Blog & The Drum Column 

Ay? Ey.

The Drum Column 1 So, AI video can actually be good... in the right hands.

It’s not arms dealing, pretty sure it’s not getting kids hooked on smack… and maybe it’s going to be the sole cause of the downfall of huge industries, livelihoods and human expertise, knowledge, creativity and craft as we know it… but what are we supposed to do? Just bury heads in sand and get our arses hit by wave after wave of AI video tech development until we suffocate and/or drown?

It feels morally sketchy to talk about, but never one to shy away from the difficult, welcome to my new opinion column for The Drum: Ay? Ey. For international readers that translates as ‘What? Yes’ in common parlance, and ever the commoner that’s what I plan to do, to sorta humanise everything I do, think, learn whilst I pivot my little ad craft-led agency (Republic of Imagination) to be purely an AI video production studio.

I once made a presentation for a CPG event at Meta (clients P&G, J&J, Unilever the biggies etc) called ‘Midlands Mums in the Metaverse’… because if there’s anything that I wanted to prove it’s that big tech developments aren’t just for gamers and bros. My positioning for the since ill-fated headset and immersive universe obsession from a few years ago was that it was BRILLIANT for housebound people, and as a disabled single mum at the time, I was very much that. But surely with Zuck’s hot tech I could wander around big Sainso whilst enjoying another lonely night in on the sofa. But not just supermarkets, dammit I could wander around Oliver Bonas, or even B&Q… I could pop by the Tate and sashay through the Jazz bar for a bit too maybe (whilst sipping tea in my jim-jams). 3D immersive shops and bars haven’t happened yet, but for some communities that stuff could be life-changing, especially when I could meet other mums there, mates, even virtual dates? Whoa. But then as AI rose, the Metaverse sank, (NB I’m contractually obliged not to mention any litigation issues since natch), and with it my hope to buy milk whilst wearing a weird mask thing.

But don’t get me wrong I’m not new to AI… Since the roll-outs I’ve trusted various LLMs with everything to my mum’s medical dramas to my own relationship therapy, I’ve been basic and got dinner ideas, and I’ve gone deep and used it for massive complex projects. It’s invaluable at work, though I don’t use it for writing (this will never be written by AI, no moral objection particularly, I just love writing and my tiny little finger brains would kill me if I outsourced their joy)… it’s amazing at research, quick answers and a little logic or strategy sense check on things.

But AI video is obviously the BIGGEST industry game-changer. Sure, copywriters and strategists are already seeing the hit, along with branding designers and concepting creatives, but if there is anything that’s royally and dramatically changing everything, it’s AI video.

We’re now way past the lols of extra-fingers, weird faces and hokey copies, we’re now into proper high quality, ‘can’t really tell’ territory (not that that’s the aim imo)... video is next leval, already.

Though one of my favourite applications for AI video is using it with the work of proper human craft-led Creators. Our specialism at Republic of Imagination in this past year has been to ‘collect’ a database of amazing craft-led creators, artisans, artists, traditional types like illustrators, painters, sculptures, model-makers etc… and newer types like AI artists, video artists… then more performance types like musicians, comedians, actors etc. They are at the other end of the Creator spectrum to personality-led influencers, and they are more about production than amplification. I still think the opportunity for brands to work with craft-led creators is HUGE. But I also think that when combining the work of human artists with AI video tools is where brilliant things can happen too. Not least because production doesn’t become so prohibitively expensive anymore for brands (who need lots of assets in a test and learn algorithm-approval world), which means that the artists can get paid and work with brands rather than just have their style ripped off by some ad agency art director, or worse, things being aesthetically boring and art directionally dull AF. In this case AI video becomes freedom, making things move that are otherwise static. That’s glorious.

Anyway… this wee column is here to ‘laywoman’ the heck out of the tech bro’s jargon-jizz, meet some industry AI video wizzes and and take you on my own little journey of learning, making and selling AI video, (with and without craft-led creators too). There’s going to be a lot of moral fisty-cuffs, probably some soul-searching in the pursuit of bill-paying, and almost certainly a bit of shameless hustle and self-promotion of my new AI video production company (DM me for a showreel and pricing yo).

Strap in, it might get messy.

Ay? Ey.

The Drum Column 2 This AI video explainer nearly put nan to sleep.

My lovely mum’s been in hospital again and I’ve been holding fort at the bedside reeling off complicated medication names to nurses like I’m in The Pitt. That’s also meant that I’ve not had enough time to be immersed in work stuff as I kinda need (NHS wifi isn’t massively conducive to ‘generations’), but it also made me realise that to start off this AI Video column I should probably do a Rory Stewart style explainer.

So I’ll do it in the way that I always used to for convoluted ad concepts, or when I felt like we were getting too much into industry flim-flam… this is the ‘explain it to me like I’m your nan’ test… (the ‘nan’ in question here being my mum Jean – actual first name Barbara, that confuses aforementioned nurses, anyway, here goes…)

⁃ So mum, you know that I’m now doing stuff with AI video for advertising, I thought I’d explain it to you a bit as a proxy for explaining to people in the industry who are too afraid to ask and feel like they should get up to speed, is that okay?

⁃ Who is Roxy?

⁃ Nobody… okay so you know how people used to take photographs and make videos for adverts, now computers can do that. Mostly worse than how humans have done it, but also much, much quicker and cheaper.

⁃ Okay… and that’s good? Is it legal? Doesn’t sound legal… don’t get in trouble…

⁃ Yes it’s legal but you raised a salient point about ownership, copyright, ethics and insurance – I’ve got an industry expert lawyer interview coming up on that very point soon…

⁃ Oh lawyers, Ju, what have you got yourself into this time?

⁃ It’s okay mum. So there are lots of different tools for generative AI, things like writing copy for ads, voiceovers etc and different ‘models’ for making images and video… the stuff that’s made is now sometimes known as Synthetic Media

⁃ Sounds like an 80s band where they’ve all got girly hair and baggy sleeves

⁃ Does a bit… So the biggest issues in creating AI video to date has been consistency, that’s making the frame, scene, character, worlds etc the same throughout what you are making. I was making a video about a pig using lots of different shots from different angles and different scenes, it was tricky to keep it all the same pig. 

⁃ Aww I like pigs.

⁃ Well yes these ones were ‘hogging’ the middle lane of the motorway. I don’t even like puns, I was just trying to prove out that I could do something more complex and longer form using a concept we got quoted £200k to make in the pre-AI video world.

⁃ Two hundred thousand pounds? You could buy a house for that! Bloody ‘ell Julie… hope you’re not spending two hundred bloody thousand pounds on pigs!

⁃ No I’m not mum, anyway… there are things like ‘interpolation’, which is the AI making ‘in-between’ frames to make the transitions between things look smoother, or ‘inpainting’ - just changing small elements within a bit of video like the hands or a t-shirt… then things like ‘outpainting’ which is expanding around the edge of the scene to make wide shots etc. There’s also ‘compositing’, which is layering little bits of AI into real world footage. Or ‘temporal consistency’ which is keeping visuals or movements stable over time so they don’t jutter and look weird. There are terms like ‘hallucinations’ meaning the AI making weird mistakes.

⁃ I’ve been hallucinating! 

⁃ Yeah I know mum, that’s the fever, they’re giving you meds for that. Anyway what else can I tell you about? I know, some of the biggest names right now are Google Veo, Runway, Sora, Kling and Pika...

⁃ Are they more of those K-Pop Demon Hunters characters that Betsy likes?

⁃ Not quite, Google Veo is made by Google Deepmind. Runway is probably the most used in advertising right now, it uses lots of models as a kinda aggregator tool as well (other platforms like Higgsfield do that too). Sora comes from OpenAI. It was the model that really made the industry sit up and pay attention, although it’s now got plenty of competition, Kling is from China and loads of people think it’s better than western models. Pika tends to be popular with creators making punchy social content and visual effects. They are all pretty cool. Oh and there’s Arcads for making UGC style ‘people chatting to camera on TikTok’ stuff but without actual humans, ElevenLabs for voices, which is getting better at different accents these days (they all used to sound American). Oh and I’ve used Hedra for character stuff, that’s become really popular too…

⁃ That’s nice love. I might have a nap now… you carry on wittering about tech stacks the consistency wars and slop backlash love… don’t mind me.

⁃ Mum? You already know about AI’s hot topics? What?

⁃ No, it’s probably just these painkillers love, affecting my brain. But I do like using that Chatty Bee Gees app you put on my phone for telling me the names of plants, I can get him to talk to me and everything. He’s lovely, quite a dish (well, guessing, from his voice)… and very clever.

⁃ Ah you’re definitely an AI wizz then. Love you mum.

⁃ Love you Ju.