphic novel series. Having learned enough about creating AI images, I felt confident I could not only create illustrated novels but also graphic novels. However, with these AI video tools all dropping in the past few weeks, and more still to come, I have been forced to reconsider my immediate plans. 

Ever since last spring, I have had an eye on the AI video space with the thought of diving in once the quality reached a certain point. Sora had me dreaming, but its belated release had me focus on what I could do with AI images. If I had access to Sora in February, I would have created a trailer for the TV series to go with the pitch deck and the series bible I created for my query package. Oh well. 

I knew when I saw those early Sora videos that other companies would start to catch up. And when they did I would pivot some of my time and attention to AI video. While AI images are at a point where I can create what I need for the illustrated novel series and for the graphic novel series, I think those projects have become secondary for the next month. It is time to learn to use these AI video tools. I have been waiting so long to have this type of control over moving images once again.

It is one thing to write a story and have people read it. With a novel and illustrated novels, I still have control over what a reader sees. Whereas when screenwriting I have to rely on countless others to bring my vision to life. With AI video tools I have near total control. I say near because we are still early in the AI video space and these things are not perfect, even if they are incrementally better than what we were seeing before Sora. This reminds me of the kind of control I had back when I was making short films back in the day. Because of that, I will spend a big chunk of time in July focused on AI video and learning all I can about AI audio tools. 

The one thing I have not mentioned much about here is my desire to create an APP. I spoke with the people close to me over the past year about my desire to create it, but I wasn't sure if the APP was something that was needed because I saw others creating somewhat similar APPS or GPTs. However, I think I can make an APP that can help a lot of people and help me learn more about the process of creating an APP. I had considered making a GPT through OpenAI, but I think an APP is a better way to go, even though I will have to do a good bit of research. I think it can help more people in that format than as a GPT. 

GPTs seem to be quickly becoming a thing of the past. Microsoft is doing away with them and there are rumors that OpenAI is not as keen on them as they used to be. I want to keep learning about technology but I also want to create. I will likely lean on AI to help me build the APP, while also learning about the process. I am an artist not a martyr, so I don't mind leaning on AI for not only the image and video side of my new creative process but also some of the technical aspects of creating and launching an APP. I have learned a lot over the past year, but I cannot just sit down and crank out this APP without some guidance. 

So, I am making my main focus of July all about educating myself. Learning about AI video, AI Audio, and APP creation with AI assistance. We'll see if I can learn all that I need in one month. Maybe, maybe not, and it may be that I need to keep at it for another month or two. I'm up for the challenge. In whatever free time I have left, I'll also try and get some work done on the first book in the illustrated novel series and create a few panels in the graphic novel. Busy. Busy. Thanks for reading. 

The Rapid Rate of Progress

This past year and a half has been a blur as far as technology updates. Nvidia has launched into the stratosphere with AI companies needing their latest breakthroughs to keep up with AI's rapid growth and the public's need for a never-ending stream of new products and constant updates. It's almost dizzying at times. 

Last week, I was writing about Kling (an AI video model made in China and only available to those with a Chinese phone number) before Luma Dream Machine dropped and we in the States got access to it right away. Dream Machine is brilliant. It was at or near what I was seeing from the Kling and Sora videos. I quickly made a few myself. This is an AI image I generated last year. I used Dream Machine for the video and Pika for the background noise. I would have just snatched the audio and removed the Pika watermark if I were going to use it for anything other than as an example. 

Then everything changed yet again when Runway showcased their new model Gen-3. Based on what I have seen it is more creator-friendly than Sora and on par with their outputs, even better than those of Dream Machine, which I feel bad for because it is also a wonderful AI video tool. However, Runway will become my default model once we actually have access. That is until someone else comes along and blows Gen-3 out of the water. Until then, not only does it create great video 1,000 times better than Gen-2, but it's faster, you can create text, and there is also the lip-synch tool you can use with the video you generate. This video below is 100% generated with Gen-3 and the lip-synch tool. 

While it is not perfect, it may be good enough to be a starting point for me to start taking AI video tools seriously. I am not sure you could make an entire full-length live-action AI-only movie using just Gen-3, but this is lightyears better than what we all had to suffer through up until we first saw Sora's outputs. Check out Runway's Website for Gen-3 to take a look at some of the video samples.

The hits kept coming this week as Hedra, another AI video tool with lip-synch, was released. For my test run with this tool, I used one of the early Dall-E 3 generations of Thomas Edward Downs from my re-released illustrated version of Michaelmas. It's good, however, it feels like we will need to wait until the next update for it to be a tool that can be used professionally. That said, I have seen much better examples of Hedra since its release than the one I created below. 

On Wednesday, ElevenLabs released Voiceover Studio. You can take a video without sound and add voiceovers and sound effects. And you can use those voices to create conversations without video, say for a podcast.

For most people, these are just cool new temporary distractions. New ways to create cute little TikTok videos for their followers. For me, someone who has been writing stories for twenty years, these tools are something else entirely. I am drawn back to a time when I thought I could create short films to sell larger stories. 

Over the past year, I watched countless sketchy AI clips and pieced together dodgy AI short films. These people were trying to do what I had done all those years ago with real film. I could not chase that trend because the results were not good enough for me to put my name on it. No one who was not following the AI Video space would want to watch them. I grew to loathe these videos by late December, and by January the whole community began to show its frustrations at the limitations. Then Sora started to drop videos in February, yet only sharing the tool with people in Hollywood. Until last week we had been stuck dreaming of Sora and lamenting the unrealistic AI video that dominated this space for well over a year. 

Dream Machine is amazing, but it is Runway's Gen-3 and ElevenLabs Voiceover Studio that have me dreaming like I am back in my short film days. So, what does that mean? 

What it means is that I am continuing to work on the two-part illustrated novel series, planning a graphic novel, but I now have the tools at my disposal to do so much more. Tools that make me rethink things.

Over the past few months, I spent time working on a pitch package for a TV series that I then reached out to Hollywood about. I am not dialed in like I was back when I was making short films. For the most part, I have kept my expectations in check since 2009. Up until last year, I thought most of the spec screenplays I had written over the past 20 years would go largely unread and that no films or TV series would ever become of them. 

That all changed last year, as a new hope started to take root in my imagination. New dreams began to blossom. I started to envision how things might go with the rapid expansion of AI. I even rewrote a TV series so it could adapt along with the changes in AI. Immersive entertainment is the way of the future, even if sales for the amazing yet ridiculously overpriced Apple Vision Pro have ground to a halt. 

While I have been unable to persuade anyone to option my TV series, that doesn't mean I'm going to toss it into the library along with all the other spec stories I have written. I see now that the market for buying anything has dried up in a big way, and this was not a good time to try and sell such an ambitious project that has no pre-existing IP. The financial effects of the Covid years and all the strikes last year have streamers clutching their purse strings, afraid to take chances. 

No worries. Not like I haven't faced rejection before. Only now I no longer have to toss this story into a dusty heap along with all the others. Now I can start to develop the story myself. I had included an AI-generated storyboard for the opening sequence in the pilot with the pitch deck I sent around, but I was reluctant to create an AI trailer using all that wobbly 4-second stuff that was available at the time. Images have progressed a lot faster over the past year and a half than Video up until now.

With the advancements from Luma and Runway I can do a lot. Can I create an entire episode using AI video? No, I don't think so. However, I know for a fact that I can create a fairly good trailer. While I had been reluctant to jump into the AI video waters when the outputs were so poor. These are a 1,000 times better and I can't not jump in now. 

This is exciting in several ways. Not only will I eventually have a trailer for my TV series, but I will also be adept at using the tools by the time I am done, and new tools will be ready by the time I'm done as well. Who knows, maybe they will be good enough that I can just start work on doing the whole damn series. 

In addition, with ElevenLabs Voiceover Studio I can also create the entire pilot episode for the podcast that is part of the TV series. What do I mean? Well, I mentioned that I had developed this series to be something that could be augmented by AI and the trend of immersive entertainment. The podcast is hosted by two characters in the TV series. They are not main characters and only play more of a background role in one of the three main stories that run throughout the first season. However, their podcast looks into the mysteries in the small town. So, I decided to develop a fictional podcast that could stand alone from the TV series while also enhancing it.

These are two exciting new AI projects that I look forward to starting work on. Initially, they are meant to help me try and sell the series and have it produced in a traditional way on film. However, times are changing and if I can't sell this series to a streamer then, if AI keeps advancing at its current pace, I may be able to create the whole damn thing by myself. I don't want to have to do this, but it is likely the future for storytelling. So, I am not afraid to be a pioneer in this new art form either. But it has to look and feel real. I have seen people over the past year dive into creating dodgy AI videos and fall in love with what they were doing so much that they were blind to the actually limitations. If regular people can't enjoy it then I don't want to be wasting my time on it. 

This is why a trailer using these updated tools and a 30-minute (audio-only) pilot episode for the podcast seem like an acceptable option at this time. This will not only be great practice for me with these tools, but the trailer and the pilot can be used to pitch the series. I may or may not make them publicly available because I will be contacting producers with them. 

I don't want to be releasing anything to the public that is not of the highest quality. That's why I do not think that even these updated amazing tools can capture and hold the public's attention for 30 let alone 120 minutes. Not yet. They bring us one step closer, but we are not quite at the point where I can work on my own with these tools to create a proper movie. 

However, one way some people will be able to use these updated tools is to augment a live-action production. I also think it may be possible to create an animated film that people will enjoy once Gen-3 is released. That would be HUGE. But live-action will take a little longer. I saw a few good animated shorts over the past few months that were made with the last-gen AI video tools. I mentioned last summer and I still believe it is true today that the first film people will watch and enjoy that is 100% AI-generated will be animated.

Do I have material that I could use in an animated film? Of course. Can I do the current TV series using animation? Yes, but... I would like that to be in live action. However, there are three stories interwoven in the TV series. Maybe I could tell one of the stories through animation in the trailer. Yeah, I kind of like that idea. I have a lot to think about as far as the trailer before I start generating scenes. 

Exciting times. And as I am finishing this up another AI update has dropped. While it's not another video model, Anthropic just released Claude 3.5 Sonnet. 

This will put more pressure on OpenAI, Google, Meta, XAI and others to keep pace. Google and OpenAI each made big shows over a month ago and have yet to release all that they promised. Tick tock you're getting lapped on the products you haven't even released in full yet. Good on you Anthropic for keeping the pressure on and continuing to accelerate towards AGI. 

Last year, I made a promise to myself to try and keep up with all the AI advancements and it has been like a rollercoaster. There was a bit of a break around the holidays, and even into the new year. However, over the past two months things have started to gain speed. TBH I am having trouble keeping up and trying to get work done. Once I get deeper into these multiple projects I may struggle to keep up, but I'll try nonetheless. 

To sum up. The tools are now here that people can use to begin work on building their so-called media empires. My own plans will start with stories that existed before AI was a twinkle in my eye. We'll see over the next few months how much progress I can make using these new and improved tools to create in a wide variety of media: illustrated novels, graphic novels, trailers, and a podcast. Thanks for reading.