AI Video Production

It's like when you tell someone about an interesting dream that you had.

Naval Ravikant may be the smartest person on the planet. He’s a lot smarter than me, so listening to what he says seems like a good idea. Naval has a series of recordings called “How to Get Rich” that I have consumed a couple of times end-to-end. One notion that stands out for me is that the ability to code gives one person the leverage to do the work of hundreds. If I may paraphrase, “a motivated software engineer can act as a solo-preneur, single-handedly creating and operating applications that enrich the world.”

Of course, we still need other people. I rely on thousands of open source projects and lots of free services to build and run World of Nuclear. But I don’t have to employ anyone or work with them. Only when I lack skills or knowledge, or run out of time, will I need to recruit some help.

AI makes “solo-preneuring” even more attractive. Talents that used to be out of my range are suddenly accessible. Last time, I shared my early attempts to create AI-assisted art. This time, I am into video production, where I get to play director, and AI does all the rest.

AI-driven video production is amazing, and yet it’s also not quite tuned to reality. Like having a dream where everything is fuzzy, and quirky stuff happens that is difficult to explain or appreciate without seeing it for yourself.

So let me show you.

By the way, credit for these videos goes to Luma AI and their product Dream Machine. Also, these are my first attempts as a director, so it’s fair to say my prompts need work. Plus, I am using a free service level.

But enough caveats. Let’s take a look.

The subject of my first production is a vision I use when I am mediating. With my eyes closed and a few deep breaths, I am sitting seiza (Japanese-style) in a mature pine forest near a cliff that overlooks the Sea of Japan. Uphill and off to my right, there is a Shinto shrine where I can walk around and feel the power of the universe. That’s the scene in my mind.

I asked Dream Machine to create a scene of walking through a mature pine forest and approaching a shrine with a view of the ocean. Here it is.

Not bad. It’s got all of the elements I asked for, and casting found a Keanu Reeves look-alike for the shot. We might need to build a bigger shrine, so perhaps another take.

Feeling encouraged, I tried again, this time with the intention of generating some eye candy for World of Nuclear. I asked for “an attractive Asian lady who walks up to a nuclear control panel.” That’s good marketing, right? Lots of Asian countries have embraced nuclear power.

The action starts well enough…this serious lady is on a mission.

Did you watch to the end? It only takes 5 seconds. Hilarious, right? Is this a comedy, or something out of a dream? Take 2. Try it again, and lose the goofball.

For my next video, I asked for the scene from the picnic-at-the-power-plant art that I wrote about last time. Same directions, “people having a picnic on a grassy field along a river with a nuclear power plant in the background.”

Super close, aside from one small detail. The video controls may hide the problem until you play to the end. When the video stops, it returns to the first frame where somehow the blanket is floating on the water.

Alrighty then.

For my last attempt, now that it’s clear we are operating in dreamland, I went for something surreal. “A boy is playing a video game, and the game pulls him in through the screen so that he becomes the avatar.” Something like Kevin Flynn in the movie TRON.

Get the popcorn. This is going to be good, I can tell.

Whoa. We are back in the land of six-fingered people. Maybe AI thinks, “I know, I know. A hand has 5 fingers. And a thumb. Nailed it.”

Also, from that angle, the boy’s left hand seems to be attached to his right arm. You can even see the Frankenstein stitches.

But there’s something else that’s a bit dreamy, an elusive quality. As the camera zooms and pans, pay attention to the wall and the light source. Does this boy live in a cocoon?

Finally, we see the avatar run into the game, but the main point of the scene—to see the boy get sucked in—is lost.

Still, high marks on the surreal-o-meter.

When I need a video I can use, upping my prompt-writing game is an obvious next step. Paying for the service is another, although that may be more about volume and licensing than quality. Meanwhile, the tech will keep surpassing itself. All for free, or at a teensy fraction of the cost of hiring a video production company.

I hope that was more fun than hearing about the dream I had last night. “I was in a busy restaurant, more like a diner with checkered table cloths, and Naval Ravikant comes over to take my order…”