Can Midjourney Actually Compete in Video? + Sref & Monetization Talk

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What's up everybody, Mid journeyfast hours podcast.
We are back and I left my hat somewhere in the other room.
So here we are. So weird.
I know I'm breaking breaking tradition here.
Good head of hair, dude. Thanks man, still rocking it you
know, still rocking it so might as well.
Might as well show it every oncein a while.
Dude, I get to comment all the time from from some of my

(00:23):
friends who maybe are thinning alittle bit.
They're like, dude, just just don't wear the hat.
You have good thick hair. I'm like, I, I don't think about
it that way, but we, you know, it's hard to put the hat down.
It is. I've been a, I've been a hat guy
my entire life. I have the same I, I, I, I get
the feeling you're the same way.You've been rocking a hat since
you were a child. 910 Soon as I started playing like baseball

(00:47):
religiously when it was like I was wearing a hat every day for
baseball, whether it was practice, try, you know, like
camp vibe, you know, working with working, doing like hitting
stuff, whatever. It was always in a hat and I
just like wearing a hat. So same.
It's weird, always been rocking the hat, although I would say
I've got you beat. I've been rocking the hat since.

(01:08):
Birth. 4/5. All right.
Like one of my earliest pictures, I was trying to see if
I could pull it up here really quick.
It's hilarious. It's like me on my neighborhood
St. rocking like a flat bill. Yes.
Cap and I've got like these, of course, like, you know, 80s,
early 90s inspired like vibrant color, like wind jacket and it's

(01:31):
it's so dope and I'm like mom, thanks for that one because most
of the other stuff I've seen it ain't good.
It ain't. Did you?
Have a mushroom cut just like the rest of us in the 90s.
I think they called that a a a bowl cut for.
US bowl cut, all right? But yeah, like I think everybody
had that at some point. What was that like?
Maybe I'm a little bit older than you, but for me I think
that was. Early 90s though 6th. 7th grade

(01:52):
Yeah, the. Eighth, yeah, that's when it
came off for me. 7th, 7th grade,it was like I got to get rid of
this thing. Now it's like.
What about this thing? Oh, are we show?
Are we showing that everyone? You know, I was looking through
my photos and I forgot why but II saved this photo and I think I
was giving you shit for it one time and we were and turns out I
still got it on here so. If anyone doesn't remember, if

(02:15):
anyone doesn't remember the darkdays of COVID when all of the
women and all the females still looked exactly looked normal
because their hair doesn't grow at the same rate as us because
we get it cut every. That's right.
Four weeks. That's right.
And we're like, you know, a month or two in and we all look
like Cavemen, like, oh. My God.
Sting. Yeah, What are we doing?
I yeah, I already told the dye story, I think, on this podcast.

(02:36):
But Oh yeah. Bro yeah, I had to shave it all
down, man. We.
We. Too funny?
Yeah, too funny, man. It was what was your, what was
your week like this week? How you know, it's just, it
never slows down. Nothing ever stops.
I will open up Twitter every single day.
And it's just like, oh, here's 50 other things for me to look
at today and test and see what'sgoing on.
I, I think if you put too, if you put too much pressure on

(02:58):
yourself to keep up with every little thing, it, it has a
negative effect on you. So I've, I've tried to
especially now, like pretty muchrocking, you know, I'm rocking
full time. And then, you know, I don't get
to spend as much time in the weeds as I did when I was
running solo. I've had to let some of that go,
right? There's no way to stay sane, you

(03:21):
know, have maintain good relationships within my family,
you know, do all those things unless I let some of it go and
not try to try to know everything.
So I think that's been a lesson for me is, you know, these
things happen so fast, right? And yeah, you know, luckily
there are other people, right, like through Twitter or just,
you know, have a conversation with you where it's like, if I
get enough of what's going on, that feels good enough for me

(03:43):
right now in in some areas, likemostly like with I would say
like the video stuff specifically, but in terms of
like everything going on with mid journey, obviously staying
up to date with that, but. It's, it's rough.
Like I've, I've, I've sort of hit that fever pitch now where I
just have. Fever pitch.
That's good. Yeah, that's a good word.
Yeah, it's like I have to choose.

(04:03):
Like I can't, I can't chase everything.
Like Hagen comes out with something new this week that's
like super revolutionary, apparently.
I haven't even looked into it 'cause I've never used Hagen and
like, I just, I see that as moreof like it spikes and then it
goes into a valley, you know, like it spikes, it's cool for a
month and then you know, someoneelse develops and I don't hear
from them for a while. I'm curious how other people do
that too outside of us, right? Like the people listening to

(04:25):
this. I'm curious how you guys decide.
Is it purely a time bandwidth thing or do you think about it
consciously like that, which I think is smart too.
Of like you kind of have to consciously pick your winners
too. Of like I maybe I don't have the
time to explore every single tool.
These are the ones that I will sort of like go back in and, you
know, test this new feature, runsome experiments, right?

(04:48):
Like kind of piece together how it might work for me kind of
thing. Yeah, it's like, you know,
there's the tools that are that are shipping constantly.
Like I look at cling and I just know that cling's on it, right.
Like, you know, something's good.
Like they dropped 2.14 weeks after two point O.
Like that's not a that's. Not like a.
It's not like Pika, who like disappeared for nine months and
then came back, you know, like it wasn't.

(05:09):
Like they've been doing that. They've been kind of, they'll
show up for like one week and then it's like back in the
hibernation for the next quarter.
Yeah, yeah, constantly, constantly updating.
I did get to meet Tony from fromCling this week, who is the
only, only employee in the US and Tony is very cool.
And if anyone's not utilizing cling in any way, shape or form,

(05:32):
I, I definitely highly suggest it as a tool.
I think it's, it's great. They put a lot of effort into
their tool and it's really good.It's super coherent.
But he was, you know, talking tohim, his, his schedule is crazy
because he's on EU. He's the only one in the US.
So. He's working.
He's. Working day.
That Far East time. Yeah.
Then he works the night time regimen because he's, it's like

(05:54):
whatever call with Europe, it's like in the morning and then I
have to like somewhat relax during the middle of the day and
then go back to, you know, working overnight.
Insane. I can't even imagine, you know?
Super cool, super open to feedback, like loves talking to
him. I love when these tools like
this, you know, there's a good thing about the space.
If everyone's not familiar, you haven't had an opportunity to
talk to, you know, some of the people that are developing these

(06:16):
tools, some of the, you know, the tool owners, like they're
really open to feedback. Like they like it, You know They
don't. They don't get like pissy if
you're like I. Don't think where would you say
the best place to reach these people are for those that are
listening and and maybe do have feedback like is it you know, is
it mostly on acts? Is there?
Yeah, they're interactive. It's like they want to know

(06:37):
because it's just like you with with your work, right?
You're getting constant feedback, which is, which is
great. Like if you're a marketer, well,
it doesn't even matter if you'rea marketer, right?
Like any type of feedback is valuable.
You're not taking guesses, right?
Yeah. So I think like if you've got
something that's hard data that you can then apply and if you
establish patterns, even better,right?

(06:58):
If you're hearing that same thing a couple times or you
know, maybe even just like the creator mindset, right?
Like you and I think about that in terms of like if we see
comments here and we see the sort of like similar patterns,
it's like, OK, like this probably is something we should
address whether it's briefly or,you know, on a deeper level.
Same with doesn't even have to be your content.

(07:18):
I think you even brought this upon a previous pod, right?
It's like, look, you can also source this just by viewing
other people that are in the space and they may make a post
and don't have time to, you know, comment or respond every
little thing that's left there. But you can also just browse
that for insights of things thatmatter, right?
And so, you know, if you're Tonyor anybody else or for that

(07:41):
matter, that's, that's creating even, I mean, those are, those
are all good insights that are accessible and only allow you to
get smarter with the things thatyou're talking about and pushing
out, right versus taking guesses.
So 100% so it was for for a little insight as into How I Met
Tony, apparently Drew, it was New York Tech Week this week

(08:01):
also coinciding with a lot of like supplemental events for the
Tribeca Film Festival in New York.
So the whole like AI contingent was in New York and I did not
know this until about Tuesday, so.
Damn, OK, so this is like a thisis an annual thing, but but
probably within the last two years, this is really like just

(08:23):
kind of been an influx to of theAI part of that and and
influence in the event. And I think it's it's similar to
like what? What I'm not going to say it's
at the same scale, but like whatKhan is in in France where you
have the big major event and then you have all the satellite
events. So everyone comes throws their
parties, everyone has their, youknow, presentations, their panel

(08:44):
discussions, their networking events, so.
Very cool. Tell us.
Tell us more about it. Tell us more about that.
First, I would I would like to shout out to one of our
listeners, you're going to find this one, this one good.
We were sitting after one of theevents.
We went out to get like a, you know, like a burger on Stone St.
down in down the down Wall Street area and.

(09:07):
Wall Street Wall Street's at thebottom, right South.
Financial district. So we we're sitting there, you
know, probably like 10 of us around the table.
And you know, one of the guys, his name is Brian.
Just it's like, dude, I don't know what it is about your
voice. It sounds so familiar.
I was like, I was like, do you? Happen to do?
You happen to listen to a podcast?
He goes, are you guys, are you guys the mid journey podcast?

(09:28):
I was like, yeah, mid journey fast hours.
He goes, I have ironed more shirts to that podcast than
anything any other. I was like, dude shouting.
Can we, can we use that line? And yeah, we're going to use
that line. Yeah, I mean, it was like the
way he said it, I was like, that's exactly how I, you know,
he's like, I don't really watch.I just listened.
So I wasn't recognizing you by your face, but I recognize your

(09:50):
voice. So, you know, we have, we have a
few listeners that I met, which was cool.
But yeah, it was, you know, I went to we did a panel
discussion in Oculus, which is right next to the World Trade
Center. Small, intimate sort of setting,
you know, a bunch of people you had cling there, free pick.
Was there crazy few people, a few other cool people that I met

(10:11):
and did a panel discussion with Xavier and Justin from Wonder
Studios. If you guys are not familiar
with them, they're developing AIintellectual property at the
moment. And so they're a new studio in
the game that's, you know, just got just got some funding and is
on the on the upswing. Got a little bit of a
relationship with them and then I'll stood a panel discussion
with Nick Saint Pierre. If anyone is familiar with X,

(10:34):
I'm sure you've seen Nick's work.
Super cool guy, awesome conversations.
So yeah, we had a good time at that.
Got to really get in with with free pick a little bit, you
know, have a conversation with their team.
They're really cool. Had no idea they started as a
stock photography site and just pivoted which I was like to
where you guys are right? Now interesting.
Yeah, I feel, I feel like I, I feel like I knew that, but I

(10:56):
didn't know that. But maybe I haven't thought
about that because they they've been around for a minute, right?
Because they were like even pre a pre AI, that was the place
where you got all the stickers and icons and illustrations and
the under that subscription model.
But prior to that, yeah. That that kind of makes sense.
That let that tracks. I feel like I knew that.

(11:18):
Either I knew that or it makes alot of sense.
So I was like to them I was like, Congrats, 'cause I see you
guys as like a major player. And that's pivoted.
A lot. And they pivoted hard and they
made the right pivot, like, because that's what was the
first thing that we were doing with Nick, yes.
Yes, you're right. Get rid of stock like. 100% and

(11:39):
and that's The thing is like, unless you, you know, it's more
obvious now, right? But if we were having that
conversation like we were a yearago, close to a year ago, and we
were probably having that conversation before the podcast
started, but that unless you were in it, you weren't thinking
of that, you know what I mean, Iguess is my point.

(12:00):
And so that to me, I would say like, if I were working there
and saw that take place would bevery encouraging.
I'm sure at the time was probably like chaotic to to
undergo for the undergo that kind of pivot.
But at the same time, like now looking back on it, you got to
respect the hell out of that. They're really dialed into
what's happening because I don'tknow that that was such an

(12:21):
obvious realization except for people that were super in the
weeds like we were and others were because like, we, it got to
a point where you're like, oh, OK, now I can see how you know,
for me, it started with the, thesort of stock stuff, photos
specifically. But then it was like, Oh yeah,
like you could create. Once that consistency started to

(12:42):
get better, it's like, oh, now you can start to create these
things and basically create yourown material that you could
sell, right? So this, this feels obsolete
now. So whatever they did to gather
that feedback. Like when was the lesson even
thought about it? That's not in a long time,
brother. Like honestly when she said
stock photography, like I had toregister back in my brain.

(13:03):
This is how crazy this is that Ihad to register in my brain that
that was a thing. Cuz I it's totally gone from my
thought process, which is I had that this sounds like again like
Madrid deep hours, but I was legitimately had to think for a
second like stock photography, like it used to be ingrained.
Yeah, my day-to-day and I had not touched it in three years.
Well, I, you know, to be fair, like there was never anything

(13:25):
sexy about stock photography, but it was like a necessary evil
that you'd ever really thought about.
But it was always a part of the process because there was no
other alternative other than, yeah, again, having a big budget
where you could hire a photographer, Right.
And so it just depends what kindof space you were in, what kind
of company, the resources you have.
But it was like one or the other, right?
Yeah. And it was interesting man,

(13:46):
because like I said, there was abunch of there was a bunch of
other tools there. I got to meet some people from
Topaz. If anyone's not familiar with
them, video and and image upscaling sort of service video
image restoration really good. If you guys haven't tried it
out, highly suggest it. There's what else was
interesting was that I was at a one of the, one of the parties,

(14:08):
if you want to call those more of like a more of like a meet
and greet kind of thing, just networking.
And it was film makers, a lot ofthem, a lot of like a lot of
industry. Like traditional.
Yeah, that have been in the industry for 20 years.
They were just, you know, like open invite, like they were
coming because they were curious.
And that to me felt even out of like 60 people maybe have a

(14:29):
small sample size, just felt like a transition because some
of them had finally gotten theirhand, like gotten like a little
bit like dipping their toes. And once they started it, they
got really interested. And now they're trying to like,
ingratiate more. Remind reminds me of that like
agency push Remember there were a lot of those agencies at first
just didn't want to even talk about it.

(14:50):
They. Yeah, and it's like I keep
telling anyone like there's there was a great there's a
great video this guy did from a video from like the sorry from
the film production industry basically like paralleling what
the new jobs would look like. It's not like your jobs going
away. It's like how it's going to
transition. So it was like, you know, how

(15:10):
the director becomes sort of like the creative director and
how the you know, the costume designer, you know, you're
basically going to train digitalLauras and like, you know, build
out, you know, models and aesthetics and be able to place
this clothing and like consult on different things like that.
The sound engineers are going tobe this the you know, the
cinematographer is going to do that.
And I was like, this is it's smart because there is, it is

(15:31):
still so specialized, you know, in that.
Well, and and kind of like we'reat this point too where if
you're thinking about that earlyenough and at the right time,
you actually can be the one to guide that, right?
Yeah. So somebody's gotta make that
decision. If you're a video editor right
now, I think you like, I talked to a number of them who are in,
you know, a lot of post production.
I was like, I think you guys arein the best position of anyone

(15:53):
because there's gonna be so muchmore content.
And I know my faults. Like I can create a good image.
I can create like a like a fun video.
I cannot edit stuff together to save my life.
I suck at sound. And it's like, I know it's AI
know it's like a downfall, but Iwas like, there's so many.
There's just going to be more volume of content and there's

(16:13):
going to be people that if you have traditional skills in
editing, you're going to be super, super in demand.
Well, and there's the difference, all kinds of
content, to be fair. I mean we're there's there's
actual films and you know, long form content.
There's also mini series. There's also commercials.
There's also sketch, you know, like so so there's so much

(16:36):
content, right. And I think that's also kind of
like the thing I was, you know, realizing too early on with with
the AI video stuff and why I always kind of was a little bit
more into the image Gen. It was just like the video stuff
is cool to me. Obviously there's so many
applications. I want to be good at it.
I want to be, you know, pretty damn good at it, But at the same
time it's like, it's not really me, right?

(16:58):
It's not really like my best skills, my best skill.
I I love sort of like the designaspect, the stills, you know,
the photography, you know, some,some video is cool too.
But like, that's where my I, I wouldn't even say comfort zone.
It's just like, I love that, youknow what I mean?
So I think that's OK, right? Like, because there's so many
different iterations and variousapplications of how you would

(17:23):
use image Gen. let alone video Gen. right?
Like, yeah, it's so broad. It's, it's sort of all feeds
into itself to at a certain point, you know, like I think
everyone wants to push a little bit further once they're
creative, like if there's a curiosity, like you just want to
push it a little bit further, you know, like I've.
Always I've always really admired that about you because I
think like and it shines throughwith anything that you do with

(17:45):
the social aspect is because like you'll you'll really almost
try to break it and thanks, man.That's that's always something I
know I can count on on you for which is which is awesome to
see. You know what?
I. Mean 'cause there's the why not
mentality, just like, why not like, let's just try, you know,
I think you see so much of the same stuff too.
You just wanted to see somethingthat you haven't seen yet too.

(18:07):
Like, oh, I haven't seen this type of shot.
Like let's try to do this. And by the way, you know, like
if, if, if you do create contentand you're listening to this,
you probably already know this, but I'll point out something
that may not be super obvious, but it's just like you don't
have to just post the wins, the great stuff, share the losses,
share the vulnerabilities, sharethe experiments.
People like seeing the real shit.

(18:28):
So at the end of the day, it's all good content, doesn't matter
if it's excellent results or results you didn't want to get
to and you post about it in the learnings that you had.
And then also probably somebody will jump in and help you out at
the same time, right? And say, this is what you could
have done. So do.
You want to hear also dovetailing on that point a
little dovetailing is a big sentiment towards mid journey,

(18:52):
almost like a like exactly sort of how we felt about it.
Where from talk to this maybe 50people like there's still like
this like childish, like playfulmentality with mid journey.
Like it's it's not because it's now not the only game in town
and you have to figure it out how to use it for XYZ project.

(19:14):
And we were like the same thing that we were doing, which was
like trying to trying to like fit it to our needs.
People still just utilize it as like a playground, Like it's
just like I'm going to I need tolike decompress.
I like to use mid journey, like I just want to like throw a
bunch of images into style reference and hit like car and
push enter, you know, and see what comes out.
And I think that's I think if you're going to ask me where

(19:37):
that's like you can win, like tome that's a win for mid journey
is like that. That's they don't have to be
competing in the professional. I like that you, I love, I don't
like, I love that you pointed itout because I think like that's,
that's easy to forget because it's like we pushed it from that
perspective because we've, we'veobviously both been at this

(19:57):
point where we're running so long.
We use mid journey as a key partof that workflow, right?
But when we started, we weren't using it for that, and we still
do it. Even for not paid projects to
play and have fun and that aspect, you're right, there is
no like it doesn't even matter if there's something that's
better than mid journey. It's something about the magic

(20:19):
right itself and the experience of that platform.
And I don't know, maybe even like if you've been using it for
a while, there's a nostalgia of where it's come come from.
And it is sort of like this really impressive underdog in
the sense that it's not funded, right?
Like they're just a lot of reasons.
Root for it. Yeah.
It's, it's that, it is that likeI said it, I said it on the

(20:41):
panel, someone asked a question and I said, you know, like it.
I was not forced out of design. I sort of like evolved out of
design to where I didn't have a creative outlet anymore.
I was doing sales and like operations.
So everything was like growth and sales and growth and sales
and I wasn't doing anything creative.
And it was like at the end of the day, after talking for 9
hours, do I want to go sit in illustrator or Photoshop and

(21:04):
like try to, you know, get creative and do something?
I would cook. Like that was my that was my,
you know, outlet. Like I like to be creative that
way. But now I'm just like, I go on
at night and I just sort of likebrain dump my stress into mid
journey. And it's like what, what what
was in my head today. Let's get it out and let's sort
of like see where it goes because then I feel good like it
honestly, it feels good after done.

(21:26):
That was echoed by a ton of people.
Like it brought, it gave them a little bit of a creative space
to like be outside of work and like what?
Any any other like major takeaways from you from?
The event that was that was one of them.
I like I said, I was surprised at how many people were like

(21:49):
very new to the space, but superinterested, like, you know,
very, very actively trying to sort of like get ingratiated and
like there was a ton of people there for I don't know if anyone
saw runway, you know, the AI Film Festival, they sold out
Lincoln Center. So that's a big deal.
You know, there's a there's a lot more interest.
There's a lot more events aroundit at Tribeca Film Festival,

(22:12):
which in the past is very exclusive and like would would
basically not want this stuff around like they would last
year. They, you know, you didn't want
AI. Oh, interesting.
This year, it's like there's a bunch of people that are coming
in. I'm going to see, you know, got
invited to a Google thing next week and got Dave Clark talking
and a few other people that it'slike, this is not traditionally

(22:35):
what happened today. I, you know, at sorry AI at
Tribeca Film Festival. So there's a, there's a shift
and I don't know if anyone else has noticed this.
If we have any other New York Westerners, it doesn't feel like
New York is as maybe AI creativeas California.
I know a lot of people in Europe, like I never feel like
there's a big contingent in New York, but I met a big contingent

(22:56):
this week, so I was. Interested.
About that, yeah. By the way, are you a Google
paid partner or promoter? No, I was a because.
We got because we got a comment that we were showing VO3AS paid
promoters for Google. Please paid, I paid $125.00 for

(23:19):
that first membership and then Ipaid 200 extra dollars to test
it because I have to know this stuff because you can't just
like walk into a business who, you know, we do corporate
training for businesses, things like that.
And they're like, how's VO3? Because it's the most powerful
video generator in the world. And I say, oh, I don't know,
it's too expensive. I don't use it like it's that's
we have to do this stuff sometimes.
Like, I don't think people understand, you know, it's like,

(23:41):
oh, do I really want to upgrade to the the Max plan right now?
No. But I also think that's, I also
think that's really cool for from our perspective is like we,
we, we're, we're not paid or incentivized by anyone.
That being said, if there is anyone that is interested in
sponsoring the podcast or wants to have, you know, some, some

(24:04):
live reads on here, that's right, we're open for business.
Yeah, this is our, you know, this is our real pet project.
We're we're both busy guys. We love to show up every week
for you guys. We would love to go harder on
this and really like build this out more time's the villain.
But you know, like that. That being said, we love like

(24:25):
this is this is our thing. So like we, we try to give you
guys, obviously it's this focus around mid journey, but we try
to give you a sense at least, ifnothing else, of everything else
that's happening in real time and maybe even how those pieces
connect, right? Because what's on top now may
not be on top six months from now.
Yeah, a year from now, right. And I think in that sense,

(24:47):
we're, we're kind of lucky mid journey is still where they're
at because if mid journey was inthe garbage, we probably
wouldn't be doing this. But but yeah.
But there's still that feeling. And again, there was the the
other sentiment was the hyper coherent models, right?
I got, I came across this a bunch to go back to that
comment. Hyper coherent models are
awesome because they listen, butthey don't have the, they don't

(25:08):
have like that little extra flair that can make something
really pop or make something, you know, sort of like be
magical to you. You know, some if you're doing
this for professional stuff, like some businesses just want
boring, bland, plain, that's it.Some want, you know, like
editorial genius. Some want the most minimalistic

(25:31):
like simple, the clean corporatesafe, like you're going to run
the gamut. If you guys are doing this
professionally, I think we have a bunch of professionals that
listen to this or use. Tools and professional life.
So there was another comment too.
We did we talking about he he had an idea of how he he wants
us to talk about how you can monetize mid journey.

(25:54):
We did do an episode on this episode 4 long time ago and I
remember we went through like a bunch of examples, but if that
is helpful, let us know. Let us know in the comments
because obviously like things have changed.
There's there are new use cases for this and there still is a

(26:16):
window that is open completely for monetizing mid journey AI,
image Gen., video Gen. So here's a here's a, a tip, not
on not a tip, just that this is an opinion, let's call it that.
I think if you're going to monetize mid journey, you have
to have a skill somewhere else. And this is this is just being

(26:38):
bluntly honest. Like if you're going to say
like, I want to sell T-shirts, like you have to be good at, you
have to be good at running an e-commerce store and marketing
that e-commerce store. Like the mid journey is not
going to you just T-shirts are not going to sell unless you
just have like a really large audience on Instagram.
Yeah, like you need to like there needs to be some other
skill set involved to pair it with.

(26:58):
It's hard to just start like a business from nowhere with mid
journey. Like you're an accountant and
you want to use mid journey to make a business.
You're going to have to learn something else plus mid journey.
Yeah. It would kind of be like, I
would think about it in that same approach of if, if you are
going to just like start that you don't have a big audience.
It's almost like, like you wouldwith any other freelance kind of

(27:18):
thing, you'd probably start withpeople you know and friends of
friends to start, you know, to get business because you would
ultimately need referrals and word of mouth to, to spread.
I think that's a good point, right?
Because if you don't, if you don't have the, yeah, if you
don't have the, the audience or the community up front, it's
just going to be a little bit harder.

(27:40):
But you're absolutely right. Like there has to be a skill
that's associated with it. For me, I don't know not to not
to cut you off there. I'm sorry.
Just like for anyone that for anyone that's not in like these
like weirder like avenues of theInternet, which I feel like I
end up in a lot just based on what I've done in my.

(28:02):
And based on your personalization code and based
on your personalization survey. Homesteaders.
Results. Yeah, all that.
They know more about me than than I know about me.
But there's, you know, there's these, these, they're called
Clippers. There's a lot of stuff that goes
on around like, you know, Gen. Z is pretty really like really
good at this. Now it's like taking podcasts
and clipping them up and either,you know, there's now there's

(28:23):
now incentives for, for views and things like that.
So if you can take, you know, podcasts, clip them up, make
them interesting or videos just in general that are on YouTube,
you know, the you see the remix feature, things like that and
utilize sort of mid journey to Oin like images and things like
that. If anyone's ever seen anything
from the channel, I think it's called like ninjas are

(28:44):
butterflies or something like that and then I get it on.
My you really you really are in the corners bro.
I'm. Telling you, but they like they
it's like basically someone willclip a story that they tell on
there and then just add mid journey images to it.
And it's easy to like do it really quick and make it go
viral to sort of like piece the story together.
Like there's, there's more creative ways than like selling

(29:05):
T-shirts or, you know, like I'm going to sell like cloth
patterns on Etsy. Yeah, there's a little bit more
digital ways, things that can beautomated less, you know, less
sort of like physical goods more.
You know, this is this isn't this is my learnings from this
because I think I had never really monetized outside of

(29:31):
just, you know, taking on a particular project and and doing
the project right. But what I mean by this is like
this passive income approach or,you know, finding a way to like,
'cause I, I guess what I'm trying to say is when you get
into that part of it, especiallywhen you have limited amount of
time. I'm a parent, kids are in

(29:52):
daycare. I've, I know I have a set amount
of hours each day that I have tomaximize.
And when I was on my own, I was constantly thinking about how do
I maximize the time that I have spend it in the right places.
When you have ADHD, like like us, that's even harder.
But at the same time, it was just like, not all money's
equal. What I mean by that is there's a
difference between taking on a $5000 project and then having to

(30:16):
create all these things, right? And this maybe takes you, you
know, maybe stretches out over the course of a couple weeks
versus maybe doing a training that is, I don't know, like a
10th of that cost, but only costme an hour to do, right?
So I'm constantly thinking abouthow I stack.
The difference is there. What are the things that are not

(30:36):
worth entertaining, right? So maybe 5000 is a bad example,
but if it's something like 2000 and I knew it was going to take
enough time, it's like that's not worth it even though I'd
like that money, right? Versus doing it this way.
And same with the that was why the digital products, the
courses, the guides, the things that we, you know, put out
passive income, right? It's like all the work is front

(30:57):
loaded. Yeah, we do make changes every
once in a while, right? But at the same time, it's like
most of that works done. And if you promote it here and
there, right, like you can generate income and you're not
working hard for it doesn't costyou any time to do that outside
of making a social post for it. So it's like constantly thinking
of those other ways to stack theright types of activities versus

(31:18):
the time that you have allotted.And I think that's also key,
right? Because that was a, that was
like sort of like an obvious buthard lesson.
I think a lot of people just have to learn themselves.
Even if somebody were to tell you that, I don't know that you
can necessarily proactively do anything about it unless you've
experienced the pain personally.100% And if anyone wants to go

(31:39):
down a rabbit hole that will, it's more that, you know,
affiliate marketing is a great way to to start to even if
you're just going to learn it, to fail at it.
It's such a good, it's such a good skill set because it's more
than just influencers Hawking products.
There's a lot more depth to thatindustry.
There's a lot, there's a lot of ways to make ridiculous money

(31:59):
that you didn't even know was like available on the Internet.
So it's a, you know, you see some of these guys and I, you
know, familiar, I don't know if anyone's familiar with something
like search arbitrage, but like if you look up search arbitrage,
you'll realize how ridiculous itis that people make money on
stuff like this. So I'll leave that.
I'll leave that breadcrumb with everyone if you want to go look

(32:20):
up with search arbitrage. I don't even know what that is.
I'm interested. I'll have to have to check that
out. It's it's you when you hear it
the first time, you're like, whydo I have?
Why did I have a full time job if people are making money like
this? Yes, and those are always.
Good at it. If you're good at it, you
probably don't work a day in your life ever again.
Not to sell the dream there. This isn't like a crypto bro

(32:41):
scam. You obviously have to be smart
and. Good.
Everybody just logged off to go pursue financial freedom.
Just out. It's, it's something that I, I,
I had to like. I had to ask the people who were
doing it like 3 times. I'm like, come on, there's,
there's like more to it than that, right?
I like. I kind of know.
I think I kind of know what you're talking about.
Not the insurance and outs of it, but I yeah, I think I know

(33:03):
what you're talking. About, I mean, there's a lot
more to it than what I'm about to say, but like, if you think
about it in terms of like buyingdistressed, buying distressed,
like like domains or misspelled domains, things like that.
I'm sure you've, you've tried togo to like Amazon and you'd
spelled it amzn.com, right? Right.
And then it has, it's like, oh, page doesn't exist.

(33:25):
But here's like 5 other links and it goes to like Amazon,
Walmart, Target, whatever. Those are all affiliate links
and they're cookies. So you click on that and you go
to Amazon and you buy something like the person who has that
domain shit. Yeah.
It's like things like that whereyou're like sneaky.
Sneaky. That's so cool.
Yeah, Sam. You feel dumb.
What do you? What do you learn?

(33:45):
I know, I know man, some fuckingsmart people out there.
Yeah, yeah. But hopefully you know, if we if
mid journey had an affiliate program, Speaking of that, we
should, we should do some of these eventually the AI
companies if anyone is for our listeners, the AI companies are
starting to adopt affiliate programs.
If you're not familiar with whatan affiliate program is, how it

(34:07):
works, basically you apply to become an affiliate for them.
So you will then become part of their affiliate program.
What they will do is provide youwith a custom link that
basically tracks to you. So if you're posting on, you
know, like Topaz, for example, has a affiliate program, a few.
I was going to say call. Call some of the ones out that

(34:28):
you're thinking of. Topaz has an affiliate program.
Off the top of my head, I'm pretty, I think Cling or Luma
has an affiliate program. I think I don't know if free
pick does. I'm trying to think of who else
does. But you know, this is something
that we can come back and talk about in terms of like
strategizing how to make money off this stuff.
Yeah Like for something like that, if you have a newsletter,

(34:52):
if you have any sort of social following, you don't have to
have 50,000 people. If you have, you know, 1002
thousand, 3000 people, that's enough because what it is, it
will give you a custom link and then whenever you post about it,
if you say, you know, I upscaledthis video with Topaz if you
want, you know, if you're looking for the product, here's
the link. Then if people click on your

(35:13):
link and they buy, you get paid.So I think right now you're
starting to see this trend grow in the space.
If you're posting about tools, if you're interested in tools,
things like that, they want to, you know, it's, it's mutually
beneficial. So you basically post on their
behalf and create content on their behalf.
Yeah, UGCUGC and both parties. Generate sales on their behalf.

(35:37):
You don't have to have a brand deal with them like you don't
have to. Like no one has to.
I know this might sound redundant for some people, but
it's maybe not because you can just go sign up for their
programs. I know HubSpot, I don't even
know what their AI tools are, but I know they have a big
Commission payout, like 50% on like the first year of someone's
plan, things like that. So there's ways, there's ways

(35:58):
he's got to look, he's got to look for it.
But I think that if I had a prediction over the next 12
months, you're going to start tosee more affiliate programs
start to roll out for these tools because they just want,
you know, it's just found money for them really and incentivizes
us to post about it more. But you know, I'm, I'm not
posting about Topaz because I'm trying to get affiliates, right?
Like if people want to, you know, if I, if I really wanted

(36:20):
to go in on that, I could. But it starts to sort of dilute
the, the messaging of what's good and what's not good, you
know what I mean? So try to stay authentic with
it. Maybe every once in a while
we'll need some cash. Sorry guys.
Yeah. I mean you are doing this full
time, so you might need some cash.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Diatribe.
Diatribe on affiliate marketing over just.

(36:41):
No, that's good though. I, I, I, I mean, I think there's
like definitely some substance to what we just talked about.
But like if there, if we should do a deeper dive on that with
more tactical examples, getting into the weeds a bit more, let
us know. Happy to do that because it, it
has been a little while, it would make sense to do it.
Hey, what about, what about jumping into office hours here,

(37:03):
maybe talking a little bit aboutthe video model with mid journey
heating up, talking about it a lot, saying it's going to come
out here very, very soon. Finalizing selection among 24
possible video model variations,text to image or text to video,

(37:24):
image to video, multiple resolutions.
They're considering 2 main options initially, a budget
friendly version and a high quality professional grade
version. Parentheses expensive, concerned
about potential GPU shortages upon release.
So they're going to, they did mention sort of like they're
thinking about the deployment strategically and whether or not

(37:48):
they sort of offer video models initially to like annual
subscribers to secure funding for GPU purchases or set daily
usage limits or whatever it is. So that's interesting.
Last note on that was they're acknowledging that 40% of mid
journey users currently hold annual subscriptions. 40%. 40%,

(38:12):
that's what they said here. That's a lot higher than I
thought. Yeah, same.
Let me see, let me let me throw these last three bullets out and
then we can kind of discuss here.
So first video models will offerbasic functionality and short
clip generation immediate Next priority after that is enabling
longer video clips. Additional features and
refinements expected gradually post launch.

(38:32):
OK, So all right, I'm, I'm interested, like do you know
that you guys know we're going to have to pay for the, we're
going to pay for the professional model and then
we're going to tell you how it is.
So we won't hold back on that when it comes out.
Like there's enough baseline there now to sort of judge how
good it is, if it's worth the money, you know what it needs to

(38:53):
improve on because we've seen how good some of these tools can
be. I think it's going to be hard.
Honestly. I think it's going to be, my
expectations are sort of on the lower end of how this is going
to work. I'm excited about it, but I'm
not expecting it to be cling. I'm not expecting it to be VO.
Yeah, it's interesting. I I'm so curious about this.

(39:14):
What is this first iteration look like?
Yeah. And we've we've already talked
about, so I'm not going to go down the same sort of Ave. but
just reiterating one thing. You've got one chance at a first
impression with video. There is a there is a high value
in nailing that right off the bat.
That's all I'm going to say. That said, you're still going to

(39:36):
have mid journey loyalists rightthat are going to follow this
through the updates like we always do.
Follow it every step of the way kind of thing.
Sure. But super interested to see what
this looks like. Oh my God, you know what I mean?
I I just, yeah, I don't know what to expect.

(39:56):
What do you think the prompt architecture is going to look
like for this? Like the like it's going to be,
Is it going to be like broad concept prompting like 5.2 was
or is it going to be like more natural language is going to
work better? Like if you had to, if you had
to guess, which way do you thinkit's going to go?

(40:17):
Well, I guess it's I mean, doesn't it kind of have to align
to the image model? Kind of.
That's why it could be differentthan a lot of these other
models, right? Like a lot of the a lot of the
video model. So I mean, from that sense,
wouldn't it, wouldn't it make sense for that to be very much
in line with, wow, how promptingand the coherence works with V7?

(40:39):
Yeah. I wonder if they're going to use
like conversational model as like as like a way to sort of
like prompt enhance for that to like.
And how is the the prompting experience meaning mid journey
right now is still one of the more laborious ways to prompt
outside of the voice command, right?
Meaning like you don't have these little buttons or

(41:01):
categories that you can click and sort of like add keywords
really quickly or categorize things, right?
Like they're still sort of that like tokenized element of like,
you know, you being creative in some ways.
And I'm not saying that's good or bad, but a lot of these other
ones right have those short likespeed time to prompt kind of

(41:23):
really nailed down for efficiency.
I wonder how mid journey adapts to that from a UXUI perspective.
That's why I was thinking about this the other day.
It's like is it going to be likeif I go back to runway Gen. 3
right for as an example runway Gen. 3?
Just a conspiracy theory. Works better with with runway

(41:43):
generated images then mid journey images.
I think it probably recognized just like the image architecture
or structure much better and wasable to go with it.
Like I'm sure a lot of people know who have tried to use some
more like intricate mid journey images in video generators that
you like. After one second you lose like a
lot of detail because mid journey is so detailed and a lot

(42:04):
of these other images or video generators are not just like not
there yet to keep up with that level of detail.
So I'm wondering if it's going to be able to handle some of the
more like crazy intricate detailthat mid journey can produce and
then turn that into video verse.Like if anyone's ever used
runway, I'm sure you've used something with like a lot of
texture or like intricate colorsor text or something.

(42:25):
And the minute it started or thesecond it starts moving, like a
lot of that like fades and softens out and it's just like
kind of bores into things. You know, clings really good at
keeping that detail, but also certain things just not going to
do, just not going to like it doesn't have the imagination.
There's no data on what mid journey like you can go so far
aesthetically. You know that everyone knows us

(42:46):
like there's just no, there's nodata to sort of like pull from
and say like, I know what that is.
You know, it's like immediately turn it into something that it's
not. So I'm very curious if they can
handle its own images because that might also be its own, you
know, its own little like space in the market.
I know a lot of people. I there's certain images I can
never run in another video generator for mid journey.
It just doesn't work. So it's it's interesting to say

(43:09):
the least, and I don't know how else to think about it other
than that. Yeah, yeah.
I can't wait to see what happenswith this.
And I wonder if it's, you know, I think the original timeline
was end of June when we were thinking about them initially
talking about it. So what are we?
We're, you know, 3 weeks? We're on track.
Three weeks, you know, roughly. I mean, I, I would expect there

(43:33):
always to be some hiccup or delay.
There usually is somewhere in the process.
But super curious. I mean, how's it going to be
different, right? I'm also wondering, Rory, if
they take us this page and I'm I'm not saying that they're
looking at runway for this idea could have already been an idea

(43:54):
that they have. But you and I have talked about
runways. Brilliant sort of idea that it
seems like they basically just have Chachi BT in the background
now because remember the unlock that that was at that time of
just the flexibility of swappingthings and making things really
quickly in the almost like seamless experience of that.

(44:18):
And then it basically unlocked all these invisible use cases,
right? Which we've started to see leak
out and and, you know, shine some light on on things like X,
right? We've gone through those
examples before. Yeah.
I'm wondering if Mid Journey also incorporates that when they
do this video thing. Well, I'm trying to figure out
how they you, how they do conversation or conversational

(44:39):
mode, right, Right. That's what I'm saying.
It's got to be. Is it ChatGPT DeepSeek, one of
the two? I feel like it's got to be it's
a Chinese model since he mentioned mentions it a lot.
But I honestly didn't use conversational mode until this
week. I was just really I I was just
considering it as draft mode. I did not know what honestly,
everyone. I used it like once when it came

(45:00):
out and never thought about it again.
And then I'm like, this is pretty cool.
Like it is, it is pretty cool ifyou want to sort of take just a
like a very quick iteration of an idea and just throw it into
there and like have it build a prompt around it and be like,
you know, use this last image, change this try, let's try a
different lighting. Let's, you know, move this
subject back in the image like, but it's a more, it's a more

(45:21):
interactive experience. Still not to me.
I'm not going to use it all the time, but which is for something
that I hadn't really played with, I was, I was enjoying it
for the, it's interesting to seethe if you're new, if you're new
to the tool too, if you're new to our channel, which maybe
there's some of you, maybe there's not.
It's a great way to learn mid journey prompt architecture
because it's pretty much the same every time.

(45:43):
Like when you do conversation mode, it's like essentially, can
you give me a picture of a car and it'll spit out the prompt
structure, but it's like, all right, give me a picture of a
woman spit out the prompt structure.
It's kind of the same. So you'll be able to sort of
optimize your way of thinking about how to prompt.
So for any of the newbies, if you're out there, if you're

(46:04):
listening to our channel, but it's a, that's a good way to go
about it. Yeah, they, you know, they also
I agree. So just and if you're not,
what's that? Where where is it on your.
I don't see it Conversation and voice.
Why is it not up at the top? That's weird.

(46:29):
Did they take it out? Oh, I'm looking at it right now.
Hold on. Let's let's try this again.
No, up there it is. All right, I got it.
Wait, I mean, don't you have to have draft mode on and then
you're in it, right? Why does your?
Why is your your well? I wonder if you know what it

(46:50):
might be it it might be this browser 'cause I'm using a
different browser than I normally use 'cause this is my
second screen. Got it.
Yeah, OK. That's.
Probably what it is, but. Typically at the right, up top,
right, right, next to. The yeah, 'cause I don't think I
have like my control and I don'tknow if that's it or not, but I
was going to say the other interesting thing was they've

(47:15):
they've sort of like bubbled theback up this idea structure and
I was looking back at the the leaderboard of what's up here.
Generate multiple angles of the same subject.
The ability to precisely controlthe pose improve coherent with
that. I mean.
Which part the this? The pose of the character.

(47:38):
The pose. Maybe from like a full body
stand? Maybe from a full body
standpoint? Maybe I I find it super easy
but. Yeah, I was going to say I'm,
I'm, I'm thinking of the images I usually create with those.
And I would say for the most part I do a lot of like portrait
medium and up. So I think I'm usually just top

(48:01):
half. So for me, poses is probably
like maybe they're doing something with the hand and more
or less facial expression, whereas this is probably like
incorporating all four, you know, limbs and maybe the
dynamic nature of those things. I don't know.
If you're having issues, I thinkwe did an episode on this a
while back. But if anyone's having issues
with that problem specifically, you just have to be more micro

(48:23):
detailed than you think. Like if you're like, oh, I want
someone, you know, drinking a bottle of beer mid journey has a
problem with has a hard time. So do all the image generators
with drinking for some reason, like it's hard to get like
someone holding a bottle to their face.
So you just have to you have to describe it like you would do
it. So it's, you know, like beer
bottle in the right hand, head tilted back slightly, beer

(48:44):
bottle tilted upwards, bottle touching lips like that often
times does it? That's the way we, that's what
we, we basically called that like the mechanics.
You have to describe the mechanics versus versus like the
action itself, right? Because the action itself can
work, but it doesn't work as well.
So there are, there are time like times where you can get

(49:06):
away with just doing the action.There are other times where it
doesn't work at all. And then I would say a lot of
people probably quit there. That's where it's like that
mechanical nature of what you'retalking about.
It's like really being descriptive of operating through
the mindset of they can't see, you know, they're blind.
How would you describe that Right so.

(49:26):
That also works in video for anyone who's also interested.
Like instead of using, you know,natural playful expression,
right? Like sometimes you have to
describe it. Like I said, I had a lot of
people ask me on the F1 video how I got the guy to have such
natural expressions because I said, you know, basically I said
the guy turns down, turns his head down and to the left,
chuckles to himself, looks back up and like exhales out of the

(49:48):
cigarette. So I'm like telling you what to
do, like a natural, like it would look natural instead of
just, you know, they, they then they tend to have that like head
Bob or like it's like totally unnatural movement.
So it's just like what you woulddo if you were like remembering
something that was a little bit embarrassing.
Like you look down and it's like, yeah, I did, I did that.
So it's, you know, for video too.

(50:10):
You can control expression significantly.
You just have to tell it. You have to tell it how the head
moves, how the eyes are moving, where they're looking.
You can be that granular, just most people don't do.
That I I think that's the that'sthe thing, right, is unless
you've got yeah, you're really diligent.
And I think in this this part, I'm thinking about it from my

(50:30):
perspective. I'm working on a project,
something that is very importantpolished.
You know, most people probably aren't taking that time to
really go through the micro elements, right?
And I think that's just the reality of the laborious nature
of what it takes to get the results right now, right?

(50:51):
Like, again, going back to mid journey, the way it's set up,
you really have to describe a lot of that with the words,
right? And when you're thinking about
that, like there's a lot of timethat's spent just crafting a
single prompt, let alone is it going to work, right?
And so I think that speed to iteration and then also the
coherence of that is the is the issue.

(51:12):
That's why it's interesting withthe conversational mode or the
speech, and that's why it's alsointeresting with all these other
features that can kind of like expedite the typing process of
prompting. That's why they're so appealing
because you can get some of thattime back and it doesn't feel
like as big of a lift to try to get those micro details.
But I would imagine like most people just give up.

(51:33):
And I'm guilty of that too sometimes where I'm like, I just
don't want to spend this much time on this so.
That's probably still The X Factor in every tool.
I still think it's plays the biggest role.
It still has the biggest influence on what happens.
So, you know, we we got lucky because that's all we had when
we started. I'm curious like going going
back to video, you got a wish list, you got things that you're

(51:53):
looking for with with this video.
I mean, we've talked about like expectations, we've talked about
like making a good first impression.
We've talked about like, now you're jumping into this game
from Mid Journey's perspective of like the velocity of updates
and new features that come and now you're in sort of like a
different pool. What about you as like user with

(52:16):
all the expertise and experienceyou've got in these other tools
you don't like? What's your wish list from from
Mid Journey? And I don't care if that's just
like it has to have this like sort of like those bare bones
table stakes kind of things, butalso like if there's anything
additional that you're hoping maybe that it has.

(52:38):
I, I still want the mat I want, I want the mid journey magic.
That's number one. I've said that on a few
episodes, but what I, I think about it in terms of what like
Cling has, where there's like a slider, we're on one side, it's
coherent to what you say and on the other side it's creative.
Like that thing To me, it's likebasically the stylized
parameter, right? Like if it has something along
those lines where I can either one, do exactly what I say or

(53:01):
two, go off and do its own thingwhere it like a lot of times the
magic happens. You know, I'm interested in
something like that. Yeah, what if there were
different, why can't there be more than one coherency model,
right. So that's maybe where something
where I wonder if that's like really what's at the underlying
approach of Exp or you know, because like there's some people

(53:22):
that want to be very matter of fact, there are other people
that want, you know, and maybe that's project by project base,
right? Like on whatever you're aiming
for. But like that would be cool to
have some control there too, right?
That's kind of what style reference for video but without
having to use a frame if that makes sense.
Like if I was just like the sameway you you think about like

(53:43):
style reference in mid journey like attached just random image
doesn't matter what it is of hasno influence really.
I mean has some influence, but. Like, oh, so you're just saying
like, hey, take, take literally only the style, right?
Like the style and the colors donot take anything structurally
from the image. Yeah.
Correct. I like, I would like that 'cause
that'd be, it's a good call thatwould save me so much prompting

(54:04):
time in terms of like getting the aesthetic. 100% that's a
really good call dude. Really good if they could mimic
that 'cause I don't think anyoneelse has done that other than
for video to video like you can do video to video styling like I
don't really think you can just.Yeah, because then you can
curate your own your own Luts inthat sense, you know, like of.
Runway has it, runway has it, but like not really like it's

(54:29):
there. You can create your own custom
style, but it's not like utilizing a mid journey image
that's going to like affect the entirety of it.
Like I I just think it's that would be something like a
differentiator, right? Like that's what I'm thinking
for them. Style reference is so damn good.
Like I just love it so much. I'm going to direct you, I'm
going to direct you here to submit that idea because that's

(54:50):
a. That's a good one.
We need that one. I just, it'd be great to not
have to describe the the lighting, the color tones, the
textures. I'm with you.
Yeah, I don't want to have to write 2 paragraph prompts for
for video every time. I think that that's a really
good one. That's a that's that's like one
that you're probably not even thinking about just because

(55:10):
you're so used to the way that mid journey works.
That's why I love that one. Mid journey, if you're listening
free shout outs. We we don't we, we shill for mid
journey, but we don't, you know,we don't ever see anything on
the other end of it. So we'll see.
We'll see if they take some of this.
You know what I got? I got, I got an interesting
idea. Hold on one.
Second, what do you have? I got this.

(55:33):
I got this a while back. I I've been meaning to open it
and I wanted to do it on the pod.
This was that yearbook, right? Maybe they sent that they they
sent they did send a yearbook year. 1.
Yeah, the year 1 and I was like waiting to open this thing up
because I was thinking I would do this on the pod and I keep
forgetting. So it's been like sitting over

(55:55):
here for like a month and 1/2. You haven't.
You haven't opened it. Haven't opened it, we're
unboxing it live right now. Wow, live unboxing.
So it's. The plastic stuff do you might.
You might as well, just like I Imight not even open it, just
saying as a collector's item. I know, I know.
Could be worth something. I wanted to get that big edition
of the Mid journey magazine. Like I just want to have that.

(56:16):
Same, I think I the first one I got is like 3.
Yeah, I, I don't have that. I definitely don't have the
first one. I know that.
But it's it, you know who it's, it's really odd.
And this isn't, I don't put the book in her hands.
My, you know, Faye goes to that book, opens it and looks through
it. Yeah, dude, my girls do too.

(56:37):
They do too. They love that.
Yeah, like she loves the Mid Journey book.
There's so much like cool stuff in.
It hey mid journey page, maybe even a maybe even a kids book.
Hey, like you could you could curate a separate one just for
the kids? Yeah, I mean, there's so much
good stuff. It's so it's so like viscerally
like you can do like she can seeher from like page to page, like
sensory like overload. I don't know if it's a good

(56:59):
thing or a bad thing, but it's. Like, I think you're right,
dude. I I don't think I'm going to
open this. You might you might want to keep
that one. So this is, this is year one.
This is essentially like we we're talking about the
magazines right now. They they go out monthly.
They're 4 bucks, maybe a month something if you want to do
those. I'm still subscribed.

(57:20):
I've subscribed since I yeah, like episode or version 3 or
volume 3 or whatever it is thoseare.
I've probably got one. You got one right there.
Someone. Someone right?
There in the plastic also. Still got that one in the

(57:41):
product. There's so many that I haven't
opened but but this is cool. I mean, this is so these are,
you know, more soft cover, flexible, like a magazine.
This is hard cover, really legit.
I I think they're still, they may still be selling those.
Those are, I think are they were70 bucks or something like that.

(58:04):
But yeah, man, they're, they're really cool.
And I think, like, the reason why they're cool too is just the
nostalgic effect of like, we've been doing this for how long
now? And it's been such an important
part of our lives. Like it's cool to hold on to
this shit. Yeah, the Speaking of nostalgic,
taking a quick pivot for one second because I saw this.

(58:24):
Yeah, like yesterday on Twitter,our friend friend Tim Simmons
over at Theoretically Media. Yeah, he posted one of his first
like videos from Pika. Saw 8 frames a second.
I saw it because I saw you commented on it.
I don't know what I was doing, but I was like, I was not at
home, but I was like looking at on the run.
I was like, yeah, this is kind of dope.
Where is? Let's see if I can find that

(58:45):
actually. Look, I almost looked at it and
said that's cool. What tool is that?
You know, because it's because it's so foreign as to what it
looked like, what it used to look like.
And I was like that, like I likethe way that looks the same way
I was like when you look at a Polaroid and you're like, I like
that style, you know? It just doesn't feels like that
jump from like Polaroid to wherewe're at now on camera happened
in AI in like 2 years and we already forget what 8 frames per

(59:06):
second looks like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got to find
your replies. Yeah, this one right here.
There it is. OK, so hold on, let's pause
this. So Tim said, you know, rummaging
through the archives, I found this old school Pika output date
on the file is June 2023. So we're talking two years ago.
Two years ago. That looks about right.

(59:28):
Early Pika. 8 frames per second question mark text to video
generated on discord. Remember that it's janky and
weird, but I still kind of love it.
Two years ago and it is cool. Let me play this real quick and
maybe I'll blow this up so everybody can see it.
It's like we're watching like vintage.
It's like we're watching like vintage videos now that are
vintage for two years old. It's grabbing.

(59:51):
This to me is still pretty good for the time, for what was going
on. There you go look at it.
You get all the morphing and weirdness of it.
I kind of want to like do something in 8 frames per second
now, like just. You guys can't hear the music,
but the music's the music's vibing right now too.

(01:00:14):
Like this was this to me for what was going on in 2023 is not
bad. Like this is insane for 2023 and
Pika by the way. Yeah, yeah, that was me.
So that's, that's that's wild. Yeah, I'm glad you called that
out. That's that's funny because I
saw that and I was like, yo, that is dope though, you know.
And again, it kind of goes back to that like imperfect phase

(01:00:36):
with video in general anyway, you know, there were certain
ways that you could treat the imperfect nature of the video to
to let it shine, you know? Yeah, and that's still, you see
it on if you open up Instagram, you'll see it.
There's, you know, those people that make like the the like sea

(01:00:56):
monsters that don't exist and then they like they like melt
into like a pile of like, like snails or something.
You know, I get this. There's so many weird videos
like that that just get views, but oh, this is.
If anyone's not familiar, this is not a.
This is not a sponsor. Yeah, go ahead and talk through
this. I'm going to play it.
There's no affiliate link, but you can see on the left is what
the the VO2 output. On the right is the Topaz

(01:01:18):
Starlight, which is a creative upscaler for video.
We'll get the the police car here.
You can see the difference clearly.
It's like super sharp and defined in comparison.
Still a little soft for my preferences still.
Soft, but you can tell. Yeah, but it like better like
it's getting there like to be able to do that from a creative
upscaling standpoint with video.Also this shot was was fun in in

(01:01:40):
VOV O3 to just keep extending tolike build a scene like for a
long shot if you go down there'sa long.
One which you had, Another really good one.
What other one you want me to tap into here?
This one, Is it this one? No, not this one.
Keep going. This one right here.
Yeah, this one. This one was legit.
I I was, I was so surprised. I'm like, let's just do a long

(01:02:01):
shot, see if we can do it where the camera just follows, you
know, and I'm. Hey, Rory, you're not paid by
Google, are you? No, they just spend my money on
them. Sorry guys.
Even the camera operator right there at the end, which is kind
of crazy. You see it in the reflection of
the. Car What is this thing though?
What is this? You know what I think that was?

(01:02:22):
I didn't notice it until I put that thing out.
Honestly, I was looking at just everything else and didn't know.
It looks like one of those car racing games or like when you
have like the map in the corner.You know what I'm saying?
Oh shit. Yeah.
Yeah, that's dude that nailed it, 'cause this, so this must
have, this must have happened. OK.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, which is wild.

(01:02:42):
The other thing, if you scroll up a little bit, this is what I
wanted to show people. Why VO?
Which one? That's right here with the
arrows. Yeah.
Start this one from the beginning.
This is like some of the micro details here are.
I know we like to talk about this stuff.
Pause it real quick. Just right.
Yeah. So you'll see right there.
There's two bushes. It's going through, coming back.

(01:03:03):
Yeah, right there you'll see these two bushes.
I hit extend here, so these bushes are in like the last
frame of this video and then the1st frame of the next video and
then I extend again. So just watch where these two
bushes end up by the end of the video, right?
And then their depth perception and their permanence, right?
So this is through 2 extends andthey're still there.

(01:03:25):
And then, you know, if you look right here, pause, bang camera
operator in the reflection, which is nuts that that's even
that's that's there. Yo, that is.
Wild crazy, right. And then if you look, if you go
back, there's there's two other things that are really
impressive to me and like just simple things like if you see
the reflection on the side of the car, you get the white lines

(01:03:47):
and the desert in the background.
So if you if you hit play like watch what you'll just see if on
the side of the road, right? Like that's on the reflection of
the car. Interesting.
And now if you go back one more time to the beginning, if we go
back to the beginning, notice wewe have super high angle sun,
right? Like midday.
Watch the Watch the sun glare move from the car as the camera

(01:04:11):
moves right. Comes on the side.
Good call. See it?
Yeah. And then when then you'll see as
we push in, it goes, you know, it goes back the other way,
which I'm like, those are littlethings that you're hoping for
improvements on because it makesa difference.
It looks so much more real. But I love that.
I love the observation, though, you know, is everybody looking

(01:04:32):
that closely? I mean, I love that you're
picking up on those intricate things.
Someone called out the lighting and I was like, what are you
talking about? Like I like if you're looking
for a perfection with everything, it's not going to be
there. But like some of this stuff is
so much more advanced than wherewe've been.
So, you know, this one was fun. I was trying to create one of

(01:04:54):
those like, you know, like, you know, when you used to like the
3D, like movies, when they used to kind of like come out of the
screen, they had a very specificlook.
Of course, try to do that. Yeah, I love anyone.
'S got if anyone's got some sometechnical stuff they want to do
to that to make it come to life in 3D, that'd be cool, yeah.
Man. So much there's so much video.
Not a shill, not paid. Dude stop talking about it man.

(01:05:18):
Your partner or something? I did get to beta test BO2 I
spent a lot of their money with but I think we are.
Gonna, we're gonna, I mean, we're trying.
We're gonna try to get somebody.On here, yeah, yeah.
From Google, but but yeah, I mean this was yeah, this is
interesting. One of their final note too
before we wrap is probably just around S ref like in terms of

(01:05:39):
like an immediate update. Seems like that updates gonna
ship here probably between now and the next time we talk.
So some sort of S rate S ref upgrade refinement.
I don't know what in typical majority fashion, I don't know
what to expect in terms of the totality of this, but I'm
interested. I'm interested, you know, like I

(01:05:59):
do think I'm I'm starting to seetwo more requests and ideas
around like you start showcasinglike the top S refs this week,
top mood boards this week, right, like, cuz like also,
Rory, we talked about the magic a lot is being the
differentiator. The other differentiator that
mid journey has that that I knowthey've kind of walked carefully
along is the social community component.

(01:06:24):
They have this opportunity, evenwith just something like that
where you're, you know, you've got this explore page, Sure,
everybody's got that now, but you could start to bubble up
some of these other features andcapabilities you have and give
people a sense of what's what's popular, what's being used,
what's hot, right. So that could be S refs, that
could be mood boards, that couldbe tokens.

(01:06:46):
Yeah, you know, like, let's go, you know, that doesn't feel like
that's a big, big lift. But that would be a huge sort
of, I think, opportunity for them because community has
always been something that I think is there for them if they
wanted to pursue it. Like lean into it.
I think that's the one thing that they should that when you
realize that's the differentiator in a lot of this,

(01:07:06):
it's just like, I think they gotto lean into it more.
You know, whether that's with stuff like this, whether that's
like community events, I know they're like that's like not
their thing, but like, you know,you see what runway did runway
just packed Lincoln Center. I know there's a lot more people
that use mid journey than runway.
Like I, I know that for a fact, right?
Like you do something like that,there will be people saying you

(01:07:30):
have to do it, but just like anything, small events.
People well listen, whatever. I think the mid journey users
want it. And I'm not speaking just from
my opinion. I mean, we, we want that.
We want that. They're like, it's almost like
not midterty hasn't treated us bad by any means, but it's like
almost like we've like from the community aspect, it's almost
like we're this sort of neglected dog.

(01:07:50):
We're wagging our tail. We just want to be loved.
We just want like some TLC attention and doesn't even take
much, but it's like we're craving it.
We want it, right? And you've got the community.
So continue to take advantage ofthat.
It's one of the big differentiators you have outside
of the magic component. Yeah, that and you know, the
explore page, like, like really.I mean, if there was a way to

(01:08:11):
even just have a profile, I mean, I don't, I like, I don't,
I don't want them to do this stuff.
I'm just thinking about where like how do you lean into
community? A little bit more.
Because it is like why everyone likes this tool.
It's how we all learned it was via community basically.
So it's I'm looking forward to it.
The other thing is I think therewas one more thing on that that

(01:08:32):
I don't know if it was mentionedon office hours that they're not
doing multi Omni ref is that is that on the office hour that
one's not coming out let. Me see, I'm going to browse real
quick here. I don't see it here.

(01:08:56):
Let me just double check that I'm I'm yeah, glad you called
that out. Let's let's double click into
that for a SEC. I want to find the answer.
Because I feel like I heard thatand then I also in conversation
with some people who were who had listened on Wednesday, who I
saw on Thursday, they had mentioned it.
So. I don't see it.
I don't see it called out here. I'm not going to go back through

(01:09:16):
last week's, but I don't see it here.
And that is kind of interesting though, right?
Because like that was one of thebiggest things that they were
talking about with it was OK, multi, multi, multi.
Yeah. So maybe they're experiencing
some some obstacles there and they're kind of, you know, ho

(01:09:38):
hum on it. Or maybe, or maybe it's a big
enough lift where it's like, hey, we'll just save that for V8
now. Yeah, well, there's just,
there's just a lot of competition here, you know, it's
there's there's a lot between flux context now, GPT, runway
references, Google, Gemini, theycan all do this kind of stuff

(01:10:02):
now. So I'm not saying that, you
know, video is not important, but really some of the image
stuff would be useful, you know,on that side.
But who knows what they're goingto do, man?
I'm I mean, they, they just seemto be to their own drum.
I don't have a problem with it. I love it for what it is.
I love it for what I use it for.And I want to just keep like

(01:10:22):
them being them. But I don't, you know, there's
like the one thing that I'm hoping that it stays.
Just. Keep being you do it, but.
Do do you, babe? Do you that's.
Right. Do you mid journey and that's,
you know, even for our thumbnails, like I can't use any
other tool other than mid. It's mid journey.

(01:10:43):
Like that's yeah, you know, likeit can't, it can't be anything
else other than that. We'll see what we got going on.
There's got a lot more things coming up.
We got a couple of, you know, I think we probably got to wrap up
here in a second. I got to wrap up too.
Yeah, I got to wrap. Just so everyone knows we've
probably got a couple of new formats we're going to try over
the summer at some point while we're while we're moving along

(01:11:03):
here. We were throwing around some
ideas, trying to keep it fresh. Got a lot of feedback this week
on the podcast saying that, you know, everyone likes the, you
know, the sort of multitude of formats that we do.
Sometimes it's talk show, sometimes it's predictability.
MO Yeah. So if you guys have any ideas,
if you're still listening right now, drop them in there.
Like let us know if you're interested in anything in
specific. You want to see demos, You want

(01:11:25):
to see, you know, us do something live.
You want to, you know, prompt battles.
Whatever the hell it is, just throw it in there.
We, you know, probably figure itout.
So last note, last note, I hate that I hate that I saved this
for the end. But like we do have 41 episodes.
If you're catching this, but youhaven't caught all of them,
highly, highly recommend going back because we go deep.

(01:11:48):
I mean, I think we're at the point, right, where there's like
there's so many things that along the way we've already
covered. So most of the time we're not
going back and revisiting those things unless there's been like
this huge evolution of it. That said, right comb through
that if you haven't. There's plenty of good stuff in
there that still applies. I'm still getting, you know, I'm
still, I'm still seeing commentsfrom people are like from

(01:12:10):
episode 3 and 4 just found you, you know, like this is dope.
And it's like, man, we did that 50 weeks ago, you know, like
still relevant. So.
S ref episode really fun if anyone you know missed that it
was interested in like going really deep into S ref we did
that was one one of our more oneof our more viewed ones that one

(01:12:31):
I remember some of the the ChatGPT episodes we did like
partnering those tools together.You're going back in back in
time to like every little feature the.
Q&A ones we did. Q&A popped off too, Yeah.
It's good felt like I said, if anyone has ideas you're looking
for something you want us to test something live drop it
we'll do it. You know, we're we're open to

(01:12:51):
this stuff and we want to we want to evolve a little bit, you
know, keep going, keep getting better, keep making you guys,
you know, 100% find something new.
So a. 100%. Well, like and subscribe, damn
it. Yeah, yeah, I was gonna, I was
kind of teeing that up. All right.
Well, guys, thanks for joining us.
We'll see you guys in the next one.

(01:13:11):
Awesome, later see you.

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