How a Hollywood Sculptor Turned AI Filmmaker Is Reimagining Cinema

Episode Transcript
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Brooke (00:03):
Welcome to How I AI the podcast featuring real people,
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I'm Brooke Gramer your host andguide on this journey into the
real world impact of artificialintelligence.
For over 15 years, I've workedin creative marketing, events,
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check the show notes for myexclusive invite link..
Some of you may or may not knowI started my career in the

(01:29):
entertainment industry in LosAngeles.
Well, I tapped into my network,and if you've ever wondered what
the conversation around AI isreally like in Hollywood right
now, this episode is for you.
My next guest is James Jones.
He's worked behind the scenes onfilms like X-Men, Spider-Man,
Pirates of the Caribbean.

(01:51):
And now he's using AI to turndreams into films.
In this episode, we talk aboutwhat it's like to enter the
world of generative AI as alongtime artist.
How he's using AI tools torecreate childhood memories and
bring surreal storylines tolife.
He talks a little bit aboutwhat's happening in the film
festival route, specificallywith AI film festivals.

(02:13):
We touch on how creatives aresecretly using AI behind the
scenes, and why now might be themost empowering moment in
history to create on your ownterms.
This one is part HollywoodInsider and Part Mini
Masterclass in what's possiblewhen you combine vision, tech
and play.
Alright, enjoy today's episode.

(02:33):
Hello everyone.
Welcome to another episode ofHow I AI.
I'm your host, Brooke Gramer.
Today's guest is James Jones.
He's a Hollywood sculptor turnedaward winning AI filmmaker.
He's helped bring Blockbusterslike Into the Wild and X-Men to
life.

(02:54):
He designs massive public parksculptures, and now he's pushing
the boundaries of creativitywith his viral satire project
called Satire AI.
I'm really excited to host Jamestoday.
James, welcome.

James Jones (03:10):
Thank you, Brooke, for having me.
I appreciate it.

Brooke (03:12):
Yes.
I really appreciate you takingyour time today to speak to me,
especially because you're acreative and I love exploring
creativity, how it merges withAI.
So before we dive in, please,I'd love to just give you the
floor to share more aboutyourself and your background.

Sure.
Thank you again, Brooke.
I started working in film.
In'94 as a sculptor.
So traditional film firstproject was Independence Day,
and then I worked on Pirates ofthe Caribbean, 1, 2, 3,
Spider-Man, one, two X-Men, two,things like that.
And I did that for about 17years.

(03:52):
I left that after I got quoteunquote tired of working in that
industry.
It's very demanding as maybe alot of people might know.
And then I got my master's inarchitecture and I took my love
of art into architecture and Istarted working at a small firm
that does large scale public artdesign build.

(04:13):
And then about two years ago,kind of started getting wind of
ai, like generative AI and whatthat meant for images.
And i've always been a vividdreamer, and I decided like I
wanted to try to make one of mydreams come to life as a visual.

(04:34):
And that was I was having adream that my dog and I a little
Frenchy pug, we were robbingbanks for pennies.
And so I wanted to see what mydog would look like as a bank
robber with a whole bunch ofpennies in front of'em, and AI
was able, I was using StableDiffusion to make those images,

(04:55):
and I was surprised at how goodI was able to do when, when I
knew nothing.
I mean, I literally had neverplayed with any AI before.
And then it took three to fourmonths before I started to try
to make my first, movie.
Even though I worked in film forforever, I still didn't

(05:17):
understand, like, I wasn't aneditor, so I didn't really know
how

Brooke (05:20):
Right.

But I went to a Runway event, Runway's, second
film festival that they had, andI was just blown away at what I
was seeing that people were ableto do.
It was so amazing that peoplewere bringing they're unusual
stories.
They're they're stories, youknow, which are you, you'd never
see any other way in my opinion,you know, maybe in a student

(05:44):
film context maybe,

Brooke (05:46):
Mm-hmm.

that would be about it.
So just inspired by watchingwhat other people were doing.
I was like, all right, let megive Runway a try.
So I went on over and I got asubscription to Runway, just the
basic'cause I didn't know what Iwas gonna be doing with it.

Brooke (06:02):
Mm-hmm.

And then I came up with my first story I wanted to
tell, which was a reconstructionof car accident my family was in
when we were four.
It's something that wastraumatic for me, but I later
learned after I did this littleproject I was at an another
event called Flex a few yearslater, or a year and a half

(06:25):
later, and I met a Spanishdirector who was working with
the government of Barcelona andhe was helping people with
dementia recreate theirmemories.
So.
AI was being used in atherapeutic way for that.
And when I explained to him myproject that I did my car

(06:46):
accident memories, kind of madeit all fit.
And he was, you know, so Ididn't realize I was doing
something that was already beingdone in AI.
And I found that kind of like oflike a coming home moment, like
refreshing and, what I'm gettingat there is there's so much out
there.
It's not like just people aren'tjust trying to use AI film

(07:08):
generation for traditionalnarratives.
They're using it for all

Brooke (07:11):
Mm-hmm.

kinds of experimental ways, and I found
that super fun.

Brooke (07:17):
Wow, what a unique entry point into this space.
And I just love that you wantedto recreate childhood
experiences or dreams and youhave the technology to bring it
to life and just have fun andplay.
I find that some of the bestways to enter the AI space are

(07:40):
just kind of to put your guardsdown of expectation or need to
produce something.
Right.
That's a really good way toapproach it is I have no
expectations.
I'm here to play and have fun.
And it sounds like you weresurrounded by a lot of peers
leaning into it the same way.
So my next question I have foryou is to tell me a little bit

(08:01):
more about the entry point ofusing it and what you used.
You said Runway, was a softwareyou were into.
Were there any other tools thatyou were using to support your
journey into adapting yourcreative projects using AI and
animation?

Right.
So it's definitely, it's play.
I love that you, you mentionedthat because in the beginning
you have to get over the kind offear of maybe failure or not
understanding, and I am not asuper tech person.
I'm an artist who has visionsand I literally see things in my

(08:40):
head and it's just a gettingthem out.
So the toolkit grows as you getmore comfortable with one tool.
You know, first you start doingimages.
So you can use, uh, a stablediffusion model, which I was
using Krea or you, you know,midjourney, which everyone's
heard of.
Midjourney has come so far.

(09:01):
In the two years that I startedplaying with Midjourney, it used
to be on Discord and you had towrite all these kind of
complicated prompts.
And now Midjourney has a, an avery easy to use image ref.
A style ref and what's called anomni reference.
And prompting isn't as difficultas it used to be, but kind of

(09:22):
like people used to ask like,oh, what's your kind of prompt
secret sauce?
And, you know, you learned howto do that and you learned
specifically I bought books orlike real world books on camera
angles and like, you know what,what lenses do what,'cause
again, I worked in film, but I'mnot a camera person.
And these visual toolsunderstand camera language too.

(09:45):
So, you could mix that into yourprompt.
And I, also learned a lot from,I would say the AI community is
incredibly supportive and Idon't know if that's a counter
reaction to kind of the generalunsupportiveness or the kind of
fear of AI that a lot of peoplecan have in the creative space.

Brooke (10:08):
Hmm.

It's very helpful.
And I'd also say finding like agroup on WhatsApp.
There's a great group calledMachine Cinema that I'm part of,
and it's literally worldwide.
It's started in LA but itquickly grew, and we're over
2000 maybe more.
I.

Brooke (10:27):
Wow.

misquoting probably because it is much bigger than
even I can keep track of.
But it's filmmakers from allaround the world, so, let me go
back to your toolkit questions

Brooke (10:38):
Yeah,

so run.

Brooke (10:40):
and I'll be sure if you could send me that link.
I'll share it with the audienceand put it in the show notes so
people can look into joining.

Sure.
Absolutely.
Runway was the first video Genthat I started using.
And it was Runway version two.
Now they're on Runway versionfour within, I'd say every six
months, these platforms like doa major advance and they're all
in, you know, rough competitionwith each other.
So it's healthy because then itallows you to find what's new,

(11:08):
what's new, and then I startedusing Luma.
And specifically their newestfeature inside of Luma is called
Luma Ray Two.
And it was able to handle morecomplex actions than Runway was
at the time.
Again, they keep, like one doesone thing, the other one does
the other thing.
The other one starts to, youknow and then the Chinese

(11:31):
software started coming out.
Which are Kling and, uh,Minimax.
Those are the two big, bigcompetitors there.
And so each video gen does kindof specific things better than
the other.
It's like practicing andlearning anything you learn
which tool does what best.
So, you know, like a certaintype of paintbrush makes a

(11:53):
straight, like a smooth a line.
Another one is a more about a,like a wide brush stroke.
It's not dissimilar from, fromthat kind of mentality.
And then, as we all know, thenGoogle came in with Veo and all
the big titans of tech arestarting now to, I think, I

(12:13):
don't know what took them all solong, if it was that they were,
if they were afraid of whathappened with the metaverse and
they wanted to wait to see if AIwas really gonna do what it was
gonna do.
But now they're all

Brooke (12:24):
I think

Yeah, go

Brooke (12:25):
that's what I hear.
This is all you know,speculation, but from what I
hear is they're waiting totrickle out the intelligence to
us so that it isn't such a shockto society.

That wouldn't shock me.
And right now they're allpoaching each other's highest,
paid creatives

Brooke (12:43):
Mm-hmm.

That's also interesting.
They're letting the little onesfight it out to see who's gonna
become the medium one before thebig one comes in and just, know,
kills it.

Brooke (12:52):
Yeah.

but again, I think that the competition is very
healthy.
Then once you start videogenerating and you start, I
don't use an AI editingsoftware.
I understand that if you'retrying to like pound out daily,
content that an AI editor, isgonna be great for you because,
I think that also is somethingreally important.

(13:14):
There's no one AI fitseverything solution.
It's in the public view, it'sthought of that way, but when
you really start getting intoAI, there's AI for mortgage
management, there's AI for like,you know cancer screening.
And I've been to those festivalsand it's amazing to see AI like
doing all this other stuffoutside of the one kind of

(13:36):
creative and, and I love thatabout your podcast, that I'm
able to like hear what, howother people are using it.
So it's kind of exciting.

Brooke (13:43):
Yeah.
Yeah, I would love to just hearthe overall process of even
making a short from start tofinish and if it's you, if you
have multiple people on yourteam you work with, gimme the
behind the scenes look.

So I would say the next steps are whenever I've
started video generating, then Istart taking it into a
traditional editing software,like a Premiere, or I use
Filmora.
There's CapCut, CapCut's kind ofconnected to TikTok.
There's also, um, DaVinci ifyou're really like super into
already editing each tool againdoes something certain better

(14:20):
than others or different thanothers.
And, but I always start tocreate my edit, once I start
video generating, but then thenext step is starting to add
sound and, that I actually use alot of free sound sites.
There's two that I really loveand one of them, the BBC
actually now released theirentire sound catalog free of

(14:44):
use.
So, and that's a monster catalogof, sounds like you can find
everything from like Lionsroaring to, you know, Harrier,
jets

Brooke (14:53):
Wow.

Yeah, it's an incredible resource and you
know, as long as you're notusing it commercially, you can
just put it into your films orwhatever you want.
And then I have another one thatI really love that's actually a,
a communal based sound.
So people are outright, they'rejust sound freaks, I guess.
I don't know what to say.
Like, they're, they're fan soundfanatics.

(15:14):
That would be better.
And they love to record stuffand put it up on the internet.
And again, it's just.
you get to use it if you want touse it, as long as it's not
commercial.
Every now and then I'll go on toYouTube if I need something,
like a score or something, alittle bit more than I normally
would put into something.
And they just want credit.
And so that's a pretty simplething to do just add that in

(15:36):
your credits.
And for sound I also do have onefriend who's a music producer
who does a lot of like, kind ofambient sound work that I also
work with.
And then the final is voiceover.
And there there's all kinds ofplatforms.
The the big one is called 11Labs, and that one is pretty

(15:57):
fantastic.
People probably have heard aboutthat.
You can do sound effects,they've just started their V3
version where you can clone yourown voice.
You can take your own voice, youcan change it.
But you can now create wholecharacters by pure text
description.
And I was having a particularhard time with, I wanted a

(16:18):
woman, new Orleans accent, whitewoman, alcoholic speech, kind of
slurring, like that's thecharacter I needed for a project
I'm working on right now.
It was able to give me somethingthat worked.
I would still say if you havethe time and you can work with a

(16:38):
voiceover artist or you have afriend who's really good at it,
that's great.
But I don't have that.
And, and it's weird because I'min Hollywood, but I don't have
that access.
I don't have those connections.
And I also find that no matterwhat AI works on my schedule.
So if I'm working at 2:00 AM andI wanna move forward on my

(16:59):
project and I need that voice tosay that thing that I need it to
do right now, just so my littlebrain can move on.
Then I needed at 2:00 AM and I'mnot really waiting to wait for
somebody else to get back to meand, you know, all that fun
stuff.
So,

Brooke (17:15):
Yeah, of course.
That's so interesting.
What was the name of that?
BBC Library of Music.
Do you remember?

Yep.
Let me, let me look it up.

Brooke (17:25):
because I'm currently in the process of finally uploading
all my videos to YouTube of mypodcasts that I've been
recording since February.
But the music's like a littlebit tighter, the regulations for
YouTube because they will addads and everything on it.
So I'm in the process of goingthrough music libraries myself
right now, so it's socoincidental we're having this

(17:45):
conversation.

Music.
So BBC is sound effects.
It's not so much, so the twothings that I was talking about

Brooke (17:52):
Yeah.

are sound effects.
I'll give you, but then thatyou, now you're making me think
of one of the final tools in,

Brooke (18:00):
Mm-hmm.

my AI stack is Udio, which is music.
And Udio and Sono, I haven'tused Sono much but I've used
Udio a lot.
And like I wanted a glam, pop,rock kind of like a T-Rex or a
David Bowie, like from Spidersfrom Mars sounding thing for a

(18:22):
piece that I did.
You wanna use the general termof the, style of music.
You don't use

Brooke (18:28):
Yes.

artist names.
But you, you will get things andyou can add your own lyrics.
You can have it auto generatelyrics you could have it
instrumental.
I've done K-pop with that.

Brooke (18:40):
Wow.

I've actually had a Korean friend double check my
K-pop song to make sure that,'cause it blends between English
and and Korean.
And I wanted to

Brooke (18:50):
Mm-hmm.

like, one in tone it sounded correct, but two, the
language made sense.
Like it wasn't off the wall, youknow, mishmash words

Brooke (18:57):
Yeah.

or total gibberish.
So, I've also used anotherplatform, I'll have to look it
up.
I think it's called like

Brooke (19:06):
Yeah.

translate mom, or Mom translate.

Brooke (19:09):
Okay.

I had a film festival that I entered, I
needed Spanish and then Ientered another one where a
Brazilian one where I neededPortuguese, and then I entered
another one where I neededFrench.
And then one were Italian.
So I've had four different filmsI've had to subtitle in
different languages.
And having your friend listen toit and write it all out and time

(19:30):
code it for you would be reallyannoying.
But this, you just feed it in,it'll bring out the the
subtitles.
And then I luckily my producingpartner, she speaks both Spanish
and Portuguese.
I have a friend that speaks

Brooke (19:44):
Great.

Italian and it wasn't that hard to find another
friend for French, so I, I oftenthen just have them double check
it that's it.
And then give me thecorrections.

Brooke (19:52):
Nice.
Awesome.
So take me back to when you werefirst entering the AI space and
having fun and started to createshort film projects in the
beginning.
Were there any challenges toyour adoption that you could
share on?

Sure.
I would say the beginning is themost challenging.
I think once you get fluent.
In the different platforms, it,feels like second nature.
I mean, it's like anything thatyou practice, right?
Let's use a bicycle, forexample.
You fall over a lot in thebeginning and then you don't
after a while and you don't evenremember falling over.
So for me, I would say probablythe trickiest stuff in the

(20:33):
beginning was prompting, becauseprompting was still in an, in
its infancy.
And it's gotten like for imageprompting, how do you see refs?
Which is uh, a cross reference.
So CREFs is cross

Brooke (20:46):
Mm-hmm.

reference or

Brooke (20:47):
Okay.

character consistency, like making sure,
because I'm an architect too, Ilike spacial and character
consistency.
I don't want the room to bechanging too much in like wood
tone, color, or.
As much as I don't want aperson's face to be,
transforming I used a lot ofPhotoshop in the beginning for

(21:09):
that to

Brooke (21:10):
Mm-hmm.

isolate a character and then keep a character
consistent through Photoshopand, I would say that something
I learned quick was that youcreate a character on a white
background in a visual in animage generation.
And then you

Brooke (21:25):
Mm-hmm.

take that into your video generator, and you just
rotate the camera around thecharacter.
And that way you get from afront profile, a front view to a
side profile view to a backview.
And it'll

Brooke (21:41):
Wow.

that will help you be able to then keep character
consistency better, especiallyif you're using a Photoshop type

Brooke (21:49):
Cool.

program.
So you can cut them out of aclean background and add them
in.

Brooke (21:56):
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next meal on me.
Well kind Of.
On the other end of that I liketo touch on what do you feel was
immediately a benefit when youstarted using AI?
You spoke about being able tocreate projects and be on your
own time schedule not having torely on scheduling with others.

(23:02):
What else do you feel like wassuch a major aha moment in the
beginning?

That definitely was probably the biggest kind of aha
moment because I, like manyother people have a day job.
AI isn't paying my bills.
It's more of a passion artproject and it's play.
I really, almost don't watchcontent anymore.
I'm always kind of busy creatingmy own stuff.
And I find that superrefreshing.

Brooke (23:28):
Yeah.

so able to work from 10 to two in the morning,
or eight to midnight, eight toone, whatever it is if you think
of something even like a VRexperience, you have to create
an entire world.
And that takes a lot of time andenergy that AI doesn't really
require.
There's enough free entry forpeople to play around in and

(23:53):
then you can kind of pick whatyou're willing to pay for, what
platform you know, which oneyou're vibing with the best.
It allows you to createsomething and get it moving
forward without needing thegreen light as they always say
in Hollywood.
And also, when I create, I'venever used chat or like a Claude

(24:14):
to write for me, because Ialready know

Brooke (24:16):
Mm-hmm.

what it is that I want to quote unquote say.
I know what I want my films totalk about.
So I start with visuals almostimmediately, like when I come up
with an idea as I'm like,whatever out in society has
inspired me to do what I want todo, I then start to see visuals
and then I go in immediatelyinto mid journey or into stable

(24:38):
diffusion and I start aroundwith what those characters could
look like, what the settingslook like.
And I'd also say that forsomebody new if you are like
quote unquote seeing things theway that I do it takes, like 20,
30, 40 generations before youclick with what you're seeing.
So you're like, oh, that's whatI'm seeing.

(25:00):
And so I would say never getfrustrated.
Kind of in the beginning of, oh,I'm not seeing what I want.
And also I think when you'rewriting your prompts, really
look word for word with whatyou're saying and how you're
saying it.
I was working on a project withsomebody else and they wrote
hand drawn, they were talkingabout writing and it kept

(25:21):
putting a hand in it.
And they didn't understand why.
And then finally I was like,hand drawing.
That's, it's seeing the wordhand and it just thinks you want
a hand in there.
So like

Brooke (25:32):
Yes,

little things like that, things you think are
obvious or you almost don't seethem because they're so obvious.
And AI's gonna be a little bitof a literalist for you, and
you're gonna get like, wellwait.
Why, why are you doing that?
So it, also say that AI is, likea conversation with yourself.
You are it one thing and then itshows you that visual of what

(25:56):
you said, and then you kind ofask yourself, well, why are you
showing me this?
And I'd say that's actuallymaybe a secret sauce for me is
I'm always trying to understandwhy the platform or the AI that
I'm using is doing what it'sdoing so that I wanna think more
like it because it is alreadypre-programmed, it has already

(26:18):
been fed a bunch of things.
So I'm trying to understand whyare you doing it this way when I
want that.
And so once you start askingthose deeper questions, then you
can start to what they callunlock or, pull off the
guardrails of AI and you canstart to outthink it by how you
then word your responses.

Brooke (26:38):
Yeah, I like where you went there, because that makes a
lot of sense, right?
You have to get to know thelanguaging of each tool get to
understand the system andprocesses behind how it works
and why it does the things itdoes to better be able to speak
to it and use it effectively.
Thank you so much for sharingmore about the challenges and

(27:00):
positive outcomes.
I would love to shift gears abit since you're very involved
in the film industry and activein award ceremonies and
festivals and things of thatnature.
What's it like in the industryand what's the conversation
around AI?
Do you feel like it's mostlyfear, excitement, a balance of

(27:23):
the two?
How are people reacting andadapting to the space?
I did a bit of research and Isaw that there's an AI film
festival now, which I think isso interesting because that
probably wasn't created twoyears ago.
How are your peers reacting toit?
And what do you think is on thelandscape of the next two years?

Sure.
So for me, because I worked infilm for so long and my
undergraduate, at Cal Arts.
I have a lot of people who arein animation who maybe feel one
way about AI that I don't feel,and the fear always comes from
loss of work.
I think now ethical AI modelslike Moon Valley are just coming

(28:09):
out.
They're trained on already ownedIP and that they're trained on,
you know, high definition.
So you're not getting these kindof, hallucinogenic ish images.
And I think as the ethicalquestion gets asked, the fear of
losing a potential job in thefuture is going to remain.
And my always response to thatis, having worked in film for so

(28:31):
long, and, I was a sculptor andI would work sometimes in art
departments, but there was noway I was ever gonna be anything
quote unquote above the line.
I was never gonna be likedirecting my own thing there's
no way.
So any little thought that Iwould've had of like, oh, what
if I could make a movie likethis would go dead in my brain,
because there's no outlet forit.

(28:53):
So with AI, I'm able to have anidea, create it, you as an
artist are no longer allowed tosit in the passenger seat,
waiting for someone to call you,waiting for someone to hire you.
You now have to take your ideasand become the master of your
own destiny.

(29:13):
Like you have to push forwardthe thoughts that you are having
about content.
And it's scary because you'rekind of starting all over in a
really.
big field.
But it's also very similar totraditional film festivals and
directors in that have to buildan audience for your vision,
your voice, your way of lookingat the world.

(29:36):
And it takes time.
And you know, right now, thereisn't a clear path to how this
financially makes any sense.
What the ROI is.
I've had a lot of producer typesfrom friends of my EP ask me
like.
Their first question is well,how are you gonna monetize this?
And I'm like, well, that's notreally, not where I start from.
I start from, I want to becomethe best that I can be at

(29:57):
whatever I can do.
And then as I have enoughcontent, as I have enough work
built up, then I can start.
And so all of this was true withYouTube way back when nobody
knew how to make any

Brooke (30:08):
Right,

money with YouTube.
I mean, it was like, what thehell?
You know, you just stick stuffup there and see.
But now you have people who arecrushing it and able to do
exactly what they want and becreative.
Or Issa Rae, you know, gettingher TV show deals out of coming
out of YouTube.
Like there,

Brooke (30:27):
right.

there and a lot of YouTube people do look at it as
a stepping stone to either, youknow, getting into standup
comedy or getting into, film ortelevision or what.
And some people are very happywith where they're at.
And that's, that's, again,that's great.
So I would say inside of thefilm festival circuit.
I had entered as I I wasinspired by the second Runway

(30:50):
film festival that I went to.
I just saw these amazing peopledoing all this great work, and I
was

Brooke (30:54):
Mm-hmm.

the heck do I do this?
And then the next year I enteredour, so my partner and I, we had
two behind the scenes, whichmade it into a semi-final round.
But our actual films didn't goforward.
And instead of being discouragedor like, you know, I'm
definitely one, if you tell meno, I tell you yes.

(31:15):
Like I'm not gonna listen toyour No.
And so then I went out and Ifound the FilmFreeway site.
That's the festival site andit's a mix of AI film festivals,
it started with traditional filmfestivals and now some places
have pure AI.
A lot of places have traditionalfilm with all those

(31:37):
subcategories and then they'llhave an AI subcategory.
And I'd say the most importantpart for me on that is to speak
to a question you had a littlewhile ago about, do I have a
team or not.
I have an executive producerwho's my partner in life also,
and I bounce ideas off of herand I share the under the hood

(31:57):
of where my rough edits are.
She's actually really great atdoing the music side of things
in Udio.
She's fantastic with that.
But creative wise, it's prettymuch just me.
I have one real world musicproducer who I sometimes get
some music from.
But it's really'cause, it allgoes back to AI on my schedule.

(32:18):
I wanna work, when I wanna workon it, I need to move forward.
All of my deadlines are almostself, imposed.
I'm not trying to like, push anyproduct out.
That's something I really liketoo, I don't have a platform or
a group that's expectingsomething out of me every week
so I can work at my pace and mypace in two years, I've done

(32:39):
about 30 shorts, anywhere fromone minute to 12 minutes long.
And, it's a lot.
Um, I would say about, Fourhours worth of work for me gets
about 10 seconds of usable,rough edit material in the end
so I'm very fastidious about howI set up my shots.
When I talked about like usingPhotoshop, I set up a shot'cause

(33:00):
I think about each image assetting up a shot before I.
I don't just take an image outof midjourney and then just run
it straight through because I'mspecific.
I'm a little bit neuroticalmost, so I need things to be a
certain way before I'm ready.
Now hopping back to your filmfestival question, because I'm

Brooke (33:20):
Mm-hmm.

working alone all the time and because I'm working
at night and I've gone tocountless real world traditional
film premieres and, it's sowonderful to watch a director
and all of their actors and allof their crew and everyone's
having a great time.
And I joke to my EP like, Ooh,if I went to one of those, it'd
just be me with, you and that'sit.

(33:43):
So there's no community.
And so going to these festivalsand meeting other AI directors
and other people kind of in theAI space.
That's the most, it's the humanconnection.
I know it's so funny becausewe're talking about computer
connection the whole time, butreally there's this moment of,

(34:03):
and everybody's work is so vastand so different and so.
And also too when I go to a filmfestival, I don't want my thing
to be the best thing.
I wanna see other people's workbetter than mine.
That's inspiring me.
Maybe it's technical, maybe it'sstory, maybe it's the way that
they're visually telling thatstory.
Maybe it's how they edited it.

(34:24):
I'm not a master of anything.
I'm good at all kinds of things.
So watching other people's workand getting inspired to try
harder and to keep going andkeep going, that to me is super
important.

Brooke (34:37):
That's beautiful.
You touched on something itreminded me of when we were
speaking just before this call,about the macro and the micro on
how empowering AI can be.
For in the Hollywood sense to beable to green light your own
projects and be able to moveforward and not wait until the

(34:59):
stars align, the funding's therefor you to put stuff out into
the world.
And I related so much to thatbeing a founder and a creator.
I'm not having to knock onpeople's doors I can get in the
driver's seat with AI and dosomething like produce a weekly
podcast.
It is really empowering and it'sinteresting to hear that

(35:22):
perspective about what's goingon and Hollywood and what it's
like to be around creatives inthe film festival scene.
So thank you so much for sharingthat.
My next question is one of myfavorite ones to ask each guest,
get in the creative seat andthink about what it is that you
wish or want to create using AIthat you haven't seen in the

(35:46):
market yet.
Do you have any projects in yourback pocket that you're working
on right now or a really bigdream something you wanna put
out there with AI?

Absolutely.
For me it's as simple as a fulllength feature film that is a
biopic about two individuals inthe medical world that
transcends decades ofaccomplishments and goes through
World War II all the way up intothe sixties in America.

(36:17):
They both start in Europe duringWorld War II and it's a personal
project.
One is a relative of myproducing partner.
They're an absolutely inspiringperson in what they did with
their life, where they had tostart from.
And the reason why, for me,that's my AI dream is it's
actually what got me into doingthese little shorts.

(36:39):
I had already started toresearch this idea.
Traditionally through like realbook.
'cause Google wouldn't, andWikipedia didn't cut it.
They only gave a little bit of aglimpse and so traditional books
and reading about these peopleand collecting kind of probably
40 pages of notes and researchon who they were and what they

(37:01):
did.
And I wanted to turn this into afilm, but I was like now you
gotta go through thetraditional, you've gotta write
the whole script.
You've gotta storyboard out thewhole thing, make a pitch deck,
then the hardest part, you gottameet the right person who's
willing to give you x millionsof dollars just to move forward
with the next step.
And then you gotta find morefundraising.

(37:22):
And I'm like, ugh, that's not,my artistic vision is to not be
bogged down with all that crud.
So in AI there's two differentworlds to approaching film.
There's one called, which iswhat I do now, is pure gen AI.
It's, everything is generatedfrom text, but the thing that's

(37:44):
actually happening in Hollywoodright now and people that are
making money with it and areusing it in a financially
beneficial way.
It's called, AI assist.
It's people who either have anad agency or they were in
special effects or they're inediting, so they already kind of
know the industry, but nowthey're augmenting their careers
with AI.
They're kind of the firstadapters who aren't afraid.

(38:06):
And what's funny is whenever Igo to like a true, Hollywood
premiere party, because myproducing partner is actually in
the business still, and so we goto all kinds of things and
whenever I'm talking tosomebody.
They'll often confess thatthey're kind of using AI in the
background, like, you know, intheir own stuff.
And so I started calling it thedark arts because everybody's so

(38:29):
scared.
They're so scared and closeted,admitting that they're using it.
And I, I get it.
There's a lot of backlash, soyou have to be careful.
But,

Brooke (38:37):
Right, right.

going, going back to my dream is I wanna use this
to do an AI assist.
So I wanna film real people inreal scenes.
But using AI to create thebackgrounds that I need for the
timeframe and seamlessly, at thelevel of a Marvel movie, you can
seamlessly blend background withforeground in AI using all kinds

(38:59):
of methods.
So that's what I wanna use itfor and to age the characters
through, not through prostheticmakeup, but through actual like
what was done to Tom Hanks inthe movie Here, and use that
technology to actually age theactor so I can keep the same
actor but move them through timeat the same time.

(39:19):
So I don't wanna recreate theworld of AI, I wanna harness a
very specific piece oftechnology and get used to using
it in a way and create the teamthat can get that done.
That's my big lofty goal.

Brooke (39:34):
Love it.
I try to think of one thing Iwant to create with AI every
episode.
I didn't come with one preparedtoday.

Are, are you a vivid dreamer?

Brooke (39:44):
Because I feel like.
I am, and it's so funny that youbrought that up about
translating your dreams to AIbecause I've lately have been
served this ad on Instagramabout a dream coder or a product
that similar to what you do isyou wake up in the morning and
explain your dream and then itdepicts it and almost creates an

(40:06):
AI short.
But it, it makes it kind offoggy and dream scapey.

Right.

Brooke (40:12):
Isn't it so fascinating they say that the moment that
you have an idea for a productor creation, there's probably,
seven other people that havethat same idea, and it really is
who goes to market quickest?

I am a firm believer in quality, so it's
both to me.
You've gotta find both of thosethings.
Like what's the best quality youcan put out at a, fast pace.
I agree with that.

Brooke (40:36):
Mm-hmm.

we're to think that you've created something nobody
else has ever thought of.
Uh, that's a little, that's alittle heavy.
we're all humans, so we're allkind of going through the same
things and, and that's whypeople

Brooke (40:49):
Yeah.

That's why people relate to your ideas, because it
might be a fog in the back oftheir head and they just didn't
figure it out.
But AI can definitely help withthat.
And I would say you mentioned inthis film creation, it kind of
makes the fogginess or the soupof a dream.
In AI for video, like peoplemaking music videos.

(41:11):
You can add all kinds of, inyour AI prompts, you can add
light bleeds, you can addflicker.
You can tell that in the videogenerator and it will do that
for you.
You don't have to add it inediting software.
I'd say that

Brooke (41:25):
Wow.

the two biggest things right now that a lot of
people are using Gen AI for areone, or for commercials because
a commercial

Brooke (41:32):
Mm-hmm.

owns, you know, Tiffany's owns Tiffany's IP.
There's gonna be no lawsuitsover that.
They own what they own so youcan go ahead and use like Toys R
Us or like the Coca-Cola ad.
Those are pretty good examplesof, well, they own the IP so no
one's gonna sue them so they cango ahead and start making
commercials that way.

(41:52):
And then music videos is rightnow also something where a lot
of people are doing that becauseif you're some little homegrown
band who doesn't have any,access to that stuff, you can
use AI to get your video outthere because you can't really
just release a song anymore, youhave to release the video that
goes with it.

Brooke (42:11):
Absolutely.
I love to always close and leavespace for if you have one key
takeaway you want listeners toknow.
It can even be a message to yourformer self, getting into AI.
Anything that you wanna share.

Sure.
I would say one is getting overthe fear.
Just leaving the fear behind andgoing into it and as you used
the word play, it is play.
So play with it, get, getfamiliar with it, get
comfortable with it.
Don't be afraid of it.
And as you say in your podcastintro, it's not the future, it's

(42:50):
the now.
It's happening right now.
And what's so beautiful about ithappening right now actually is
no one's mastered it.
No one's on top yet.
You're in a fresh area you'reyour own master of your own
destiny in this.
And I think that's incrediblyexciting.
I'm gonna say this to creativepeople, but I think it applies
to everybody'cause I actually amone of those who believes that

(43:13):
everybody inside has some kindof artistic something in them,
but our society doesn't promotethat.
It doesn't like tease that outof us.
And I think that if you're acreative, there's no way you can
not look at AI.
You have to, and message to myformer self when I was in film
school back in, in the nineties,I so wish this technology

(43:36):
existed.
It would've changed the absolutedirection of my life.
I mean it, even though I endedup in, I worked in film for so
long, which is what I wanted todo.
It would've changed my positionand my relationship inside of
film for sure.

Brooke (43:51):
Wow, what a beautiful final point to share.
Thank you so much for your time.
And speaking a bit about behindthe scenes, behind the lens,
look into what's going on inreal time in Hollywood and
filmmaking.
And I'm excited to see whatprojects you come out with next.

(44:13):
And love hearing about howeverybody is using this
technology in such an empoweringway to move their creative
projects and dreams to light.
I really appreciate you.

Thank you, Brooke, for having me.
This is such a wonderful way toget the messages out.
I think it's wonderful.
And I think you also say that,you know, this is How I AI I
love that because it's not howto, it's kind of the like, why
of why am I doing this?
And I think that's fantastic.

Brooke (44:44):
Yes, thank you.
I appreciate you for recognizingthat.

thank you.

Brooke (44:49):
Wow, I hope today's episode opened your mind to
what's possible with AI.
Do you have a cool use case onhow you're using AI and wanna
share it?
DM me.
I'd love to hear more andfeature you on my next podcast.
Until next time, here's toworking smarter, not harder.
See you on the next episode ofHow I AI.
This episode was made possiblein partnership with the

(45:11):
Collective AI, a communitydesigned to help entrepreneurs,
creators, and professionalsseamlessly integrate AI into
their workflows.
One of the biggest game changersin my own AI journey was joining
this space.
It's where I learned, connectedand truly enhanced my
understanding of what's possiblewith ai.

(45:32):
And the best part, they offermultiple membership levels to
meet you where you are.
Whether you want to DIY, your AIlearning or work with a
personalized AI consultant foryour business, The Collective
has you covered.
Learn more and sign up using myexclusive link in the show
notes.

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