Whether you’re a skeptic, an enthusiast, or an all-out objector, there’s no debating that AI is dominating the current world stage. But despite its ubiquity, AI is still in its infancy, making it nearly impossible to predict how it will impact our lives as we know it. “There are still so many questions,” says Staff-Picked director Laen Sanches.
Those questions – usually around fears of robot overlords, a total void of culture and creativity, or both – are fair. But despite those concerns, AI has already stitched itself into workflows across the globe – and shows no signs of slowing down. So what does that mean for creative work, and the people who make it?
As anyone in the creative field will tell you, the human element: that is, creativity, emotion, meaningful art – is, crucially, totally uncopyable by machines. The tech also can’t brainstorm or ideate without human input – positioning them, almost by requirement, as tools rather than total replacements. “It’s a lot of prompts and trial and error,” says photographer Rachel Hulin.
The advent of generative AI will undoubtedly transform the way we work, but, when used thoughtfully, may not be in total opposition with creative disciplines. To test this theory, we surveyed creatives from across the Vimeo community who have begun to dabble in AI – to find out how they’re using it now and how they see it impacting their work in the future. Here’s what we heard from them, and what picture it paints for the future of AI in the creative world.
AI is powering solo creative work
As any filmmaker will tell you, making a movie (or really, any piece of content) is a collaborative art. All films require input from folks with specialized skills and are the result of an amalgam of visions. But for many independent creators, AI is opening a world of possibilities for creators to write and produce their own projects entirely independently.
Take Paul Trillo’s “THANK YOU FOR NOT ANSWERING,” a stunning animated short that he conceived, wrote, and executed on his own. “It was just me,” says Paul. “I’ve done a handful of different scales of production. I’ve worked with large crews of up to 100 people, and short, low-budget projects that I’ve always done relatively small. This is definitely the smallest.”
By writing his own script, then generating short video clips using AI technology to sync up with his vision, Paul could build out a uniquely animated and visually haunting Staff Picked video by curating the visual content digitally.
Filmmaker Jordan Clarke envisions a world in which even high-level production work could get done solo. “AI motion capture and facial capture is really exciting to me,” says Jordan. “Before you had to book a big studio, get the big expensive suits, and now there’s new AI software where all I need is three iPhones. I could perform the whole thing just on my own. And I think there is something to doing something all by yourself.”
AI is changing our visual language
Because AI imagery – at least for now – possesses an uncanny valley quality (a term meant to describe the unease you feel when you see a computer-generated image that’s not quite right), it’s become quite easy to detect. Throughout our conversations, we found that filmmakers reliably gravitated toward AI-generated imagery because of this distinct quality.
For Paul Trillo, being able to create his latest short by himself was a great way to execute a concept on limited resources – but it was also the visual quality of the work itself that compelled him to use the tech. “In a way, using AI as a way to present you with options to choose from is very similar to directing,” he says. “It gives you aberrations and happy accidents – things that can’t be prompted, and are just interesting elements to lean into.”
“I wanted to lean into the natural aesthetic that the AI videos were creating, rather than pushing against it. Right now, it’s more interesting as its own aesthetic.”
Paul Trillo, Filmmaker
Chris Carboni, who used an early version of MidJourney to animate the charming “HAIRY POUTER,” also liked AI’s weirdling interpretations of his vision. “We really liked the art style that it had come up with through just a few rounds of regenerating images,” says Chris.
“We let the AI really come up with these interesting interpretations, and when we hit on one that we really liked, we guided it to follow that thread, so that it would be consistently entertaining and just easy to follow.”
“It’s exciting,” says Laen Sanches. “It’s a fresh playground to explore new ways to tell my stories. It’s a journey of new tools, processes, and exciting challenges.”
AI is clearing more time for creativity
In nearly every conversation, we found that the folks we spoke to were particularly pleased to employ AI as a way to avoid the less artistic work that being full-time creatives requires – so they can get back to the things that matter most.
Multimedia producer Romke Hoogwaerts relies on AI to simply work more efficiently, no matter the project. “I use AI to generally automate busywork,” says Romke. “I’ve been using it for writing business emails, quoting clients for work. AI is always going to be most effective at doing the heavy lifting of simple tasks.”
Chris Carboni, too, uses AI to keep his inbox clear and his projects organized. “I love using AI to enhance my emails and as a sort of personal assistant capable of answering questions, explaining complex ideas, and handling rote tasks.”
AI is a tool, not a new talent
Across all of our conversations, we found common ground with our creatives and filmmakers in the use of AI to improve and expand – not replace – work. “I’m trying to look at it as not, ‘They’re taking away my job,’” says Jordan. “It’s more like, ‘Oh, what can I do with it now?’”
Rachel Hulin, for example, used AI to recreate the effect of a camera whose tech was lost to time: “One of my favorite cameras isn’t available anymore, but I can use AI to match that same analogue aesthetic.”
Jordan Clarke, who works primarily as a director and animator, used AI to get more comfortable with the discipline of writing. ”I’ve always been nervous to write,” he says. “So it was like, well, if I write through the AI, I can use it as a brainstorming tool.”
For Paul Trillo, AI has primarily become a tool to augment the material he shoots. “I use it more as a VFX and animation tool than anything else,” he notes. (You can take a look at that work in action here.)
For many creators willing to explore the new tools at their fingertips, AI has become a way to expand into work that wouldn’t have otherwise been possible – rather than simply duplicating or replacing processes.
“There are good ways and bad ways of using it,” Paul adds. “For a lot of people, it’s really creating work that just wouldn’t have been made before. It’s opening a portal to this world of things that wouldn’t have existed.” For others, AI is simply offering a new stage for creatives to tell the stories they’ve been aiming to tell all along.
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