August 22, 2024 • 22 mins
Welcome to this week's edition of the Content Combo Podcast, presented by Casual Films. Our host, Thomas Elliott, is joined by Ansh Gray, Joey Kan, and filmmaker Richie Fowler to discuss a hot button topic for 2024: using AI to enhance your videos.
The episode dives into the biggest misconceptions about AI and video content creation, exploring its current capabilities and potential future applications. From cleaning up audio and generating storyboards to enhancing videos with unique backgrounds, our experts share their insights on how AI is transforming the industry.
Despite the rapid advancements, the human element remains crucial in directing AI to achieve desired results. Our guests also touch upon the legal challenges and the importance of understanding the tools to maximize their benefits.
Join us as we explore the exciting possibilities AI brings to video production, while reaffirming the irreplaceable value of human creativity and storytelling.
Don't miss out on this engaging discussion and tune in every Friday for more insights from the Content Combo Podcast. Follow us on LinkedIn or via Casual Films to stay updated!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the Content Combo Podcast, presented by Casual Films.
Tune in every Friday, so you can hear from our team of experts about how to
deliver effective video content that drives results, every time, without fail.
Music.
And now it's over to our hosts. Welcome to this week's edition of the Content Combo Podcast.
(00:24):
I'm your host, Thomas Elliott, and joining me to make up the combo this week,
it is Arch Gray. Hey guys. Joey Khan. Hello.
And filmmaker Richie Fowler. Howdy how. In today's podcast we're going to talk
about a very hot button topic for 2024, using AI to enhance your videos.
Seems like everyone is always talking about AI, it is supposed to have actually
(00:45):
replaced us all by now, our entire industry if you believe what you read.
Let me start by asking the three of you, what are the biggest misconceptions
about AI and video content creation at this point in time from your perspectives?
For me personally, I feel like it's quite exciting what it can do and where
it will go. As we mentioned in earlier podcasts, is it just a novelty?
Is it something that's actually going to be implemented? Because there's so
(01:07):
many ways you can implement AI, right?
There's so many ways you can use it as a tool or a plugin or something that
could enhance your videos.
But maybe we're just leaning a bit too heavy into it.
People think that AI now is, like you said, oh, it's going to replace everything we do.
No one's going to be able to do anything anymore more because you just
ai everything and you're going to need to pay for a production crew you're
(01:28):
not going to need to pay for an editor or even a director or
a script writer to do anything for you but actually you still
need the human i think it's one of those things that it's it's
expectation versus reality you see one execution where somebody's made something
fairly abstract look pretty great and you look at it and go oh wow oh wow that's
great and then you believe they can do all these things that it actually just
(01:51):
can't do yet or that it can't do well and you know i'm I'm actually a big advocate for AI in filmmaking.
I feel like in a lot of ways, there are so many great tools that we're using
with AI that have actually improved the way that we work.
Even if you looked at, we had this conversation recently, you know,
a common problem production companies always have is that clients send you content
where they don't have original raw recordings.
It has music embedded in it and you can't do anything with it.
(02:14):
And now, very recently, we had that happen and we just stripped the music out
with AI and it separated it from the voice.
It was great. We could upgrade it and we could use it. So there are great advantages
to it. but I think it's just understanding.
The current advantages are being mindful
of what the potential future applications could
be but also understanding that even from our experience
(02:35):
so far the human element is still really important
in getting the ai to do what you wanted to
because the programming of the ai is totally dependent on
the human at this point in time there's like a lot of the advancements in
ai in different industries from like tech all the way to like
video and i think like one thing which i personally love about
like AI is it's so hard sometimes to
(02:56):
like clean up audio especially dialogue it can have a lot of like
background noise it can have like some thumbs on there it can have like someone
has just open a door close the door you have the shadow sound effects
sometimes all that stuff can be removed off so quickly and
also especially when we do videos sometimes we have a script
and the client wants to know like how it sounds like we
can have someone record the voiceover sure like even if it's a temporary voiceover
(03:16):
but sometimes it's just a little bit better just to use an AI generated
rated voice as well because the pronunciation will be a little bit
proper as well we can control the speed we control the intensity
we can do the intonation correction so it's a little bit
more faster as opposed to basically like taking a phone out or setting up a
mic going inside like quiet room we see record a voiceover i mean it's so it's
made leaps and bounds and i think it does get better every iteration you see
(03:39):
but i think it's again it's just one of those things where you sort of have
to tamper your expectations of where it is currently and what the current.
Applications are because like a lot of things you know we were talking about
in a previous episode every time a new iphone comes out there are
the people who will instantaneously ring and go your industry's dead
iphone's going to take over and you know that never happens and
i think the same with ai is i think it will become a tool
(04:01):
in filmmaking i don't necessarily think that it will replace filmmaking and
i feel like the real impact it's going to have is probably going to be very
much on the lower end of our industry i was an event recently where andreas
from ddb in hong Hong Kong was part of a summit talking about AI and he was
talking about the fact that AI can write a video script.
Can't write a good video script, but it can write a video script,
(04:23):
but it probably is commensurate with the kind of script you get from a really
low end one man band or low end video production company.
So I think for those guys in the lower end of the industry, it's going to have
a massive impact where it will be much harder for them to compete because the
creativity isn't there.
The skills aren't there. They are essentially like a service industry
level participant of the video content creation
(04:44):
industry and for those in the more creative areas it
will become another tool or process that we use to
make videos better and hopefully open up a
lot of creative doors to make videos more creative as well that kind of leads
to the second question if you don't mind me taking over here but do you feel
AI already adds significant value to video creation I do again like if you just
(05:04):
talk about where we've been 12 months ago to where we are now I mean the Adobe
tool for cleaning audio is amazing and.
Good it's amazing you know i think the other tools
that we've discovered recently tools for up resing tools
for even correcting things like eye lines that are slightly off
storyboard generation storyboard generation tools even
the graphic generating you know like fixing on photos yeah
(05:27):
or even just enhancing and adding things to videos
where you go you know i want this to have an otherworldly vibe
and even if you look at some of the casual reels like the reel that we've done for ai
where you see the different 100 different clock faces on a clock or
like generating a a background you know where you where you have
like a very unique looking background yeah we did a
user generated project where we basically went okay cool now
that we actually have this toolbox where we can go let's control
(05:50):
the art department like 100 so let's have
brand cues and the coloring to the furniture and like whatever things that would
be really hard to do previously or even from a design point of view would be
really hard to do and now much simpler if you have the right people who can
program the ai to get what you want because results may vary Results will vary.
(06:12):
I agree. I think it's important to know how you're using the different language models or AIs.
That's very important because not all of them basically take the same response.
For example, Chargibri won't take the same response at mid-journey versus anything
else. So it's about knowing how to write to them as well.
And yeah, the prompts are important. Even within just Photoshop,
the AI tool can have drastically different results depending on the language
(06:35):
you use and how you communicate to it.
It how much do you love that i'm in love with
like you know like i won't lie to you like it
has it has made the uh you know the often arduous
task of office memes much faster crucial task crucial task often arduous how
are you guys using ai every day in your current workflow the one that we use
(06:57):
the most is actually the this automatic generation speech attack whereas before
Before you needed to have an intern write everything out for you.
An hour of footage would take two hours of transcript.
But now that you can just generate the script, maybe 80-85% accuracy in like five minutes.
Well, even for subtitling, it's pretty fast, right?
And again, it's 80-85% of the way there, depending on inflection tone,
(07:23):
clarity of voice, other elements that are tricky.
And it will only get better. Speaking of getting better at Resolve,
it's releasing the next update for it, where any clips shot properly can change the background focus.
So you can actually add more bokeh, less bokeh. You can basically change the
aperture on something which is going to take quite a lot of time,
especially with rotoscoping and everything. But in this one,
(07:44):
there will be a separate option.
And one other thing which they're bringing out is like if you have an audio
track where everything is just stereo, left and right channel,
all the instruments, now in Resolve you can separate all the instruments as
well. I've seen betas, but I want to,
like guitar drums vocals if there are and like you can just separate them i'm
like just excited to see like how you know how that can actually revolutionize
stuff as well because you have to be able to control the mix and to be able
(08:07):
to stay in stuff and exactly that's pretty amazing exactly i mean i even like
the up resing tools are getting better i don't think they're perfect.
Yet but they are better and in a pinch you can use them and
we have used them from time to time because we live in a world now where
there is the reality that even though we shoot in much high resolution
formats most of the time we still deliver in 1080p resolution
but we often do projects where people require historical
(08:29):
footage which has always been quite hard because you have
to kind of create some way of using it because
the resolution is not really there and the fact that now you can up res
you know stuff that is 720 or worse
to at least a reasonable level of
quality that you can work with is good we played around a little
bit with the tool for the eyeline correcting which again i think
(08:50):
like particularly when you shoot user generated stuff is quite useful because
often people do put the script to the side or they put it down or
they're reading off their computer and just the fact that you can fix the
eye line so it looks like they're looking at the camera is quite a useful tool again
i don't think it's a perfect tool yet still
requires a bit of work but i feel like the next iteration of
that is going to be amazing i mean if you think about a lot of the technology and
(09:12):
the software it's only been around for like a year you know
and as our cfo adam mentioned in
in the conference he did a comparison of like ai early day.
Ai and nowadays ai and the fact that it's
just come leaps and bounds that's quite exciting for the
future i watched a video on linkedin today that featured young tom
hanks with old tom hanks hugging each other and three
(09:34):
three generations of michael jackson together in
one shot and you look at it and go again
it's not perfect some of it has what i kind
of tone the ai creepy factor where it's
not quite right yet it's close you know
it's like visual effects when tv first pivoted to
digital effects in sort of the 90s and you would look at it and kind
of go i can see where those visual effects are going they're
(09:56):
not quite right there now and now if you look at any tv show
that has visual effects that are digital unless they're really really cheap they're
pretty good as you were saying from adam's talk at the at the
conference is that i think there's a misconception from a
lot of people that you're using ai to recreate reality whereas
actually the really interesting possibilities in AI are
how you can mess with reality because AI still
(10:18):
doesn't quite understand physics perfectly it doesn't understand other things
but you can create some really cool otherworldly dare I say surreal imagery
with it that can really enhance your videos and kind of take things to another
level what we feel are some of the challenges of using AI is it.
Easy as it is promoted to be or more challenging than
(10:39):
anyone anticipated well like you said earlier on results
may vary you you might be able to generate like
a thousand images off of one or two prompts but then in the end the workload
for the human becomes being able to choose the best image out of those 1000
images so you may not actually be saving yourself a lot of time in the end because
(10:59):
it's like you're going to a supermarket and there's like 500 oranges for you
to choose but You only need to buy one.
What you need to do changes, but your options are more.
That's my take on that. I also feel that one of the things that people,
and we sort of alluded to this earlier, one of the things that people don't
appreciate is the skill in directing the AI.
That's what I would call that job. When you're talking about visual content
and you're talking about artificial intelligence generated imagery,
(11:22):
it is directing. It is sitting there and making choices and going,
no, no, you haven't got that right.
That's not what I want the window to look like. It's like the thing when you
select an image in Photoshop,
shop and even if you're really clear about highlighting where
you want and you kind of say yeah just change the clothing to like
cowboy western outfits and it would just be really weird with people's
faces and you're sort of like i didn't ask you to do
(11:43):
that and why do they suddenly have to look like freak shows from like
a really weird 1930s universal horror
movie and i think i think increasingly it's going to be a skill that
we as filmmakers are going to be looking for in the
next generation of people who are going to come through is like how good are
you at actually directing ai because it's going to be part of your life i
think the other big challenge for brands at the moment is obviously the legal
(12:05):
providence particularly with generated imagery is where
the ai is where does it come from is still a little bit of a gray area and i
think you know and again also who owns that is it you is it the platform that
created it where did they get the original imagery that the ai is drawing from
so there are you know the legal challenges of AI at the moment as well,
(12:27):
which I think that's going to be a really interesting space to watch over the next five or six years.
I think as the proliferation of AI grows, in the same way that,
you know, when we move to digital streaming music or digital streaming video,
rights became a massive issue.
I think it's going to be another very hotbed issue for the industry for years to come.
Generating imagery and video, that's like one side of it. And I think that's the surface of it.
(12:48):
That's what everyone's kind of focusing on right now. And I think it's actually
the smallest percentage of what you're going to do. Yeah, no, totally.
It's like in terms of like implementation, It's actually the plugins,
it's the tools, it's these little things that.
Ensure a smoother more efficient process rather
than just the visual generation of these surreal
images was even if you look at sound mixing dialogue less
(13:08):
than a year ago was time consuming it was like
a real task that you spent time doing adobe
has made that much faster i mean that tool now you can
pretty much clean up even pretty garbage audio i mean
there were a couple of jobs we did where we had user generated audio that was
challenging and we cleaned it up and you listened into it and went it's pretty
good sounds pretty good so i think those are where the
big innovations and again it becomes one of those things that i think companies are
(13:31):
going to have to deal with in the way that they staff their teams and the
way that they manage their projects to address how that also changes our
workflow how do you guys see the usage of
ai in what we're doing over say the next 12 to
20 months how do you see that evolving it's going to keep growing
we're going to be using it for a lot also there is a company
which is going to be opening up i think in about four or five months from now so
(13:51):
it's basically like a title but for like music creators running on
an open ai platform and i tested it
out you give it like parameters it basically creates music for you create stems
for you you can modify every single bit and it works directly with logic so
you can basically import that entire file into logic and you have logic control
it's already in the works right now it's amazing and i can see like that being
(14:11):
evolved into something similar in like adobe i mean that's again like that's
creating a whole new toolbox for us to play in where you sit there going,
music is one of those things that we struggle with in the world,
particularly of corporate content,
where you are tied often budgetarily to the libraries that you have to choose from.
So the idea that you can start opening up the parameters of being able to kind
(14:31):
of actually score stuff from AI is pretty cool. AI composer.
For me, I feel like just the original tools that we've been using now are just
going to get better and better and maybe easier to use or faster.
Because obviously there's, like you said, there's still some stuff that's not quite right.
But I feel like in a year's time, those things will be smoothed out.
(14:55):
You'll be able to change more.
You might have more options to customize what you want from the AI tool set.
That well i think the other interesting thing to consider too is how much
clients will impact that usage as their
comfort with ai grows and how much they start
to understand because you know at the moment as we said there's there's
sort of like an understanding that is maybe not quite connected
(15:15):
to the reality but as that sort of knowledge increases and
that education increases from working with people like us and
other content creators is they will get to that point of kind of
understanding what they can do with the tool and then also driving that
innovation further by going hey you know that tool
we played with last time that did this i've got this other project
how far do you think we could push it to do this or that or
(15:35):
something else i think those things will also start to kind
of make that process very interesting and dynamic how
do you guys wish brands used ai in video that's hard because i feel like it's
the same thing it's like divorcing yourself from the image of ai and the tool
set certain tools like you know like storyboarding tool which you can use that's
quite good at communicating the idea and helping clients to visualize but you
(15:57):
You have to have the skill to write the script in the first place. So that's it.
Maybe that's part of the education, like us as the vendor and clients kind of
understanding what the tools are, first of all.
And whether it's like fixing an eyeline, maybe that's helping to fix one of
the projects they filmed.
And it needs a bit of help. I feel like the clients that we have currently may
feel like they will leave the AI tools for us to use.
(16:21):
But they will just know that we have access to it and we know how to use it.
It's the same like they know that we know how to shoot with a video camera,
that we know how to like conduct an interview. So that's why they would find us.
So as long as we keep them informed that we actually are like experts in using it.
It's also like our knowledge base increases their knowledge base. Exactly. Every time.
(16:41):
And you do also find that when we educate them, whether positively or not,
about a tool or a technique, you instantly know when they've learned that and
they encourage, they encounter that situation the next time.
They're always like, well, I remember that technique you used.
So you're able to use that here and sometimes you can and sometimes you can't.
But again, you are increasing that knowledge base.
All right, I'm going to ask, this is the hilarious final question.
(17:04):
How long do you guys feel until AI genuinely replaces video production creators
and studios and agencies such as ourselves?
I feel like it never will. I think you kind of touched upon earlier.
You know, at the end of the day, we still, you still need humans to input the commands.
You still need humans to connect with the story. You still need humans to tell
a human story. So AI is just going to be a tool.
(17:27):
Over our jobs we are we are still relevant we
still have agency you know we still have a role to play
if ai did replace everything then you know where's
the where's where's the humanity the thing that
makes our industry so valuable in a way telling stories telling intentional
stories i don't think ai will actually replace us because we know how to use
(17:48):
it so anyone who actually does not know how to use ai in an industry where we're
heading towards ai if they don't know how to use than they might be replaced by people who know AI.
So I think that's more of a concern versus is AI going to replace all of us? I doubt it.
I think until such a point where an AI is actually able to really replicate
a real human machine learning and have its own personality and thoughts and
(18:13):
everything, like an android,
it doesn't have to be walking around, but it can be like a thinking machine
that can learn and grow over the years.
That's the point where it would replace us yeah
but even that that's still using it as a tool to
help us because then that it becomes equal to a human i'm gonna i'm gonna add
a thought here that again may be controversial but i feel at the end of the
(18:35):
day in the current world that we live in where there is so much confusion about
what the truth is and what the truth isn't and we're so focused on authenticity
people care about human stories people care about.
And at the end of the day, I can't see a world where anybody really wants to
watch an AI-generated story of a customer testimonial or an AI-generated story
(18:55):
of a CEO telling them something or an AI-generated story.
I just don't see that world existing because at the end of the day,
it just sort of misses the fundamental fact that humans are kind of interested
in other humans and humans are interested in human experience and human stories.
While we may have a curiosity about the other side and what's
going on there and we may want to flirt with it from time to time in the
(19:16):
same way that we like animation the same way that we like other
visual representations of stories it's just never going to be entirely the mainstream
because it just lacks the interest factor for all of us if i was going to see
james bond films and it was just going to be an ai generated version of sean
connery or roger moore you could pick your favorite james bond and they were
just recreating the ai i wouldn't see it i just like Like, it would be lame.
(19:37):
Right. No matter how good it was. Maybe in the future you can purely customize the story.
You know, you just input commands like, I want to do this, this.
But then actually, where's the entertainment?
Where's the, you know, what's the value in that? It also, I mean,
it leads itself to the whole question of postmodernism itself as a concept is
how interesting ultimately is just the recreation of something else that exists
over and over and over again.
(19:57):
At some point, without some originality in the process, it's just not interesting.
I think it's in Taiwan or Japan or something. A whole crew or production company
that's trying to make a full AI-generated movie.
That's kind of exciting for me, but I feel like that's still just the novelty
part. But that'll be the thing. It'll be like 3D or something else that you guys... Led by humans.
Exactly, yeah. Well, I mean, going back to like, you know, will it replace us?
(20:19):
I actually think we're just going to pivot. As we've mentioned throughout this
podcast, I think it's just us as storytellers or filmmakers or people creating craft.
We just have to learn how to use the tool. So I don't think it will ever replace
us. You know, if it does replace us, then that's the end of civilization and everything we know.
Well, maybe not to be that dramatic, but... That's a depressing end to the podcast. Wow.
(20:45):
It's okay. But even if you think about virtual production, right,
which is still in its infancy and it's getting better, I think what AI will
be able to add to virtual production, you think of a show like The Mandalorian
or any of those shows where you're creating other worlds,
the ability to create that quicker and faster will create amazing production
efficiencies, but it won't replace the overall creativity of the show that has
(21:06):
to come from a human mind.
It just won't do that i think when ai first came out the thing
that really excited me was the conceptual side the fact that you can
craft these like surreal sci-fi type worlds out
of nothing and they did it in in a way that was quite original
but it was playing on sort of tropes or even aesthetics of a certain period
of time or a certain or imagery that exists in the collective consciousness
and it actually that was quite cool so i feel like that combination using these
(21:30):
led screens and you know using ai generated backgrounds wow it's possibilities
are kind of endless anyway I think my final thought is don't be afraid of it. It's a tool.
It's going to be part of our workflow, and let's just embrace it and kick on.
Well, thank you for joining us on this edition of the Content Combo Podcast.
As always, I'm your host, Thomas Elliott, and thanks again to our amazing combo,
Arch Grey, Good Liz, Joey Khan, Hey, filmmaker Richie Fowler,
(21:53):
Hey, hey, hey, for their contributions to our show.
Don't forget to tune in every Friday for more of the Content Combo,
and don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn or via the casual film.
Music.
Welcome to the Content Combo Podcast, presented by Casual Films.
Tune in every Friday, so you can hear from our team of experts about how to
deliver effective video content that drives results, every time, without fail.
Music.
And now it's over to our hosts. Welcome to this week's edition of the Content Combo Podcast.
(00:24):
I'm your host, Thomas Elliott, and joining me to make up the combo this week,
it is Arch Gray. Hey guys. Joey Khan. Hello.
And filmmaker Richie Fowler. Howdy how. In today's podcast we're going to talk
about a very hot button topic for 2024, using AI to enhance your videos.
Seems like everyone is always talking about AI, it is supposed to have actually
(00:45):
replaced us all by now, our entire industry if you believe what you read.
Let me start by asking the three of you, what are the biggest misconceptions
about AI and video content creation at this point in time from your perspectives?
For me personally, I feel like it's quite exciting what it can do and where
it will go. As we mentioned in earlier podcasts, is it just a novelty?
Is it something that's actually going to be implemented? Because there's so
(01:07):
many ways you can implement AI, right?
There's so many ways you can use it as a tool or a plugin or something that
could enhance your videos.
But maybe we're just leaning a bit too heavy into it.
People think that AI now is, like you said, oh, it's going to replace everything we do.
No one's going to be able to do anything anymore more because you just
ai everything and you're going to need to pay for a production crew you're
(01:28):
not going to need to pay for an editor or even a director or
a script writer to do anything for you but actually you still
need the human i think it's one of those things that it's it's
expectation versus reality you see one execution where somebody's made something
fairly abstract look pretty great and you look at it and go oh wow oh wow that's
great and then you believe they can do all these things that it actually just
(01:51):
can't do yet or that it can't do well and you know i'm I'm actually a big advocate for AI in filmmaking.
I feel like in a lot of ways, there are so many great tools that we're using
with AI that have actually improved the way that we work.
Even if you looked at, we had this conversation recently, you know,
a common problem production companies always have is that clients send you content
where they don't have original raw recordings.
It has music embedded in it and you can't do anything with it.
(02:14):
And now, very recently, we had that happen and we just stripped the music out
with AI and it separated it from the voice.
It was great. We could upgrade it and we could use it. So there are great advantages
to it. but I think it's just understanding.
The current advantages are being mindful
of what the potential future applications could
be but also understanding that even from our experience
(02:35):
so far the human element is still really important
in getting the ai to do what you wanted to
because the programming of the ai is totally dependent on
the human at this point in time there's like a lot of the advancements in
ai in different industries from like tech all the way to like
video and i think like one thing which i personally love about
like AI is it's so hard sometimes to
(02:56):
like clean up audio especially dialogue it can have a lot of like
background noise it can have like some thumbs on there it can have like someone
has just open a door close the door you have the shadow sound effects
sometimes all that stuff can be removed off so quickly and
also especially when we do videos sometimes we have a script
and the client wants to know like how it sounds like we
can have someone record the voiceover sure like even if it's a temporary voiceover
(03:16):
but sometimes it's just a little bit better just to use an AI generated
rated voice as well because the pronunciation will be a little bit
proper as well we can control the speed we control the intensity
we can do the intonation correction so it's a little bit
more faster as opposed to basically like taking a phone out or setting up a
mic going inside like quiet room we see record a voiceover i mean it's so it's
made leaps and bounds and i think it does get better every iteration you see
(03:39):
but i think it's again it's just one of those things where you sort of have
to tamper your expectations of where it is currently and what the current.
Applications are because like a lot of things you know we were talking about
in a previous episode every time a new iphone comes out there are
the people who will instantaneously ring and go your industry's dead
iphone's going to take over and you know that never happens and
i think the same with ai is i think it will become a tool
(04:01):
in filmmaking i don't necessarily think that it will replace filmmaking and
i feel like the real impact it's going to have is probably going to be very
much on the lower end of our industry i was an event recently where andreas
from ddb in hong Hong Kong was part of a summit talking about AI and he was
talking about the fact that AI can write a video script.
Can't write a good video script, but it can write a video script,
(04:23):
but it probably is commensurate with the kind of script you get from a really
low end one man band or low end video production company.
So I think for those guys in the lower end of the industry, it's going to have
a massive impact where it will be much harder for them to compete because the
creativity isn't there.
The skills aren't there. They are essentially like a service industry
level participant of the video content creation
(04:44):
industry and for those in the more creative areas it
will become another tool or process that we use to
make videos better and hopefully open up a
lot of creative doors to make videos more creative as well that kind of leads
to the second question if you don't mind me taking over here but do you feel
AI already adds significant value to video creation I do again like if you just
(05:04):
talk about where we've been 12 months ago to where we are now I mean the Adobe
tool for cleaning audio is amazing and.
Good it's amazing you know i think the other tools
that we've discovered recently tools for up resing tools
for even correcting things like eye lines that are slightly off
storyboard generation storyboard generation tools even
the graphic generating you know like fixing on photos yeah
(05:27):
or even just enhancing and adding things to videos
where you go you know i want this to have an otherworldly vibe
and even if you look at some of the casual reels like the reel that we've done for ai
where you see the different 100 different clock faces on a clock or
like generating a a background you know where you where you have
like a very unique looking background yeah we did a
user generated project where we basically went okay cool now
that we actually have this toolbox where we can go let's control
(05:50):
the art department like 100 so let's have
brand cues and the coloring to the furniture and like whatever things that would
be really hard to do previously or even from a design point of view would be
really hard to do and now much simpler if you have the right people who can
program the ai to get what you want because results may vary Results will vary.
(06:12):
I agree. I think it's important to know how you're using the different language models or AIs.
That's very important because not all of them basically take the same response.
For example, Chargibri won't take the same response at mid-journey versus anything
else. So it's about knowing how to write to them as well.
And yeah, the prompts are important. Even within just Photoshop,
the AI tool can have drastically different results depending on the language
(06:35):
you use and how you communicate to it.
It how much do you love that i'm in love with
like you know like i won't lie to you like it
has it has made the uh you know the often arduous
task of office memes much faster crucial task crucial task often arduous how
are you guys using ai every day in your current workflow the one that we use
(06:57):
the most is actually the this automatic generation speech attack whereas before
Before you needed to have an intern write everything out for you.
An hour of footage would take two hours of transcript.
But now that you can just generate the script, maybe 80-85% accuracy in like five minutes.
Well, even for subtitling, it's pretty fast, right?
And again, it's 80-85% of the way there, depending on inflection tone,
(07:23):
clarity of voice, other elements that are tricky.
And it will only get better. Speaking of getting better at Resolve,
it's releasing the next update for it, where any clips shot properly can change the background focus.
So you can actually add more bokeh, less bokeh. You can basically change the
aperture on something which is going to take quite a lot of time,
especially with rotoscoping and everything. But in this one,
(07:44):
there will be a separate option.
And one other thing which they're bringing out is like if you have an audio
track where everything is just stereo, left and right channel,
all the instruments, now in Resolve you can separate all the instruments as
well. I've seen betas, but I want to,
like guitar drums vocals if there are and like you can just separate them i'm
like just excited to see like how you know how that can actually revolutionize
stuff as well because you have to be able to control the mix and to be able
(08:07):
to stay in stuff and exactly that's pretty amazing exactly i mean i even like
the up resing tools are getting better i don't think they're perfect.
Yet but they are better and in a pinch you can use them and
we have used them from time to time because we live in a world now where
there is the reality that even though we shoot in much high resolution
formats most of the time we still deliver in 1080p resolution
but we often do projects where people require historical
(08:29):
footage which has always been quite hard because you have
to kind of create some way of using it because
the resolution is not really there and the fact that now you can up res
you know stuff that is 720 or worse
to at least a reasonable level of
quality that you can work with is good we played around a little
bit with the tool for the eyeline correcting which again i think
(08:50):
like particularly when you shoot user generated stuff is quite useful because
often people do put the script to the side or they put it down or
they're reading off their computer and just the fact that you can fix the
eye line so it looks like they're looking at the camera is quite a useful tool again
i don't think it's a perfect tool yet still
requires a bit of work but i feel like the next iteration of
that is going to be amazing i mean if you think about a lot of the technology and
(09:12):
the software it's only been around for like a year you know
and as our cfo adam mentioned in
in the conference he did a comparison of like ai early day.
Ai and nowadays ai and the fact that it's
just come leaps and bounds that's quite exciting for the
future i watched a video on linkedin today that featured young tom
hanks with old tom hanks hugging each other and three
(09:34):
three generations of michael jackson together in
one shot and you look at it and go again
it's not perfect some of it has what i kind
of tone the ai creepy factor where it's
not quite right yet it's close you know
it's like visual effects when tv first pivoted to
digital effects in sort of the 90s and you would look at it and kind
of go i can see where those visual effects are going they're
(09:56):
not quite right there now and now if you look at any tv show
that has visual effects that are digital unless they're really really cheap they're
pretty good as you were saying from adam's talk at the at the
conference is that i think there's a misconception from a
lot of people that you're using ai to recreate reality whereas
actually the really interesting possibilities in AI are
how you can mess with reality because AI still
(10:18):
doesn't quite understand physics perfectly it doesn't understand other things
but you can create some really cool otherworldly dare I say surreal imagery
with it that can really enhance your videos and kind of take things to another
level what we feel are some of the challenges of using AI is it.
Easy as it is promoted to be or more challenging than
(10:39):
anyone anticipated well like you said earlier on results
may vary you you might be able to generate like
a thousand images off of one or two prompts but then in the end the workload
for the human becomes being able to choose the best image out of those 1000
images so you may not actually be saving yourself a lot of time in the end because
(10:59):
it's like you're going to a supermarket and there's like 500 oranges for you
to choose but You only need to buy one.
What you need to do changes, but your options are more.
That's my take on that. I also feel that one of the things that people,
and we sort of alluded to this earlier, one of the things that people don't
appreciate is the skill in directing the AI.
That's what I would call that job. When you're talking about visual content
and you're talking about artificial intelligence generated imagery,
(11:22):
it is directing. It is sitting there and making choices and going,
no, no, you haven't got that right.
That's not what I want the window to look like. It's like the thing when you
select an image in Photoshop,
shop and even if you're really clear about highlighting where
you want and you kind of say yeah just change the clothing to like
cowboy western outfits and it would just be really weird with people's
faces and you're sort of like i didn't ask you to do
(11:43):
that and why do they suddenly have to look like freak shows from like
a really weird 1930s universal horror
movie and i think i think increasingly it's going to be a skill that
we as filmmakers are going to be looking for in the
next generation of people who are going to come through is like how good are
you at actually directing ai because it's going to be part of your life i
think the other big challenge for brands at the moment is obviously the legal
(12:05):
providence particularly with generated imagery is where
the ai is where does it come from is still a little bit of a gray area and i
think you know and again also who owns that is it you is it the platform that
created it where did they get the original imagery that the ai is drawing from
so there are you know the legal challenges of AI at the moment as well,
(12:27):
which I think that's going to be a really interesting space to watch over the next five or six years.
I think as the proliferation of AI grows, in the same way that,
you know, when we move to digital streaming music or digital streaming video,
rights became a massive issue.
I think it's going to be another very hotbed issue for the industry for years to come.
Generating imagery and video, that's like one side of it. And I think that's the surface of it.
(12:48):
That's what everyone's kind of focusing on right now. And I think it's actually
the smallest percentage of what you're going to do. Yeah, no, totally.
It's like in terms of like implementation, It's actually the plugins,
it's the tools, it's these little things that.
Ensure a smoother more efficient process rather
than just the visual generation of these surreal
images was even if you look at sound mixing dialogue less
(13:08):
than a year ago was time consuming it was like
a real task that you spent time doing adobe
has made that much faster i mean that tool now you can
pretty much clean up even pretty garbage audio i mean
there were a couple of jobs we did where we had user generated audio that was
challenging and we cleaned it up and you listened into it and went it's pretty
good sounds pretty good so i think those are where the
big innovations and again it becomes one of those things that i think companies are
(13:31):
going to have to deal with in the way that they staff their teams and the
way that they manage their projects to address how that also changes our
workflow how do you guys see the usage of
ai in what we're doing over say the next 12 to
20 months how do you see that evolving it's going to keep growing
we're going to be using it for a lot also there is a company
which is going to be opening up i think in about four or five months from now so
(13:51):
it's basically like a title but for like music creators running on
an open ai platform and i tested it
out you give it like parameters it basically creates music for you create stems
for you you can modify every single bit and it works directly with logic so
you can basically import that entire file into logic and you have logic control
it's already in the works right now it's amazing and i can see like that being
(14:11):
evolved into something similar in like adobe i mean that's again like that's
creating a whole new toolbox for us to play in where you sit there going,
music is one of those things that we struggle with in the world,
particularly of corporate content,
where you are tied often budgetarily to the libraries that you have to choose from.
So the idea that you can start opening up the parameters of being able to kind
(14:31):
of actually score stuff from AI is pretty cool. AI composer.
For me, I feel like just the original tools that we've been using now are just
going to get better and better and maybe easier to use or faster.
Because obviously there's, like you said, there's still some stuff that's not quite right.
But I feel like in a year's time, those things will be smoothed out.
(14:55):
You'll be able to change more.
You might have more options to customize what you want from the AI tool set.
That well i think the other interesting thing to consider too is how much
clients will impact that usage as their
comfort with ai grows and how much they start
to understand because you know at the moment as we said there's there's
sort of like an understanding that is maybe not quite connected
(15:15):
to the reality but as that sort of knowledge increases and
that education increases from working with people like us and
other content creators is they will get to that point of kind of
understanding what they can do with the tool and then also driving that
innovation further by going hey you know that tool
we played with last time that did this i've got this other project
how far do you think we could push it to do this or that or
(15:35):
something else i think those things will also start to kind
of make that process very interesting and dynamic how
do you guys wish brands used ai in video that's hard because i feel like it's
the same thing it's like divorcing yourself from the image of ai and the tool
set certain tools like you know like storyboarding tool which you can use that's
quite good at communicating the idea and helping clients to visualize but you
(15:57):
You have to have the skill to write the script in the first place. So that's it.
Maybe that's part of the education, like us as the vendor and clients kind of
understanding what the tools are, first of all.
And whether it's like fixing an eyeline, maybe that's helping to fix one of
the projects they filmed.
And it needs a bit of help. I feel like the clients that we have currently may
feel like they will leave the AI tools for us to use.
(16:21):
But they will just know that we have access to it and we know how to use it.
It's the same like they know that we know how to shoot with a video camera,
that we know how to like conduct an interview. So that's why they would find us.
So as long as we keep them informed that we actually are like experts in using it.
It's also like our knowledge base increases their knowledge base. Exactly. Every time.
(16:41):
And you do also find that when we educate them, whether positively or not,
about a tool or a technique, you instantly know when they've learned that and
they encourage, they encounter that situation the next time.
They're always like, well, I remember that technique you used.
So you're able to use that here and sometimes you can and sometimes you can't.
But again, you are increasing that knowledge base.
All right, I'm going to ask, this is the hilarious final question.
(17:04):
How long do you guys feel until AI genuinely replaces video production creators
and studios and agencies such as ourselves?
I feel like it never will. I think you kind of touched upon earlier.
You know, at the end of the day, we still, you still need humans to input the commands.
You still need humans to connect with the story. You still need humans to tell
a human story. So AI is just going to be a tool.
(17:27):
Over our jobs we are we are still relevant we
still have agency you know we still have a role to play
if ai did replace everything then you know where's
the where's where's the humanity the thing that
makes our industry so valuable in a way telling stories telling intentional
stories i don't think ai will actually replace us because we know how to use
(17:48):
it so anyone who actually does not know how to use ai in an industry where we're
heading towards ai if they don't know how to use than they might be replaced by people who know AI.
So I think that's more of a concern versus is AI going to replace all of us? I doubt it.
I think until such a point where an AI is actually able to really replicate
a real human machine learning and have its own personality and thoughts and
(18:13):
everything, like an android,
it doesn't have to be walking around, but it can be like a thinking machine
that can learn and grow over the years.
That's the point where it would replace us yeah
but even that that's still using it as a tool to
help us because then that it becomes equal to a human i'm gonna i'm gonna add
a thought here that again may be controversial but i feel at the end of the
(18:35):
day in the current world that we live in where there is so much confusion about
what the truth is and what the truth isn't and we're so focused on authenticity
people care about human stories people care about.
And at the end of the day, I can't see a world where anybody really wants to
watch an AI-generated story of a customer testimonial or an AI-generated story
(18:55):
of a CEO telling them something or an AI-generated story.
I just don't see that world existing because at the end of the day,
it just sort of misses the fundamental fact that humans are kind of interested
in other humans and humans are interested in human experience and human stories.
While we may have a curiosity about the other side and what's
going on there and we may want to flirt with it from time to time in the
(19:16):
same way that we like animation the same way that we like other
visual representations of stories it's just never going to be entirely the mainstream
because it just lacks the interest factor for all of us if i was going to see
james bond films and it was just going to be an ai generated version of sean
connery or roger moore you could pick your favorite james bond and they were
just recreating the ai i wouldn't see it i just like Like, it would be lame.
(19:37):
Right. No matter how good it was. Maybe in the future you can purely customize the story.
You know, you just input commands like, I want to do this, this.
But then actually, where's the entertainment?
Where's the, you know, what's the value in that? It also, I mean,
it leads itself to the whole question of postmodernism itself as a concept is
how interesting ultimately is just the recreation of something else that exists
over and over and over again.
(19:57):
At some point, without some originality in the process, it's just not interesting.
I think it's in Taiwan or Japan or something. A whole crew or production company
that's trying to make a full AI-generated movie.
That's kind of exciting for me, but I feel like that's still just the novelty
part. But that'll be the thing. It'll be like 3D or something else that you guys... Led by humans.
Exactly, yeah. Well, I mean, going back to like, you know, will it replace us?
(20:19):
I actually think we're just going to pivot. As we've mentioned throughout this
podcast, I think it's just us as storytellers or filmmakers or people creating craft.
We just have to learn how to use the tool. So I don't think it will ever replace
us. You know, if it does replace us, then that's the end of civilization and everything we know.
Well, maybe not to be that dramatic, but... That's a depressing end to the podcast. Wow.
(20:45):
It's okay. But even if you think about virtual production, right,
which is still in its infancy and it's getting better, I think what AI will
be able to add to virtual production, you think of a show like The Mandalorian
or any of those shows where you're creating other worlds,
the ability to create that quicker and faster will create amazing production
efficiencies, but it won't replace the overall creativity of the show that has
(21:06):
to come from a human mind.
It just won't do that i think when ai first came out the thing
that really excited me was the conceptual side the fact that you can
craft these like surreal sci-fi type worlds out
of nothing and they did it in in a way that was quite original
but it was playing on sort of tropes or even aesthetics of a certain period
of time or a certain or imagery that exists in the collective consciousness
and it actually that was quite cool so i feel like that combination using these
(21:30):
led screens and you know using ai generated backgrounds wow it's possibilities
are kind of endless anyway I think my final thought is don't be afraid of it. It's a tool.
It's going to be part of our workflow, and let's just embrace it and kick on.
Well, thank you for joining us on this edition of the Content Combo Podcast.
As always, I'm your host, Thomas Elliott, and thanks again to our amazing combo,
Arch Grey, Good Liz, Joey Khan, Hey, filmmaker Richie Fowler,
(21:53):
Hey, hey, hey, for their contributions to our show.
Don't forget to tune in every Friday for more of the Content Combo,
and don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn or via the casual film.
Music.
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