Girls Inc LA PSA
My latest AI ‘experiment’ isn’t really an experiment but more a test to see whether GenAI filmmaking be used successfully to help co-direct a PSA with Jason Zada and the fine folks at SecretLevel.
Like most PSAs it required quite a bit of donated time and effort on the talent collaborators involved and for me this is where the magic happens like a regular filmmaking process. Using AI allowed us to create way more set ups and scenes that would be have be available for our very small production budget (it’s a PSA after all).
Process:
We used MidJourney to create still images of areas of Los Angeles with levels of success and failure using local knowledge to help craft areas that weren’t available in stock libraries.
This is where I think GenAI has it uses and value; a virtual location scout with camera tests is almost instant allowing us to ‘post visualize’ the journey of our hero (the feather becoming a visual metaphor for hope expressed in the voice over) as it flys around LA.
There’s plenty of glamorous neighborhood stock footage in Los Angeles but not much range in more nuanced and true to life scenes we prompted - the irony of this thought is not lost on me here…
These base plates and scenes - everything before the fence shot (excluding the Hollywood Sign plate that is a real shot) where then edited to ‘visually prompt the motion we wanted’ and ran through Stable Diffusuion’s SVD1.1 video via ComfyUI and uprezzed via TopazVideo to 1080p.
We then ‘cleaned up’ and enhanced the using traditional 2D and 2.5D video workflow and tools and a ‘traditional CG’ feather was added after our GenAI feather tests proved way to problematic for continuity.
Still plenty of issues to iron out and optimize but GenAI in film production shows some promises if used to it’s strengths and weaknesses corrected just like any other toolset available.
Is it a success? I’ll let you be the judge and jury.
For me it continues to help me explore the right use of AI and leaning into where AI can assist and merge with the more established techniques and craftspeople.
