Despite my concerns about how much AI will help me gain attention for my work, I am proceeding to make plans. This past weekend, I started going through my library of written stories and some of the stories I have planned to write in the future.
My top priority is still the two-part novel series I abandoned several years back to work on a few collaborative TV series scripts. One of which I fell head over heels in love with. The same one I have been querying folks about recently. It is ideal for this moment we find ourselves in and I wrote it to reflect this moment. With one eye still on that TV series, my main focus shifts to the novel series and the future. While I settle into the rewriting process and start adding a few AI images to illustrate some of the pages, I am also taking a macro view of the future in my free time.
During a review this weekend I created a document and separated it into two parts: "Old" and "New." The "Old" section is for those stories that have already been written, while the "New" section is for projects I have been thinking about but have yet to write. I then created two columns for each section: "Graphic Novels" and "Film/ Television."
While I now know that creating "Graphic Novels" is something I can 100% do with the help of AI image generators like Midjourney, I cannot yet make Films and Television Episodes using AI that the public at large would be willing to consume. However, this will be possible soon based on what we have already seen.
How long will it take before I, as an individual, have access to such tools? That is my biggest concern. OpenAI has been pimping out its video tool Sora to Hollywood elites and established artists. We found out about Sora in February yet no one outside of that small circle has been given access. My fear is that only Hollywood will get access to the best features.
Kling is a new Chinese AI video model that is similar to Sora. They promoted the ability to make 2-minute videos. However, people who have gotten access can only create 5-second clips. This is exactly what I am worried about. You cannot make anything worthwhile using 5-second clips. This is what Pika and Runway have been doing for a year. And I am more than a little reluctant to use a Chinese company's AI video model. Other AI video tools have been rumored like Google's Veo, another Chinese tool called Vidu, and it sounds like Stable Diffusion and Runway are about to drop new or improved tools. There is apparently at least one other mystery AI video tool that some people have signed an NDA not to discuss.
I worry that Sora and all these other tools will do the same thing as Kling and only allow us to create 5-second clips. Sora has shown that it can create minute-long clips, but I wonder if only Hollywood will have access to that and we plebs will be stuck with 5-second clips that are only good for making TikTok or Youtube clips. Eventually, we will all be able to make our own Films and TV Series, but who the hell knows when that will be. I am not sure you can make a proper movie or TV show right now even if you had full access to these tools. There are still distortions and character consistency is still a major issue as well. Until those things are fixed and we are allowed to create at least 20 to 30-second clips I won't be able to create at a level of quality that I need to be able to provide to the public something actually worth watching.
Okay. Back to my list. I can see all of these stories -- the 11 screenplays I pulled from my library, and the 9 new tales I want to tell -- could be created as AI Films or TV Series. I mean that's how I wrote the older stories in the first place. However, since I don't know when I can use those tools, or when they will be good enough to allow me to create films and TV Series on my own, I decided that for my previously written screenplays, I could create seven Graphic Novels, one Film, and three TV series using various AI tools. Since things are still fluid concerning these tools, I reserve the right to change that list as AI Video tools improve and should I get proper access to them.
While I still have the one Novel Series to release with illustrations, I think Graphic Novels will be the format I settle into away from Film and TV until things improve. There are still a few novels in me, though I might reserve that format for my possible auto-biography or stories that just can't be told any other way. I learned a lot throughout this literary period. Gained a lot of confidence as well. However, my passion has always been film. Ever since I was in my mid-20s movies have been my passion.
TV series only entered my thought process once I started writing anthology tales that were too long for a single movie, which happened to coincide with the rise of streaming services. I hate commercials with a passion. God only knows how much of my life has been wasted watching stupid commercials, or how much of my brain's compute has been used to memorize some of the more annoying ones. For me, ad-free streaming episodes are a lot like a movie experience. Even if an episode is only 30 to 60 minutes in length. You get an uninterrupted chapter. And I like that a lot. The fact that I, a lowly scribe who has been writing non-stop for over twenty years, can have total control over a film or TV series is exciting and a bit terrifying.
I have joked recently that I want to create a media empire. However, it was my longtime writing partner who suggested this after I asked him to read through the pitch package for my recent TV Series. So the idea has stuck, not because of that one TV Series, which would be amazing if I could get it produced the traditional way, but because I am looking at my library of unproduced spec scripts in a new way.
I am a dreamer, so you'll have to forgive my desire to look beyond what seems possible at this moment. I can see it all as clearly as the foliage on the trees outside my window. If I think back a few months those same trees were bare. This emerging AI video technology is like the seasons changing from winter to spring, and my old screenplays are like those bare trees starting to bud with the warming weather. Eventually, they will emerge and become leaves and part of the delightful foliage that makes up the tree canopy outside my window.
As far as future projects, I only put nine on the list. However, I have no less than ten notebooks to go through that likely contain several other ideas that may eventually make that list. So it will continue to grow as I work.
I don't have a large following online because I have refused to pay Elon Musk a penny just to have a blue check on Twitter/ X, and I don't really like any of the other social media sites. Facebook now reminds me of Myspace. TikTok and Instagram are for videos and images, not words. BlueSky and Threads are largely vacant versions of Twitter. With 21 projects to work on, I have better things to do than do the social media dance across platforms. Give me information, let me comment and share, and I'm good.
Once I get closer to releasing more stuff, I'll get out there and shake my tail feathers a little more. And, the eventual, continued release of work with the help of AI tools may help me get more eyes on it. But there are hard yards yet to cross before that is even possible. For now, it is just the dream of a dreamer waiting for the tools he needs to make those dreams a reality Thanks for reading.
One more thing. Right after I dropped this post LUMA dropped "Dream Machine" a Sora and Kling-like video generator. Unfortunately, it only offers 5-second clips, but I like how clean the examples have been. I animated the image I created at the top of the post. Check out Luma here for FREE!
No comments:
Post a Comment