The Black Frame Problem

Howdy Storytellers 🤠,

AI is fun, frustrating, and mind blowing at the same time.

Have you ever asked ChatGPT or another AI chatbot to do something for you and thought, wait… did I even need AI for this?

“Hey AI, should I drink water if I’m thirsty?”

AI: “Not if it’s water that is better used for cooling the data centers that power me.” 💀

In all seriousness, given the hype around AI, sometimes there’s a temptation to over rely on it, even in AI filmmaking – when the fastest and best answer is often the “old-fashioned one”.

Let me explain.

One of our AI Directors for VIP Productions needed a black screen in one of his client’s films.

Simple enough.

He tried generating a black start frame with the Movie Machine.

After multiple attempts, he failed to get a completely black start frame.

Instead, each frame had these tiny artifacts that distorted the blackness, creating a weird tinge on the black frame that would have been noticeable to a discerning viewer.

Yeah, I know, weird.

AI is probabilistic. It tries to understand us, but it doesn’t give us always exactly what we want, but something close to it. This is one of the challenges of AI filmmaking right now. It’s gotten better (can’t even describe to you how far the Movie Machine has come in the last 6-12 months), but still has a way to go (this is just one of many reasons why most storytellers choose to hire our VIP Production Team to make their films for them).

Here’s the deep irony in this situation though.

We never needed AI to make the black frame.

We could have easily just added an image of a black screen while editing the film – no wasted time and money spent messing around with the AI.

The lesson is simple: when working with AI it’s easy to buy into the hype that it’s magical and can do everything for you. Yes, it’s awesome. But it’s a tool. And that tool is just part of your arsenal as a storyteller. Use it wisely, and don’t forget about the powers you already have.

You can watch my interview with Matthew, where we cover the Black Frame problem at 11 minute and 54 seconds in below 👇

Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts HERE.

Trying a new style with these blogs where instead of once every week or two weeks getting a massive 2,000 word essay from me, I send more frequent emails in shorter, easier to digest bites.

Let me know if you like the idea by replying to this email with “Yes.” Always want to make everything we do here better for you all, whether you use Creatorwood or not, we are all in this together as storytellers – and we all (myself most of all) have so much learning to do.

Alright I’ll be back soon 😊.