Ep. 85: Claude Opus Feels Like Midjourney Now

0:00:00What's coming in Fast Hours 85?

Play from 0:00:00 0:00:00 What's up everybody? Fast Hours Podcast, episode eighty-five. Drew Brucker, Rory Flynn. And ~ it is October second. Friday, October second. So we're in it's sp spooky season. Spooky season. It's And you know who's spooked right now? I'll tell you who's spooked right now. Motion designers are spooked. ~ We touched on it last week with Opus 5.5.

Play from 0:00:25 0:00:25 I think we can get into that a little bit more today. I think we got plenty to show there. I think we've been cracked out on that for the last week. ~ because it is a game changer. There's there's a lot of things that have now become unlocked for just creatives that maybe didn't have experience in that discipline. There were locked gates, there were closed doors, there were high walls, there were Barbed wire on the top of the wall that you just couldn't get over now.

Play from 0:00:56 0:00:56 It's like fair game, right? Like there are levels to it, of course, just like being a domain expert in any sort of discipline. But I think, man, we've seen this patterns. We'll we'll talk about that, obviously. But ~ let's let's let's ease into October and Halloween season, sir. ~ how's everything going on your end? Good. It's just ~ I don't know, I felt pretty cracked this week, like you said.

Play from 0:01:23 0:01:23 I've I've gotten more done in a week and run more complex stuff that's taking like hours to run than I've ever done in a single week. And I haven't used all my I've used like fifty percent of my usage. So this is Opus, whatever the hell happened with that model, I I mean Undersold. We were talking about that last. It's just like we didn't hear anything about it. Then it drops just like a quieter.

Play from 0:01:49 0:01:49 Here's Opus 55. And then it's like the power coupled with the like no real wall when it comes to the usage that we've seen with like Astra and Fable. And you know, name it. And that's what's what's fucking wild about this one. I mean, it's just. It's incredible. And like you said, I think you brought up a good point, which is I've had more generations that are 15 minutes to I don't know, let's just call it two hours or whatever it may be in the last two to three weeks than I had prior to my entire history of interacting with LLMs.

Play from 0:02:32 0:02:32 Now like the complexity, the depth of the projects. the capabilities, right? When you start to factor in like the three D stuff, the motion stuff, like takes a little bit longer to do, but it's my God, bro. It is addicting. Addicting. It's a it's it's crazy 'cause it's also like the MCPs now, right? The thing that it's that's really impressed me with is like here's your resources with minimal direction, like be creative and go pull from stuff.

Play from 0:03:02 0:03:02 And it's like, okay. And it does it. And it does it really well. And it's like how I don't even know like I don't even know how you concepted that because it's really like some things are very personal, right? Like ~ you know, we're gonna get into some of the things that we we built our website. with it this week for the Fast Hours podcast. Minimal direction. wait, say that again? We got a website now? We a website now, guys. We we were waiting for this moment. We were just slow on it.

Play from 0:03:28 0:03:28 And like who wants to who honestly who wants to take over like that that giant project and just do it? We already have like we're so slammed with stuff. It's just like a website. If anyone's built one, you know. It just takes forever. And even vibe coding them now is like it's painful. But when you can give it a bunch of resources, context, like a bunch of tools to work with, it can go and actually just dominate something now, which is great. Crazy and be creative about it.

Play from 0:03:54 0:03:54 that's the really interesting part is like ~ we'll we'll dive into like what that that produced for us, but also the process that you that you took into it. And I'm gonna give like Rory really drove this. So I did this basically in a day. You know what I mean? Like in a day. which yes, speed matters, but only if the quality's there, right? We've talked about this.

Play from 0:04:20 0:04:20 And the quality is there because the context is there. The context is so good. And ~ yeah, man, I mean, really excited about that. And like we'll we'll kind of get into like how we went about it, how we approached it. I made a lot of changes to my website simultaneously. I if you guys remember on the last podcast, I was talking about the, you know, my kids, you know, handwriting, turning that into a typeface. And then I wanted to start incorporating that branding.

0:04:20Why does context improve creative quality?

Play from 0:04:46 0:04:46 And so I couldn't just let that sit in my head. that was like one of those things that actually like really pushed me. creatively to just like go do some shit with it. And same thing. I mean, it's just like in incredible the speed in which I was able to do that. Cause like even I I did it did take me a whole day, but I updated several pages on my website and had to rethink about those visually from a creative concept of weaving the handwriting into the the website and so forth.

Play from 0:05:14 0:05:14 And so you know just having that thought partner, having the ability to iterate, having the ability for it to like provide me with these visual mock-ups. you know, that I could sort of use as a raw material to build on, right? Like ~ I it's just it's it's a totally different process now, man. And it's it's fun. It's fun and and it's exciting because the quality is good. So one of the absolute wildest things that I've realized from the last week is that Opus sort of feels like Midjourney And what I mean by that is it doesn't need to be point for point, direction for direction.

0:05:35Why does Claude Opus 5.5 feel like Midjourney?

Play from 0:05:50 0:05:50 Like you don't need to give it a million different things for it to be creative. It can go and sort of imagine on its own. It has a creative streak about it. It has a, you know, like I said, it has an imagination, but it's very good at taking minimal direction and running with it. And also like from a cascading effect, right? Like we had we showed you guys that that promo video that we cut as like a just like a demo last week.

0:06:07One design system, a creative domino effect

Play from 0:06:16 0:06:16 It was like, here's this, you know, crazy promo video with no direction that it made. But I was like, from there, there's like a cascading effect. Then it was like, we just built this clipping machine so we could clip the podcast, get more shorts out, try to get more visibility on the podcast, right? Said like, can we use the design system and whatever the hell you did on this promo video and sort of add that to the clips and it's now it's basically animating entire b roll for us in the clips and then took that system.

Play from 0:06:42 0:06:42 It was like, here's all this context. Could you build a website that kind of looks like this? And it was like, Yeah, all right, gotcha fam. Just went and did it. ~ a big unlock for us too, guys. Cause like we, you know, like we've been going a little bit harder on the podcast. Obviously, we've been very consistent with this, getting this weekly. We're starting to talk, you know, sponsorships. We had the sponsorship already. We're trying to cut more clips consistently, post those. I mean, we we are putting extra time into it.

Play from 0:07:08 0:07:08 And then we're also simultaneously thinking, okay, well, we probably are gonna have to hire somebody to do this, we're probably gonna have to hire somebody to do that, probably gonna have to, you know, because we're both running businesses. And until, you know, this, you know, if and when, right, this becomes a major part of our business. Like we have to find smart ways to be efficient. And like the fact that we are able to do the motion graphics, cutting the clips, finding the the viral moments, and then getting it on brand in a way that is much smarter, even than these other platforms that exist right now that do the the magic clips or the clips for you.

Play from 0:07:47 0:07:47 Like there are teams of people working on those things. And we're individuals over here. Like, and so like this is the democratization that I'm talking about. It's just like these companies, these enterprise, like the product teams can't move fast enough. You know, like there, there are just so many, you know, approvals that take place, people involved, right? Subjective opinions coming into play, multiple stakeholders, right? And it's just like you feel like these other companies should be moving faster.

Play from 0:08:16 0:08:16 With features capability launches, like you see the AI companies do, but they're not. They're not. It's just like it's that to me is like this big bottleneck that I see from the outside looking in. And the fact that, you know, somebody like you or me can like basically string this together in a day or two and get better results, just objectively better results, is mind blowing. It's fucking mind blowing.

Play from 0:08:42 0:08:42 running basically rebuilt Opus Clip, the the website that I mean, like we built it locally. It still needs to be tuned and refined and it, you know, we need to have like but the thing is, here's the difference, right? These companies that make tools like this, I think it's a pretty big sort of you know future indicator that they're not necessarily necessary anymore. Like I if I can build this, right, number one.

0:09:07We built a custom AI clipping workflow

Play from 0:09:07 0:09:07 I can build it, I can tailor it to me because that's a more it's just a broader output to try and reach everyone's sort of results. With us, I can build it specifically for us. And what it can understand is now our audience, what we're trying to do, and what we're trying so like instead of Opus just giving me like what it thinks will go viral, or what it thinks will just generate views, like I can be specifically more targeted. I want, you know, either top of funnel, middle funnel, bottom funnel. Like I also want to split our audience into people who don't know us and then people who do know us.

Play from 0:09:36 0:09:36 Right. So like People who do know us, like I want to create clips for them. You know what we do, you know, and also like again, if you're seeing it, you're like, it's like a quick bite, let me go watch the episode. Then I also have to have stuff that's, you top of funnel, which is like I don't know who the hell these guys are, what the hell are they talking about? No context. Right. So the thing that was interesting when building it was one of the concepts that it came up with, which I don't know if every brand or every one of these clipping tools is doing, is it came up with this concept of the blind grader where it reads through the transcript.

0:10:01A blind grader judging clip hooks?

Play from 0:10:05 0:10:05 But It it reads through the transcript one word, one word at a time. It does not ingest the full thing and then go back. Because what it told me was like, okay, here, like, think about it like this. If you're seeing something on social media for the first time, right, you don't have any idea what's coming next. So that's where the hook becomes sort of like, How do I like at first glance, was this shocking or was this interesting? Instead of it being like, that hook makes c sense in context with the rest of the episode.

Play from 0:10:34 0:10:34 So That was like an unlock. Once it did that it started firing and finding much better stuff. ~ and then again it's just taking narration on what we're doing and building the motion graphics into it. So do you want to get into it? Do you want to just go ahead and like get into it? Like I I think it would be really interesting to like take people into your process of how you were thinking about this. Because, you know, this was really well, we we kind of saw a couple different iterations of this, right?

Play from 0:11:02 0:11:02 Right. It's like, okay, first of all, like I was, you know, even even now, right? Anytime we finish a podcast, I've got sort of like a whole You know, agent that basically breaks down everything, goes through this whole workflow of building out all the YouTube essentials, right? Like titles, descriptions, timestamps, ~ you know, caption fixes in the the SRT and TXT files, tags, hashtags.

Play from 0:11:27 0:11:27 ~ if we're gonna promote this video, like what what targeting we should use, like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And part of that was like identifying clips, like in moments. But still it was a manual process. And so like I would go into, you know, we use Riverside, and it's like, okay, they have magic clips associated. I would kind of check those out, you know, maybe like a 50-50, 40, 60 kind of hit rate on those.

Play from 0:11:54 0:11:54 And even if the ones that hit, sometimes it didn't get like the right moment to jump into it or the right moment to cut off. And so it was still a manual process for me, you know. And, you know, again, going back to like sort of that time. ~ obstacle that that that both of us have, right? It's like, well, sometimes I have time to cut a bunch of clips and sometimes I don't. And then you took that forward and were able to start a kind of building out ~ a tool that was bringing in the branding part of it.

Play from 0:12:22 0:12:22 And then we got Opus 5-5, and then you started bringing in the motion graphics part of it. And now it's just cracked out. Now it's just like insane doing the auto switching with. You know, who it's showing the speaker with the share screen and it's got all these slick motion graphics in it. And it's just like, boom, you're you're putting this into this process and letting it go. Sure, it may take a little while to develop, but you can do that in the background and work on something else, and then it's done. Right.

Play from 0:12:47 0:12:47 And and that is wild because now, again, it unlocks a lot of things for us. We can now post these clips regularly on YouTube. I just activated our our dormant ~ Instagram. channel. so you guys could follow us there now. We're gonna start posting clips there. ~ but you know what I mean? Like it it just it it saves ~ so much effort and energy there. And ~ it's just really a cool way that you've approached it as well in in sort of building in the motion graphics element.

Play from 0:13:17 0:13:17 Yeah, so while you were saying that I just had Claude, I just had Opus spin up like a like a visual page of it. ~ but like this is what's this is what's interesting, right? Is is you know, not just like the the actual process, right? ~ but because we have access to the like the Riverside MCP was the key in all of this. Like I wasn't gonna download all of our local like all of our local recordings plus our you know, but if you never used Riverside before, right?

0:13:35Why does Riverside MCP matter for clipping?

Play from 0:13:44 0:13:44 You it'll de it'll take the full episode. Which is like, you know, both of us on screen, right? It has the screen share separate. It has the the two speaker videos separate because everything's recording locally. So it's a lot of files. But for me to download that every week, that's like, I don't know how many gigs that is. That would just take up space. And then it's like I'm only gonna use, you know, r in reality, like ten minutes of this. Yeah. So having the Riverside MCP in there now and it can also read the transcript, which is all there.

Play from 0:14:12 0:14:12 So it it can do everything here. So what it's doing is it's pulling The raw files every week, right? It finds the spikes. So like the graders that we were talking about, like this is where I had to put in the most work, right? Like finding the spikes. Like what, like what's important. So what I did was I went through my YouTube shorts that I've saved over the months and years. Anyone that had podcasts that I found out was like relatively interesting, but also had like a unique editing format.

0:14:26How do reference clips train an AI editor?

Play from 0:14:38 0:14:38 ~ that was a little bit more engaging, fast, like, you know, the little jump cuts and the the crash zooms and things like that to make it, you know. More optimized for performance. ~ so I had it sort of break that down forensically and sort of build, you know, itself like a knowledge base on that. And then also like I had to like go in here and teach it. I was like teaching it who like who we are. It had all of our transcripts, but it didn't really understand like who we were, what we want to put out there, because it would, you know, it would find stuff.

Play from 0:15:06 0:15:06 But it's like if we were going through a whole podcast, right, and it was finding the The viral moments. It'd be like things that were random things that we said, like Michael Jordan sucks, you know, like something like that. And it'd be like, that's gonna be viral. But it's like that has nothing to do with our business or our podcast. Right. So it's like, how do I we had it? So we went through and defined the entire audience who we want to see this, where this is gonna go. Or like this might go, ~ you know, it's gonna go on YouTube Shorts, which is gonna be different than might go on LinkedIn.

Play from 0:15:35 0:15:35 Like two of those audiences are different. We want to tell different things, but also like. What are the type of categories that we want to pull from and hierarchy them? So like, you know, is showing tool demos higher than, you know, personal stories, right? Or like depends, but then we sort of mapped it to the mapped it to like the specific channel that we were gonna output on. Now, regardless, this is like two weeks in, but a built-in the analytics platform so we can read and sort of like self-optimize as it goes.

Play from 0:16:05 0:16:05 But essentially, you know, then it's it's basically writing the one frame. So it's gonna write the open, you know, the seven hook types, ~ and what what we can sort of fit into that and build. It's not necessarily like a lot of these other clips machines, we'll start with the it'll be like the hook goes into the rest of the context, right? So like it's just like you say the hook and the peak the speaker keeps talking instead of like isolating the hook against like something else.

Play from 0:16:30 0:16:30 So it can the hook can be from anything. And then it'll put the context in. It's just like finding the right hook for it. so it can be out of sequence, which a lot of the, you know, the shorts are where it's either that or they start with the loop, sort of, you know, whatever you said at the at the beginning gets to the end and it loops back to the beginning, right? So again, then basically what it's doing is just ~ building based on the specs that I gave it. It'll cut like the the split screen, just us two, and then it will add the motion graphics.

0:16:37How do you build clips around out-of-order hooks?

Play from 0:16:59 0:16:59 It'll code in the motion graphics, which I took from our promo video last week. And that's sort of how it works. But Let me see if I have the ~ episode eighty four. Do I have the manifest here? Which is like sort of what comes out before it starts to run this whole thing. It typically takes like two hours from start to finish. always look at those. I'm like, I can't wait. So I like kind of I it always kind of gives you those little thumbnails that you can like click on and then kind of see the screenshots of them sort of like putting it together.

Play from 0:17:31 0:17:31 Yeah. So here's but yes, a hundred percent. But here's the ~ like the top ten, like what it thought would be good, right? And it's giving us the destination where it would be the best, sort of the length, you know, open. I don't have project managers anymore. Like I guess that's a good one, right? Then we have our live reactions, fly it also has our flags in here. ~ because I built a compliance thing so that we don't get screwed by by YouTube for this stuff again.

Play from 0:17:57 0:17:57 But, you know, just spend two hundred dollars a month. Tell me how it feels. Like again, that's a solid hook. Wh where does that go from there? You know, this is nasty. Like again, that's a solid hook. Like what's nasty? Right? Like again, ~ you know, it should feel like it was made with a budget of $200,000. What should be, you know, like we're teaching it how to how to find this stuff. You know, daddy can write in your handwriting. That was a great one. Now, what it's doing is just basically animating over the narration.

Play from 0:18:25 0:18:25 So something like that, let's see if I can find I love those too because like the attributes of those are they're open loops, They're ambiguous enough where you want to learn more. So this is like what it was looking like before the motion graphics.

Play from 0:19:02 0:19:02 So that's that's that. Let me see if I have the episode. cool, right? Because it's this this idea that okay, we're already saving a bunch of time doing this, Which is already better than the the current clipping process that we had and a lot less manual. And then you said, Hold my beer, and you said, All right, let me let me like 10X this with the motion design opus stuff.

Play from 0:19:28 0:19:28 Now let's see if I can find this specific one. Here we go. So now here's what this looks like with the motion graphics added.

0:19:32Podcast clips get branded motion graphics

Play from 0:20:09 0:20:09 Look at those smooth, smooth. Crazy. I mean it's just it's just wild when we look at some of these, right? Like it was like we were just going through like no way. Like this one this one too here. I thought the way that it like Can we just for a moment appreciate the computer vision labeling you as carrier pigeon?

Play from 0:21:00 0:21:00 Yeah, yes. Yeah. I mean, like, that's the fun stuff, right? And you see like what's happening here. Like it's very intentional and it's good and it fits it in this space. And maybe because it's nine by sixteen or sixteen by nine up there, ~ in that little area, that it's easier for it to do this, but it's going through all these different pieces and just Doing it. I'm giving it no direction on this. It's just like take the clip and do as you must with it.

Play from 0:21:27 0:21:27 So, like, we have a whole new system now. And now all these are gonna get run through the analytics platform self-optimize. We'll keep going. ~ but that wasn't possible three weeks ago. Maybe it was, but it would not have been this easy and it would not have been this sort of dialed in and like imaginative. I would have had to direct a lot more of that. you would have had to have worked at least two or three times harder at a minimum to get it to this before this was possible.

Play from 0:21:54 0:21:54 Right. There were just like too many, like not that it wasn't possible. It would have just been like one of those things where it's like, are you really gonna spend that much time on it? And the quality you would have kind of been a little bit you wouldn't have known for sure that it was gonna hit. And now, right, like because of the speed of it, and thank you, God, for the usage ability. ~ that you know, like the usage rates that we're getting on this, because other again, that too would have been a bottleneck and it's not because of that.

Play from 0:22:25 0:22:25 It's just I don't know. I'm just like I was sending him to you. I'm like, I can't believe it when as I as they were rendering, I'm like, is this is this real? Like is this happening? Can't believe that I can actually do this because we have the you know, I don't know what this would have looked like, granted, if we didn't cut that promo video. Like if that promo video didn't get cut and it didn't have a whole system behind it, ~ I don't know what would have come out of there. Probably wouldn't have been as good.

Play from 0:22:50 0:22:50 But it had like this direction, it had like an intent. And then it just like ran with it. So, hey, we got some stuff now. We we got some stuff. Yeah. And we we went through you know, like we were showing some of the the stuff last week, right? ~ that we came up with. And it was really like we came up with that minutes, hours before the episode, right?

Play from 0:23:17 0:23:17 Because all the way that Opus launched, it was really like we maybe had a day. It like it you know what, it these always happen where they they push on like a Wednesday or Thursday and it's like we record on Fridays and it's like we literally have 24 hours, if that, to play with these things before we get on air. So it was like the like those initial examples were obviously very, very interesting. But let's get into sort of like what this means too, which is ~ you know, you started to kind of see, ~ Well, the same pattern that we've seen with disruption in the past, right?

0:23:52Motion designers losing their sh*t over AI democratization

Play from 0:23:53 0:23:53 Which is motion designers, I think, starting to, you know, get their panties in a bunch, you know, for lack of a better term. I I I think I get it. I get it now. Like we've seen this play run out several times. And then you're gonna get, right, like the examples of people being like, but it's it's slop. It's not this, it's not that. Okay, but you're you're missing the point.

Play from 0:24:18 0:24:18 You're missing the point. ~ so like I I'll just kind of give you an example of this. Like I posted a few of those things that I think I shared anyway last week or whatever. I did like one, like a Pinterest one. Like I started basically I started going through a lot of the clients that I have that I can talk about and and show some of the stuff or talk about it on on my website. And I was like, okay, well, easy win. Now that we've got this motion graphic stuff, we could do like these show reels of work that I've done for these clients.

Play from 0:24:46 0:24:46 And maybe it's like these little 30, 60-minute kind of videos, right? Mm-hmm. And ~ I just went hard on that. And I'll I'll kind of tap into that when we talk about sort of like the website. But ~ you know, I I did a couple different posts on this last week. And ~ mostly like people just like wow, right? ~ and the wow factor too of this was everything that we were showing. Last week, I think, and even this example, this is without any connectors.

Play from 0:25:15 0:25:15 This is no MCPs, right? This is just in Claude alone. And so when, you know, when we're showing stuff like this, right? Like this was like my one shot first output of this and being like, dang, right? Like reaction. And I think you get the motion designers that'll pop in here and be like, whoa, there's, you know, ~ let's see. Poor, you know, like poor typography icon design, like they're they're getting their panties in a bunch because this is is not in the box.

Play from 0:25:46 0:25:46 Okay. Or the music. The music is ~ is is yikes or the pacing isn't right. Plot twist, all of those things can be corrected through iteration and prompting. What are we talking about? That's where, that's where these people just they're not seeing the bigger picture here. It's not about whatever I just posted in terms of that being a final polish.

Play from 0:26:13 0:26:13 This was what this was the first output I got. That doesn't mean I'm stopping there. That doesn't mean that that's what I'm gonna go live with. That doesn't mean that's where this ends in terms of creative capability. Right. Like I was showcasing what can be done just in Opus without anything in one shot. That's the I mean, maybe I need to be more blatant with that, but that's what we're talking about here.

Play from 0:26:38 0:26:38 And the reason why that's so important is this is a crossing of the Rubicon moment for the motion design. Right. This isn't about where it stands right now. Part of it is, right? But this is the part where it's going and what we've seen with all these other. 3D video photography, right? Like all of that. This is the beginning of, you know, the the democratization, I guess, of this discipline in some ways, right?

Play from 0:27:06 0:27:06 And and look, nothing, I don't want to take away anything from motion designers. If I'm a motion designer, I'm thinking about domain expertise. I'm thinking about my, you know, subject matter expertise that takes this to an insane level. Just like I as a photographer was thinking about the stills and taking that to the next level. Was part of me worried that this is going to take photography? Yeah, partly, but also like I wasn't a full-time photographer.

Play from 0:27:34 0:27:34 I did it as a hobby. you know, and and I think like we we just, I don't know, it's inevitable that disruptions taking place. But you as a sort of like a domain expert or subject matter expertise, like you can drive what that ultimately looks like too. This is an opportunity. And and there are some things that just are gonna change and we have to keep up with that, right? Like you think people were mad when we started doing cars and they were riding horses?

Play from 0:28:01 0:28:01 Yeah, I'm sure. Like people are up in arms about it. Like, but the reality is like we can't really stop this. We just need to adapt, right? And whatever that is. And I just think like these are the wrong kind of ways to think about it. And it's just like, I I I just got ridiculed. Like you're you're You sacr you know, you're telling people their jobs are gonna be lost. Like you're your fear mock. It's like, bro, you you just I I I don't even have the energy to go back and forth with you.

Play from 0:28:29 0:28:29 I I just don't. And this is again the bigger picture here, guys, is like this is the beginning. This is the beginning of the democratization. And I think I just think it's it's it's incredibly fun. I mean, like this this stuff, Rory. I mean. We've seen this stuff. I've hired for this stuff. I had to spend big budgets on this stuff. Right. And now you and I can take creative ideas from our head and implement it.

Play from 0:28:56 0:28:56 And it's just ~ it's wild, man. I mean, ~ I will though, right? Like to me this is the same this is the exact same thing as like everything else with AI where it's like you you scroll through X and you started to see like, I told, you know, Opus to do this to have fun and create something whatever it wanted to. If you saw enough of they look the same. There's a pattern. Right? Like there's a pattern to it. And then if you see it enough times, it just loses its novelty.

Play from 0:29:24 0:29:24 So again, it's where do you push it? And you know again, whether that's with branding or whether that's with creativity, ~ You know, whether that's just like again, stepping outside of just d create this for me. Right? The same thing with Midjourney or the same thing with any other tool that we've used where it's just go beyond and you'll probably create some really cool stuff. So I don't understand the the motion designers aren't seeing this stuff. They're not seeing like ~ what's the weird thing is like I I had a lot of people being like, Well how well what happens when you want to go back and change something?

Play from 0:29:55 0:29:55 I'm like, it's a line of code. It can just go rewrite it. can I can change one letter in one frame in the middle of the video with simple edit. And there's like it couldn't like wrap the head around it. I'm like, it does and you can also have it export to something like After Effects if you want it to. It can go do that. And then then you have the full file. Do whatever the hell you want with it. Right? Like component, right? So I could score it more professionally. It could see after effects, you know, whatever, magnific for image what whatever it is, like Figma, you know, dude, it like so it's just that that gets lost.

0:29:58How precise are code-based motion graphics edits?

Play from 0:30:30 0:30:30 ~ what was that analogy you just mentioned? You just brought up a really good one. ~ I don't even remember. There were but it was along the lines of like, okay, here, here's I can't remember exactly what you said, but you brought up mid-journey as an analogy here. And I think let me just sort of like piggyback on that. So this reminds me of in this stage of the disruption that we've seen in these disciplines, reminds me of that mid-journey period, which you just brought up, which is like going in Discord, typing things, and everybody having the ability to create something creatively and being wowed that it's now possible.

Play from 0:31:09 0:31:09 That's the stage, right? The next stage is right. And that's what you saw on X when this release. It's like, I just typed in, like, you know, and even me, right? It's like soup make this like a Super Bowl commercial and like with a budget of this. And it's like, that's stage one. Stage two or stage three is really like thinking harder about like the things that we just mentioned, which is like the pacing, right? Like Dialing in, you know, the scores or whatever like those individual moments are within motion design and educating ourselves and driving that further.

Play from 0:31:41 0:31:41 Just like with Midjourney was like, okay, you and I think about prompt structure, the the coherence difference between how you use the prompt, you know, ~ structure and hierarchy, like what you per put first versus what you put last, and injecting camera angles into this, and you know, like all of those other little elements. That's those are the next steps up here. You know, and so just like drive that home.

Play from 0:32:07 0:32:07 But then this should be like a this should be like maybe this is the moment that we pull this one up, the one I sent you. Like this is the difference between what you've seen from Drew and I and then what you see from someone who knows what they're doing. Right? Is this a yeah, so like any motion designer who's complaining about this, like your your dreams should just have bit like you should just be like, I can't believe this now. Like I don't even have to do the first pass. But I can pretty much dream up whatever I want to.

0:32:14Domain expertise raises the ceiling for AI motion design

Play from 0:32:33 0:32:33 Cause something like this, I'll put this up here. There was some guy that came out with a video. Yeah, I have it tagged. I can send it to you if we want to pull it up. But he he basically is a motion designer, or animator. And he was talking about Blender or motion, whatever it was. But he was just like, Look, I gotta admit, I'm completely blown away at what Claude can do. Right. I have conflicting feelings and thoughts, right?

Play from 0:32:59 0:32:59 But we need to be embracing this. It's inevitable to some degree, but what does this mean for us? Like, sort of like echoing sort of that thread we're talking about, but Yeah. So let's let's watch this forty-five seconds from actually let me let's shout him out. T K H ~ N G eight Fun Tech. That's that's his name.

Play from 0:33:24 0:33:24 So but this was just when I saw this, I was like, my brain just exploded. I'm like, I could do so much, but I don't know, I even know where to start. I don't even know how to direct. But this guy obviously does.

Play from 0:34:22 0:34:22 Bro, that's that's crazy. I mean just absolutely ludicrous that again. What do you I don't I I can guarantee, and I'm pretty sure he said it. I just don't want to speak out of my out of my mouth. Here's a actual, let's let's go back and show the might as well do this. Don't want to speak out of my mouth. But here's for the podcast, brother. I know.

Play from 0:34:47 0:34:47 We gotta I'm gonna I'm gonna have to fix that. But he goes through the process, right, of what he's actually doing. Right. Like he shows you everything. ~ the breakdowns that he made, the character and the pre-production process that go into all this, obviously using 3D, ~ whether that's you know, alpha masks or depth maps, ~ things like that. is this is really the valuable stuff. Whether you're whether you're the domain expert or you're trying to push this further, like if you're in our seat, right?

Play from 0:35:17 0:35:17 Like understanding more and more about these how they're thinking about this as well. So here's let's actually see the website. So this is actually a website. ~ my god, sick. Just to start. Like, I don't know. I wonder how it starts. Is this just do I click on something? I don't know. I guess it's running. But regardless, it says install the website.

Play from 0:35:42 0:35:42 I don't know why it would do that. I wonder if we have to wait for this thing to boot up. All right, there you go. Enter boot. so it's like interactive too. Which is wild. Whatever. I mean like let's just Website websites are about to not they're about to be, yeah.

Play from 0:36:14 0:36:14 I I I mean just websites in general though are now there like because there was like a certain way you had to build them, right? And a lot of wireframes looked kind of similar, right? And you thought about websites in the same sort of box, if you will. And now it's like I feel like you're gonna run into this thing where Every website is just so unique. There might be some and it mostly good, right? But it also might drive some ambiguity and like confusion because you're like not really sure.

Play from 0:36:42 0:36:42 Like, even that example is like, what do I do at this screen? I've never seen a website like that. How am I supposed to interact with this? Right. Like, so there's gonna be some of that too. And you know, Like, there's no creativity ~ limitations with with the website. I mean, remember when just like webflow and framer? We're there and it's like, dude, that's a big disruption because I don't have to do this WordPress shit, you know, and Squarespace was easy, but it was limited and Just looks like crap.

Play from 0:37:13 0:37:13 I mean it's just I have to show my website after you just showed that? I mean, I'm ~ I mean, you know, that's that's the extreme example, guys. That one right there. That's I don't even know where to start with what that's that's 3D, that's the motion graph. That's just like that's having like a vision and directing it as well. You know, like if you wanted to go through all those different things, a lot of what people are doing, like what we did, was sort of like, here's all this stuff, put it together.

Play from 0:37:42 0:37:42 Like basically, you know, are playing like Chef or ~ with Chopped. That's the that's the show on. You it's like here here's your ingredients. Go go make something with it. Right? Like that's the for anyone who's not familiar with the ~ with that television show. Gives you a you get like five ingredients and it's like whoever makes the best from that wins. Yeah. Or one ingredient. Yeah. Great show.

Play from 0:38:07 0:38:07 Ugh. Great show. It's I love it because it's it's it feels like what we're doing now. I've always had this like this theory that there's like, you know, if you can't if you can't cook f something from what's in your refrigerator, it's like not good enough. You know, like it's if I put everything out on the table, there's gotta be something you can make, like just with your creative brain. Like that's just from me like that might actually be like a good if I was hiring someone. Here's your here's your interview.

Play from 0:38:33 0:38:33 I'm gonna give you like like pickles, hot sauce, and like, you know, whatever else. Yeah. Show me what you made. is, hey, that's a g dude, steal that shit. That's great. Yeah, I like that. ~ shows like what you can do. It's like that's we're making things creatively. It doesn't have to be all provided for us. Yeah, you don't need a recipe. You don't need the perfect shopping list. ~ it's just like ~ you know, make something out of nothing.

Play from 0:39:00 0:39:00 But something out of nothing, man. yes. What do we got here? let me let me show you some of the changes I made to my good old website that I think you're gonna be jumping into. so taking you guys back, right? We talked last episode, we even showed the clip clip. It's like I had my daughter write some things, I turned it into a typeface. ~ and then I thought about it from the brand, right? I was like, brain child, right? Like, need to start like finding a way to incorporate this.

0:39:17Drew let his daughters' handwriting shape his brand website

Play from 0:39:26 0:39:26 So, you know, wanted to do something with. I didn't want to change like the typeface and and stuff like that, but I did want to add like maybe like annotations and doodles and this and that and the other. And so I gotta change this now. I want to change this, but did a pretty big overhaul here. So website, now you've got sort of like new logo here, got the handwriting and the navigation, you know, these little annotations in here, even like the name on this tag.

Play from 0:39:52 0:39:52 I don't know, let's see if I can get it to spin. You see the logo there. Ha ha. And you know, then Going further with the motion graphics stuff, I was like, okay, like I want to create almost like these little kid, mischievous like mischievous little kid characters that can kind of describe what I do. Cause I didn't really have any of the services slash engagements on here yet. It's just like one of those big things I just I was like putting off.

Play from 0:40:18 0:40:18 And, you know, now, I did this ~ in in Claude, but I I did use I think Higgsfield and Magnific actually. Higgs field for the the video generations, Magnific for the image generations. and that went through that whole process, but basically built out, you know, these little, seven to ten second motion graphics that just kind of illustrate and storytell what these engagements sort of do, right? And and made them sort of branded in that perspective.

Play from 0:40:46 0:40:46 And so this was fun, right? Like, And you can kind of start to see, right? Like I like even like with this TV thing and like, you know, incorporating this, like this turns off and on, ~ like started to carry that theme through. And so I was starting to think through this like more as a thread that I needed to, put in all the pages, right? I needed to update this. And so I like I went through all of that really just kind of like going ham on on this shit.

Play from 0:41:11 0:41:11 And so updated a lot of this stuff. you know, yep, new episode comes up, right? iPhone, got like these little annotations in here. That's us, blah, blah, blah. Right. Just fun, just fun shit. This this feels much more alive. ~ and then like this might be my favorite page, which was the podcast page. It was here before, but it was, it was in and I kind of set it up in my branding style, but to look like a YouTube, like you like you were on YouTube, So it had like You know, sort of like these other recommended reels, that kind of thing.

Play from 0:41:48 0:41:48 But then I updated this so it started incorporated this, right? And you can start to see like like chan you know, like more interactivity with this shit, right? Like and go to episodes, I can play this right here, boom. Right? Like lines and the static. scan lines. Right. Like carrying through little doodle annotations. ~ throughout.

Play from 0:42:16 0:42:16 And then I dude, I I did this yesterday and this is my favorite thing. This is my favorite thing. Cause now I can like drag these around. You know, and I'm like, yo, this is great. I need to button this up so it's like it always stays on top. Like it shouldn't be under the tape or under this, but I I digress. you know, kind of taking some of the quotes that we've gotten, putting those up, got a got a listings thing, ask the archive.

Play from 0:42:43 0:42:43 This will eventually, I think, like pull tra I wanted to pull transcripts of what we say. so ultimately, like this could refer back to like individual things we've said. ~ lines, you know, phrases, things like that. But right now it's kind of set up where it it'll tell you the the episode, I think, you know, that that maybe are best fits for those, which is kind of neat. I wonder if you could put like an open source LLM in there and just like let it rip.

Play from 0:43:10 0:43:10 Probably probably could. Yeah. Yeah, probably could. I don't see why not. You know, and just kind of like, yeah, I went through this and it was just like so fun to to illustrate this in the branding, right? And just kind of like have this sort of come through. this was like one other page that I did. ~ again, like incorporating the doodles, incorporating like these these hand written things, like kind of going through like a little timeline of you know how this kind of started.

Play from 0:43:38 0:43:38 ~ Images, right? is crazy, man. I don't I don't know how you like I don't know how you think of all this stuff. Like I can't I I just can't. Like there's not there's not enough. This it was so fun because, dude, I haven't done anything creatively in a long time. It's just been eating at me. It's been eating at me. And I finally like offboarded one client last week, slower week with the other one because they're off site.

Play from 0:44:07 0:44:07 And it's just like, okay, finally maybe have a little bit of time to like have some fun, create, you know, that kind of thing. So I was just like thinking about all these little things, right? but I will say, like, there was some really Cool things that this was helping me come up with. You know, like ~ you know, like I I came up with some of it and a lot of it was like it gave me the raw materials, like, ~ I like that. Let's take this and this and this and this and this and this.

Play from 0:44:32 0:44:32 but this is basically I made all these changes yesterday, you know. And ~ I think what was really interesting was when I started getting into like this work page. It's like I started with the home page, right? And I redid that. And then basically I got to a point, Rory, where I I just did this, right? It's like, okay, I've updated the homepage with new things, new treatments to further tie in brainchild branding. I I think we should revisit some of the other pages now, right?

0:44:52How do you prompt a cohesive website redesign?

Play from 0:44:58 0:44:58 Let's start with the work page. ~ I, you know, I kind of like what we have, but I'm not opposed to changing it, I want you to incorporate daughter handwriting, any additional treatments that could be built on, iterated upon, blah, blah, blah, make it feel more cohesive. I like your recommendations. And I'd like to hear about your 10 best sort of like wow factor recommendations as well. And it gave me all this. And I'm just like reading through it. And you know, I'm going back and forth all day on the website. And I just got to a point where I'm like throwing my hands up and I'm like, just give me a mock-up of the of this.

Play from 0:45:28 0:45:28 Go all out. I don't, you know, where I don't have copy and context put in placeholders. Just like I want, I gotta see it. Right. Yes. I have no idea if this is, yeah, it's not gonna work right now. but I was so blown away at what it first came up with. And I was like, dude, this is it. You know, I was like, this is it. I can build upon this. And I was like, okay, I love it a lot. Right. Like here's here's sort of like the next iteration. So that page was this page.

Play from 0:45:54 0:45:54 And it was again like applying this treatment, like like sort of like this TV, the scan lines, the annotations, that kind of thing, the dials, the channels of like, you know, what engagement this is. Right, these turn on when you scroll, kind of thing. This is so wild. and blah, blah, blah. Right. Like it's just like, dude, this is this is so cool. And then you get into like the motion graphic stuff we were talking about.

Play from 0:46:20 0:46:20 And it's just like now I can sh I can create these little show reels, right? ~ which just do a better job of describing the work. I don't have to rely on just all the text of trying to describe what this engagement entailed. I've got these, right? Again, the only limitation here is how many iterations you go through and the connectors and all that stuff, right? Like this one I spent a little bit extra time on the sound of, which you can't hear and hear. I'm not gonna do it.

Play from 0:46:45 0:46:45 But point is, it's just like did that. Then I started creating these little motion graphics across all the pages as well, right? Like quickly sort of digestible things that kind of show what happened, right? And I kind of did that for each of these three sections: the the brief, the approach, the work. And I guess the main takeaway here is just one, this started with the handwriting thing, and then taking that and then infusing it, and then just like having this creative moment and the time and the space to create.

Play from 0:47:23 0:47:23 But two, it's the capability we're talking about here with Opus and all these things, where it's just like the limitations are the references now, really. And you're Domain expertise. The references, domain expertise might be might be the two things. but it's just amazing, bro. I mean, like, and I just showcased this to just kind of show like I, you know, these there was a lot on these pages. Did this in a day? It did take me a full day, right? There were plenty of iterations, but it's possible, right?

Play from 0:47:51 0:47:51 And it's just ~ it's a lot more fun kind of going through this now because now the website just became much more interactive, much more fun, ~ much more visual. Right. So here's sort of like, you know, after I iterated on the Pinterest video, right? Like not the one shot, you know, and you know, kind of did the same thing. Like went through all these, did the motion graphics again, just kind of like showcasing things visually.

Play from 0:48:17 0:48:17 But I digress, man. I just I think that's that's kind of what I've been working on outside of the client stuff that's been a little bit more fun. Give me some creative energy back. ~ feels good to to create. Well it looks really good. ~ it's very cohesive from like an idea standpoint with the with the nostalgia and the brain child and the kids writing and then like the you got the p heads on the popsicle sticks, like that's it's just it's good.

Play from 0:48:45 0:48:45 It's very well very cohesive. If I was a w if I was a company, I'd hire Drew. Clip that. Clip that. that. But I mean, look, should we should we transition to to ours also? I mean, like now that we've done this. Right. I mean like this is so I would were starting from scratch, right? You had a you had a totally different process here. We did not have a website. We did not have the the only thing we had, right, Rory, was Riverside.

Play from 0:49:14 0:49:14 has access to you know the recordings. You've got YouTube, I guess. We've got maybe the motion graphic stuff where you've got maybe visual elements, and I don't want to like ~ ruin sort of the surprise factor, but I'm just thinking of maybe how you were thinking of the raw materials in which we had. So you had that stuff. We maybe had the the fast hour sponsorship page that was just on versal. That's about it. So you didn't have a lot to work with and there was no formal brand guidelines that we had either.

Play from 0:49:42 0:49:42 Right. So So I will I will show first the original ask just so it doesn't feel as ridiculous, right? What what I'm doing is is just saying, you know, I want to take a shot at something that I never do, which is creating a website for us. Here's our podcast page. Basically we have a pseudo design system, which I gave it the the Fast Hours video that we made last week. There's some examples of motion graphics.

0:49:56Fast Hours builds a website from its creative DNA

Play from 0:50:09 0:50:09 Reels that we've done. So the the clipping stuff that we just talked about. I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing, building a website, but we're trying to grow our podcast in, you know, via SEO and AEO. Want to run free, ~ want to run free and design something unique that's to us and something that would resonate with our audience. The show is about, you know, being at the cutting edge of the AI space, rooted in experience and nostalgia from a branding and advertising perspective. You have access to all the skills, right? Use all this stuff. Here's all the available MCPs, which I later steered and was like, you know, use Riverside, use ~ You know, magnific, use whatever else you need.

Play from 0:50:43 0:50:43 ~ and I was like, if you want to spin up some Sonnet 5.5 sub agents to help you work on this, go ahead. It's like I don't know the first thing about web design, but I want to make this different and just like go from there. That's it. Like an hour and a half later, you know, just running. It came up with and I've only made minimal changes to this now at this point. This is where, this is where we're at. is one one or two iterations.

Play from 0:51:11 0:51:11 I mean, this isn't you know, like we we haven't gone through this with a fine-toothed comb yet. I mean, this is just incredible. And then the thing that you were mentioning to me when you're when you're just like, dude, you're gonna be blown away at the depth that's in here. That's what's important about it. Is like like it took some of these, you know, like the the computer vision stuff and added it to here, which is, you know, when we look up we have like a little timer till this drops, which was a nice touch.

Play from 0:51:36 0:51:36 I didn't ask for any of this. It has our tune-in archive, it was like a radio dial that goes back through all of it, which I I love as like a concept. you know, might work on the design of this, but again, whatever it has like specific episodes ~ to watch. I like this set on the record stuff. It's like a lot of the hot, hot takes that have been set on here, but also you can clip and go or you can click on and go straight to it. This was what I was thought was outstanding.

Play from 0:52:03 0:52:03 It just cataloged from all the transcripts and all the videos from the Riverside MCP, like how many times we've mentioned the things and then like sort of ranked them. Yes. like this real-time understanding of what we're talking about lately. Love that. W which is you know, then it has our shorts here that are coming up. Who's been in the chair? So it it does and we'll go into this in a second. You know, it has our all of our guests, right?

0:52:05Can transcripts power a searchable website?

Play from 0:52:31 0:52:31 Who who's been on, who's been on recently. This probably got to fix a little bit of this, just took screenshots of us and wrote our bios for us without even asking me. Then, you know, basically gave our audience and then sort of our partner page. But what Some of the cool stuff is here, is like I love I love what it did with the guest before we get into anything. I love what it did with the guest pages, because it created a guest page for each person, right? So it created, you know, Inge's page who we had on a few weeks ago, gave a few different, you know, pieces about him, some of his quotes.

Play from 0:53:00 0:53:00 you know, that's just his guest page. But when you open the episode and go to each individual episode, this is what I mean by the depth. When in here and it logged all of this stuff and built like its own little dashboard, gives us the summary, gives us the key takeaways from the episode. You know, we have the the specific clips, you know, and you can just go straight to straight to that little piece right there. And then even, you know, some of the chapters again, and then questions from this episode.

Play from 0:53:28 0:53:28 ~ you know, just things that he answered and show notes. And then if you want to, full transcript. It's like Dude, yeah. it just insane, right? The tools page was really cool that it did where it's like, all right, you know, we have all these tools ranked here. But then also every tool that we've mentioned, how many times we've mentioned them. And then if you were to click into Claude, you know, it'll go show you basically how we felt about it during the episode.

Play from 0:53:54 0:53:54 Some of the things we've said, each episode, ~ you know, that it's mentioned in, when did we first talk about it, right? Like this is we go back to the tools page. So it's again, like it's and it's broken out. We also have down here on the topics page, which was Like I just I love this little scan thing. I don't know why it's like addicting. Yeah. the raw materials of this, like to understand how like the frequency and the volume of how many things, like how many times a topic or a tool or something or a keyword has been mentioned, right?

Play from 0:54:30 0:54:30 Like Correct. that has diverse application outside of just what we're doing here. And that's like the way that I'm viewing some of this stuff too. It's like, yeah, this is cool, this is sick for the website. Also, it's like you could apply that same methodology to probably something else that you already have built or could build, right? And it's just like that's fascinating. I love having the episodes here. You get it is a very dynamic search, right? Like you can go through anything.

Play from 0:54:56 0:54:56 I do like seeing all of our thumbnails in one place though. Makes me happy. But know. this is some of the cool stuff that you know, it just this is all stuff that it just built and catalogued in by itself. You know, it has the page about us, it has a timeline, you know, again, a lot of our quotes, things like that. This to me is I love this search feature. It's just, you know, to type in C dance, right?

Play from 0:55:21 0:55:21 Brings up the tool, a little summary about the tool, episodes that we talked about it in, transcripts, things like that. So like this is this is awesome. You know, specific episodes if you want to just filter by that, tools, guests, whatever. ~ I just couldn't believe it did I because I was telling I said to Drew before that, I was like, ~ do you wanna like do we have to come up with like an SEO strategy? I don't really know much about SEO in in my marketing endeavors, but It was like, you know, because I'm thinking it's gonna have to write all these blogs for every episode, and it just did it because it had all the transcripts.

Play from 0:55:54 0:55:54 So like it's just insane that, you know, it did this. ~ you know, it built our partners, you know, our partners page with our reel that we demoed last week. ~ you know, certain things that we need here. Also built this straight for LLM. So everything is in here. You know, if it needs to find it, anyone can go search this website. But there's just a lot, man. Like I I don't I can't believe that it Did it from that bron. That was I I haven't changed much other than small tweaks.

Play from 0:56:21 0:56:21 Right. Like small tweaks have been done where it's like, ~ we need to change. There was like something on the headline what that didn't make sense, like up here. Like it's not the the infrastructure of it. It's ~ just that switches just I you know. I don't know. I just can't believe it that that this is what it did. Like with and people be like, now you were telling me you're just like, cause I was telling you about the website stuff, and it's it's like it's addicting and maddening at the same time, right?

Play from 0:56:48 0:56:48 Just because it's like you you care about it a lot. So so you don't want to like just mail it in, right? It's like it it it is exhausting no matter with this technology or not, right? It still requires a lot of thinking and and ~ mental energy. But I think now that you've gotten a taste of this, because you were telling me before you're like, dude, I that's exactly why I don't have. website. It's just like I already know it's gonna take me down a rabbit. I like, Yeah, it's fair enough, dude. I get it. Trust me, I get it.

Play from 0:57:13 0:57:13 And now I think you're you're gonna start doing your own website now because now you're like, dude, this is fun as hell, you know? Well, you know, three D modeling my face and then, you know, it's in it's in code, right? And then it's just like I'm trying to trying to figure out how to dynamically mold my face in different three D objects and particles to get to like, you know, my website, right? But I don't know. though. I I think this is like a really good point because like we were we were talking about it with this website and the raw materials to get you going in the right direction.

Play from 0:57:47 0:57:47 I think this is a the a really equally good question for this result. Okay. So it's like, Rory, you don't currently have a website. So what are you feeding it? ~ whether you know through verbal context or reference context. To even get something like this right at the beginning, where you are, you know, having something that's a silhouette of you and then it's shifting into your logo, right?

Play from 0:58:14 0:58:14 Like just to kind of get people started. Cause I think sometimes the zero to one of like heading in the right direction is a really interesting thing to talk about. What like what didn't you feed it to start going down this path? Well, I had an old particle, ~ like music dynamic particle workflow that I built, which was like, you know, the the particles would react to the music waveform in real time. So I have the music on here. I don't know if you can I don't know if I clicked it on, but it but it like reacts to the music.

0:58:28Music-reactive web design with a face

Play from 0:58:43 0:58:43 Yeah. Which is what I wanted. Because this was like one of the one thing I did that I was like so obsessed with when I was building it, I just wanted to play with it at all times. And then I'm like, you know, I don't know what else I want to do. with this. That was really what I wanted to get done. And I was like, I also don't want to have like a million pages. Like if I have like something like this, I just want things to be sort of like static, like a bulletin board. Because this is what my brain is like. Nothing is even. Like this is how I feel about things.

Play from 0:59:10 0:59:10 I don't like the way a lot of this looks. This is just like the the mock-up that it's sput up for me and bro. I like the like the full page bento kind of fe it feels like a modern newspaper. ~ you know. Yeah. was like, I like things all in one visual space, but I also want this. Like I want something to come here and be like, what? And then like you scroll and things happen. It's just crazy. I don't know. There's nothing there's no rhyme or reason to this, right? Like I haven't even figured out what I want to do.

Play from 0:59:36 0:59:36 I just like I just wanted my logo and my face in particles. That's all I wanted. And I like I wanted it to to move and be dynamic with the you know, move and be dynamic with the music. But yeah, it's like this is this is crazy. The one the thing that you know, maybe we I should show is also just like the level of this is the web stuff. ~ I don't know if we have mud anything else on the web stuff, but the the real crazy thing was that stuff I was doing with, you know, some of the motion design.

Play from 1:00:08 1:00:08 ~ I wanted to get your take on this. Cause I did this last week, sort of flew under the radar a little bit. But I found this to be nuts. Right here. So this is an animation done with just code. And it's done like a video. Right. So the goal was to make it look like one of those, you know, it's like pre Blow it up for us. one of those previs like from like, you know, the Disney era of like what it would look like beforehand.

1:00:20Code-based animation gets a story to tell

Play from 1:00:37 1:00:37 Right. And it's it up. yeah. This isn't like impressive by any means. It's just showing that it can generate video with code essentially. Like it So it's like, is that where everything's going? Are we just going to generate everything via code? Like, are we going to generate all of our assets in 3D and then that's just going to be all coded and written? Because I find that's way more controllable. Everyone's using Blender now and 3JS to sort of block things out and then just go from there. So like this to me was interesting.

Play from 1:01:05 1:01:05 This was this was the crazier one, right? Like this was if I if I can share this. So this is all done with code and this is Astra and Opus five point five. Like none of this is generated other than the the assets itself.

Play from 1:01:33 1:01:33 So like I'll zoom through it. you started with, I think you were telling me this. So you started with one still, yeah, ~ Midjourney image in this style and and rolled with this forward. And then yeah. of these this is cool. And then, you know, R Rory's a big Lord of the Rings fan too. ~ so it makes sense to me why you went down this route.

Play from 1:01:58 1:01:58 And I think like ~ when you posted about this too, You know, it's like doing something kind of fun for your daughter, ~ that might be more entertaining than than a PG thirteen rated R Lord of the Rings movie, you know what I mean? ~ sort of like telling the story. Yeah, she likes the characters, right? Like she has a Gandalf rubber ducky. Sh my dog has a has a golem chew toy. She loves them. I you I've showed him the characters.

Play from 1:02:24 1:02:24 She likes you know, that's fantasy. So it's like very easy to to get attached to. But I can't sit there and watch, you Fellowship of the Ring with her. But she likes it. So I was trying to find something like a a like a bridge of the gap. Like I can take these characters and I can build something, right? And it's like how do I build a format that's engaging but not I didn't want to be like super high stim? 'Cause like I don't I don't like the Yeah. ~ bro, it's the worst. Yep.

Play from 1:02:50 1:02:50 I I don't like the like psychological addiction she gets to like looking at it and st it's weird to me. Like I want her to be uninterested. You know what I'm saying? So like I was like, can I build this in sort of like that that two D papercraft style, but like with the weird like funky joints and like puppet sort of like look to it. 'cause I've always liked that two D flat vector like layered look. I'm like, and it's good. We can just go through the whole story, but All they'll have to do is move on a timeline in one continuous scroll.

Play from 1:03:16 1:03:16 Right. So like it started with this. This was the crazy thing, right? Like this was all it might have been a different image, but it was something like this, where it, you know, you can see all it did was you know, the character, and I found this style reference that I really liked, which was sort of what I was trying to get. Now, the wild part was Astra here, if I can find where this was. All right, here.

Play from 1:03:42 1:03:42 I said, go ahead. And just like start, like I wanna, I want to create an asset library. That's it. and then you know, this is what this is what I showed I made it of this of the scrolling page. I don't know why can't find the exact thing right now. Maybe it's not loading. But like it just I gave it one image, it just started building this. Like I I didn't ask for this. I said, can you make the nine characters? And it was like, okay, like I just wanted to see like the other nine characters.

1:04:00How does one image become an animation asset library?

Play from 1:04:07 1:04:07 But it just kept. going. And then it the secondary characters. And then it builds the environments. And then it got, you know, even forward and started building like the little assets for the rigs. So it's like, we can now detach the hands and the legs so that it all swings and and walks. Right. Like the different angles, like the pieces, the different layerable pieces of the environment. ~ dude again, like I just it just did this.

Play from 1:04:34 1:04:34 I just started I started seeing it go. And then I was like, what are you what are you doing? And it's like I'm building the asset library. I like, don't let me interrupt you. Continue. You know? So Yeah. And it was it was kind of crazy ~ that it just did that. I don't know why I can't find why I can't find what it was doing here. connected to where it was building the images for you? What ~ was that through?

Play from 1:05:01 1:05:01 This is just ChatGPT 2.5, its own image generator. ~ so ~ well here here's where here's what I said when I saw what it was doing, because it was working for two hours, I'm like, are we building assets for an entire recreation or just the brief? Then I just said, keep going with your plan. Like whatever. I steered it. I'm like, I don't care what you're doing, just just keep doing it. ~ you know, because the asset catalog, right? It built this whole freaking thing.

Play from 1:05:27 1:05:27 And it was, you know, scenery artboard. Right. We have our character lineup. So it has like the scale and size of everyone. You know, it has the the storyboard, which is all in here. It just like it just started doing it. I I couldn't believe it. I gave it like no no instruction. But then I had then I had Claude sort of go, you know, to go and animate all this stuff and put it together.

1:05:48How do AI tools add animation and narration?

Play from 1:05:52 1:05:52 So I mean we don't have to watch like the whole thing, but then you know, I'm having it attached to Magnific to to make the sound effects. I have it attached to, you know ~ eleven labs to generate the voiceover. So it sounds like, you know, it sounds kinda like Boromir on honestly. I don't know if we have the audio on it. But yeah, it it it's like complimentary. It's not essential, right?

Play from 1:06:18 1:06:18 Like but but it's it's super cool because like the voices are good. And ~ dude, it yeah, I I watched I watched this whole thing. Is it so you're at is four minutes where you're at on this now? Or have you gone further than that? Okay. I have not gone further, but it rendered I probably did like ten, fifteen variations of it to fix a lot of things, right? Like if I'm you know, we can just play it in the background while I'm talking.

Play from 1:06:43 1:06:43 Like, you know, I I I basically was like, I need to trim it down. It can't be like all the major points, but it's like, let's make it some of the major conflict points, character introductions, like fun scenes. You know, even with some of the details it picked up on its own, like the scene in the movie when they're underneath here and like the the worms start coming out of the top. And the bugs start coming out of the top. I could edit those. Yeah. And then, like when Sam, you know, or ~ Pippin throws like the bag of vegetables to sort of ~ get rid of this guy.

Play from 1:07:09 1:07:09 Where is it right here? I think ~ right maybe right here. It's like these little details that it just decided to add in without me, you know, without me doing it. Like you think he throws this thing right here, bang, you know, just to like get him out. But you know, we have them go and chase, get onto the ferry. Right, but then it cuts to it cuts over to Isengard, and we have, you know, we scroll up and we have the little fight between Sauron and Gandalf and the Moth.

Play from 1:07:36 1:07:36 Then we go to Bree, you know, check it in, they go to the prancing pony. That this was my favorite part was, you know, the one of my favorite lines from the movies, of course, they come in pints, you know, and you get this big it's it's like a stupid scene in the movie, but it picked it up and you know, gave him a really big beer. Right. So, you know, overall It's just this is one shot. I mean it's one scene, all done in code. Everything is directly editable. You know, everything is rigged.

Play from 1:08:02 1:08:02 So like even, you know, something like this where you have just him like the faces of them walking sideways, but we also have the faces turned because we have all those assets. Like we can do anything. Sam walking here. You have like the swinging ~ the swinging pot and pan. Like there's a little bit of motion at him, you know, stuff that can be added to this. But I can now create a whole little series. It's incredible.

Play from 1:08:27 1:08:27 Like it I can just go ha create a whole little series for her. And if she likes it, cool. If she doesn't, I can take it in my own direction. You know, like I don't have to follow the story. Maybe she just likes the characters. But I I I love it, dude. I think it I think that's a really cool use case. I you know what? I actually so I think in this last week I used Magnific for the first time as an MCP.

Play from 1:08:52 1:08:52 Like I had it hooked up, I just never did it. Yeah, I just never did it. I just never I just never used it. And this time though, I did, right? Like for the for those little animated videos, like I had to create all these little characters, right? All these like You know, goofy little kids like doing crazy shit. ~ that I could use like again for like maybe future assets. I like I didn't I didn't really have a rationale other than it's like, okay, I want to kind of get some of those kids in those clips.

Play from 1:09:22 1:09:22 But it was just like I had Magnific running these in the background, you know, like it was just in Chrome developing them, didn't even have to put in the prompt, right? It's like once I identify I had it mock up, I think several look. ~ did you ever see that movie Leo? That I told you about that Adam Sandler's ~ movie where he's a lizard. He's like a iguana and he's living in like a first grade classroom or second grade classroom and Bill Burr is like this turtle.

Play from 1:09:49 1:09:49 ~ dude, you gotta watch that one. And that would be good for your All right. I'll keep So, so here's where I'm going with this. in this movie, they have like he here's where I came up with sort of like the starting point of this idea is like the kindergartners in this movie are displayed in this really funny way. they look like these like he's crazy.

Play from 1:10:15 1:10:15 They're just chaotic. They got these big eyes, and like every everywhere they're featured in the movie, they're like in. bunches and they're just like chaotic as hell. So like I started there with the idea. And then I was like, okay, I kind of want to, I'm like, I'm kind of thinking something like silly or mischievous, like kind of like this. And this is was sort of like the reference image that I I gave it. Then it came up with the ideas ~ for like mock-ups.

Play from 1:10:40 1:10:40 I had it like give me like, I don't know, seven to ten mock-ups of like what these kids could look like, which then ultimately landed me on this style. And I'm like, okay, this is the style. And then the rest, I gave it. It was doing in the background while I was doing other shit. Right. And it was just like, dude, this is amazing, you know. But the best it's like such an awesome usage. Well especially for the sound because I was like with the sound effects, I'm like, I don't I hate get getting sound effects.

Play from 1:11:08 1:11:08 Like I don't like doing it. Doesn't make sense to me. ~ because like I then I have to get started layering sound and I'm I don't don't I don't want to do this. Right. It's just like that's not my core competency. I'm not good at it. And ~ and I just did it. Like even searching through 11 labs 11 Labs archive for what I was talking about, I was like, I need like a deep raspy like country British accent and it went and found, you know, a a stock voice through the Eleven Labs library that sounded like sounded like Baromir.

1:11:24How does ElevenLabs find a voice from a description?

Play from 1:11:36 1:11:36 I'm like, this is good. I like this. Sounds like Sean Bean. to hook up the eleven laps thing. I don't think I've done that yet. Well, you can do it via Magnific. That's what it did on that one. And it also generated all the sound effects and then sound mixed everything and you know, wrote the narration. Like it was just like I can't believe that it can do all this stuff in the background. You know, and the sound stuff is particularly interesting because if it can do that and then it can sound mix with the editing and stuff, like we're in right now?

Play from 1:12:01 1:12:01 This is nuts. This is nuts. like that if I tried to do that generation wise, like what I just did, like one continuous shot for four minutes of like a scrolling landscape, there's no way. It just wouldn't work. ~ they just take me way too long. But you find stuff, like you'll find things that are wrong with these things, but it's so editable, it's great. It's just like, you know, I noticed there was a joint wrong in Sam's leg.

Play from 1:12:29 1:12:29 Like One of the parts was poking up while he was walking that looked like it wasn't supposed to be there. And I'm like, all right, go fix that. And it's like, okay, done. So it's just fun. Like you can do a lot of things. I think everyone needs to sort of like dream a little bit bigger right now. Cause Yep. there's I'm not thinking of stuff. I you know, I'm also thinking to myself. Like, could I just go create like little micro documentaries?

Play from 1:12:54 1:12:54 Like if I f if I research the story and then Yeah. Yeah. build like a creative direction mood board of how you want things to look. Now you have the the motion graphics for like correct. you could educate on a topic, faceless, motion graphic, all everything, start to finish. You could yeah, like we shit, we could start a YouTube channel that just breaks down stuff that we talk about that is doesn't even have our ugly faces in it.

Play from 1:13:21 1:13:21 You know what I mean? Like And that's the thing, is that these are there's so many things this this motion graphics thing to me really opened up a lot. There's a lot of things now that can be even simple things. Like it doesn't have to be some of this full crazy stuff like the B roll for our for our clips makes them look infinitely more engaging, in my opinion. You guys can say otherwise. ~ just dude.

Play from 1:13:47 1:13:47 Way better than two talking heads. It's just like there's something visual to look at. It explains things a little bit better than we do, just hearing it. Right. So yeah, I like the I like having like what you did with the case studies. It's like I never understood why I have to read all these case studies on people's websites, because let's be honest, you tell you always tell what's good, you never say what's bad. It's just like, yes, I understand. Like here's here's all the great things that I've ever done. if anybody's ever reading it.

Play from 1:14:12 1:14:12 You're you're like kind of doing it in case anybody's reading it versus they are gonna read it. And you know, it's just like it's a yes. much better. And like it o it like demonstrates a little bit of the creativity too, right? So ~ I d I didn't talk about this last time. This was I was gonna show this is a this is the WIP. It's work in progress here. But you know, it's speaking of these tools, thinking a little bit bigger. I'm just like, and and then I think like the next thing with this, Rory, is like I want to take this.

Play from 1:14:40 1:14:40 I don't know if this isn't gonna load now. Cause I just closed my ChatGPT for this. Ugh, that sucks. ~ I'll show it next time. ~ but the I think the point is is just like. I wanted to bring in a way that consolidates tools, actions that I want to take, can do that. Just spin it up and it's there. And then I was what I was gonna say though is takes me back to I think like the way that you had some of your stuff organized in one place.

Play from 1:15:09 1:15:09 You almost had like a hub for all these things. I feel like that's a that like that tool that I was gonna show. has a bunch of tools within it, but even then it's like, can I take that and bring that in somewhere coupled with other things that I already have, right? And just kind of like create this sort of master platform space to access everything together versus having these spread over 10 or 12 different locations.

Play from 1:15:35 1:15:35 That doesn't really make sense either, right? huh. So I don't know. I'm gonna I'm gonna push that further between now and and next time. there was something really interesting. I sent you a link for it. I don't know if you want to share it really quickly. It was like this this video from Tavus, Tavus, I guess is how you say it. I'll kind of like cue up the context here while you're pulling it up, but this right here.

Play from 1:16:00 1:16:00 So it's basically like. Tavus is interesting. I'm sure a lot of people really haven't heard about them, but they like had this whole thing where and they had a really interesting launch video too. Very nostalgic, but it's like this idea that you can talk to someone, but it's like as real as it gets with AI interaction. It's better than these models are talking, everything.

1:16:15How real does a Tavus conversation feel?

Play from 1:16:25 1:16:25 and they just launched something where it's just like they just talked about they f they they passed the the video Turing test. with it's basically impossible to distinguish unless you were to disclose it up front, which is both fascinating and scary at the same time. But I'm gonna let you sort of take it away so we get the audio of it. I think it's it's worth watching just for everybody here ~ as a discussion point because again, I think this is like one of those moments

Play from 1:17:25 1:17:25 Dude, just listen to those pauses, tone changes, like What? It's slinging it's slinging insults now.

Play from 1:17:52 1:17:52 What is what is that, you know, grok unhinged mode in there? Right, right.

Play from 1:18:41 1:18:41 Dude, the the pacing, the tone, the injection of intentional pauses, the injection of intentional, like really, really, like, I think this is really, really good. Like, what? Bro. like computing and then responding. It's like just di interacting. The lips were screwed up, but like, you know.

Play from 1:19:10 1:19:10 That's the one thing I saw where I was just I kept looking at the mouth and the mouth was either glitching or not doing the right things. But at the same time, like if you just heard if you heard that, you would not know a single difference. Bro. Kinda sounds a little monotone, but that might just be like, you know, are we asking for too much? that's where it's like it, you know, maybe we're dissecting it because, like, again, like the disclosure bias of us knowing.

Play from 1:19:35 1:19:35 Whereas like that's how some people talk. Like, I mean, I I dad I saw that and I was like, wow, because Tavus, like I had played with Tavus a little bit when they did their initial launch. This was like several months ago, and even then it was pretty good. Like you could talk a Talk to it about random stuff. And you could pick and choose whether it's a girl or a guy and what they're interested in. Like they only they almost had their own personalities.

Play from 1:20:00 1:20:00 And you can go back and forth. And then like they would remember something. It's like, so like, what do you think about Illinois basketball this year? You know, I'm thinking, like, they're probably, you know, gonna do this. And I'm like, dude, what? You know? have an idea. I have a big idea. Can we get one on as a guest? Can can we get it can we get a Tavus Tevis, Tavus, whatever it is, on as a guest. That might be the most ridiculous thing we've ever done.

Play from 1:20:26 1:20:26 But you know w be great. That would be great. possibly you, Tavus. You know, come on. giving you some free love right now, too. I think so, man. I I I I think we that would be a very interesting idea. I I want to be conscious of time because ~ I think we're getting there. Also, maybe give the folks a little preview of the guests next week. This is somebody that you know personally.

Play from 1:20:53 1:20:53 And I think when we talked about having this person on the show, this is not somebody that follows, I think, sort of some of the playbook of like this is somebody that you've seen before, and they have this massive following. That said, that is not a distinguisher for value that's that's going to be delivered. And I think this guest specifically is going to bring something very new and uncharted in terms of some of the things that we're going to talk about.

Play from 1:21:23 1:21:23 So I think it's pretty exciting stuff. So guest is gonna be Phil Rivers. He is my former business partner. We ran That's correct. That is very, very familiar, very, very familiar face and name. But ~ yes. You know, we we worked together in email marketing and you we got some s we got some stories to tell on the podcast about how we how we joined up in the begin in the beginning of it. But Phil's you know, Phil has always been notable in the In the email marketing space, but this isn't something you know we we have talked about on here is really number number one, email marketing.

1:21:41What will Phil Rivers teach about AI operations?

Play from 1:21:59 1:21:59 That's actually, you know, probably a place we could start because everyone's gonna need to sort of dial up on that. But from an op standpoint, someone who built a business the traditional way prior to AI, we had some trials and tribulation around 2022. So right as AI was kicking off, you know, that agency ended. His new agency began in 2024, 2025. With AI, built it the same exact way how he built it with basically 50% of the staff, higher margins, and fully optimized from an AI standpoint.

Play from 1:22:30 1:22:30 I wouldn't say and no one's ever fully optimized, right? But just from the way he's constructed things in an op standpoint, it's really interesting for anyone who's running smaller businesses or is going out on their own or is running an agency or just any sort of team that could sort of benefit. Yeah. for yeah, additional impact. Yeah. But understanding how to get multiple people on the same page, you know, multiple team members on the same page, how to how to run like look at an operation and say like this is where we plug things in and have it work for more than just yourself.

Play from 1:23:02 1:23:02 So I think it's a I think it's a cool one. I think you guys will be interested in it because it's not it's not the traditional, you know, not just talking about AI images and video and design. There's a lot more infrastructure to it. So hopefully we'll have some fun. Phil's a good guy. I had to deal with him for a couple of years. Yeah. be good. That'll be good. who who who you want to shout out this week, man? You got anybody on your mind?

Play from 1:23:28 1:23:28 A good one. Motion, you know, motion ~ motion graphics designers. Think you guys should they should probably come here. You know, especially Yeah. Just to just to screw around. You can leave us, you know, terrible comments. We'll respond. You know, it's it's fine. Also, like we understand that we're not good at certain things and we can get better. But at least we're interested now. Now we want to learn more about it. Yeah. should do? We should have a motion designer that's embracing this on here and a motion designer that's not and have a panel discussion.

Play from 1:24:01 1:24:01 Let them rip. Ingi. Kick. I mean, that would be interesting. I mean, you hear both sides, but you know, ~ yeah, I don't I don't think we're again we're not shitting on anybody. Like this is not about motion designers. I think it's just they're falling into the same trap that a lot of people who have not been deeply embedded in the space are falling into, which is this ~ it's just slop.

Play from 1:24:32 1:24:32 Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Can't do it. Like there's a difference. And there is a difference, but I think you're missing the point, right? There are second order effects of this happening and they're inevitable. And so what are you going to do about it? And before you, you know, kind of like go in and poo-poo on somebody's parade here, like you really have to under understand the underlying threads that are taking place, right?

Play from 1:24:58 1:24:58 Like a one shot output, for example, is not. What you should be worried about. What you should be thinking about is really what does this unlock? And then selfishly, how can you leverage that? That's what I would be doing. We've talked about if you're a domain expert, if you're an SME, you're that like instead of treating that as in sort of like this fear or other sort of perspective on you may be thinking about, ~ snap.

Play from 1:25:26 1:25:26 Like, yeah, maybe some more competition, but Not really, because I'm I'm sort of the domain expert in space. Like I could 10X this. That's fact. And that's what this whole that's what this whole thing's about. So you guys don't need to hear from us again. You know, like if you've been listening to enough episodes, but if you if you haven't listened to enough episodes and you've made it this whole time, you made it an hour and however many minutes it's been, you only gotta do like a few things.

Play from 1:25:54 1:25:54 It's like one. You can like, you don't have to, you can subscribe, you don't have to, but you gotta tell somebody. That's the rule. So think ~ you know who we should tell? Like your local line chef or your bus boy, or maybe your local I don't know if we've maybe called them out before. We we did talk, you know, top chef. We did talk, ~ you know, chopped. Yes. So y your local baker, maybe. ~ your pestisserie whatever that might be.

Play from 1:26:23 1:26:23 I don't know if I said that right. Sorry for our French audience, that probably sounded just disgusting. like one term that, you know, is not sort of like a mainstream term on this episode. And I was wondering if you were gonna hit it. You just fit it in here at the last second. So props to you. No. Nope. You got it. I think that's that's it. We'll probably wrap this one up. Let's wrap it up, man. And thank you guys for joining us. Hopefully this is a great episode for you.

Play from 1:26:49 1:26:49 We'll see you guys next week. Great episode with the guest, Phil Rivers, former Chargers quarterback, now operations AI expert. It's gonna be a great one. We'll see you guys next week. See ya.