Generative AI Application in the Creative Services Industry

Yoyo. Welcome to Stokes Session season two episode three. Today, I'm joined by Mr. David Carrillo, Executive Director here at Magnetic.

And Mr. Paul Trohan, agency veteran in the creative services space and also a navy veteran. So super excited to have these guys on today. On talking through generative AI in the creative services industry, when to use it, how to use it, why to use it, when not to use it, We go through a really cool live exploration of some AI prompts.

There's some rad tricks, tricks, and tips in there for you. So enjoy the show, and we'll see you on the next episode. Cheers.

What's up everybody? Welcome back to another Stokes session. I'm joined today with, Mr. DC from magnetic Creative and Mr. Paul Drowhan. Super excited to get into a cool chat about AI.

We're actually gonna go through some live examples of AI and usage today, which I'm really excited about. Before we jump in. Give a quick intro of the guys here.

Mr. David Carrillo, DC as he's known around the office. I've been lucky enough to know him for shit.

Twenty five years, thirty years, forty years.

You look at your first grade together.

I just separated at birth. Aren't you?

I know. Been super lucky to be able to work with him for a long time. Worked with him my entire career at magnetic. Which has been really cool.

Design god, really, really talented behind the lens, behind the camera. And overall, super fun to work with. Mister Paul Drohan is coming to us from a long history. He's kind of a veteran in a few different faces.

He he served time in the navy. Paul, thank you for your service, and then he's also done a huge stint in the agency world. So he spent time at juxt interactive, digitaria, Miram, and folklore, most recently, Paul.

Right on. Worked with clients. All the way around the block, he's worked with like polaris, Google, Netflix, Rolex? Who am I missing? Adidas? There's a bunch in there.

Yeah. Welcome. You know, a technical and digital, but, yeah, it's been big and small clients. All over the all over the place.

Okay. And currently, Paul, you're you're in the mode of like pioneering what I would say, some of the AR, the AI creative, tell us a little bit about what you're doing with, like, AIGA and some of the, speaking tracks that you're on right now.

Thank you. I appreciate that. So, I spent several years developing a few digital programs at San Diego City college, San Diego Portfolio studio, and speaking at other, other institutions few years ago. And so I'm kinda getting, you know, reintroduced and kind of easing back into the educational, sort of community.

To help share some of my experience with AI in the last year. So a lot of the schools have been extremely excited and interested in some of the actual like, you know, application of AI in the process, in the execution of, you know, creative. So I've been speaking. I just spoke at City Eagle City College a few days ago. Talking about, real application and process of, you know, what I've been working on.

I'm speaking at the Santa Monica College here in about a month, to share that same type of talk. And then, I just met with EIGA San Diego Maitlyn Lebine, to plan a kind of group discussion in the later part of May to talk about this subject in creative.

I mean, kinda coining the phrase, the new rim of creative, because we know AI or AI has been quite a hot topic and, fascinating, just influence in what we've been doing.

We've both been in the agency world so long. It's, I know we've talked off off camera before and we have our chat, but it's it's pretty exciting. And then it's probably one of those phases where, like, I haven't been this excited about about technology or tools in in quite a while and this one is obviously up there and just is creating a ton of commotion and a ton of, like, thoughts, a ton of, just chatter around what's what's possible now, so really exciting. I know both of us have been in the agency a long time, and this is kinda that thing that's kinda reinvigorated, both of us.

You couldn't have said it better based off of so many conversations we've had and I've had with other people. I usually kinda get this poor opposites most of the time. Oh my god. It's so fascinating, but, oh my god. I'm so scared.

It's so frightening.

It's like, I always always joke. I'm like, I think everybody's afraid that Arnold Schwartzenager is going to appear and just like, you know, just destroy everything, you know. Because it's kinda, but you're right. You know, our industry has seen so many like, digital innovations and technical innovations throughout our career. I know I've been seeing a lot, you know, in, in the last few decades.

And it's not that different than the conversations that were happening when websites were really, like, springing up back in the late nineties and, you know, mid nineties. People were afraid, but they were curious at the same time.

Yeah.

Paul, I was I was reading through your bio prior to the call here, and, you made a mention to, like, Flash. Right? And that was one of the things that I was into in my early days.

It's funny because I haven't known you very long, but I feel like we've been living in these, like, you know, parallel realities. Right? I used to be super into actionscript and making all the making all the pixels move in the browser, but, we've obviously seen, like, the rise of Instagram, the rise of Facebook, the rise of Twitter, all of the social media tools, the rise of the web. You know, I still have friends that think the web is a fat and that it's gonna It's gonna die at some point. Right?

Stock for fun. Yeah.

Yeah. Stock photography. Think about how how much of a shake up that in history is going through with the rise of, of AI here. So, super cool.

Why don't we get into it a little bit? I just wanted to talk through kind of, the speed at which AI has has hit, like, for me being more in the the tech space and some of the digital digital marketing tools, You know, AI has been present for a long time, in places like your Gmail account. Right? Like Gmail has finishing your sentences for you for three, four, five years.

People haven't really considered that the whole push of AI, but really in the last, what, year and a half or so, we've seen this huge rise from chat GPT from all the folks at Open AI, you know, mid journey, Jim and I, what are some of the tools that you guys are seeing right now and what are the things that are moving the quickest in your in your experience?

Yeah. I'll I'll take it first stab.

I think the the industry is moving really quick. It it just like yesterday, we were making fun of like, you know, ten fingers on a hand and all the mishaps that happen with AI and it's like, oh, this is cool, but it's not be applicable for a long time. Like I said, that seemed like yesterday and all of a sudden, it's like, whoa. This is here and it's legit.

You have so much control over at AI more so than you did even a year ago, and it's just getting it's each day. It just seems like it's getting smarter and smarter and smarter and producing better, better, better results.

So the the pace at which AI is moving, like Paul said, it is a little scary, but it's also like so exciting.

And and, so that speed, I think what's what's what's happening is it's kind of this big huge wave of AI and it's overwhelming, and there's so many tools. And you kinda gotta sift through and say what works for you. There's gonna be a lot of tools jump up and and fall off and die. But there's gonna be also those few that are here to stay, and we gotta adopt them and and continue to move forward them at the same pace as as they're evolving.

Yeah. I agree. You know, it it is so exciting because Keth, there's just, you know, one of the ones I'm I'm really excited about, of course, Sora, you know, thinking about how Sora is gonna be able to allow certain people to, you know, create their own mature. And that's the thing that I've always been excited about with AI. Is that it is a it's kind of given more reins to me as a creative and allowed me to be able to just do, like, certain things and and and go down a certain direction without having to be so sometimes shackled with having to, like, partner up with somebody else and then have to kinda go through their process.

You know, the one of the new ones with mid journey is the character consistency thing.

Yeah.

That is is really like kind of creating a wave right now, which I'm about to start, you know, exploring a little bit and how that can, you know, that can benefit my my clients. But that's a big one because that's one of the hardest things to do. Where you're, you know, you're working in mid journey is to get that, like, character consistency, and then to be able to tweak certain things.

So I'm super excited about that Yeah.

I think Paul, you just hit on something that I've been thinking about too. It's like, previously, you know, we call in the industry is a unicorn, something that could design that can develop, that can write, and they're kind of self sufficient, and you have those kind of unicorn people out there. They're far and few between. But I think AI is gonna create a lot more unicorns where you're really skilled in in, you know, one area Now you have AI, like, I'm not a writer.

I'm a designer. I can I can edit? I know what I want out of writing, but now with the use of AI, like, it's gonna create more unicorns where people are self sufficient and able to holistically control the outcome of a project or all the pieces of the project play this conductor role where I have full control and I'm using assets, but I don't have to rely on somebody else. I don't have to wait on somebody else.

You're you kinda brought everything into your own world and you kind of can pick and choose and and create the recipes and formulas and and how comes you want using AI. So I think it's it's really exciting because there's a there's a lot of talented people out there and to get really good at something, you usually gotta stay in your lane and really drive hard.

But with AI now, I think it's gonna allow people to branch out pretty seamlessly and and kind of control the entire the entire outcome You know, you said two things that one has stuck with me.

I forgot who I was talking to, but, you know, that person had coined a phrase. We're gonna be more like creative conductor.

Yep.

Alright. And that that that that idea that, yeah, you know, you're this kind of multifaceted creative, you know, you're the unicorn. You you like to you you have an eye for photography, and maybe you can do a little bit on the side, but you're like, no, man. Like, can't. I I would never put that in front of client, but mid journey has allowed us to be able to hardest that that tool and create imagery, and it might not necessarily go final to the very end, but it can help direct certain things. I I got a current client that I just left.

I did a photoshoot yesterday in Escondido, and I used mid journey to create the mood boards.

For the photographer.

And we had those images there at the shoot to go, okay, this is the one we're gonna hit. This is the one we're gonna hit. And, you know, it was it really allowed me to be able to kind of direct it and conduct it a lot quicker and be more efficient and affordable for the client. Yeah.

We we've been doing the same thing on this slide. It's one of the applications we've been using in is storyboarding for for video. You can get really close instead of having draw or find stock image to represent. You can start to create a really good and tight presentation for a direction of a project. Using using AI, using mid journey, where you're starting to set, you know, the look and feel, the camera angles, the focal lengths, the, you know, the mood, the lighting, and and really get pretty damn close to what you want the final outcome to be where everybody sees that. Now everybody has the vision and is running in the same direction.

When production comes, it's so much more seamless.

So much more inaccessible. You know, it just has made made these different, you know, categories of, like you said, writing and photography and video and things like that, that it's made it a lot more accessible, especially for somebody like me that I'm, you know, I'm consulting. And so some of my clients don't have the big budget And, you know, this technology has allowed these these different areas to be more accessible for me to offer, you know, these services at, you know, a little more kind of reachable, you know, area for for my clients, like, you know, being able to right, a whole strategy and a whole mission statement, you know, right, a whole, you know, like, business planning to be able to use check GPT or Google Gemini to help assist with that. And it's not, again, not necessarily final, but it's very directional. And it's it's very effective.

It's it's mind blowing. I mean, just thinking about not that long ago, six months ago. Like you said, DC, we're counting fingers, and it was like, man, this one hand has twelve and the, you know, the input output that you were getting from chat GPT and and Gemini.

It was good, but it wasn't necessarily, like, hey, I can trust this a thousand percent. I think we've we've moved so quickly.

And Paul, it's a good point that you bring up, you know, like, the the ability for AI to help make things more accessible to clients that are, you know, working on a budget like everyone is, is one side of the string, but the other side of the string, I think we just saw one of the, Super Bowl commercials was actually, concepted in AI. And it was, it was the one with the golfer that takes the shot. It kind of bounces off all the trees, and then they're they're constantly following the ball through.

But I just saw a case study on that and it's it's amazing. I mean, it's it's being used in in all different, facets of of the creative industry and it's it's cool. It's exciting. But I think DC and I were, were recently just joking like, oh, man.

Time to become a plumber. Right? Like, we gotta start wrenching pipes and and grease in the grease in the wheels a little bit. So, yeah, that's cool.

Well guys, I'd love to get into a little bit of a, show and tell. I know both of you have a few things that, you've worked on recently, using AI, and I'd love to just go through those. I don't know if DC, you wanna share first, and then Paul, you can bring up some of the the creative that you've put together.

Yeah.

I I can share.

I'll just share a couple of, like, just, exports from from mid journey and kind of show a few of what mid journey is capable of. And then I'll show you kind of a storyboard or or a pitch deck we sent to a client where we also used AI and mid journey to really push the concept and and get sign off on the on the on the concept from client.

Let me just go ahead and share.

Let me know when you guys can see my screen.

I can see it.

Cool. So I I kinda I I did a ton of photography for the agency. It's it start as a passion and turn into where I got really deep into it. And so, I think I look at mid journey a little different. The most people, I'm probably less, exploratory in terms of concepts in this early stage.

I'm more, like, hey, can I simplify what I'm doing, or can I make it more efficient and get the quality of images and the style that I want that I would have to use with the camera? So I've done a little bit of exploration. You can see here on on the left hand side, you know, you can do some really wild stuff and put in some prompts. You can almost get some fine art style stuff. And as we get to, you know, the center of this is really getting into focus of kind of setting tone and environment for a potential shoot or you know, that kinda whole mood board or story board kinda aspect. And then, this third column here, I was kinda just wanted to show some images of, like, how real and how good AI is getting before you it wasn't this quality a year ago.

You're getting really good skin textures. You're getting catch lights and eyes. You're getting everything is just getting so much dialed in where images coming out of mid journey are super super passable and and, and just the quality is just elevated so much that it's it's hard to tell if this was a real photo or AI. I know Paul and somebody talks. I know you've done that real or AI and it's got a really fun segment, that I saw in your talk. But, yeah, it's it's getting to that point where it's almost indiscernible.

If it was AI or or photo. And then, what we have on the, right hand side is just some expiration. And I think this is another aspect that, you know, going into interior design, we have clients that go, you know, this is for a mood board for a winery client help us kinda determine the look and feel and style. Of of our next project and stuff like that where you can start to put in some pretty specific prompts and then with seating now and in mid journey being able to, like, take something and continue building off that and dialing it in.

The the results you can get are just astounding and and, you know, these places look real to me. But, as far as a directional mood board and setting tone direction for for a project. Mid journey is that the tools become just a huge time saver, create so many more efficiencies and just been super fun to work with. So kinda have that to show you kinda what mid journey is capable of and kinda how I've been using mid journey. And then if I switch over to an actual, like, client concept pitch. You can see how we started using mid journey to actually start to get the look and feel and set the tone, in in terms of mood board for an actual shoe we were doing, where you can start to actually get look and feel, start to see how, you know, just composition of shots, angles, you know, focal lengths, lighting.

There's a lot you can do within mid journey, within prompts. I mean, you can literally dictate what focal length. You can say the style lighting. You can, you know, put in prompts of, you know, what camera we're shooting with, and you're starting to get some results that are just unbelievable and and much faster, in comparison to actually sketching out moved in storyboards or you know, having to go and resort to stock photography where it's almost there and we can talk through the concept and this is a halfway there visual reference. Now we could get like ninety percent there with visual references, and get, you know, client alignment much quicker than we have in the past. So that's kinda how we've been using it here at magnetic.

Like I said, we're we're just at the infancy of this. We've been using it for about a year now, but, how fast the industry is moving that the the application for this this tool is is gonna continue to just elevate and we're gonna find more and more uses for it. But Oh, I know you've done a ton and and we've talked about you you've done a ton of exploratory, most fine art as as well as, you know, just exploration probably a lot more than I have in terms of of pushing the limits of what AI can can do. But, yeah, super curious to see what you've been working on and how you've been using, AI.

I wanted to touch on something, though, that one advantage, especially you have and other creatives that have a photography background is that you guys have this formal, like, knowledge and training with, like, really the craft of photography and the craft of, you know, video production that I've just, like, I continue to see the the the quality of, like, yourself and this other guy, buddy of mine, Kenny, that has this photography background. Like, you guys really bring in this technical, like, skill, end of mid journey, and then the results are just mind blowing. Like, how much more control you guys have then, like, let's say the people that are just kinda exploring would know, like, formal, like, photography background.

I I think it is a huge benefit because like I said, I mean, you can talk about focal length camera. You can talk about your depth of field and f stop. You can talk about so much. Just lighting terms, all of that stuff that you can actually put in as prompts in mid journey that help dial in and craft craft your image. So I I think it's been a huge, you know, benefit to have a solid foundation in the creative medium of creating images to to be able to go in and and apply that in a different format using AI.

Yeah. Absolutely. You know, you guys You guys definitely have that have that advantage, in that knowledge, which I I have definitely seen the results from from you guys, is, again, super inspirational. There's this other guy Sebastian I did, an interview with, and he's an interior designer, and he's got that photography background. And he has truly meshed both of those skills together to do the most realistic, like, interior design directions for his clients, and he's he's continued to build a whole business around.

Yeah. I I saw some of that. There's another guy Mike Campow who's an artist. I fought a long time.

Three d artist. He's phenomenal retoucher and compositor. But that skill set, like, you know, I got into photography because I actually love Photoshop in the retouching aspect of it. Then started taking my own images.

But the retoucher in me is just seeing so much potential of being able to take elements from AI and start to composite and build in, especially with, like, we work on product stuff to take a a product package rendering and then build an environment around it and get the lighting right and all of that. That the the retouchers I'm I'm assuming out there, are having a heyday with mid journey right now. Instead of having to go shoot every little aspect of a composite or find stock photography, it's right now at your fingertips and and generated in seconds. Now that you can pull in these pieces and start to craft these these amazing composites.

And you start to see where there's there's there's no line anymore. You can't see the line between where the real and the fake started. It it's just all seamless now and the people are out there getting some phenomenal results. It's it's super inspirational and exciting.

Yeah. And it's interesting to me.

Oh, go ahead, Matt. Sorry, man.

It's it's interesting to me too because a lot of people think that, AI takes the creativity out of what we do. But, quite the opposite as I listen to you guys talk through this is that it actually puts more of the creativity back into it. When you're talking about mood or tone setting, any of those those activities.

A lot of times you're you're bound to the images and the videos and the and the things that you can find, whether that's through stock or, you know, without going and doing producing an actual photo shoot.

A lot of times you're bound to, like, kind of a limited, amount of assets where with AI now, you guys have the idea. You can actually go and produce this based off of, true raw creative, which is so, so cool to see.

I'm glad you brought that up, Matt, because that's that's the thing that I try to encourage people to sort of embrace is that it it can free up so much time too to be more creative and then be able to kind of spend a little extra time crafting what you did because you have this extra time. You know, you're you're not spending hours and hours. Let's say, clipping images out or, you know, trying to, like, do this or that. You know, these these these very tedious production tasks that we've we've dealt with for so long in our industry. And now this is really, like, kinda take, like, taking that away and and and now it's doing it for us. And it's just freed up so much time.

So I just look at it as such a benefit. I really do.

Absolutely. So run us run us through a few of the things that you've got here, Paul.

Okay. Yeah. Sounds good. So this, in particular, is a current client of mine. His name is Scott, Hallestad, and he is a consultant. You know, he has got a small, consulting business for life science industry.

And what he does is he helps life science startups go from sort of startup area to actual, like, in market production, you know.

So he he came to me. He was like, look, you know, I really, I really need to get serious about my brand.

And love, you know, you know, I've been friends several years. He was like, you know, I'd love to work with you and, and, you know, really, like, take my brand to the next level.

Yeah.

Because he's a smaller, you know, company and everything, you know, like any client, they have certain budgets that they have to be sensitive to And so with his budget, I had to really think about, like, alright, to work within this budget and to be able to fulfill the whole scope of what I know he needs.

AI is gonna be really beneficial to me. I'm gonna be able to you know, use this technology to help me, you know, not only go through the strategy in the UX phase and in the copywriting phase, but also help me with the mood boards when I have to actually do real photo shoots and get to some of the digital, production. So for this one right here, I'm just gonna start off like, you know, this is this is kinda what he is. You know, he's an independent regulatory clients and quality assurance consulting company in the life science industry.

Right? I was like, what is all that?

So, you know, it's always exciting to learn something about your clients and to learn what they do and here it it truly helps sort of educate yourself as a person. So I've learned about life science issues, you know, things that I've never knew in the past.

So I do have a a a typical process, and that process is just to get to know my clients and to kinda dive in, do my own research, and you go through a basic, like, brand questioning the conversation. So we went through that, and then I was like, alright, you know, now I have to truly write things. I have to like come up with the strategy and the mission statement and the brand attributes.

So I thought, why not lean into Google Gemini to help that process out a little bit. And so this next, screen here shows literally some of the screenshots, that I I did using Google Gemini to help me with that brand strategy and to help write some of the brand attributes because I'm not a writer. And, unfortunately, his budget just didn't allow us to bring in that strategies in that copywriter to be able to flesh out all of this. So I used Gemini to help lay a foundation and to create a direction. And then what I was able to do is, between myself and my wife, which she's a writer, we were able to take bits and pieces of things that we liked and then finesse it and mold it and then be able to present it to Scott.

And he he was very impressed by the accuracy of the writing. Around the brand strategy. And a lot of these, attributes that that we ended up coming up with. Yes. The other area that I used was major you know, DC, you you talked about just how effective it was to be able to use it for mood boards. You know, this is an actual mood board that I created for the photoshoot that I we wanted to do.

And I wanted it to be like, you know, this this very kinda black and white, almost editorial but approachable, natural sort of settings that felt approachable.

And these were the images that had created imagery.

And they're phenomenal.

Like, you know, you look at this one right here kinda front and center, and this is I wanted to capture like him just relaxed and almost in thought.

And the result was and then you you guys can even see. I'm not sure if the audio gonna be able to see. It even added like a little bit of film grain and dust overlay that I thought was I didn't even put that in there, and it did it just to kinda get rid of the editorial look.

And so is that actually is that actually him?

No. It's not it's not him, but I I had put in the prompts like, you know, guy in his mid forties, you know, with you know, some facial hair wearing glasses sitting in like a cafe or a restaurant.

With a lot of like big windows and natural lighting.

Sort of like working.

And, you know, that one and the one to the right of it where he's writing stuff down were some of the results that I got from that problem. And then I I I added some prompts, you know, to say, okay, you're like, you know, two gentlemen again in their forties, in an office sort of meeting and talking, black and white. So I was very pleased with the results, and I was able to take these to the photographer to do a real photo shoot just like DC you had talked about.

Yep.

And the next move boards, we're actually using, like, These are more conceptual, imagery that that I created that he really liked, and and these aren't real people, but they ended up being, like, more of these, like, brand, you know, just mood, mood images, I guess, is sort of the best way to kind of describe it. And he really liked it. You know, I really liked it too. I love sort of the experimental and and more of like the artistic, direction that we got out of these with people that are you know, being filtered through like glass and light and, you know, water and things like that. So, we we ended up using a few of these. And then we also ended up, I ended up experimenting with abstract life science images.

So what I wanted to do was I wanted to kinda go down a route of, like, under the microscope type of images.

Yeah. And we both really like the results and the one that's right here, sort of front and center we ended up using.

Here's some screens of the actual brand guide that ended up being final. And a lot of, you know, the the the the checks around this and the the strategy and the statements, mission, and goals were all sort of started from Google Gemini, but then refined by human.

This, you know, a couple other shots from more of the brand guide here.

And then you can see here some of the imagery that I created, that was more of like abstract branding. And then, like, you know, this, like, under the microscope sort of live science image, He loves so much. He wanted to own the business card, and it lives even in print.

Yeah.

Yeah. What would you say the the overall time saving would be. I mean, obviously, you know, we've been we've been doing this for a while, but, what would you say in terms of just efficiencies gained from using AI? What would you give that? Like, a one at one at ten? He's he's sixty percent efficient see fifty percent, forty percent.

Eighty percent. Eighty.

Alright.

I mean, you guys you guys know as well, like, going back to sort of this phase, the brand strategy phase.

This phase can take months.

Like, literally, six months depending on how big the client is.

It's a really important stage in the process of creating the brand and it takes time and it takes experience.

But, you know, this particular client didn't have that kind of budget in that kind of time.

So the efficiencies, oh, yeah, like eighty eight one of the things I wanted to to say was, you know, when you start designing and your concepting, and you've kinda put so much time into a direction.

You kinda get stuck in that direction because you feel pot committed almost that direction, and you keep going. I think what AI and how quick you can generate ideas allows you to not get so invested into a singular path or singular idea allows you to go, okay, I've got this. Let me go and see what else I can explore really quick before I go all in on this one idea.

So I think just that that speed of being able to explore is actually opened you up creatively and takes off those handcuffs of, like, You know, you go start going down that road and you're like, man, I'm pot committed in this. I'm I'm liking what I'm doing, but I haven't gone down any other exploration.

I'm going down this road is what I'm gonna present to client, where with AI now, you can actually really quickly, more efficiently explore different avenues of where where something can go. And then you say, okay, I'm, this is the one or even put that in client first, and then go, are you liking this? Then really go into that deep dive of the brand. So, I think it's kinda getting you out of that that tunnel tunneled creative vision into a a wider view of what else could be possible.

Yeah, man. DC, you couldn't have said it better, and that was something That was a, a screen in my, my presentation with San Diego City College that I thought was really important for them to understand is that the benefits of it, like you said, allow you to explore more and to explore more efficiently. And then be able to balance it off your client and then be able to come back and revise a lot more effectively and efficiently. So, yeah, you you couldn't have said it better, man. That's absolutely one of the greatest benefits.

But another thing that you could do, I know I get sometimes in in mid journey Sometimes you get down a rabbit hole that's hard to, like, pull that up.

And we all laugh because we all have been there. Like, you get, like, on this rabbit hole, like, oh, man, like, I got this result. Then I got this result. Oh my god. That result was so fascinating. It was so cool.

And you keep going down like, whoa, whoa, I gotta slow down, and I gotta kinda pull back.

That.

So you do have to be careful when I mentioned that to the students is that you gotta be careful about the rabbit hole you can get sucked down.

Pretty soon three days has gone by and you still haven't taken a shower.

Oh, man. So you guys you guys wanna open up some tools here and do, do you maybe like a little lightning challenge? What do you say?

It's like five minutes, ten minutes long enough to to do some Don't even know.

Yeah. Let's do it.

Let's give us your hat.

I know we talked about as Matt. You're gonna give us a a concept and we're both gonna take our own run at it and and and and see what's happened. Do we wanna share it during the prompt or or do it and then share screen?

Are you guys down to share screen while we're while we're going through it?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I'm going down.

They could be cool.

Let's see. Yeah. Let me try to do a little. I got my journey open.

You too. Here we go. Let me okay.

Share screen.

Oh, it's saying I can't share while you're sharing.

Oh, okay. We're doing we're doing one at a time then. That's cool. That's fine.

Yeah. And DC, we could just we could just do yours too or Paul if you wanna if you wanna do one in the background, and then we can share when we get done. Yeah.

I'll just do mine in the background. I will just Yeah. We'll just kick it around a little bit after.

Okay.

Cool. So here's here's the prompt, and I'm gonna go off of the backgrounds that you guys have working right now.

Let's do David Bowie at the top of like yosemite.

Sorry. What's the what's the, big rock? Halfdome. What is it? Halfdome. Thank you.

Yeah. David Bowie at the top of half dome.

Alright.

Alright. So let's see. I'm fine.

DC's got some camera romps coming in here, some lenses.

Yeah. I know. See, that's where that's where he's always gonna just produce amazing results.

Have you guys been to the top of half dome?

I have not.

I I have.

No. No. I have not been to the top of half dome. I've been to the top of lcap, because, where did I go in yosemite? It was one of the Vernel falls or one of the falls where you're up that really narrow staircase that's and say. Okay.

I'm gonna keep yep.

Pretty simple.

And that's an aspect ratio you're typing in there, DC? Yeah.

And what I like to do when I do my prompts is copy it And then I'll do it like a few times so I get a bunch of results, all at once.

Oh, cool.

So, usually, it'll give you four initial results and you can go from there, but, oops, I've reached the maximum American jobs. It'll go and then so I'll get for eight, twelve, sixteen, and he can start to refine and various variations from there.

Let's see Those are trippy.

Alright. Let's see what I got here. Alright. I gotta start.

So I see how I did a a bunch match. I get multiple variations at once instead of just working at the initial four, then I'll kind of go. Yeah. That's cool.

See what I'm liking.

Think I'm liking Oh, yeah.

That looks more like him.

Like that. And then let me see what else we got over here.

Some some wild ones. So I I I really like this one. So I'll do variations of of this four.

This one's pretty cool too.

It's always interesting to me to look at the background too to see see what sort of detail is in there.

Yeah.

Not quite getting David Bowie. He's having a hard time, you know, getting him accurate. Oh, yeah. Look at that. That's really good.

The fresh blowout.

Yeah. I know. Right.

Pretty close.

You definitely got a good good stylus up there on top of Yosemite. Oh, yeah.

Look at this one.

That is And you do You're not gonna notice, like, how you're doing, you know, style raw and things like that.

Like, I don't even I I don't even, like, experiment with that stuff.

Yeah. And then there's seating. So, like, seating if I wanna start with this image and and say seed this image and then start, you know, change out the background to be a truck, you know, Switzerland or whatever. You can start seeing some of this stuff or start changing aspects of it of, hey, same image, no sunglasses, or you can start to really dial stuff in, go down a rabbit hole with like crafting the exact image you're you're looking for, but I think that's pretty good looking David Bowie, pretty stow it at the top of some mountain scene with some glowing light.

Yeah.

Well, now we're back.

It's so accurate. I think, yeah.

How is the how is the lens and, like, the focal point, or not the focal point, but just the, the lens usage. Is that pretty close to a fifty millimeter?

Yeah. It's what your eye would see. That's a two fifty millimeter. If I want a much wider angle, so let me take this same.

The same prompt, and I can change. You'll see forward slash.

Now if I go like if I wanna go like a twenty four millimeter portrait and then I wanna do a sixteen to nine aspect ratio.

Let's see what happens.

You'll just see it. It'll it'll be a wider portrait and I'll I know I changed the aspect ratio. So instead of this four by five, I'll get a wide, sixteen nine aspect ratio.

Paul, I saw a unique number in your presentation, like, a two hundred and three to ninety one or something?

Yeah. I know. Right. That was That was just me, like, expanding and getting, like, it ended up you know, just altering, like, the aspect ratio. I I have a tendency to, like, do sixteen by nine or nine by sixteen. I just usually start right off with that most of the time?

Yeah.

So if I go, save image as save. Let me let me try something for you, Matt.

When I go oops.

Drop that in here. I'm gonna return that.

And then is this seating that you're doing here? Tell us what you're, what you're getting into here? D. C.

I'm gonna do this.

Here and then I'm going to copy in this prompt and it should give me something more similar to what I've already created.

Oh, shit.

DC while you do that. Is it cool if you, stop doing a screen sharing? We can check out what Paul's got going. Paula, are you on a good spot here?

Could show. Yeah. Definitely. Some of the ones I, I ended up getting.

Alright. Yeah.

Sure. Alright.

Oh, yep. Did you do it?

Not letting you share.

Hold on.

Let me let me just try the entire screen.

There you go.

So, yeah, this one, yeah, this one's kinda kinda fun. So there you go.

I, I have a few standard prompts that I, I kinda use, and that's whenever I'm trying to get as real as possible. I use a lot of, like, these, hyper realistic detailed, hyper realistic, you know, just this one right here. Yeah. Hyper detail. Hyper realistic.

And then I'll I'll kind of bump it up to like what style of photography I wanna use.

So it's like, you know, in this one, I just sort of mixed it with fashion and also editorial, but, you know, I did award winning editorial photography, hyper realistic fashion photography, hyper you know, detailed fashion.

And then one thing that I've, that I I started studying and I was talking to a couple of other people that or in or LinkedIn group is imperfections. You know, we have a tendency like mid journey always has a tendency to do things very symmetrical, and then really tries to polish it up. And so to be able to get things to feel a little more realistic, I'll have, like, some imperfection prompts.

And, you know, it it makes it to me feel a little more human to be able to get that kind of stuff in there. Totally. I think this one looks more like David Boyd than any of the other ones I got.

But, you know, I just I added You can see back here, I added, like, if you've always standing on half dome, standing in snow with climbing gear, light snow falling and wind blowing.

And, got, you know, some of the wide angles, slight imperfections, light film grain, and white depth of field with the aspect ratio of sixteen by nine. So I mean, that that one's pretty fun looking.

It's, like, yeah.

Well, correct. Make me wrong. But if we were really trying to dial this in, you'd you'd spend the next fifteen, twenty minutes really dialing in and and rifting on this image till you got what you want, which is really a small amount of time to get an image of of this kind of quality. Right. This is, you know, quick, did in five minutes, but you can really start dialing this in and testing new prompts and doing variations of this image. And and, it's it's wild.

How quick you can start to dial it in and how fast you can export and you know something that's usable.

Right. Because the benefit is to be able to get a kind of a cinematic look and feel like this one comes across and create mood boards around this. And yes, it's okay if it doesn't look actually like David Bowie, but we know it's an interpretation to him. And if we're to, like, be planning a a video shoot or a photo shoot that This is, you know, a direction.

It's so efficient, man. And it's just and it's like we talked about it allows us to be a bit more creative. You know, we can start we can start messing around with the color palette too. Like if we didn't want the color palette, to look so moody, we can start adjusting the color palette to, you know, and then the lighting.

And and because this lighting is very subdued because the, you know, the storm and everything. But if we wanted to start going okay, you know, we want we want sun beans kinda coming breaking through the clouds, we could start introducing that kind of stuff. It creates something that's a bit more, you know, just brighter and and not so kind of you know, moody and stuff. So, yeah, like, I just I just love it, man.

I really do. I get so excited about this kind of stuff. And and I I I think like it truly truly opens up so many creative doors for us as as, like you said, kind of unicorn creatives.

The the one thing we haven't touched on, and I just kinda wanna get your thoughts on this. And I know we've talked about it before, but, with the results getting so good, just the transparency with clients of, hey, we're actually using AI imagery in your actual work.

The the more I think about it and, you know, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a legal person, but, it's it's pretty much like stock photography. Right? At this point, you don't own the image. So else can go and look up your mid journey and take this image and use it as they want as well. It's gonna not be in the same context or or whatever, but essentially it's like stock photography.

You don't own this image, but we can definitely use it on the brand.

Absolutely. And that's our first Excuse me.

Our first real application that the client, like, paid us to do as model of America, And we helped them to keep those in they asked us to help kind of rethink, like, their fall fashion show. At the mall and they do this big, big fall fashion show. And they had seen some of the work that we had been doing at folklore with AI, and they're like, hey, you know, can you guys kinda come up with a new, like, fall fashion, like, direction and be able to use AI. And so, yeah, we did. And and that was one of the topics. Right?

You're like, okay.

Like, we own this. Right? The client said, and we're like, no, you don't.

It's so fast. Right. It's just like you said, DC. It's very similar to going.

We're kinda creating sort of stock imagery in the back that mid journey owns. Mid Journey still owns this imagery. We can use it, but we don't own the exclusive rights around it. So think as long as you communicate that upfront, you're super transparent with your clients. I haven't found any clients that had issues with this so far.

It's good to know.

Well, boys, it's, it's been an absolute pleasure to chat with you guys today. That was really cool, stoked to be able to watch you guys work in real time. And, Yeah. Do a little little prompt there.

I would be stoked if you guys could, save a couple of those that you're happy with and send them over to me and then I can link to them in the show notes and people can check out some of the detail.

If you guys are able to save the even like a screenshot of the prompts that you went through that'd be cool just so that people can see some of the the different, details that you leave in there.

That would be really cool. But Paul, DC. Super appreciate your time.

Thank you, Matt.

Love hanging out with you guys. Love talking about new stuff. Again, you know, with with AI. I think there's there's a little bit of a split crowd right now. Half of the people are really scared. Half of the people are really excited.

Love to see that both of you are both on the on the excited, side of the channel there of the aisle.

And I'm excited to see what happens now I mean, you know, the amount of of, progress that's been made in the last six months, eight months, nine months, It's just wild to see it. I'm I'm really curious to see what the next two to three years look like with these tools at our disposal.

Yeah. We'll also do a follow-up on this one, Paul, and see what we'd love to, man.

Yeah. Especially coming out here soon. So see how you guys implement that. Yeah. Oh, for sure.

Thank you. Before we sign off, yeah. Before we sign off two quick things.

Paul, what's one thing that you're super stoked on right now? It can be in life. In general, DC same question. One thing that you're just super stoked on. New pair of shoes, some life event that's going on. Anything just to keep your, your stoke levels high?

Well, I'm very, very stoked about my wife and I or going to Costa Rica for two weeks to look at some new homes. I couldn't talk about going to Costa Rica.

So it's a beautiful place if you haven't Super spent.

Much travel related to. My wife's fortieth birthday, we're going to, Nashville in a couple weeks. She's been working in Nashville.

For quite a few years. So, forties, birthdays, the time to go. So we're gonna head over to Nashville in a couple weeks looking forward to that trip.

You guys have a show lined up for that? No. No shows. Just live music all over the place.

Just, that broadway where, you know, bar hopping and seeing people over. I've been there a couple of times. My wife hasn't, but it's kinda one of those places where you watch people perform and you gotta ask everybody, wait. Is this person famous already? Because they're that good.

So Yeah.

Ton of talent around there and just a good time, good vibe. But, yeah, it's exciting to get down there again.

Super cool. Right. Like I said, I appreciate both of you. You guys take it easy, and we will chat soon.

Awesome. Thank you. To see it.