The Summer of Jimothy

We’re all living in the Summer of Jimothy, so it’s best to just embrace it. What fun those in Seattle have been having with our furry friend. With all the stupid and terrible things going on in the world, I’ve enjoyed watching the good-natured joy the little raccoon is bringing to so many simply by existing. It does the heart good.

In a year, it will all be different. You, me, Jimothy. That is the only thing guaranteed. We all set goals and objectives. I tend to start after the new year, once I get back into a weekly productivity groove. By February, a plan is in place, and the year starts rolling along. This year’s plans were going along just fine until we had to say goodbye to my uncle. He passed in April, but we did not say our goodbyes until June, when the family was able to all get together. He was smart, loved sports, and, most importantly, genuinely cared about each and every one of us. He had this great trading card collection that we were all in awe of as kids. He would buy us cards, often complete sets, which we always enjoyed receiving and going through. He was beloved by all of us. Even though we have had to deal with his massive card collection, it has been both an honor and a privilege to do so. But... 

As his eldest nephew, I decided to do the research that was needed in order to properly inventory the collection and prepare the family to deal with it all. It would have taken all year if I had not, and there are implications with a collection that large. Taking those steps sooner rather than later was only logical, especially with my need to work on my plan for the year. I have loved doing the research and getting things ready for the next steps, for the most part, but the toll it’s taken on my plans for the year over the past two months has set me back. I am close to the point where I need not be so involved in the process and can return most of my focus to my plans for the year.

When my uncle fell in 2021, it marked the end of his normal life. He kept having falls and other health issues that prevented him from returning to his home. The family went into overdrive to get him into a place where he might be able to have the care he needed and some autonomy. This marked the first time I ever laid eyes on the index cards for his collection. We were blown away by its breadth and substance. He had gifted us some cool cards back in the day, but his collection was a true legacy. It has been an honor to work on it. It has also had me looking into the trading card business to see what we are dealing with.

You may or may not be aware of how on fire the trading card business is right now, but it is. Some are even comparing it to the NASDAQ in terms of volume and volatility. I found out there is this place near me called Cards HQ and that there is essentially a stock market-like index that adults and kids follow as if they are day traders on Wall Street. I did not see that back in 2021, and after 2023, I certainly wasn’t aware of how hot the market had become because I had been focused on AI and not the cards, while my uncle had a few years of relatively good health.

This year, I have been able to use AI to help me with my uncle’s collection in several ways, which has really helped speed things up with document creation, research, and numerous other points of contact. Then things can slow to a crawl because there is still the human element to deal with. Some of these moments go smoothly, but others bring things to a crawl. This is one reason why I prefer to work alone at times. Me + AI = Amazing. Me + AI + Others = Still Amazing, but sometimes less so.

Working on the collection has also helped me get used to negotiating and dealing with people again, something I have had to do less of since I turned my attention to AI in 2023. There are times when an actual phone call to a person is worth so much more than an email or a text, especially when you are first communicating with someone. Then there are those who just are not as good at communicating. The less I say about that, the better, but it is an issue when disparate people are involved in a project. And I do treat my uncle’s collection as a project—one that I worked on from late 2021 through mid-2023 and then again from this April to the present. No one knows the collection like I do.

It will feel weird when it is gone. Not just because of the five years I have been truly aware of the collection in its entirety, but also because of a lifetime of having been in awe of it. My uncle and that collection were both quite incredible, so it is fitting, I suppose, that they should both leave the family in the same year. He may have stopped collecting in the late ’80s, but my uncle put his heart into that collection, and he shared his passion for cards with us. It is unbelievable to see where the trading card hobby is now.

Beyond all of that, I have made some good progress with my creative pipeline—not as much as I would have liked, but enough to still feel on track to begin, hopefully, a steady flow of creative content by year’s end. What do I mean by steady flow, and what is this pipeline I am talking about?

I spent the first three months of the year taking classes focused mainly on agents and deepening my journey with Claude while also continuing my work with OpenAI. I regret not starting to use Claude sooner, but I am glad I began when I did because using them both together is magic.

Around the beginning of the year, I all but abandoned work on the three apps I had been working on. I hit a snag with 1st Draft when I began incorporating real-time features because of the browsers on cell phones. I was reluctant to make it a full app because of that issue, but had I done so, the issue would have gone away once it was an app and no longer a web app. Live and learn. By December, it just didn’t make sense to keep my main focus on apps. Yes, I wanted to help people with the apps, but they had chewed up so much time last year that I needed a change.

Besides, what I believed would happen with apps and software last summer while working on the app happened. I, like many people, pride myself on being able to imagine how things might work out, and then sometimes they do track similarly to what I imagined. But I felt last summer, as I was knee-deep in creating the app, that it was all futile and that very soon everyone would be able to create the software they needed for specific situations. And sure enough, that is now possible.

In December of last year, the buzz over agents hit fever pitch, and I began to dream of the second part of STORiCORE that I wanted to create. It focuses on my own writing work and transforming my written work into other formats. I have several dozen unproduced and unpublished stories. I decided I would build what I dreamed of back in 2024, where I, with the help of AI, could create comics, graphic novels, podcasts, trading cards, video games, interactive content, movies, and TV shows.

I would have liked to use all these other tools that others had created, but they each cost a lot of money to use. And instead of doing that, I decided to create my own creative pipeline. What the hell does that mean, Pitters?

It means taking what I learned from those classes, from building and working on several apps, from writing in different formats for 30 years, and from all the other things that I have learned in a lifetime, and using all of that in tandem with Claude and OpenAI tools to create a pipeline that helps me create my stories in different media. I have built it to help with comics, trading cards, graphic novels, podcasts, games, movies, and TV shows. The last three are meant to be updated later, once the tech is good enough and I am ready, but they are wired into the pipeline and just awaiting my go-ahead. Once I decide it is time, I will begin work on those formats. But not yet. No. I want to get as good as I can get with comics, graphic novels, and trading cards so that I feel confident I can return to them later without missing a beat. That has been my objective with everything I have learned through the years, AI and storytelling alike.

My focus since I began testing things with the pipeline has been on comics, graphic novels, and trading cards. The comics are a way to serialize the stories in the graphic novels. Why? So I can release three, four, five, or more digital episodes or comics over the course of months before releasing the graphic novel in digital and physical form. I am also thinking about doing different versions of the trading cards: 1) a story-based version, 2) a character-based version, and 3) a possible game version. Most of the first stories I anticipate telling through the graphic novel process are part of larger story universes. Some of them are ideal for gamification in many forms, and I intend to explore that. Graphic novels and story gamification are both things I have wanted to do since I first started writing screenplays and began imagining these worlds.

So much of my work has been inspired by anthology movies like CREEPSHOW and TRICK ’R TREAT, which tell more than one story. It has been one of my favorite formats, and I always saw them as either movies, TV series, or graphic novels. I did not possess the ability to create them on my own. Years ago, I tried to get an artist friend of mine to help me create my first graphic novel. It never went anywhere, and I began to think that all those stories would just have to be told as books. So, my movement into writing books was largely because I did not think I would ever get to make these stories as movies, TV shows, or graphic novels, and definitely not as the games I imagined but had done so little to explore. Games are something that I never thought I would ever have a chance to create, but they are also one of the most exciting media I look forward to exploring. Why? Because I want to put viewers into the stories... literally. Back then, the best option I had available was to write my stories as books. I am glad that I had to take that path because I learned so much and gained confidence.

I think of my novel writing a lot like my app-making. I did both because I could not do what I really wanted to do, which was create movies, TV shows, graphic novels, and video games. Back in 2023, I began the process of learning how to create a graphic novel. My first step was to create an illustrated version of MICHAELMAS. The image generators were not good enough for me to create a graphic novel. Some people were doing some amazing things at the time, but I was not skilled enough to pull off a graphic novel, so I focused on doing what I could do. That’s a good way of doing things for me because I often try to bite off more than I can chew, and reality spits me back out. So, I adapt and do what I can.

Could I start off by focusing on video? Sure. Some of the models have gotten very, very good. But I have a lot of things I want to do, and time has become more valuable recently. So, I decided it was best to focus on comics, graphic novels, and trading cards. As you now know, my uncle, who passed earlier this year, was an avid collector of trading cards. What I did not mention is that another of my uncles, who passed over a decade ago, was an avid comic book collector. He lost his entire collection in a flood. I can only imagine how devastated he was by this. When we would visit in the summer, we would love looking at the collections of both uncles. It was part of the fun of visiting in the summer.

It seems appropriate that I am focused on creating both comics and trading cards. I have even found a way to honor them both by offering a version of the trading cards that will be called the Two Uncles Collection. I am a big fan of non-sports trading cards. My uncle collected a few of them, but the one that is the most important to what I am trying to do is the MARS ATTACKS set from 1962. The cards tell a story. I will likely create multiple sets for each full story I make into a comic series or graphic novel. I will probably keep the Two Uncles Collection strictly focused on the story, while other sets may focus mainly on the characters or some kind of game. There are options, but I really like the story version. That is the reason I am doing all of this: to tell stories.

I have been reflecting on the past three years since I started using AI. It is interesting how it took me a while to figure out what I was building toward. But with the Story Pipeline, I have finally created something that will help me do what I have always wanted to do—something I started to dream about when I first started writing, something that was reawakened in 2023: the desire to create comics, graphic novels, cards, podcasts, interactive content, games, TV, and movies.

Thirty years ago, the sky was the limit, and I dreamed of massive projects that I wanted to see on the big screen. But after two decades, I began to doubt that they would ever exist as I had imagined them. Eventually, I had all but given up hope that my favorite stories of all time would ever be read by people, let alone be seen on a screen. I spent so much time over the past thirty years trying to get others interested in my work, with little to no interest, that I even grew tired of trying. 2024 was the last straw.

I created this amazing TV series that I envisioned using AI in different ways after normal production had wrapped. I imagined all sorts of cool things that could have been created using AI in one way or another: choose-your-own-adventure experiences, podcasts, cards, games, and interactive environments meant to be used with the Apple Vision Pro, a product that showed promise but that very few people seemed to want. No matter. I was imagining ways to use AI that would be viable, and with the creative pipeline, I could create most of it, if not all of it, on my own. I am focused on comics, graphic novels, and trading cards for now so I can generate enough content to help get the ball rolling.

I won’t be satisfied until, in a single year, I can create the graphic novel package, the movie or TV series, the fictional podcast, and interactive media like games and Vision Pro-like experiences that I imagined with THOUSAND SPRINGS. It need not be that TV series, but that would be a hoot. In the summer of 2024, I envisioned where AI was going and how I could use it to create something like what I envisioned for THOUSAND SPRINGS, then deliver all of it using only my story, the pipeline I created, and the best AI tools available. Delivering all that I laid out back then would be freaking awesome.

Based on how things are and how AI is developing, when do I think I could run a single story through the pipeline within one year? If I wanted to do it sooner rather than later, it would probably have to be a single movie to do it in a year. I think that could be done now. But the cost is going to be insane, especially for the movie and game parts. The rest is far more cost-effective, which is one of the main reasons I am doing what I am doing. The education part is baked into this as well because I would have to learn more about the tools used for some of these media, especially gaming.

I will probably start small with video and gaming because of the cost and the additional time needed for learning. The cost could continue to go up, and that has a major effect on long-form storytelling with video. Plus, I can’t afford to spend a week on each and every scene. I want to be an efficient director and say, “Cut,” and move on within one or two takes. If it takes 50 takes for every scene, it will cost a fortune and take forever. Not ideal and therefore to be avoided. That means it may be a little while before I even venture to attempt video in the pipeline. I will continue to test the models, but actually venturing to create a movie might take a few more AI video updates before we take that step. I have been wanting this ever since 2023, but I have learned to throttle back on my expectations for AI video because of the scale I would be working on.

I could possibly try it with HOUSE FLY. It is part of a larger story universe, but it has always been meant to stand alone. If I were to try to put one story through the entire pipeline, it would be one of the best options. The story is conducive to a game as well. It is the story that I am starting with anyway. I might as well make it the guinea pig for the entire pipeline.

Huh, not a bad idea. Do I think I could run it through the pipeline and be finished with it all by this time next year? I would need to raise funds to even attempt to do it in that time frame. Otherwise, it may be unlikely to happen within a year. But it could still be the first to go through the entire pipeline and emerge with a graphic novel, a movie, a game, and more.

I can foresee running HOUSE FLY through the pipeline several times just for the graphic novel, creating different versions as I improve the pipeline in different ways. I’ve already had to do that in a fragmented way numerous times. So, I can 100% see myself wanting to come back and redo HOUSE FLY a year after releasing the graphic novel. Whether I do it or not will be something else altogether.

Needless to say, I am excited by the progress I have made this year. It has helped me put the past year, as well as the past three years, into perspective. There were times last year when I was questioning my choices as I worked on the apps. Was I wrong to focus on apps ahead of my own creative work? If you had asked me in December of last year, I might have said yes. But what I learned last year is more important than the apps I worked on. I had wanted to learn more about coding for a decade. The one coding class I took back in 2015 did nothing but tell me that I still had a lot to learn. And I had wanted to learn more even before I awakened to AI in 2023. So, the work I did over the past three years has allowed me to harness all that I learned over the past thirty years and shape that knowledge into something that will help me achieve what otherwise would never have been possible. And you cannot put a value on that. All I can do is put my head back down, get back to work, and wish you all well on your own creative journeys.

Hot Dayz

This marks the fifth blog I have started since my last post in March. Sixth if you count the one where I literally only opened a new post and never actually wrote anything. No, we aren't counting that one. So, the fifth blog post started since March. I didn't publish the others for one reason or another. 

The first blog I started but never published was all about ChatGPT's image generator, which created the Ghibli craze that swept the planet. I was excited by it but I lost interest in the post after a few paragraphs. 

The second was titled "Status Report". I wrote it in late April, and it touched upon vibe coding and AI in general, even reflecting on what things might have been like if I had access to these AI tools back in my 20s. While it would have been amazing and changed a lot in my life, I do worry about future generations of people who may never know what it's like to have to think for themselves. To make decisions on their own. They will probably make better decisions, but I can't help but worry that they may be missing something in their development. Stick-to-itiveness, good judgement, the ability to think for oneself, these are what I fear may go the way of the Dodo. If everything is done for you, if every decision is not truly your own, if you lose control of your own narrative then we as a species will be nothing more than a flightless bird lost at sea. 

The third blog post was also in Late April, around the time I originally hoped to release the app. I didn't get too far into it, but it was an ode to GPT-4 and its retirement from ChatGPT. 

The fourth was started in mid-May and was an introduction to my new company, as well as a status report on my plans for the company. It was during this time that I realized I was falling behind on the creation of my first app. I had set out several possible release dates back in February when I began this process towards creating a multimedia company. Step one is the release of my first of three apps. 

I have learned a good deal about building apps with AI tools. I tried vibe coding several apps during this time, between February and mid-May. However, I wanted more control over what was being done with the design, and since I had never created an app before, I also wanted to use the time to actually learn about coding. Not like I would ever try to code an app without AI, though. That would be a waste of time. However, I didn't want to just press PROCEED every time either. I am an old gearhead, and I have always been someone who likes to tear things open and see how they work. 

Because I choose to try and understand what makes things tick, the first step in building this new multimedia company --creating the first app-- has taken longer than I would've liked. My plan was to have it out and available by the end of May. That obviously didn't happen. And, to be honest, I was disappointed in myself. Can't cling to that though. If I had just vibe coded the whole thing that might have been possible. I won't go into my entire process just yet, I'll save that for when I can reveal more about the app, which will begin two weeks before its release. How far are we away from that? I'm kind of done trying to predict anything with this app. Yet, I was put on the spot the other day and said my goal is to be done with the app by mid-August. My hope is to release it by September. Fingers crossed and knock on wood.

As much as I have loved building this app and learning about the process, I've gotten to the point where I want to move on to other things. It feels like I haven't done anything with my stories in forever. AI video tools have gone off the rails these past few months, and I haven't been able to dig into that since April. Anyway, we are getting closer every day. I can see the finish line.

I decided to focus on the web app and avoid the headache that is the Apple App store for now. My initial plan was to try and do the initial release just through the app stores. However, that would likely delay things even more. So, a web app and a google app will have to suffice to begin with. I'll add Apple later, once I get my feet under me and we are up and running. This will save me a week or so.

With that time saved, I felt today was as good a day as any to actually introduce my new company. I say new, but I actually spent much of March and part of April starting the company. Who knew that getting a mailbox would require a video call with a notary.

I created an early website for the company, so I guess I can go ahead and share its name even if I can't share more about our first product. Why? I have noticed that a lot of people build in public and just talk about what they are building throughout the process. As a writer, I am always a little guarded about discussing what I am working on before the time is right. With App building, I am even more so because I have never done this before. Unless you count working on creating a few websites a decade or so ago.

The company's name is Storicore, but I have taken to capitalizing all the letters except for the "i": STORiCORE. I did this because the "i" looks like a human and to emphasize that one of my main objectives is to put you the individual at the heart of everything. You can go to the website at storicore.com. It's a basic site at this time since we haven't released anything just yet. As they say whenever a new AI video model releases, this is the worst it will ever be. 

Our goal is to become an AI and Human-powered multimedia company that delivers apps, graphic novels, books, TV shows, movies, video games, and more. Something I have been talking about on here for years. We are leading with apps because every individual's experience is valuable, and we want you to watch, read, listen, and create stories that mean something to you. This part of the business is all about you.

In one way or another, stories are at the heart of every part of our lives. Most stories that we may want to tell tend to go untold, either because we are not used to telling stories or we just don't have the time. I think back on the 20th century, a great century for stories, but in reality most of the stories we could have read were lost to time. At STORiCORE, we believe that by placing the individual at the heart of our company's objectives, we can help everyone tell their stories. That way, we can all share our stories with whoever we want, empowering us to take ownership of our own creative process.  

The three apps I plan to release over the next year will allow everyone who wants to be a part of the storytelling process to do so. I can tell you from thirty years of experience that if your story matters to you, then that is all that matters. Putting it into words is the first step. 

Beyond the apps, which are focused on helping others, I have my own stories to tell. Some of which I have been sitting on for 20 years. Stories written to be Hollywood Blockbusters, intimate tales of human daily experience, thrilling tales that will make your pulse race and some that will make your skin crawl. Something I realized in 2023 was that with the help of AI, I would be able to not only write all the stories I wanted to write, but I could take any of those stories and turn them into movies, TV shows, and games once the technology caught up to my ambitions. 

After two years, technology has all but caught up to my ambitions for it. That is one of the main reasons I started this company. Once I release this first app, I will dig back into AI video tools in a big way. I have been wanting to create something for over a year, but the tools weren't quite there yet. That has changed, and I am eager to create a few shorts and then something more substantial. 

We are close to release. Just a few more steps. With the delays I've run into over the past six months, I am reluctant to place a day on the release, but I am aiming for September. I hope you'll join me on this adventure into the realm of storytelling. 

While I can't say much, I can say this. Once the app is released, you will be able to use it for free. There will be paid tiers, but there will also be a free tier for you to try it out and see if it is something that helps you. That last thing I will say about the app is that it is something I created not only for others, but also for myself to use. It is based on my use of other tools and a Custom GPT I created late last year. I'll likely release that Custom GPT around the same time as well. Always good to have options.

Don't expect there to be any Custom GPTs to go with the other two apps, but it makes sense to release one with the first app. The app will have a few similarities to the Custom GPT, and it will also have a series of unique features that will make it the perfect tool for creatives. 

Thanks for your time. Enjoy the rest of your summer. I hope to be providing another update within a few weeks. 

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.

And So It Begins

I've been dropping hints for a few months, but the time has come to reveal my plans. In December, I secured funding to start a multimedia company that I have been planning and researching for two years. It will start as a one-man operation assisted by AI tools. I hope to begin collaborating with others by the end of the year. The clever readers of my blog will have seen the clues I have been dropping. Ever since the Spring of 2023, I have been trying to think of how I can use AI in a way that benefits myself and others.

Back in the mid-90s, I was happy as an actor trying to find the right role to play. That said, I wrote my first script in 1995 just before the Olympics were held here in Atlanta. That was back when Buckhead wasn't yet a shooting gallery and having fun on the weekends was the most important thing in the world. I was a waiter in a restaurant back in those days, acting in plays and partying in Buckhead in my free time. 

A friend of mine was working at some upscale restaurant in Buckhead and we came up with an idea for a film that would take place at a restaurant in Buckhead. Hey, it was what we knew. For whatever reason I was tasked with writing the script. It was awful, but, as they say, you never forget your first. Over the past thirty years, I have written dozens of stories. Something I never imagined back in 1995. Back then, I thought I was writing a vehicle for me to star in. And yet I took to the writing side of storytelling like a duck to water.

I first discovered my knack for storytelling in high school thanks to a teacher who noticed I had a talent for creating stories. And it was rekindled in college during English Lit. However, I was still a bit of a jock and a motorhead back in those days who loved taking things apart to see how they worked before putting them back together. This is probably why I enjoy hiking and world-building to this day. Give me a hill to climb or a story to deconstruct piece by piece before putting it all back together again and I am as happy as a squirrel with a nut. 

When I was devoted to acting, I loved getting lost in the characters I would play, giving my all to each part. This has helped me to have a deeper understanding of the characters I write. However, acting would leave me with a hole in my life when a project was over that was not filled until I found a new gig. I hated that about acting. I am not an emotionally codependent person who has to jump from one relationship to another, but with acting I needed the next role. And when things dried up in LA I left one dream on the boulevard of broken dreams and started another by writing my own projects. No longer needing the guidance of others to tell me what to write. 

Two of the most important things I learned in LA were self-reliance and the ability to bring my own dreams to life. This is both a gift and a curse because while I can sit down and create worlds that don't exist, as time passed I drifted away from my connections. Connections that allowed me to create short films in the mid-2000s. 

I won't lie and pretend that I am the most talented writer in the world, but I can tell a story. And, I gained a ton of confidence after the short films and especially after releasing the novel series Monarch. Maybe too much confidence. I knew once I had released all four parts of that story that I could write anything. Something I learned from that period was that I could be a real pain in the ass when I was too focused on "the story". 

I like to think I am a decent enough guy, but there have been times when I could not separate my writing life from my normal life. Almost as if I felt that what I was doing with my writing had earned me a break in my day-to-day life because of how challenging it was. But, the truth is, when you write alone you also carry the difficulty of that work as an extra burden. Needless to say, this caused friction at times. It took a few years to get my head out of my own ass, but I learned a lot because of it. I've learned to not take myself too seriously, or at least not as seriously as I did back in those days. After all, they're just stories. Even though they may mean the world to me, that doesn't mean anyone else gives a shit. Unless you are rich as hell or have lots of support, you need to learn lessons along the way and adapt to situations. And that was one of the hardest to learn. 

Fast forward to the Spring of 2023, past several dozen new stories written the old-fashioned way, and the rise of AI. As one of those who was not paying attention to AI, this did not happen for me until the release of GPT-4. After a few days of prompting, I began to realize that I had to adapt. 

There are fears that AI is training on the work of others. Many argue that AI will never take the place of humans in their field for various reasons. They explain that AI just copies the work of others, and that users try and pass it off as their own work. AKA Copyright infringement. By the summer of 2023, I realized that the people who had been saying this were scared. Hell, I was scared. One of the first things I heard before GPT-4's full release was that writers were in jeopardy of being replaced. This probably quickened my interest more than anything. Could it replace me? 

I learned within a few days that these tools may not yet be perfect but they were improving quickly -- even more quickly now. Will they replace me as a storyteller? I'm not sure yet. I have invested a lot of time researching these models and they can write pretty well, but they lack actual life experience. Maybe after AGI is achieved and these models start to have their own individual experiences and they start telling their own unique stories based on experience, but not yet. And will humans actually want to consume the stories of  the lives of AI like they do from other humans? Maybe as a niche, but I can't see 50 streaming services loaded with content about the lives of AI models that are self-aware. Not with billions of people paying to watch wall-to-wall content about their stories. But, who knows. 

Until that time these tools could help me do more than I had ever imagined possible,  while also helping others along the way. Even if they may eventually replace me at some point, my hope is that there is a path for me to work with these AI tools in collaboration with my own experience in storytelling and in life for at least a few years. 

The initial seeds were planted back in 2023. And, while I did not know how to use all of these new tools, it was clear that I had to learn all that I could. Images, Text, Video, Audio, Coding, Jarvis-like assistance. For those paying attention, it was clear that the world was evolving because of AI. A saying began to work its way out of the ether, "AI won't take your job, someone using AI will." 

Not since I was an actor have I ever wanted to take a job from someone. That is not who I am. However, I am willing to use AI to do all the jobs I need done in order to achieve what I want to achieve. And that is to take the stories I have written and will write and make them into graphic novels, films, TV, and video games. 

Helping others along the way was something that I realized I could also do. This had not been top of mind before AI, because it was hard enough to write a book and try to get a movie made, but it was one of the first things I thought of after spending a few hours with GPT-4. 

I don't know why I thought about creating an app to help others, but much like the idea that I could single-handedly turn my dusty scripts into movies, the desire to help others has stuck with me over the past two years. By last August, I had done the research I needed to do to realize that I could start my own company if I had some support. I set out at that time to begin the preliminary work required to begin a company. I started talking about it with my family and friends. 

I remember one of my friends saying, "Actually starting a company is easy." I did not go into a lot of detail at the time about all that I had in mind because it was early and my plans were still taking shape. He knew that I wanted to use gen AI tools to create graphic novels and films, but AI video was still pretty limited at that time. Yet, one of the main parts of the plan would become creating several apps.

When my writing partner jokingly said, "If you pull it off you'll have a media empire at your fingertips," after reading my pitch package for a TV series. It triggered something in me. I knew then that I had the wherewithal to actually start my own media company, if I kept researching and learning about all of the AI tools as they kept improving. And here we are. 

That said, AI video is something that cannot quite make for a good film. Let alone a great one. Not the kind I want to make at least. Sure, you can make commercials and shorts. For most people that is all they need. I am a long-form storyteller and former actor, so I need people interacting with one another. I need them to run into the darkness as well as the light,  to love, to hate, and feel alive to the audience. To tell my stories I need these tools to give me what I need within a few prompts, not dozens of attempts for every shot. It would still be faster and cheaper than actually filming a movie, but I need these models to understand what I am trying to do from start to finish. Such a tool created along with OpenAI's GPT5 model later this year might be able to read one of my scripts, discuss with me what look we are going for, be able to create scenes that look like they were actually filmed, and do so in less than 5-10 attempted outputs. 

Of course, some scenes will take more attempts to get right, but if it takes 50 attempts and there are still googly eyes, stutter steps, and extra limbs in the best outputs then that is a waste of my time. This is one of the main reasons I decided it would be best to focus on an app or two to start with. I also knew that video tools would continue to improve. And since August they definitely have. But even now, live-action ain't there quite yet. Even the videos being made by the best people using these tools still look a bit off. And looking off during a 3-minute trailer means a 2-hour film would be littered with uncanny artifacts that distract when I want people to stay immersed in my world. That is the live-action AI video.

This is why animation is what I am currently focused on with a few old short films I made back in the day. There is more room for error with animation. AI is a tool meant to make things easier and more efficient, not slow things down to a crawl. My timelines for these tools advancing have remained pretty true. That said, I did think we would have a kick-ass AI-animated movie made public by now. We've had a few shorts but there has not been an AI animated movie, to my knowledge, that even regular folks who are not eyeing the AI space like myself are all talking about. Not yet at least. It won't be long. 

The only AI movie that I have seen that even comes close is Where The Robots Grow. I first noticed it back in October and the trailer is quite good. Eleven Labs, an AI Audio company, tweeted about it just a few hours ago with the trailer. 

It's reminiscent of The Wild Robot, which was a smash hit last year. However, the buzz quickly faded and I don't think people outside the AI space are even aware of it. It has so far been unable to break through to the rest of the population. I think Eleven Labs and the creators see an opportunity to promote it now with The Wild Robot likely to take home an Oscar. Who knows, this could break through sooner rather than later. The number of views is still bellow 100k but I can see it getting a post-Oscar bounce because of The Wild Robot. Aside from this movie though the landscape is pretty barren for feature-length AI animated movies. Maybe by this summer we'll start seeing more. 

A part of me wanted to just focus on graphic novels once AI images became so good last year. But I want to do more than that. Graphic novels are cool, but movies are in my blood. Video games are also something I am very excited about. I want to make all of them with the help of AI. And Where the Robots Grow should give all of us inspiration that we too can make our own movies using AI animation.

Something I have been waiting for since last summer was Part Two of the Library of Congress's Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence from the Copyright Office. Part One covered Digital Replicas, which didn't affect what I wanted to do. However, Part Two is on Copyrightability and most certainly does. The buzz online, once it was released in January, was that AI artists could copyright all that they create. That's not true. Much like the previous rules, you have to prove that you substantially contributed to the final product. Still, much of what AI creates cannot be copyrighted on its own, but there are clear paths to get your work copyrighted. The timing of its release was perfect for me and gives me confidence that I can copyright material that I create in tandem with AI. 

The one thing I do not want to do is be a content creator. No offense to content creators. There are some great ones out there to whom I am grateful, but trying to trend every single day sounds like an awful job. One that I do not want to do. Yes, I will be creating content other than apps, graphic novels, movies, and games, but out of a need to promote my work not to score likes for sharing and hyping info that everyone else is sharing about the newest, hottest AI thing. I do like to retweet and comment, though.

I have been debating about building my apps and creative work in public. The tools that help build apps are probably more prevalent than AI Image tools at this point. That reminds me of another saying that I've been hearing a lot over the past six months that has stuck in my head: "Just start building." I have been recording audio content on walks and hikes and may start incorporating that (depending on the quality) along with content recorded in my office, both audio and video.   

Coding tools have become ubiquitous and I keep hearing about people cloning popular apps. I figure it is best to keep details about the apps that I am building on the DL until it's time to launch. I apologize for this. I wish I was this amazing coder who could just throw out what I am doing and be assured that what I was doing would be completed before anyone else could take the idea and do it themselves. If I had a massive following then that too might be a good reason to build in public. But, I am still learning about everything and trying to build at the same time. The ideas are strong and the path is clear, all I need is to make good use of the time I have been afforded to make what I hope you may enjoy and get good use out of. That would mean the world to me. And I do not want to undermine all of that by talking it all up before anything is ready to be shared. I hope you understand.    

In August, I was ready to start. However, I knew that in order for me to make a good go of this I needed to raise some money to sustain myself long enough so that I could focus full-time on building the company I wanted to build. To do that I had to not only deliver a plan but also a prototype of the first app I wanted to build and release.

It took me roughly three months to flesh out a short-term and long-term plan and create the basic prototype for the first of three apps, while also providing assurances that I could pull it all off. There was a good deal of back and forth, which was unbelievably helpful in developing those plans. I've set achievable goals for myself in the short term. And, should things gain traction, the long-term goals may also become feasible as well. It helps that since I created these plans AI Agents have come into play and all the tools I will be working with continue to improve. These should provide enough assistance in the first half of this year to help me stay on schedule, and possibly even help me get ahead of schedule so that I need to update my timelines. 

I have become more of a realist through the years, and I understand that things may not turn out the way I had hoped. I learned these lessons time and time and time again over the past thirty years as a storyteller. Even if I fall short of achieving my goals, I will have learned more than enough about a variety of AI tools and workflows to be a valuable asset to others with the experience I am gaining. While I welcome collaborating with others, I want to be an artistic AI solopreneur for the rest of my life.

In summary, I am starting a company that will begin with me releasing my first app. There are two other apps that I hope to release by the end of the year. In addition, I want to use dozens of the stories I have written over the past thirty years and turn them into graphic novels, films, TV series, and video games all with the assistance of AI tools. I may even create at least one fictional podcast. While any new screenplays or books I write will largely be written by me, as I still enjoy that process, I have been using AI to help in the early stages of new writing projects. 

However, I may lean heavily on AI to write one book and a course to accompany the first app I intend to release. I am not sure I can have the book ready to go before I release the app. Therefore, I may only have the free course to accompany the app upon its release. The book I am thinking about would be somewhat autobiographical and will likely take too long, even with the help of AI, to be ready by the time I release the first app. I may release it later as I start updating the first app. It is a great concept and users should get a lot out of it. So, we'll see. 

I would not have even thought about creating games or graphic novels without the help of AI. Well, I had certainly thought about them before AI, but I know I would not have been able to create them on my own. That's all changed now. 

Some of the work for films and TV I would like to be actually filmed, but if things get good enough with AI I expect much of it in the future will be AI only with my direction, as I have a lot that I want to share. In addition, I will be doing some content creation. This blog, as always, will provide a window into my progress. I'm not sure if I will do a newsletter. Maybe I'll get an AI agent to help with that. Within a month or so I will start releasing voice content and possibly a video or two. We'll see. 

Wish me luck, stay tuned for updates, and thanks for reading. 

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.