Ep. 14: Midjourney: The Ultimate Creative Multiplier w/ Billy Boman

0:00:00Creative Journey

Play from 0:00:00 8:88:88 0:00:00 What's up, Midjourney nerds? We are back. Midjourney Fast Hours podcast. And we're here with a special guest today, Billy Bowman. We're going to have him introduce himself here in a second. And of course, I'm joined by my handsome, funny, just elegant, opulent co-host, Rory Flynn. Good. Good use of opulent there. Awesome awesome cat throwback to that.

Play from 0:00:26 8:88:88 0:00:26 How's How is everyone doing today on this beautiful Friday? It's all good, man. For me, it's afternoon, so I believe you you guys are just waking Are you guys are waking up now? Or Late late morning for us. Late morning. It's about 11:00 here. But yeah, man, Billy, we're we're super excited to have you. And we were super excited last week, too. And we just had some technical difficulties. So, for those of you that were waiting for podcast last week, we got you. We recorded an episode to make up for it.

Play from 0:00:51 8:88:88 0:00:51 And we brought Billy back. And uh Billy is fascinating. He's got a a great background in this stuff. And we're excited to share some of his his wisdom, his learnings, his opportunities that he's experienced as he's gone through this evolution of what it means to kind of use AI tools to tell stories and create content. So, Billy, welcome to the show. Do us a favor and give our audience a little bit of a elevator pitch or background on who you are.

Play from 0:01:20 8:88:88 0:01:20 Sure, man. Absolutely. Let's Let's get into the elevator. I'm Billy, uh hailing from Sweden, north of the wall, up in the cold north. Uh so, happy to connect with with people from across the world, which is amazing. I grew up in advertising home. My my dad was a art director, and my mom mom was a graphic designer. They had their own boutique ad agency when I grew up. And you know, that of course shaped my my uh my career and my probably interest and stuff. However, creativity has been like the only thing I'm ever good at, so I think it's nature and nurture. And my my my sister turned out to be a game designer working as a character artist at a triple A triple A studio. My my brother was a web designer. Now he runs his own Kickstarter role-playing Dungeons and Dragons thing. So, we're all kind of like a creative mishmash family. So, I think it would have happened regardless,

Play from 0:02:06 8:88:88 0:02:06 but uh yeah, it's been a I've had a A manager once told me, "You've had a non-linear career." Which is kind of like, "Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's true." So, I've been a fashion designer, worked in menswear at H&M and AllSaints, uh bunch of small brands as well. Sort of like products like garments and prints. Uh worked in a visual design and graphic design. And the last 5 years in my career kind of pre-AI, I spent in tech. So, worked as a UX/UI designer for websites and apps. I worked for PayPal, Vodafone, and a AI startup that kind of accelerated my journey into AI a lot.

Play from 0:02:40 8:88:88 0:02:40 And we will will get back to that, for sure. But that's that's the elevator. So, in other words, you were born for this [ __ ] Something like that. Yeah, it's fascinating like how how it's taken turns and how all these seemingly different and all these things have some things to do with each other, but they're also kind of different. But they're all coming together in a very fascinating way for me right now. And with AI as the kind of catalyst. Definitely see some of that stuff. Also, it's it's good to hear that now cuz looking at a lot of your work, I can see some of that come through, especially some of the UX/UIs when you're, you know, even on your title screens, things like that. I'm like, it's just it that is a skill in itself. I don't think I don't think it's appreciated enough how, you know, making something super visually aesthetic from like a cleanliness standpoint. It's really

Play from 0:03:25 8:88:88 0:03:25 hard, honestly. That was probably when I was getting started designing, that was probably one of the hardest things for me to do was like get like get rid of a lot of the noise, like make this the focal point. You know, get the spacing right, make sure it just looks aesthetic to that someone wants to click on stuff. It it shines through. The first time I came across Billy, the first time I saw his stuff, I was like, "This guy this guy understands design." And it's always interesting, too, when we talk about you know, utilizing these tools, maybe the different learning curves that exist based on background, right? I mean, you know, for me, it was more or less I brought a little bit of the photography aspect and, you know, self-taught designer similar to Rory on that in that regard. Like we we have a little bit of chops there. So, like you can kind of see some of that come through. But I think for you, specifically, it was just

0:03:45Career Shift

Play from 0:04:11 8:88:88 0:04:11 definitely one of those indicators of like, "This guy has a previous background here." You know, you like you're doing exceptional stuff. And we're going to give you a plenty of shout-outs and and check out his website, too, which he's got some of the portfolio stuff on, which is super impressive. What is the website, Billy? So, it's billybowman.com, spelled b i l l y b o m a n, no w. A lot of people in the UK seems to think I'm into archery cuz they put in a w in there. It's a I did that, too, self-admittedly at first.

Play from 0:04:37 8:88:88 0:04:37 It happens. But it's all right. Yeah. Back when you're in the more so into the fashion space, like what what were you specific I mean, were you working on, you know, product design there from like a really granular level, like taking things from concept to market? Was it concepting? Like how did that kind of come? Cuz this To me, this seems like from a from an AI standpoint, where you see a lot of people in the fashion space just playing around and concepting. I don't know how that world works. Think it might be interesting a little bit, too, for some other people to understand how that looks, as well.

Play from 0:05:07 8:88:88 0:05:07 Sure, man. Of course. I mean, fashion is a very very The supply chain is very very ancient. Just how you source fabric. And then, you know, you make a patterns with a pattern maker. I mean, based on on on a sketch from a designer. That that would be me. And I sometimes you do some of the pattern making on yourself. That pattern being the the piece of front piece of the t-shirt. Here's a seam, and that's like this is a front piece that gets stitched on the side. And then, you have sleeves and all these things put together with all the specs and all the little Everything is meticulously designed to get the neckline this way. Everything you guys wear right now has been meticulously designed by someone. It's you as a designer to every little thing, you know, it's it's on you to get it absolutely right. Cuz if it comes back and is bad, it's all right. Then you start over and stuff.

Play from 0:05:49 8:88:88 0:05:49 But yes, so that's definitely That's what I would do. I would source fabrics, look at inspiration, keep up with trends, of course. Depends, you know, menswear is a lot more kind of uh what do you say? Laid-back in terms of silhouette and kind of yeah, the women's wear. I was a menswear designer uh at H&M and and AllSaints. Uh did a lot of prints, as well. So, then it's like figuring out is it like a screen print or what type of There's a bunch of different prints and then washes to get, you know, if you want to wash the static. And Yeah, man, it's a lot. Some people do licensed stuff with H&M, so you would talk to uh people that own the rights, hold holding like the copyrights for Snoop Dogg or different metal bands or whatever when you were doing doing. So, it's it's very very um it's a lot it's a lot of stuff. And then eventually, yeah, done stuff in a tour, which is pretty nuts.

Play from 0:06:35 8:88:88 0:06:35 It's wild cuz I I, you know, I I did I worked in product licensing. Really boring topic to talk about on here. But regardless, you know, you see how much effort goes into just, you know, getting one single product design. So, I'm assuming doing it at a at a larger scale, it's crazy. And we see a lot of like again, I'm assuming this is where a lot of people got hooked on Midjourney, especially in the fashion space, because it was so good early on. And by good, I mean creative. It wasn't necessarily to me like you could translate you can go and put a, you know, the same dress on us the same person over and over and over again, but you could come up with ideas.

Play from 0:07:08 8:88:88 0:07:08 I wish I had AI back when I was in fashion cuz this was like pre- I mean, I I got out sometime 2018 or so, 2019. And pivoted to tech. So, I like I discovered AI in in my tech era doing doing product design on websites. Which is a lot like that. A great website is up to a lot of photography. Like the great visual assets we have. You can do the best whatever layout, but you know, the the the visual imagery of a site will be it's 80 90% of it. So, that that was like, "Wow, I can make my own content now." So, back in my old I have like a dribble portfolio back there. There's a lot of like experiments around everything from the little little ads on mobile to websites and native apps and and whatnot. All with like a wow, I can make anything now. This is crazy. Just that's just kind of me iterating my way there. I I wish I had it back in fashion, as well, cuz I know

Play from 0:07:55 8:88:88 0:07:55 some small indie brands they're doing concepting, sketching, mock-ups. Like Yeah, that's really really cool. I I I typically say that like AI is such a win for the small creators because you have access to just fidelity and stuff that looks really good. You can make stuff really look really good on a small budget. That's a great point. Let's let's rewind just for a second, too. You know, with this background that you had and when you were in tech, like how did how did you come across Midjourney? What was the story there? And and why did you choose maybe Midjourney over some of the other tools that were really popular at the time, like a Stable Diffusion, for example? I remember vividly the first Midjourney thing I ever saw was by a guy called Chris Do, if you know him. He he's has a big YouTube channel. He feels like the design teacher you never had.

0:08:00Midjourney Impact

Play from 0:08:39 8:88:88 0:08:39 Like he's such an amazing guy. Never met him, but he's he's really cool. And I saw him posting stuff and other people I believe was Midjourney 4 or 5 back then. This is 2022 sometime. Yeah. And I was like, "Whoa. Whoa. How What the hell? This is magic. What the hell is this?" Uh because I knew how how long it would take in 3D or to to sketch it out or to People were doing the sneaker thing, of course. I mean, so like it was all these like sneakers coming out, which was cool. It dabbled with DALL-E back then. And uh it was kind of terrible. But something came out, and that was cool. Then eventually, when Midjourney opened up a little later, that was pretty goddamn mind-blowing.

Play from 0:09:18 8:88:88 0:09:18 Just getting the prompt box up. It's just like imagine. Yeah. Let's go. Like what what am I imagining? Everything. It's like put it in there. And that was such a unlock for my brain. Just like I I I know I love that still imagine. I think that's really You can say create or make. Perfect. Yeah, I think it's really cool. So, that's That's funny that you say that. That's come up in a previous conversation, Rory. And I we we kind of make fun of Midjourney. We're like, "Was that intentional or not?" With the imagine because it's like low-key brilliant. And I I can't remember if I ever saw that prior to Midjourney or not. I was going to say, was that like a a boardroom like 2:00 a.m. discussion?

Play from 0:09:55 8:88:88 0:09:55 Like we're we're, you know, we're tired, whatever. Just call it freaking imagine. Or was it like they put the effort in and we're like, "We're going to call it imagine." they had like fancy workshops. What are we going to call it? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I like for example Luma, when their loading state is like dreaming. Like that's cool. You could say loading, but just like put something as a UX designer, like put something little in there and you're making me happy. So, I like that. That's That's a good call out. I did know I have noticed that a few times, especially calling it dream machine. I mean, it's it's a well-branded. You know, goes you know, probably speaks right to Drew's heart right there. But this is interesting cuz like I remember going back on those first days of, you know, Midjourney, like how how far did you go down the rabbit hole once you started getting into it? Was it like a Was it like a, you know, 5-hour binge on it, like going all over the place, or

Play from 0:10:40 8:88:88 0:10:40 were you trying to get something specific? In the beginning it was all over the place. It's like trying to find the like, okay, well, prompt structure, like what what what what does it respond to? How do I get what I want? It's you know, that's where everyone starts. Like, how I have something in my head and I want it on the screen, and how do I get there? So, like back then you could also see all these, of course, prompt grifters with the prompt packs and everything. So, you can try try to find, but you know, Chris and other people were were were sharing like what what they at least That's my memory of it, that people already really early on were very transparent with "This is how I did it." And that's what I still love about the AI community online, that it's very very open sharing. I always list all the tools, like this is what I used, this is how I did this, cuz it has this really collaborative aspect to it that I really like. But yeah, no, I I went really far down the rabbit hole. That that's for

Play from 0:11:26 8:88:88 0:11:26 sure. Again, I created websites, apps, fashion. I just started just like creating just like from just the pure joy of it. What are some of the other tools that you're using right now, you know, in addition to Midjourney? Because I think the hardest part, right, is unless you've got time, bandwidth, or just the dedication and discipline, it's easy to feel like you're getting left behind with all these updates that happen, right, across all the tools, whether that's image gen or video gen or whatever, right? Everything's AI. So, how do you keep up? And I guess also, what are the tools right now that go into your visual creative process with the things that you're creating for clients? Great question, man. I I have like a couple of parallel tracks. I have my I mean, you

Play from 0:12:13 8:88:88 0:12:13 Full transparency, most of my professional career career, whatever, this year the or the opportunities that have come my way has been with Midjourney, commercial models and Runway. That I've latched onto the open-source stuff as I as I went along and I'm still learning, still getting better. Right now I'm experimenting a lot with Flux LORAs and uh Comfy Workflows a lot to to really get in that deep deep endless rabbit hole. But the commercial models, I mean, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, Luma, Runway, I mean, really impressed by Minimax right now. Like Whoa, lots It's truly like a world model because it understands physics and temporal consistency and stuff in three dimensions in a little bit more advanced way than Runway, actually. That's been out just a short time and I've worked a lot more with Runway. It's still probably my to-go to tool. I'm a Runway

Play from 0:13:00 8:88:88 0:13:00 creative partner and it's Yeah, it's been my kind of favorite tool from for a long time. But Minimax really came out from nowhere and it's very very cool model that I'm looking to, yeah, follow with great great interest. But for image gen, it's like Midjourney gets you there a bunch of cases. However, the interest now I see in the industry is shifting to LORAs because so, if people don't know, low-rank adaptation model, aka we can accurately reproduce products and faces.

Play from 0:13:25 8:88:88 0:13:25 That's basically what it is, right? Or clothes or specific Yeah, because I mean, the answer from when clients asked, "But can you make our product? Can AI make our product?" was always kind of no or maybe-ish kind of, which is not the answer they want. They want yes. Like And now it's actually there, or 95% there. Depends on the product. So, that's I'm seeing a bunch of trials, bunch of experimentation, and I've seen some people doing fantastic stuff already online. Dive into that a little bit. I'm curious, like what like what products have you seen work really well and with what tools? You know, like I guess like break that down a little bit further because I get that question a lot, too, and I have the same feeling about it, but I also self-admittedly haven't spent a lot of time outside of Midjourney. So, I think that would be great for for others to hear that are kind of in that similar

Play from 0:14:12 8:88:88 0:14:12 boat. Sure. So, I mean, I'm relatively new to LORA training, yeah, full transparency. Like it's some of my buddies like Lucas Tisler and some of these other I call him open-source Gandalf. I'm not sure he likes that. He's like my path He's like showing the path like through through the forest in open source as well. I like that. He should embrace that. Yeah, man, I think it's pretty good. So, I keep calling him that. But but yeah, anyway, LORA training is such a deep sub subject. There's different learning models, there's different epochs and the training steps. It's really really esoteric. It's this very kind of deep You're teaching an AI what it's looking at, basically. That that's what you're doing. So, it always starts out with a data set, and that's basically 15 to 25, sometimes more, images of the thing. So, if you have an AirPods, you know, you would you would take it from different

Play from 0:14:57 8:88:88 0:14:57 angles. And the funny thing with Flux is that it likes So, Flux is the base model that you use, just like Stable Diffusion is a base model. Flux has several different ones, but it likes lifestyle pictures. So, it likes also in relation to a human hand, it will understand how big it is in proportion. Cuz if you just have it on a white background, here's just a Here's a case, but you don't know how big it is. So, that's kind of fascinating with the with the Flux models, really really intelligent. So, you photograph that or, you know, from many angles and sides.

Play from 0:15:26 8:88:88 0:15:26 Usually you want stuff from the front, right? And depending on the complexity, maybe a bicycle is more complex than a I don't know, a spray deodorant. Patterns can still be hard, but certain things can be hard, and there's different learning models are good for different products. But basically, you put the data set together and then you make captions for each image. So, it has to be done sequentially. So, first image is called 001, then you have a text document called 001 that describes what it is, and has to be a code word. If you really really get super technical with this with this stuff. And it's really an elaborate process. It takes hours to train it, and then when eventually you have a LORA, which is the trained model, you taught an AI what something is, and then you can plug that into Flux on What is it? Something like Run Comfy or Think Diffusion. And then then you can actually start making this thing, like,

Play from 0:16:12 8:88:88 0:16:12 you know, Axe bottle underwater or in the sky, girl holding it, or whatever. And it is 95 to 99% that product. Again, give or take lots of experimentation, trials. But then you've set up a custom-trained AI for that product. And this, I think, is going to be the next evolution of kind of AI advertising or empowered content, for sure. I feel like this was something that once people understood what it was and how to do it, that was what they'd want. It was like, yes, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, you know, just base models, not even, you know, trained models. DALL-E, it's like, yeah, we can can you do it on this? It's like, yeah, but there's other ways to do it. And then once you told them that they can have it trained on their own products, then they're going to be like, "I want that." So, the one thing I've always found with it is is really I've never had much luck with

Play from 0:16:58 8:88:88 0:16:58 small text. So, any products that have really small text on it, it's always got to be done in post-production. That and like intricate intricate material. I remember a long time ago, someone asked me about lingerie. They were trying to do train a LORA model on lingerie, and I'm like, I don't know if that can be done by anything. It's the intricate stitching and just like the patterning and how small some of the details are. It'd just be so hard to replicate. I'm really impressed by what Flux is able to do with such a limited data set in some cases. You know, sometimes four to six images and you just reverse out. Like, you know, if you have glasses facing this way, you know, you can just flip the image and face it the other way, you have another image, right? So, I'm like I've seen some of the results there, and I'm like, "Whoa." But it was

Play from 0:17:44 8:88:88 0:17:44 so necessary for them to kind of like cuz Stable Diffusion, I don't know what the hell they're doing at this point, but Well, they they got James Cameron on the on the board of They did. Which is cool, and we'll see where that goes. Like really really lovely to see. We'll see where it goes. But I hear you. Previously, LORA training in Stable Diffusion like 1.5, it didn't really make sense cuz it was just super low resolution. You couldn't get these, like you say, really really intricate ornamental lingerie. I haven't tried it on Flux, to be honest, like lingerie. But but I have seen people do like a really intricate kind of ornamental shirt and even patterns, like AOP patterns, like all over patterns.

Play from 0:18:20 8:88:88 0:18:20 Like it actually does it. And, you know, always a little bit of retouch, always a little bit of post, but we are basically there. It's next level. I mean, the Flux got something like 2K native up upscaling, and the fidelity is there, which is really exciting. That's interesting. I'm I'm curious to I I think about this a lot. Walk us through your process of collaborating with AI or Midjourney or whatever the tool is. How does it step in to fine-tune the results of it? You know, to take that into another tool like a Photoshop, right? Like Where are some of those lines in your mind that exist right now and limitations? Great great question. I I also educate with AI. I run the Sweden's most like in-depth two-day course at the at the Communication School, Berghs School of Communication.

0:19:00AI Teamwork

Play from 0:19:06 8:88:88 0:19:06 So, and I typically say that it never it never ends with AI. It starts with AI. It's like you you never end with Midjourney, you start with Midjourney, and you always bring it somewhere else. You need retouching Photoshop, or you make a video out of it, so you plug it into a video model, and then it goes into After Effects or Premiere, and all this stuff, right? There's always like a cascade of tools where to get to the final thing. But if I would generalize a process like from a team perspective, what I what I typically see I can talk about my how I do it, but it but it depends a lot. But what I see kind of happening, at least here in Sweden, with the AI agencies that are establishing themselves, you have something like an AI art director who's like a generalist. You're You should probably educated, you've gone to art school, or you worked in advertising and stuff. You have like a AI art director generalist. Then you have something like

Play from 0:19:51 8:88:88 0:19:51 a creative technologist, this is usually a guy. We'll see if this changes. But it's usually a guy who's very good with open source workflows. And will handle some of the more technical, yeah, comfy guy basically. We are a a comfy guy. They're also called sometimes. And then on top of that, you have a retoucher. That could be someone very good with with with Photoshop or traditional And this I see repeated over and over again. Sometimes there's one person doing all of these. These are very rare. This is like a designer and developer the same person, a unicorn.

Play from 0:20:20 8:88:88 0:20:20 This is very rare. Sometimes these overlap in other ways, but if I would distill it, that's kind of like the team. So, AR director, creative creative technologists, re- ex- retoucher. How I do it is like I'm usually one part of If I work with Secret Level, there's also other AI artists. There's usually a creative technologist involved. Someone else is doing the edits, and I'm in Sweden, they are in in the States. So, we're sending files back and forth, and uh you might have like um what do you say? Like a a creative director who's like leading the entire project. I might be like the AI art lead in there. So, there's all these little uh collaborative Cuz some people say like AI must be so lonely. I'm like, yeah, only if you want it to be. I've never worked this collaboratively with people from all over the world.

Play from 0:21:03 8:88:88 0:21:03 Amsterdam, in London, in the in the US. But like back to the question, how how the process starts. I mean, usually you get a brief, right? And every brief is different. Every client is different. Their knowledge about AI is different. Sometimes you have to educate a little bit, sometimes that's happened already once I come in, cuz again, I'm uh fortunate enough to be represented by agencies, so that's a kind of a cushy way. You just get on and do do the work. But yeah, it's a lot of iterations, usually a ton of iterations. Sometimes we concept in Midjourney, and then you bring that on to to other other stuff later. Sometimes it's for like music video projects, you just I mean, we had we did one for Jaguar Twin, uh like in my He opens up for 30 Seconds to Mars and stuff. He's getting quite big in the States, which is cool. There we used every freaking video model on the market. Like we used to we used Craiyon, we used Runway, we

Play from 0:21:50 8:88:88 0:21:50 used Stable Video Diffusion. This was earlier, like this summer. During the project, Luma came out of stealth like boom. It's like, oh, now we have Luma. Oh god. So, then we just like started starting using that. It's super different every every project. Can I ask you just a random question? I found myself doing this, but I want to know if I'm the only one. Has storyboarding for you become way more non-linear than it used to be? Like are you starting at a different point than when you normally would have in like traditional design? Cuz I feel like I start somewhere in the middle to 75% of like where that story is, and I like Yeah, man. I mean, it's like pre-production and production all blends with AI. There's not these like hard lines anymore. Like, this is the storyboard, and I Because we can get high-fidelity right away. You can kind of sketch in high-fidelity or photorealism, which is really interesting. And uh yeah, totally. Like

Play from 0:22:36 8:88:88 0:22:36 I did my first uh like AI short film. It was actually screened here in Stockholm yesterday, which was really cool. Uh Curious Refuge put on a nice uh local meetup, and Dave Clark and Kevin the Kid and a bunch of other really really big So dope. really really cool. And it's also in Sweden, Oslo, blah blah blah. But anyway, what what I wanted to say was that with my short film, it very much started as little as ideas and sequences, and it would really it was a super scrappy process of just like finding building it out. It wasn't linear at all. So, absolutely, Rory. You're you're not alone. It's weird, cuz I used to feel like I would think of the story first.

Play from 0:23:09 8:88:88 0:23:09 And now it's like sometimes you hit something even when you're not even trying to on Midjourney or whatever, and it's like, here's this image. I'm like, oh, I really like this. Like, what can I build around this? You know, so it's it's to me it's been like totally non-linear since it started, but [name] is uh [name]'s jumping in for a little bit of a just to say what's up to everyone. Sorry about that. No no no worries. I mean, that's funny you say that, man. I I typically say when I teach that working with AI is like directing a fluid intelligence.

Play from 0:23:35 8:88:88 0:23:35 That is the best metaphor I've come up. Working with AI is like directing a fluid intelligence. Because that's where we're directing it similar to a director like yeah, do it a little bit more like that. But then the actors and all the vibe, they're going to improvise like on a movie set. Like the the the director doesn't go like Can I can can you move your ear just a little bit? Like you you know, the actors and some of the best moments in film are improvised. Actually, some of the most iconic scenes in film. So, sometimes I feel like totally like AI will give you happy surprises. So, a lot of bad ones. Along But sometimes it's just something so good you would never think of it comes out. Wow, and that then I can work from this. Uh so, totally happy surprises sometimes. It's a beautiful thing when it does happen, though. Like when Midjourney gives you something that you didn't ask for, but it's awesome, and you're like, I can work with that. You

Play from 0:24:20 8:88:88 0:24:20 know, it's like it's always, you know, you're thinking about it in terms of like I'm sure you're doing this, right? When you're when you're generating, you're probably thinking in terms of motion as well, like adding that into your images in Midjourney, cuz it just gives the tools a little bit more of a starting point. When you're prompting, I think just you know, going back to the whole Midjourney piece of it. Is it like how cognizant are you of the video piece as you're prompting, or are you like adjusting for video after the fact?

0:24:30Fluid Storyboarding

Play from 0:24:46 8:88:88 0:24:46 No, it's a that's a great great point, man. So, that if the end format is video, which for me it's like 80% of the work I do is video, definitely you should you should think that uh on the image gen, because when you're going image to video, the image is everything. Like a chef, the the raw materials have to be there. Otherwise, it's going to be a crappy pasta if it's like, you know, canned tomatoes, cheap pasta, whatever. Like it's it's that the raw material, the goods have to be there. And the image is everything. And I've kind of learned based a lot of freaking tinkering what what Runway responds well to, now what Minimax just eats up, what what's better in Kling, and what's better But what what's what's kind of with all of them is that if you, like you said, have motion or angles that suggest motion in them, or even stuff like motion blur to to suggest

Play from 0:25:31 8:88:88 0:25:31 speed, or if it's a car, stuff like that, it it it will really direct it. Again, directing a fluid intelligence. Like it's well ah, this is speed, and it will kind of go with that, and it's going to be closer to what you want. So, that's That would be interesting if a tool like Midjourney were to incorporate that as an after effect of the image, too. That could be interesting. I don't know that that will actually happen, because they've got uh a vision that doesn't seem to necessarily correlate with that, but that you know, just little things like that where you could you could really doctor that up in something like Photoshop, you know, and then really take advantage of that. But obviously, I I hear this a lot from I think people that use the tool, but people that don't use these tools, which is you know, can AI

Play from 0:26:17 8:88:88 0:26:17 image generation in general, can those visuals evoke the same emotional depth or resonance as traditional art or images or video? Like how do you how do you approach that with maybe some of the projects that you're working on? Great question, man. Love it. So, it's like um the answer is this depends. But I've mostly done commercial work, so like most people don't cry because of an ad.

Play from 0:26:43 8:88:88 0:26:43 Like, this made me want to buy it so much. But like if However, however, the the I did um I I continuation of of Rory's experiment with the chicken sandwich. So, I did this little spec ad called the crunchwich, which you know, was a good post. And lots of people wrote like, damn, man, this made me hungry. And I'm like, that's it. That's it. Ad fulfilled. It did its job, and it doesn't matter if it was food photography photography, which is all fake anyway. It's all like [ __ ] diesel and like all these non-edibles in food photography is fake as hell for anyone thinking it's not. Or 3D. A lot of the hamburgers is [ __ ] 3D, like Cinema 4D burgers. Like, yeah.

Play from 0:27:20 8:88:88 0:27:20 So, Yeah. it kind of it kind of doesn't matter if the burger was conceived through food photography, 3D, doesn't or AI. If it's if the ad made the if it's a food ad, and the the recipient got hungry, ad fulfilled. Purpose done. That's that's how I think about it. Good commercials can trigger the the emotion you want, or like hunger, or the the outcome, right? However, on the more emotional side, so again, I had some little time over between projects, so I did this this film, this little short film called Death as the Motivator, uh inspired by Steve Jobs' last speech at Stanford in 2005, where he talks about basically the fact that things will end is a motivator to go on or cherish things as they are, which is actually a stoic thought, like Stoicism Marcus Aurelius and all the stuff that I'm really into. Uh as well as inspired by

Play from 0:28:07 8:88:88 0:28:07 Joseph Campbell, which was a comparative uh professor of mythology who thought of these uh concept the hero's journey and the hero of a thousand faces. These really really quite kind of big thoughts. And I wanted to put them together and use poetic or artistic uh cinematographic uh ideas that I've had, and to make a story with that. So, I did that, and I got the best response I've ever gotten. I've never done a film. I've never held a camera in my life. My heart beats for film. I've consumed film my entire life. I absolutely love it.

Play from 0:28:36 8:88:88 0:28:36 But uh yeah, so and and the one comment I got on YouTube was like, "Made me cry. Good job." And it's like, there it is. Like, yeah. Yeah. Uh no That was an awesome one, by the way. That was a kill It was killer short. I mean, when I watched it, I was like, this is it hits the right pacing, it hits the right notes. Like I was watching it like I even just like the B-roll and everything, it just made sense. And I was like, this it's so good knowing that that Steve Jobs that quote, it's just like someone that understood storytelling, plus the tools, plus the execution, and like how to make it actually feel like something. So, kudos on that one, man. Really impressive. If anyone hasn't watched that, you know, we should we'll probably drop the link after or down in the in the comments section below, cuz it's really good.

Play from 0:29:19 8:88:88 0:29:19 Just uh if you're looking for something from a storytelling perspective that, you know, AI can do very well. And, you know, not saying everyone could do this. Billy obviously really really experienced, but definitely something that people should check out. Thank you, man. That means a lot. That means a lot. Definite- Definitely check that out. Yeah, I had a guy who said he watched this with his son, and just to kind of like start talking about these big topics. And I was just like, whoa. Like, that is so awesome that like cuz I I that the working with fashion or advertising, that's maybe, you know, one of the things you don't get to do. You don't get to touch people, but you know what I mean, like emotionally. You don't get to connect connect with them. You don't get to send a thought or a feeling across the freaking universe and make someone else feel something. That doesn't happen in advertising, but here it does, and that's just I want to make more. I mean, ironically enough, I'm

Play from 0:30:05 8:88:88 0:30:05 getting some opportunities now to go into traditional commercial film directing. And I I don't even know what to say. I'm so kind of humbled and I I don't know what to say. It's It's really incredible that AI can kind of take you out of these box you were in, and now you can just again, transmedia. You Your creativity can go anywhere. that? It's really fascinating, so The democratization of creativity, man. I I think that's like fantastic because it's just you are a great example of this. Somebody that's got some really good talent, and without these tools, you're not doing this. You know what I mean? Like without that democratiz- it's wild, you know, and I think if anybody that's spending a lot of time doing this stuff or working with clients can probably say the same thing. I mean, it's it's just something that I don't

Play from 0:30:51 8:88:88 0:30:51 know that a lot of us had really envisioned being accessible, you know, and and in this path now where if you if you are, you know, in a traditional role or a job, you've got to follow a somewhat linear path in some ways, uh and most people aren't going to want to hire somebody that's never done this job before. So, like do you you know, do you take a couple steps back to try to move forward? This sort of changes all of that. We've all got stories here in this room here where that's happened, and I think that's just a fascinating thing with AI in general. Obviously, we're talking a little bit more creativity focused, but it's that's amazing, you know, this film impact, the video impact, people sort of becoming these directors again that would have never had that traditional training, never had that experience or the money or the time or

0:31:00Achieving Emotion w/ AI

Play from 0:31:38 8:88:88 0:31:38 the circumstances to do those things. X 100%, man. So, you know, Dave Clark, you know, the goat, both basically on on AI video, right? Uh his latest piece, Battalion, that was also screened on on the Curious Refuge event, but I I checked out the comments, and there was a bunch of idiots, trolls, that were going like, "Why do you do these made-up scenarios of black battalions in World War II? People didn't even know that there were an actual black battalion that fought for the for the Allies against the Nazis." Truly fascinating how someone's just picturing actual real events, but with with AI, and lifting up stories that haven't been told, even though they Mhm.

Play from 0:32:16 8:88:88 0:32:16 I I just thought it was so I mean, Dave is in meetings with Ridley Scott, and I mean, all these all these amazing stuff is happening, so Woah, you just you just brought up a really interesting point, which is a lot of us have to wait for films to come out to talk about events that maybe haven't been talked about before or are less known. That is democratized now. Yep. Right? There could be a story out there that somebody's familiar with that just hasn't been told at a large level that now can be. I never really thought about that. See, you just unlocked it. That's interesting. It's Some people are scared to death of this because like what what about my thing?

Play from 0:32:54 8:88:88 0:32:54 Like my privilege? I used to be the guardian of this, and now it's just like floodgates are open, and all these stories are coming in. I'm like, "Sorry, man. The genie's out of the bottle, and all these creativity is flowing now, and if that makes you scared, okay. I don't know what to say. Like, okay." That's a good That's a good point to hit on. I think there's a lot of gatekeeping in the in the creative industry. I know I've encountered that even before AI, right? Like it's just something that I I don't know if it's a I don't know if it's always been like this this feeling of I'm always on the chopping block or I'm one bad idea away from, you know, or one bad creation away from just not getting a job anymore. The biggest thing for me is watching, number one, how like the pushback from graphic designers, photographers, in the early stages of images, watching that downturn, and now watching the video come out, and

Play from 0:33:40 8:88:88 0:33:40 watching animators, film producers, everyone just rip on it. So, it's like again, it's like we hit this like next peak in terms of like this fever pitch. But, I'm curious, are you are you encountering that? Like are you when you're working with clients, when you're talking to people internally, are you meeting with people that are like, mhm AI can't do you know, like are you getting like that sense of, mhm to it? Yeah. Yeah. of course. Of course, it always it always comes to some extent. And of course, just on LinkedIn or in general, you know, bro, nice slideshow, this is trash. You know, it's like, "Okay, I'm I I used to take it much more personally, but now I know it's just like people get hung up on the medium.

Play from 0:34:19 8:88:88 0:34:19 They just can't get past that I used an AI tool to create this. They wouldn't care if I used Cinema 4D or drew it. I suck at drawing. Okay, like sorry, this happened to fit my brain really well. I don't know. Like, okay, whatever. So, I just like move on to the next thing. It's just that that's how I do it now. But, definitely, and I and I thought a lot about this, Rory, actually, when what you're saying, which type of person I'm going to generalize now that that that tends to favor or non-favor AI. And I have a theory, and it's just a theory, but I think that the people who are entrepreneurially creative will really really favor it. People who are willing to take risks and explore new things.

Play from 0:34:53 8:88:88 0:34:53 These people are typically freelancers, consultants working on their own business owners, something like that. While people in corporate structures who are used to kind of rigid systems or frameworks or in-the-box thinking, it's basically in-the-box or out-of-the-box thinking. They are much more going to be seen as a threat. So, whether you look at the this amazing technology as a threat or an opportunity, could be down to actually genetics, just how you're wired, but also what what what path you're in, what career if if you're in I'm not going to moralize, but you know, it's different things are good for different people. Well said.

Play from 0:35:26 8:88:88 0:35:26 No, we I think that's that's spot on. We We've talked about that. I think Rory made the association of like it's like Mac versus PC, you know, in some ways, sort of those different audiences. And I think you know, that's that's exactly right. That would be my speculation as well. And here we are going to PC soon. Do Do not do that. Don't do that, man. But I'm going to do both. I'm going to walk between the worlds, you know. I'm going to I'm going to have a PC over there, and you know, you can you can remote control it with with your Mac. So, I could like do that.

Play from 0:35:55 8:88:88 0:35:55 to your muscle memory is going to hate you, but uh I I I mean, But hey, you know, like you brought up another good point, which we do from time to time, too. It When we the default where we think with this stuff is always photorealism, which is also the most polarizing part of this. And I just like to circle back at the end of the day, there are many other styles that you can produce outside of humans in photorealistic fashion, right? So, like I I'll bring this up some sometimes with like branding and, you know, companies and of course, they default to that. It's like, "Well, what if we don't want to use AI for the human element?" Which is Which is a fair conversation. But, you could also use it for the 99 other

Play from 0:36:42 8:88:88 0:36:42 things that you could create with this, right? Like the icons, the illustrations, the styling, all those different use cases. So, I think that's just like a good reminder, too, of like let's not get stuck on the most polarizing part of AI image gen, which is also the hardest. I've created my own textures, like grunge texture, black and white, white on solid black background. And and did it a hit a few times, and because I wouldn't have the exact vector pack of the whatever thing I wanted.

Play from 0:37:10 8:88:88 0:37:10 Chuck it into Illustrator, and then there you have it. Ornamentals, sci-fi, HUDs, whatever you want, man. Just like patterns. Why are people sleeping on patterns? Dash dash tile. Freaking everything. People are blown. Like why is everyone sleeping on patterns? I think that's really cool. Like make your own camouflage with ducks in it or whatever. Just Just go make something cool. Yeah. Yeah. But you're speaking to my heart right now. When I found out about the tile feature, I was just like, you know, I think if anyone here has worked on design, trying to make a pattern, you just you can do it. It just sucks. Like I don't know if any Do you Do you really like doing that? It's just It's just time-consuming. It's a lot of tinkering.

Play from 0:37:49 8:88:88 0:37:49 I get it. Look, there's a special, you know, you feel good about the craft when you get it done. But also, there are parts of it that you just need to get done, especially if it's for a client. It's like, "I just want to I just want to generate this," right? And then it's so easy with Illustrator. You know, there was a very very interesting transition, like noticing, like, "Oh, okay. Wait, I can take this into Photoshop. Oh, I can take this into Illustrator. Like I can turn this into a vector, and I basically design my freaking logo in journey four. It was like, "Oh, wait. I can just turn this into a vector and have a logo. Simple."

Play from 0:38:19 8:88:88 0:38:19 But, dovetailing on that, were you always I'm sure I'm assuming you were using Photoshop as a designer early in your career, right? Is that Is that kind of how you went about it in Midjourney? Were you thinking in terms of layers and how you could blend certain things, and you know, change opacities, and go and, you know, stacking and masking and things of that nature? Well, that that started kind of happening eventually, or or you that you could produce kind of different, what do you say, assets?

Play from 0:38:45 8:88:88 0:38:45 Like, "Oh, yeah, I can make this black sphere that can go on top here, and put a shadow, and then you start to you realize you can make your own assets. You like you don't have to download assets pack anymore or anything. I mean, I'm even doing this in video. So, for example, for Fred Durst "Hardy" video, "A Soul for Sale," the official music video, I I did a bunch of So, you know Fred Durst, right? The the American artist. Like, yeah. Limp Bizkit. He fa- famous for having red cap backwards. Well, lo and behold, you can Google this. Uh you can and try this on your own. Try making a red cap backwards in Midjourney.

0:39:15Innovative Thinking

Play from 0:39:20 8:88:88 0:39:20 It will not. It will not. So, every red cap in that video is painstakingly done in Photoshop to get it backwards. And then also, there's other parts of the video where there's like these this souls flying around. There's There's like masking and blend modes and stuff on top of that to get different scenes that I wanted together in into one. So, I'm doing that in video as well, and I think that's also really fascinating how you can work with back plates and stuff on top in like After Effects or whatever whatever you want to use. So so definitely Rory, definitely like unlocking that part of your brain to like right these are assets that I can put together. I think that was the biggest when I when I finally resonated with graphic designers was showing them that. Essentially, it was like it's not just one image. You don't have to You

Play from 0:40:07 8:88:88 0:40:07 like I'm not going to go in there and prompt to get one image. Images like let's download, like you said, or let's prompt different asset pieces. Like if I need a creating like a social media piece for like the NCAA tournament for basketball, you know, maybe I want some grid pattern to layer over top of it, or I want, you know, a different like basketball texture to throw into the text. Like it's like you don't have to go search for this stuff anymore. You just create it, and then you put it together cuz you already have the skill. You know, it's like create your ingredients for your meal. Like farm your own ingredients, right? Like that's kind of the You are the You are the chef and the and the farm. Yeah. You all You all You do all of it. It's really cool.

Play from 0:40:43 8:88:88 0:40:43 I'm curious in terms of like the video stuff. When you're doing this in Midjourney, right? Like or, you know, Stable Diffusion or whatever or Flux. Are you are you mixing and blending sometimes different different models there? Like are you blending Midjourney with Flux? Typ- Not not yet. I mean, Flux is very new also. Like Flux Lores is like 2 months old. Typically, it's hard to reproduce the same style across two different models. Or at least if you're doing it raw. So I mean, you can with with Flux if you do it in Comfy, you can attach all of these different Lores to it. So for example, if I have if I want Justin Timberlake and I've trained the Lore on Justin Timberlake, I can actually attach a realism Lore or like a bad realism Lore so it looks like it's taken slightly out of focus with my iPhone. If that's the look you're going for like Mhm. super bad realism or whatever you want.

Play from 0:41:29 8:88:88 0:41:29 So I mean, uh Amateur. Amateur, yes. You get security cam footage. You get [ __ ] everything. It's pretty nuts, uh Flux and what people are creating on Civit. I would typically choose I mean, Midjourney is still better for that really chunky cinematic just like ah really deep deep type of visuals. For me at least or you just maybe because I worked with it more. Cuz I mean, Flux is newer for everyone. Some people are hyper deep in that then.

Play from 0:41:55 8:88:88 0:41:55 Uh but no, so typically I haven't had opportunity to blend those, but you know, who knows with that this It probably will happen. Yeah, cuz I was seeing, you know, some of the things that we were using Midjourney for early on in terms of like training models was like asset expansion or training set expansion because you could like especially if you're training like on a style, you could go in there and replicate that style and just keep, you know, adding to the data set to just make it more powerful, right? It's just It's interesting to see how sometimes, you know, the the tools can kind of work together when they're supposed to be competing, and you know, that that's where I've seen really creative stuff is what I'm trying to say is like people get in there and they see they see it. The vision is there like I can pull this and this and combine it, which I That's why I think it's so heavy on

Play from 0:42:41 8:88:88 0:42:41 this early on. I'm like the creatives are the ones that need to get in here like now and use this cuz you're going to change how it all works. Like cuz you're the curious ones. You're the ones that want to like try stuff. It's not just like give me the prompt pack, like you said, and like let me let me use it. It's like I want to break it on my own. Like so. 100% man. I'm really about AI stacking. Midjourney for like objects, so like chair, 3D objects, and then putting that into [ __ ] Viscom.

Play from 0:43:06 8:88:88 0:43:06 Have you seen this? Ah yeah. Crazy. Absolutely nuts. How from flat image to 3D and like 90% of the cases it it's there. Character also work like a chubby minion look whatever. Like it it freaking works. And now you have an OBJ file or whatever. Like you can put that into Cinema 4D or texture it and ex- bring that on, you know, stack and stack and stack and bring on. So that's that's the one thing like image Midjourney to 3D. Like they're of course working on their own thing. We'll see what Midjourney you know, Midjourney 7 the kind of what do you say, rumored biggest leap ever. We'll see. I'm I'm excited. We'll see what happens. Do you follow Hector Rodriguez on there on LinkedIn? That's the one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Play from 0:43:43 8:88:88 0:43:43 He's He's He's a He's like that He's like that guy, yeah. That scientist, maestro. a lot of that product stuff. If you don't follow him, guys, he's a good follow. I'm butchering his last name, but you know, he he's in Dreams on his PlayStation and sculpting in PlayStation VR. Martin Nebelong, so n e b e l o n g. Yes, he works half time at Google now. He's in His stuff is insane. It's so good. is 3D artist exploring new frontiers of storytelling, and that's exactly what he's doing. So it's really really cool.

Play from 0:44:12 8:88:88 0:44:12 Super creator. Go follow him. It just baffles me. I I I mean, you know, I take a lot of take a lot of heat on LinkedIn of all places that just the curiosity is so low. There's so many things. I think a lot of people get hung up on the legal aspect of it. Um you know, but I really just like for being creative, I feel like just a kind of like a baseline skill set is curiosity. Like isn't that kind of out of the box what you need a little bit of to to to make stuff? People get hung up on the format and the the legal things.

Play from 0:44:43 8:88:88 0:44:43 Like it baffles me that sometimes people have artist in their titles. Like how the hell are you an ar- like What? How are you so rigid? Like how how how is your brain a box? I don't know. Might sound mean or whatever, but yeah, it kind of baffles me sometimes the non-curious nature of cert- certain creatives. And but but I don't know, man. Like I recently saw figure. I guess it's an estimate, but would you conceptualize how many AI images are generated each and every day?

0:44:45AI Assets

Play from 0:45:15 8:88:88 0:45:15 Have you have you seen this figure? It's been floating around. No. I'm guessing it's really big though. Yeah, it's like in the It's like in the It's in the millions. Yeah. Like you know, if you all the models across all the platforms globally, it's millions every single day. So we're rapidly if we're not already there in a in a landscape where there's more AI images than real images, and then we're already there that the the kind of the second phase of training is going to happen where AI is trained on itself.

Play from 0:45:42 8:88:88 0:45:42 Okay. And then we're going to be in the third and the fourth and the fifth and at which point legal copyright I I don't know. I mean, I'm not a legal expert, but we'll we'll see where this goes. There's multiple course cases and multiple courts. And I mean, for anyone who's interested in this, I just want to shout out to the the best docu- the best thing you can watch on YouTube right now, I think, is the documentary Everything is a Remix from 2003. Uh absolutely fabulous. If you guys have seen it, it's like it has a AI chapter, and it's about human creativity, and the last part is about like AI, and it's absolutely amazing. Like they talk about the legal, the copyright, is it inspiration, is it theft? And they really really break it down on like a philosophical, but also legal level.

Play from 0:46:21 8:88:88 0:46:21 Everything is a remix. Fantastic thing. Go watch it if you haven't. It's good job. I'm going to definitely going to go check that out because I think, you know, even more so, the video like honestly, the video is harder the the the static image, right? That's an easy concept for me to un- to grasp legally. Video to me is so much different cuz it's so much more complex. Like in terms of the way that it's trained, in terms of the way that it generates. Like if it was trained on people walking, like is it trained on just the is the motion of someone walking copyrighted? Because then it's going to diffuse its own model together with a bunch of different frames, right?

Play from 0:46:55 8:88:88 0:46:55 It It becomes more complex. People have such a rigid view. If I If I upload a drawing that I did and make it walk in in Runway, where was the theft? Like Please explain that to me. Like I I I don't I don't get. So someone will have some, you know, supposedly clever answer to that, but like I I just don't see it that way at all. But but yeah, I mean, I've actually done some experiments. One of the one that I show in my class sometimes is that I prompt like two guys in a suit, Akira Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, George Lucas, Steven You just put all of it in there, and what comes out is it looks like some kind of GTA footage.

Play from 0:47:28 8:88:88 0:47:28 Like it's Okay, if you put Niji on it, it will be one thing. If it's Style Raw, it's another thing. But then you come into like where is the course which pixels are Kurosawa? Which pixels are Quentin Tarantino? Like it's But people don't get this that it's transformative. That combining everything new with the intention of me as a human typing cuz AI is not typing on its own. It's like it's me typing. It's me doing all these things. Something new was made, and this this just won't land for certain because maybe because they don't want to.

Play from 0:47:56 8:88:88 0:47:56 Scary, I don't know. It just won't land. Brilliant. Brilliantly said. Very very. I think about this all day, so We have to because, you know, again, if you're putting anything out into the social landscape, granted, it's it's going to come up. Someone's going to challenge you. You can either ignore it, or you can try to, you know, try to have a balanced conversation. Personally, I like to have the conversations every once in a while to my fault because I just I just want to get inside the heads. Like I just want to know. Like why are you so against it? Like why? Like what's the actual motivation? Because my fear, you perfectly characterized me, Billy. I was a freelancer. I was, you know, a small business owner. I've been

Play from 0:48:41 8:88:88 0:48:41 in that survivalist mode the like for the last 10 years. It's always how I felt. And I know how what it's like to be replaced by cheaper labor that I can't compete with. It happens all the time. Now, I think everyone's really seeing that this is a possibility. And number one, they're either just ex- To me, it's the self- I call it the self-fulfilling prophecy. If you're just going to like ignore it and say it's bad, then like, you know, we we know what goes on in the corporate side of things. They don't necessarily care how it gets made. They just need it made.

Play from 0:49:09 8:88:88 0:49:09 And if you can do it or the machine can do it, and it can get it done quickly, and it can look good, like it's a realest point. You know, like it's a I hate to be that person, but It's a little bit naive, right? Like but but but what about the Well, businesses are for profit. Like they make products and that they sell and and this stuff. So it's a you know, labor will be, you know, optimized, effectiveized. And we're already seeing what's going on with automation. I mean, I love the quote, "Robots will always be better robots than humans." Should humans work with manufacturing? I I don't know. Maybe Maybe if you really want to do the same thing 60,000 times over and be okay.

Play from 0:49:44 8:88:88 0:49:44 Maybe if that I I just think maybe there's other things we can do that are more stimulating or better. So, jobs are disappearing in automation, there's inflation, there is conflicts in the world and people just tend to say like, "But this is all because of AI." All right. Okay. A little simplified there, but it is just a tad bit simplified. But but yeah, totally uh this happens all the time and and it's always happened. You know, when we went from a feudal society to an industrial society, jobs were lost. Yeah, okay. And new jobs were created. I cannot tell you what the new jobs will look like. We don't know.

Play from 0:50:18 8:88:88 0:50:18 It's too early, but all we can tell you this has happened before. So. You know, it's interesting with the way AI impacted creativity earlier than I thought a lot of people thought was going to be possible and I think that maybe accounts for some of the surprise, too. When we got AI or knew it was coming and it was close, it I guess the the overall assumption was that this was going to affect more of that type of stuff, right?

Play from 0:50:46 8:88:88 0:50:46 Somebody that's doing repetitive tasks or that are a little bit low risk or something like that where creative elements aren't involved. When in fact, it did come for the creative part. It came for content. It came for image generation, video generation, all these things, right? So, I think that's that that should tool. That's the thing. It came as a tool and people are confusing these two things, I think. And a lot of people weren't ready for that. A lot of people weren't ready for that and then, you know, of course, you've got people that are sharing this on social and it comes faster, you know, news travels faster now than ever. So, all of a sudden it's here. It's on your doorstep and a lot of people feel threatened by that, but go and go into that regulation part of this.

Play from 0:51:28 8:88:88 0:51:28 You know, we've been talking about that since we've been using this stuff, since we started using this stuff and not a lot's happened. When are we going to see something? And here's here's the potential issue that I think is a very likely scenario. The people that are making the decisions probably aren't going to be the most informed people. So, when is something going to happen with this? Because I do think there are still a lot of those questions. Yeah, I mean, it just happened in the EU, right? We got the AI Act. So, if we don't have ChatGPT on the same level or we won't as as you guys in the States, which is like, yeah, EU I don't want to get political, but like, yeah, we're mostly good at over-regulating things in the European Union, unfortunately. Do you know of any European startup like AI startup? Well, there's Stability AI and they're great,

0:51:30Legal Landscape

Play from 0:52:15 8:88:88 0:52:15 but that's it. That's basically it. So, I'm I'm actually really glad that a lot of the most advances in AI models in the most I mean, OpenAI, Runway, all of them are are American companies in our free open market. Okay, there's great Chinese models. We'll see how how the competition in the AI race goes, right? But I'm really glad US actually has a has a big up and and handle on this stuff that there's there's a free market and a and a open Of course, I I also think there should be regulation, there should be best practices. I mean, when I'm out teaching, I typically say, we have to have like ethical prompting or or like a good transparency like markup all when you deliver to client, this is AI and this is exactly what was used. Like, this is good practice. Think about diversity. Think about having a good diverse cast of characters from all kinds of point of view. That can be age,

Play from 0:53:01 8:88:88 0:53:01 that can be, you know, whatever the company what we know about the company's users. If because if you just type like woman, you will just get uh like a generic AI person that's boring and bland. I mean, have you tried typing like art style 250? It's It's It's trash. It's absolutely trash. Some people put that on their Instagram like, "I'm an AI artist." So, okay, whatever. But but like, yeah, the more you the more you put of yourself in it, the better it will be. I absolutely think there should be transparency and you probably need like legal frameworks and it's just this this stuff is collides with everything we know about copyright like when when making images or video was hard and required, you know, going on location and, you know, it's copyright is not made for millions of images being made every single day.

Play from 0:53:45 8:88:88 0:53:45 Right. Right. So, is it is it, you know, is that got to be reworked, right? Like the idea of what copyright actually means. Yeah, and how does that affect people that already have things that are copyrighted? It's fascinating and I I usually think of it like like this like because people about what if someone steals my image? Should I pay for me doing a stealth because someone can steal my image? I'm like, okay. There's million images done every day. Anyone can make anything. Why would anyone steal your image? Why would Dunkin' Donuts steal Starbucks image when Dunkin' Donuts can make whatever the hell they want in their brand colors, in their brand aesthetic, whatever they want. So, people haven't really caught up to this yet. They haven't seen the scale, they haven't seen the versatility, the personalization we can do with this stuff. You know, then there's the drawbacks that it's hard to own it if it's only AI and the human evolvement

Play from 0:54:31 8:88:88 0:54:31 parts. I typically say put more human evolvement in it as much as you can to potentially when the legal framework is more clear, own it or own it more than than any other things, but You You remember when that was announced, too, where it was like, "There needs to be some human touch to it, essentially." Human evolvement, yeah. But it's like what what is the what is the line? Is that me throwing a preset or a lot on this thing? Is it me generative filling one thing in Photoshop? Is it me, you know, adding text?

Play from 0:55:00 8:88:88 0:55:00 It's too hard. It's too hard to keep up with. I've I've kind of been worried about this from the beginning is that there you know, we're slow to begin with legislating and this is the fastest moving technology we've ever seen. And by the time they even got around to it, you know, if they started considering this when it was, you know, the just the imagery part, by the time they got it something out, we're at three, you know, like generative 3D and generative video already. Like, how what are they supposed to do? It's going to be Apple Vision Pro, you know, VR AI when when the legislation has caught up, basically. So, we'll see how how that goes.

Play from 0:55:35 8:88:88 0:55:35 Like, how how is it classified? Like, is it does it have its own classification because it does, you know, if you're defining training or learning, it does the like essentially key principles of that. Does it have its own like little rights category? I think it's very transient, which is why it's going to be super hard to define from a legal perspective, too, as to what it is. Legislators understand what a how a diffusion model works and what it is and what it does. It's not a collage. It's not a Xerox machine. It's a transformative intelligence that learns and and can make things for a human.

Play from 0:56:08 8:88:88 0:56:08 Not surprising And adapts. Yeah, and and learns and gets it gets better. So, I I think probably, could be wrong, but it's in the States at least, you guys have fair use. We don't in Europe. But it's going to land in fair use for diffusion models. Could be wrong. Just a prediction for now. We'll see. It's multiple cases in multiple courts. So, we'll see. It's crazy. There's so much bipolar nature to it where I mean, you know, it is so screw this [ __ ] or whatever. You know, like I I I've never seen something so you like you plant your flag in the ground and you can't you can't like kind of go one way or the other from it.

Play from 0:56:46 8:88:88 0:56:46 People have such a rigid thinking when they think about like, "But you took a job from someone when you did that music video." Like, no no, do you know what the budgets are for music video? The alternative was not that they would hire a team and hundreds of thousands of dollars with this would be spent. The The alternative was not making the video at all. Yeah. That was the alternative. We would have less content. There would be less visual storytelling around an artist's piece. Is that what you want? Okay, if that's fair enough. I'm not going to agree with you. But people have this such a binary, rigid, unimaginative thinking. They just uh that just gets me But could get could get reallocated back to the project, right? Like, could allow you to do different things because of that, right?

Play from 0:57:25 8:88:88 0:57:25 So, it's it's it doesn't happen or it's reallocation of money. I mean, everything changes and affects it. It's It's never just like all these jobs are going to disappear. Now, that could happen, I guess, depending on the direction of everything over time, but that's that way I mean, that's just a super meta conversation in general. What about the next 6 months, 12 months excites you the most about this tech? AI I want to make like never before.

0:57:45Creative Amplifier

Play from 0:57:50 8:88:88 0:57:50 It's that that's my that's my kind of motto like make like never before and it's like explore all these opportunities coming my way. I mean, it's been a crazy like uh what is it? 8 or 9 months just working. I typically work first my time zone in Sweden and then I have American projects working from 6 my time to midnight or something. I mean, I've chosen this. I want this. This is been like transformed my life in every single way, transformed my career and the opportunities and everything, you know, I getting introduced to maybe commercial directing. I get to do music videos, print campaigns, commercials for big brands, small brands, artists. I could never have imagined this going into 2024. So, it's like a blessing to do that and I I want to continue and see where this rabbit hole goes. There's been different kind of what do you say? Employment opportunities coming my way and I'm like, I mean, thanks. That's That's nice, but

Play from 0:58:36 8:88:88 0:58:36 I need to see where this rabbit hole goes and see what's what's what's happening. I'm working with a with a Nordic film company now doing It's already has a term AFX, artificial visual effects, trials for them. So, it's like again, my heart pounds for film. So, that's like would be if I could even be a small part of doing something, that would be incredible. You know, the exponential development of all the models. I mean, Runway Gen 3 came this summer and it's, you know, changed video in incredible ways. The Kling and Minimax and Meta just came out what is it called?

Play from 0:59:09 8:88:88 0:59:09 Meta movie or whatever it was called. Sora isn't out yet. It It's so Do we even remember it half the time? No, it's like I look back at the videos like, [ __ ] They're so They're so good. Like, this I still want to try it. Like, so yeah, but I tell my students also like, it's okay to have AI fatigue cuz I have it, too. You cannot keep up with everything and it's okay. You you you cannot. It's not possible. No one I know, I'm sure you guys also doesn't do every single AI model. It's not possible. You have to focus on You have to pay the bills and do projects and serve clients and educate and consult and do podcasts.

Play from 0:59:47 8:88:88 0:59:47 It's all that stuff. But I typically say choose your core favorites and work with them and and then experiment and decide on like what feels interesting now. So that's what I do. So next 6 months is going to be busy as hell creating like never before. I want to have more of these conversations try to jump on every interesting podcast to have these more cuz I mean even what we touched on here today, like on LinkedIn, it's not really there yet in the comments. Like you don't really get these more dynamic. I want to put on events. I want to do more like meetups in Stockholm. Stockholm is still kind of in its inception when it comes to waking up with AI film and advertising and all that stuff. And if I can be even a small part in in in doing that I That's well said. And I think I think we we feel fairly similarly. I don't want to speak for Drew, but again, it just feels like

Play from 1:00:33 8:88:88 1:00:33 this is just this is just the start. Like again, everyone always says it's a cheesy line, but this is the worst it'll ever be. That's the worst it'll ever be. And it's crazy how quick it develops. Like Mini Max, especially, something like that where they just come out of nowhere. What are they? A six-person company? And I I just tested it the other day and I'm like, what the hell like what is this movement that no no one else can generate? But it's crazy that that can be built by six people. And that's not possible. We got to start getting used to that.

Play from 1:00:58 8:88:88 1:00:58 That That idea that 10 people or less can build something awesome now is going to happen more than ever. You know, because now with this with just AI, the capabilities, the tech, even outside of AI, it's never been more possible. Oh, it's so exciting, man. It's It really is exciting. Exactly. 100 And not even just for image gen or whatever. I mean, with the coding tools, with with the stuff you can do now is is is a If you if you're an entrepreneurial spirit and you still have a little bit of creativity and willingness to learn, Jesus Christ, man. It's like the Find a market. Find a niche. Try Try something really scrappy and fast, and you can get going like never before. But it seems like we're stuck in I don't know like a lot of people are I mean, some are crushing it. Some people are absolutely crushing it and kudos to them. Yeah, the

Play from 1:01:44 8:88:88 1:01:44 There's too many choices. There's too many good things to do. So I try my best to to judge the opportunities and stuff. But yeah, I should probably do other things as well, but I also want to touch on one thing with the ability that I totally forgot about that that I think is just such a smart way of thinking about stuff cuz I think everyone probably like they want everything done with AI. They want one-button solution. They want all of this sort of like capabilities stacked into one often times just thinking you know, you're the You're the AI guy. You can do whatever the hell you want. There was like in terms of thinking in a creative way about solving problems, I saw something that you did where you it was either for a photo shoot or for a video shoot where you guys were generating backgrounds to use like as an on location to then add in me, which I

1:02:00Rapid Advancements

Play from 1:02:30 8:88:88 1:02:30 thought was just like again, this such a smart creative way to go about production in some stand in some cases or for your small business that needs to have a little bit more visual firepower than you know, they can't fly to the Sahara Desert for for a scene, right? So if you if you could give us a little background Yeah, it it it's a cool It was really cool product. That was earlier this year like March or something. And that was with Media Monks or now Monks they're just called. So I'm I'm on their artist roster. And yeah, that was for Ballantine's whiskey. So like a really big whiskey brand. And they had like a double-digit increase in the Polish market. So this was for the social media campaign on in Poland.

Play from 1:03:08 8:88:88 1:03:08 And they had all of these ideas for location sets. But then they just realized we cannot travel to a mountain village and you know, rent a skyscraper for an in-shoot on you know, all these highly or forest festival, all these different locations. So I I don't actually know who came up with it, but the brief was when it came to me, "Can you do AI backgrounds of this caliber?" And I'm like, "Yes, we can." The idea was to borrow from basically how The Mandalorian and the virtual sets as they're called, how they're filmed, which is basically you have a huge LED screen sometimes up kind of like a dome. This was more like a huge I mean like 4 5 m I don't know how much in feet, but like 5 6 m tall like two three people stacked basically.

Play from 1:03:53 8:88:88 1:03:53 Enormous LED screens. And on them we would have images, sometimes small video snippets of backgrounds of different environments. And then they would also layer props on top. So if there was like a certain elements in the image would also be represented layered as real props on top to create natural depth in the in the scene. And then 3 to 4 m away, you have a camera. Because if you're that far away, the camera the the the natural What do you say? shallow depth of field, the blur, the pixels will not be seen on the on the LED screen. And then in the middle, you have real actors, real products like acting out these different scenes. And then you you shoot it. You you light it of course so that the lighting matches the colors in the background so they feel integrated. So this is becoming like a really cool way

Play from 1:04:38 8:88:88 1:04:38 of doing these hybrid productions now. Like AI doesn't do everything, but it can make we we can transport ourselves to different environments. And I mean, there's two tools like Kubrick, for example, which has taken this to the next level. So they do depth maps of of the image so that when you move the when the actor moves, the camera moves. And you have this natural parallax effect of the different layers of the background. So they take it to the next level. Damn. We did not have that when this production was done. So that's also really really cool. And I think again, like we can make stuff of such a high production quality now. And if you if you you can go to my LinkedIn. They're they're all there, the Valentine's ads if if anyone wants to see them. Like with a bit of post-production, great motion design, a really nice piece that would have cost you tons. And again, the the the alternative was not to fly there. The the

1:04:45Production Revolution

Play from 1:05:24 8:88:88 1:05:24 alternative was to not make that ad at all or make something completely simpler just here's a bottle, someone holding it drinking whiskey or whatever. So it was an opportunity to create more, not necessarily to cut costs in this Great point. That's one thing that you've always been good at since I've been following you on LinkedIn, too, is just sort of like helping educate, you know, some of those those points of view that maybe aren't either brought up a lot or aren't even thought of. So I think it's a really good excellent point. As we wrap up here, tell people where they can find you.

Play from 1:05:55 8:88:88 1:05:55 Obviously like you're an excellent follow on LinkedIn. Is there anywhere else that that people can get in touch with you or follow your work? It's It's going to be basically my YouTube. So it's actually Billy Bowman Design. That's just my YouTube. If you want to check it out, my website is billybowman.com. And basically LinkedIn is the only platform that ever worked for me. I'm relatively new to social media as a creator. So this is all new to me. And you know, hugely humbled by the relatively small following, but still growing every Ah, there you crush it on there. You crush it on there, man. I think Nowhere near you guys, but I'm I'm getting there. I'm I'm I'm doing doing my thing. Billy Bowman, give him a follow. I promise you won't regret it.

Play from 1:06:31 8:88:88 1:06:31 Also, Billy, I'm thinking you know, Rory and I are tossing around a few other ideas. I think we need to bring you back in some capacity. I got a few ideas that we can talk about off air, but it's been great having you on. I think you add a great voice to this conversation, and you're doing We're all kind of doing a little something a little bit different. And so it's great to get that perspective. So thanks for joining us today, man. Really appreciate the time. really great conversation. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Billy. Good good stuff.

Play from 1:06:57 8:88:88 1:06:57 Glad to have a creative perspective in here, too, from someone deep inside the industry. Think it helps everyone visualize what they can do. All right. Well, we'll see you guys in the next episode. Thanks for joining us. Later. Like and subscribe.