Amid all the hype around artificial intelligence (AI), it can be difficult to cut through the noise and understand how advertising companies are actually using the technology today. S4 Capital’s digital-first operating brand, creative agency Media.Monks, embraces technology with open arms beyond video creation capabilities.
Joán Llabata, Associate Creative Director at Media.Monks, said: “Any AI application that can be used to do things better and faster.” Here are some examples of applications from the Media.Monks toolkit.
in the middle – A program that converts text to images, similar to OpenAI’s viral DALL-E system. Agencies use Midjourney during the concept stage to visualize ideas.
stable diffusion – An open source tool to generate images from prompts. Although it can produce photorealistic images, Stable Diffusion is less reliable with jerky video.
Runway – A text-to-video system that creates a 3-second video from a prompt or reference image. Users can edit or modify videos using natural language descriptions.
Using these systems together speeds up the video process and the AI is constantly learning and improving. Media.Monks Associate Her Creative Director Mariëlle Tolen said:
But as anyone who’s played with DALL-E or ChatGPT knows, these machines still need direction and curation to produce work to professional standards. is. “There are so many facets when it comes to video production and filmmaking, and technology should always be at the forefront,” he comments Tolen. So rather than “he uses AI for the sake of using AI”, the creative process should start by considering what you want to achieve and find the application that best fits that request.
to the moon
When deployed properly, AI becomes an “additional tool” in a creative’s toolkit. Something that pushes the boundaries of what is creatively possible. “Can we shoot this beautiful scene on the moon? In fact, we might be able to make the moon,” he explains Tolen. “So it feels like our way of thinking has been expanded.”
At the moment there is no comprehensive video creation tool, or “ChatGPT for videos”, but that is probably just a matter of time. “Soon there will be applications entirely focused on video AI generation,” he predicts Llabata. “Eventually, you’ll be able to get the video with just the description.”
Currently, it is difficult to explain the concept of video to a machine. “It’s actually very complicated,” he points out. “It’s all about continuity and where you put things, and everything within a frame has to be defined to ensure consistency between frames.”
But the speed of progress makes such abilities not only possible, but inevitable. “We have witnessed exponential growth in AI,” he says..We are now at a point where we think everything is possible. If he blinks or sneezes twice, what was impossible a minute ago is probably possible now. ”
In fact, the use of digital avatars in place of actors is almost commonplace at this point not only in Hollywood productions, but also in advertising. “We’re already scanning actors and creating avatars to do things that would otherwise be impossible or prohibitively expensive,” he said. “It doesn’t have to hurt talent. It just opens up new types of collaboration.”
The wider issue of AI replacing people’s jobs isn’t so easily dismissed, but Media.Monks is committed to putting these tools in the right hands to make teams more efficient. I am careful. “We’re looking for new ways to enable people to do amazing things that they couldn’t do before,” he says. Similarly, giving business people creative AI tools doesn’t make them creative. “We each have a role,” he adds. “I can’t write emails any more than ChatGPT can’t make me a general manager!”
He uses the analogy of someone going to a photography exhibition, asking the photographer what camera and film they use, buying the same equipment, and expecting them to be great photographers. “The question you want to ask is what inspires you? What are your references? What do you want to convey?” says Labata. “Everything else is just playing with the tools you have to get your message across.”
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