Marching To The Beat Of Your Own Drum

It's been an interesting six weeks since I started down this path. What path? Six weeks ago, I began a journey towards starting a company. A multimedia company I never knew I had always wanted to start before my introduction to AI. You read that right. For thirty years, I had toiled like so many before me, working on my craft in the hope to share with others. The old saying is that an artist's life is one of suffering. Not only to create, but also to be heard, read, or seen. 

GPT-4 turned 2 years old last week. That was the beginning of all of this. A door opened and I stepped through. I was excited and anxious. I still am. After two years of trying to learn all I can about AI and how I might use it, I figured what the hell, why not throttle up and put my three decades of storytelling experience to maximum use. 

I realized something a few weeks ago: I have been building this company for 30 years and just didn't know it. I spent thirty years living an artist's life, and the past two years trying to understand AI and how it can help me, and how I can help others.   

Late last summer everything started to come together. It took a few months to tie up some loose ends so I could time things right. The Holidays were my first window. Too much going on to be ideal. Same with January. February may be the shortest month but it was my first clear opening and I've been accelerating ever since. Sure, I've been vibe coding too, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. 

I spent the last week in Savannah. Went to my first St. Patrick's Day Parade. We rode our bikes downtown, got there before noon, and were gone before the drunken shenanigans took over River Street. Who knew there were so many Former Grand Marshalls?

Before my trip, I had been focused on the first of three apps I hope to release before the end of the year. Originally, I thought the third app might have to wait until 2026, but the tools to help create apps have become, well, amazing. Vibe Coding has become a thing and I have been doing my fair share over the past month. That said, I am not trying to spawn a thousand different apps at breakneck speed. I have my plan and will adjust it as necessary. No need to get carried away with every single AI advancement. 

I know Twitter is not what it used to be, and loads of people have abandoned it like a plague ship, but it is still the best source for AI news. And if I am to stay adaptable and in touch with all that is going on I need to be in the know. Because I have been tapped in long enough to some great AI sources (content creators), over the past six weeks I have eased up on scrolling Twitter and have been receiving some of my updates via newsletters or YouTube videos. It's nice to get some context and see some use cases that you don't always get with a company's Tweets.  

Last week, before I left for Savannah, I started to think about more than just the app. I allowed myself the first real chunk of time to think about the company at large, of which the apps are only a part. Someone had asked me back in February if I had come up with a name for the company. I was not worried about it at the time as names or titles for stories kind of emerge. Last week I felt compelled to begin a name quest. Yes, I used quest for dramatic effect. 

In truth, I was winding down from weeks of focus on the app. March is the month I begin to focus on both the app and the creation of the business. Last Tuesday, I started to do some research on names and I began to realize how many of the names I liked were already companies. Many of them are common names that I was not surprised had domains registered. But as I started to dig deeper and deeper I realized that there are a shit ton of companies and all of those that I was looking up, whether they were American or international companies, the names had been used in one way or another. I wanted a name that would represent what I am trying to do: To increase my creative output and to assist others with the knowledge I have gained in this life by utilizing what I have learned about AI over the past two years. The search was frustrating, seeing a name taken one after another. And then I found it. I had to get creative, but I found it. 

We are nowhere near launching, and I've yet to file all the paperwork, but I found a company name that properly represents what I am trying to do and found no mention of the name in use anywhere. Again, I had to get creative, but I had a clear shot at it. So, I thought about the name for a few days to make sure I liked it enough to have it represent both the apps as well as my creative content. Then I took my shot and secured the .com and .net domains. That is only step one of the process, but I found the name of my company, or better yet, it found me. I have steps I still need to take before I can reveal the name publicly, but I will soon enough. Possibly in next month's blog post. 

Part of my settling on the name meant I had to see how it would look. So, I started creating images and logos and began sharing them with a few people whose opinions I value. The name seems to have landed well, and those whom I have shown the images and logos to have given me feedback. Now I have a few workable images and logos. Not only for the company but also for the 1st app. 

I have settled on a few early styles that I like for the Company name, the app name, and the app. My thoughts on the app originally were to make it similar to many of the other tools out there, which are very clean in their appearance. I love simplicity, but I also like style. Do I really want my first app to look like everyone else's app? Yes, but no. While I like the simple appearance of many of these apps, they all look the same. My solution is to keep it simple but with a bit of style. I will probably also have a toggle that will allow users to switch to the more lackluster version. Or not. Maybe I'll just do a light and dark toggle. We'll see. Still some work to do. 

One of my guidelines is to not overcomplicate things. "Keep it simple, Stupid," is definitely a motto I am trying to live by these days. Examples: 1) I created an eight-month and a three-year plan last November. When I realized that the Holidays or January would be terrible times to begin this madness, I moved my start time to mid-February. I adjusted the plans accordingly. 2) Since I made those initial plans back in November, AI has kept on accelerating and making advancements. The writing has been on the wall for months that 2025 would be the year of AI Agents. What was unexpected was how quickly other AI companies would learn from one another to create similar tools.  

That started when OpenAI's o1 dropped in December, a few months after the weaker o1 preview had been released, and introduced us to Reasoning LLM models. We are now awash in reasoning models as other companies quickly figured out how o1 works. OpenAI then dropped Agentic Tasks in January and then Deep Research in February. Tasks are a basic agentic tool but Deep Research was the first proper agentic tool that allows users to create research papers on a subject with more detail than with normal queries. Other companies quickly began following with their own versions.

Those were just the ones that dropped before I began in earnest to create the first app and the company. Ever since the second week in February, the updates have kept coming as far as agents and all the other AI tools. The cost of AI has skyrocketed as well. Not only has OpenAI begun charging $200 for a Pro Tier, but the best AI Video models (Google Veo 2 and Luma Ray 2) are charging an arm and a leg for normal generations. Granted Veo2 is available in YouTube shorts but it is a wonky way to access it. 

The hope is that the cost will drop so that we mere mortals might be able to use these tools to create without having to pay out the ear for the privilege of using them. These tools are there or thereabout where I need them to be to create one of the many shorts I have been thinking about for the past year. My hope is that the cost drops as the tools continue to improve. If you listen to the rumblings, it sounds like Runway and Midjourney may have Video Model updates within the next few months. 

My hope is that they take us over the threshold from good enough for short films to good enough for feature films, TV, and games. What does that even mean? It means that not only do the outputs need to look natural but they need to sound right as well. You can still tell every lifelike AI movie was created with AI. Until that happens it can only be used for VFX shots. Apparently, House of David on Amazon Prime used AI for VFX shots, and that is a pretty big deal. They did not admit this until after it shot up to #2 on their Movies list. That means they were afraid to mention it before its release but willing to give credit once they were a success. The same could be said for Tom Hanks and Robin Wright's Here. Only after its release did they publicly give full credit to the AI teams that helped de-age them. There is a desire by filmmakers to use the technology to tell their stories but a fear of how the public will react. 

Sora is a good AI video tool but it is not what I had hoped it would be. In truth, none of them is as intuitive as I want. I tried out Veo 2 and Ray 2 over the past month when they were made available on one subscription. They were both so expensive that I could not make more than one video each with both models. And I was disappointed with the output video from both models. TBH, it put me in a mood. I knew then that now was not the time to even think about trying to make anything more than a short. It wasn't cost-effective and the tools, while they had gotten better, were not good enough... yet. 

This is the lone video I was able to make with Veo 2 on the paid site I used. If I had created one more I would have burned through half of my credits. This is supposed to be the first shot of the TV series that I tried pimping out last year. Other than the surgical mask dangling before the camera instead of sitting in the middle of the road, not bad. It's not usable but I like the look of the town and the fact that the streets are empty. This is an example of how these models need to get better—smarter. The prompt was not perfect but a smart model should know that the mask is in the street and not dangling before the camera. 

Prompt: A small-town main street at night, illuminated by soft, warm streetlights casting gentle shadows on the pavement. The shop windows glow invitingly, showcasing colorful displays, yet the stores remain eerily empty, hinting at an unsettling stillness. The atmosphere is quiet and serene, with a palpable sense of anticipation for the dawn. In the center of the deserted road, a light blue surgical mask flutters lightly, caught in a faint breeze, its movement subtle yet poignant against the backdrop of the tranquil night. The camera pans slowly down the street, capturing the flickering light reflections and the delicate rustle of the mask, creating a seamless loop that emphasizes the haunting beauty of the scene.

AI video tools are good enough to make an animated movie, but lifelike is still just beyond the horizon. Which is fine by me, as I have a lot of other things to focus on. I do expect I will be able to make an animated short before the end of the year and possibly a lifelike AI trailer for the TV show I was banging on about last summer. The tools were not good enough then but they are now (for shorts), except for the price. Eventually, I'll have to suck it up for a few months and pay the exorbitant fees to get the shots I need. 

My hope is that by this time next month, I will be annoying you to try my new app. If that is the case, then I will begin work on the second app and start work on one of the animated shorts on my list. The one I will start with is the revisualization of a short film I made years ago. That is meant to be the project that helps me adapt to the medium. The other is a story that I had long been thinking about and late last year I finally got around to writing it as a script. 

I am on track with my updated 8-month plan and the 3-year plan. With the help of AI agents and other AI updates, like coding and AI video, I may be able to release the second and third apps sooner than expected. While I have tried Deep Research and Tasks, I have yet to dive too deep into Agents. However, tools like Manus look promising. 

Should there be another big leap beyond Veo 2 in AI video that allows for seamless lifelike outputs with perfectly synced voice before the fall, I may be able to start to work not only on the animated projects and the trailer for the TV series mentioned above but that may also allow me to begin on a feature, TV series or even a game. Games are a big part of the TV series from last year and we will soon be able to create games to release with our movies and TV shows. The cost may be prohibitive but if the tools are available and I can afford them I will begin using them to create lifelike content and games, but not before we cross that threshold. I don't want any uncanny valley scenes ruining my stories, causing viewers to turn the channel.

In review, I am making progress with the app. I also discovered a name for my company that I think embodies all that I am trying to do. Things are progressing. Fingers crossed I can share more next month. I do not like holding back information. I've had to do that about writing projects and now I am having to do it with the app and the company. We're getting closer and I can't wait to tell you more. 

Thanks for reading.

The Storyteller's Dilemma

 

Storytelling has been vital to human evolution ever since we crawled out of the mud. We are at the Dawn of Artificial Intelligence being integrated into all of our lives, and storytellers are being confronted with a choice. Adapt your process to this new world or not.

Some will not adapt & will continue on as if they are still living in the glow of the 20th century. And that's 100% okay. Creating stories is a personal journey that can be completed entirely with a pen and paper, coffee, and some free time to write.

The choice is a personal one. Storytellers don't need AI to help them create their tales. I never needed AI to help me write books or screenplays. But then I've always wanted to create more than just the written word.

Like many a storyteller, I have worlds within me that I long to share with people. While writing a book isn't easy, once it's published you're done. That's satisfying, but not if you've always wanted a story to contain images or play on a big screen. For that, I needed a lot of help.

Until last Spring, I was accepting that getting one of my mind-bending, epic stories made into a graphic novel or a movie on the big screen or any screen would be a major challenge with lots of obstacles. Then AI exploded and my view of storytelling changed forever.

Not only can you now speed up the writing process with AI acting as an assistant, but you can tell your stories in many more ways. And you have control of the final product. That appeals to me at my very core as a storyteller.

I no longer feel boxed in, trapped by only being able to write books and screenplays. That has allowed me to tap into the filmmaking spirit I once fostered. Graphic novels are possible and soon we'll be able to create movies worth watching once AI video improves.

What has stood in my way for two decades is being removed because I can bypass many of the roadblocks with the help of AI. While I enjoy collaborating with others, I am more than happy to work on my own as well.

Not only will it save time to create new material, but I might never have been able to afford to hire an artist to create the images for a graphic novel. With Generative AI tools, the cost and the time to create the images become manageable if time is taken to learn how to use these tools. And I have been more than happy to do that. It is much easier to learn how to use AI to create images than to learn to create the images by hand or having to shell out thousands of dollars to get someone else to help me complete my vision. Now I have total control, which may provide some dodgy results to start with, but eventually, I will become good enough to create that graphic novel. 

Tip for those wanting to create a Graphic Novel with AI: The scripts for a Graphic Novel are very similar to a screenplay, so if you have a screenplay that you want to see as a Graphic Novel AI can reformat that for you. 

The key is to have a story to tell. AI is great at images but the story should come from you. A graphics artist may say the exact opposite, which makes sense. AI can help compensate for your weakness. Mine is that my hand is not steady enough to draw or paint. 

Creating a story takes a lot longer than creating a digital painting anyway. One of my best friends is a brilliant artist. He can knock out a hundred paintings or more in the time it takes me to come up with a story, write it, edit it, and say it is done. That has always annoyed me. Not anymore. Now I can do what he does in a fraction of the time and I have both the story and the visuals to accompany it. He is not a storyteller, so I'm not sure which one of our AI-assisted works would be better.

AI can create stories, but just like with creating images you have to work with the AI to create what you need. You can't just expect it to come back with an image or a story right out of the gate that will be perfect. It may never be perfect. That is why it needs the human touch. 

As far as AI Video, it seems like we're nearly there, but then I don't know. I am not training these AI models. In the early summer of last year, I thought that we were about a year away from being able to create high-quality videos using only AI tools. I figured animated AI videos would be the first to achieve a level of quality that would be acceptable to all viewers. While I still think that is true, animated AI scenes look just as sketchy as lifelike scenes. There is a built-in threshold of forgiveness for animation because of all the differences in animation styles we have all seen in our lifetimes. Whereas lifelike images have to look 100% real across every frame or you risk losing the audience. 

People have become finicky about AI video, and that includes the best creators of AI video. I too am dismissive of most AI videos. It's all so obviously AI-generated that I can't even be bothered to watch more than a couple seconds of most of them. There are exceptions of course, but they are few and far between. 

Some Twitter accounts say that Hollywood is rattled. They are not rattled by what is being produced with just AI tools at this moment. This does make me wonder if the tools will be slow-rolled out to the public because of how much it will change things. Not to be a conspiracy monger. Lord knows we don't need more hair-brained conspiracy theories circulating out there this year. 

However, let's think about it for a moment. Once AI video is good enough storytellers like myself will be clamoring to create movies with AI. If people actually enjoy some of these movies, then Hollywood will be rattled. However, I don't think it will be the end of Hollywood.

On the contrary, Hollywood would still have most of the best creators. It's not like they won't change with the times to keep up. Things will likely just be a bit different. Maybe all the best AI TV shows and movies will be animated. Maybe lifelike AI video will take far longer to achieve. Think of how far ahead AI Images are right now. You can create anything with AI image generators. 

The public will dictate what it is willing to accept and consume. I can't see us rejecting animation entirely, but quasi-lifelike TV shows and Movies generated with AI may be a bridge too far anytime soon. AI advances have been rapid. However, they are also gradual now that we are all caught up in it waiting for the next big update. And video is a lot trickier than static images. 

Maybe with a big election coming up and Hollywood growing anxious things have been slowed towards the public. Maybe not. Who knows? Either way, we are nowhere near a lifelike movie or TV show yet. 

Having watched this space for a year, and having seen what people have attempted to create with AI, I am not sure they will all be able to tell a compelling story once we can use AI to create movies. And without a story, you might as well be pissing into the wind.

My artist friend and I have shared story ideas before. Do I think he could create a graphic novel with only AI to assist him? Yes. He would have to lean on the AI for the story part, but he'd be able to easily create the images needed. 

It does make me wonder, who benefits more from AI tools a Writer or an Artist? Surely those who had both skills before AI will benefit most. I think I have benefited a great deal as a writer who can now add images to my stories. If an artist took the time to learn how to use AI to tell a story, I could see how the artist might save more time. Because writing a story, for the most part, is more time-consuming than creating a picture. Therefore, a writer might still want to spend more time getting the story right than the artist, who may think that a story is good enough when it might still need some work. While an artist might be more inclined to ensure the images are perfect, a writer may think that an image is good enough when it still needs some work. The lack of experience may expose flaws in the finished work for both. 

I think if my artist friend and I both set out to create our own graphic novel or digital comic, the scales would just about balance out. His visuals would be better and my story would be better. However, when it comes to AI Video, I think I'd edge him on that because of my experience with both writing and directing. That is where it is clear that people who have experience in both storytelling and image creation or moviemaking will have an edge over everyone else.

Once the AI movie excitement fades people will come home from a hard day's work and the last thing they will want is to watch something just because it was created entirely by AI. The standards of storytelling will not be lowered just because anyone can create a movie. In fact, they may even be higher because of all the scrutiny. 

This is why it would be smart of those who have neither an art background nor a storytelling background, but who have learned how to create AI images and are eager to create movies using AI, to learn how to tell a story first. I have been in awe of plenty of AI images over the past year, and while an image may say a thousand words, it does not tell an entire story. 

People have gained minor fame for their static AI images over the past year. But anyone can create those images if they learn how to prompt or rewrite the prompts of others, which is a lot easier than learning to draw or write a story. It is a new type of skill. One that creates magnificent results without a need for artistic talent. I have had to learn to prompt to create the images I need. Some are just better prompters than I am. Is AI Art Real Art? That's a tough one. I have made some amazing images over the past year. However, I would not feel comfortable showing it at an Art Gallery. Though I have no problem using those images in a Graphic Novel or a Movie, once AI Video is good enough. But to each their own. I tell stories and would prefer the focus be on the stories I create, AI images and video are just another means for me to tell a story. 

We are hard-wired to need stories. So much of our lives revolve around the stories we tell one another on a daily basis. The stories we choose to consume during our downtime need to be even better than the ones we deal with all day. Commercials, news, your boss, the waiter, the mail, your friends and family. We are the stories we tell each other. An image or series of images can be seared into your mind and stir your soul, while a gripping story can captivate your heart and your mind. Combine the two effectively and you can break through all the mundane stuff in people's daily lives, capture their imagination, and help them escape their mortal confines just for a moment. It's no replacement for time spent in nature or with loved ones, but reading a good book or watching a good movie can inspire people or just entertain them.

That's what it's all about, for me at least. I write for myself so that I can get lost in a story that I would want to read or watch, but the story does not yet exist. While everyone may not want to read or watch the stories that I create, a few might. And if they take away something positive from the experience then that is a bonus. 

We do not all walk the same storytelling path. That would be boring. We all have our own paths based on our experience or lack thereof. Choose a path that works for you. Stay on that path if you like or change paths if that seems the right thing to do, just keep moving and learning along the way. Thanks for reading.