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Between Takes with 1413
The two creatives spearheading 1413 Visuals are talking about all things studio life -- work, music, love etc.
Between Takes with 1413
Is AI Ruining the Industry?
AI has revolutionized video production workflows with tools that enhance efficiency while raising questions about authenticity and the future of creative work. We explore the practical applications, limitations, and ethical considerations of AI in modern videography and photography.
• Adobe Podcast AI transforms poor-quality audio by removing wind noise and enhancing clarity, especially valuable for salvaging problematic recordings
• AI-powered rotoscoping plugins streamline masking processes but may lack the nuance needed for complex artistic applications
• Auto-editing tools for podcasts and social media content often produce recognizably formulaic results that lack human creative judgment
• AI-generated voiceovers immediately trigger the "uncanny valley" effect and typically detract from professional productions
• CapCut's AI caption feature outperforms many professional software solutions for social media content creation
• Using AI for scriptwriting and content ideation offers valuable starting points that still require human refinement
• Photography has integrated AI more extensively than videography through background expansion and object removal tools
• Concerns about deepfakes and the potential loss of fundamental skills highlight the importance of responsible AI adoption
As videographers, we need to adapt to technological changes while using AI responsibly. Think about how and why you're using AI, and ensure you can still do your job effectively without it.
Song of the Week Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7lDyWnUnAmvuUkf8wj7ilK?si=df11343db17c4df0
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Sam: https://www.instagram.com/samantha.with.a.camera/
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Watch the Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNEbTpI9bZA7POvKaNto2RQ
Sam lead us on the charge about AI.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to Between Takes, and this week we're going to talk about AI.
Speaker 2:What prompted you to think of that?
Speaker 1:All right, start with that. So real talk. Ai I see there's a ton of benefits for it and we're talking strictly like video stuff, not the crazy stuff that people could do. I'll start it off with one, and I think that I think you use it to the Adobe podcast. Ai is a service that you pay for and it enhances audio, so you don't have to pay for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, up to a certain point, yeah, but good point. But it magically just makes audio sound good. Look, I know that the audio guys listening this like oh, it'll never compete with hands-on human editing, which true, but it does a really good job and it's really good for videographers that don't have that knowledge or time to dive into editing audio. I use it all the time to clean up audio that's shot outside, where it removes wind noise and it makes it sound like they push the mic up closer to the person's mouth. Along with it does some type of noise gate thing and some other normal things, but that's the one that I use a ton. Do you use that one?
Speaker 2:Yes, I do. I don't use it constantly and all the time because I don't always have to, but I think it's really nice to where, like, we're always running a bunch of redundancies, especially in auto audio, um, and sometimes the only audio you have for something over there something does fail. The only audio you have is like the microphone sitting on your camera that you were hoping to just use in order to line things up, and it's great to be able to put that audio into the Adobe podcast and it make it sound like quality audio and now like what you thought was the end of the world, isn't.
Speaker 1:One of the things I use a lot for is I have a client that will send me like cell phone video, and it's that is not the ideal situation. Yes, they should have hired a videographer to go out and actually shoot it, but sometimes you're working with what you got and that's one of the use cases that it really shines on. So this is Adobe Podcast AI. It's a website you go to, obviously by Adobe. I can't remember how much I pay per month, but it's a no-brainer for the stuff I do. Do you have any other AI stuff that you use?
Speaker 2:AI stuff that I've seen in Final Cut. I used to have the AI, like the Roto AI plugin, which is AI to help you mask yeah in a video.
Speaker 1:Is that through uh motion VFX? Yeah?
Speaker 2:okay, I don't have it anymore because I wasn't. I feel like when I am masking, I'm doing the annoying by hand masking, um more than anything. But it is nice, like for certain effects it would be cool, it shaves down your workflow to be able to like, if you're masking, for instance, like a moving person, like your subject is a moving person, it's nice and convenient. But there's a lot of different, or at least I felt there's a lot of different artistic things that I was going for that weren't wouldn't turn out how I wanted to when I was using that like.
Speaker 1:At the end of the day, it is another one of those things that is convenience more important than the true like art of whatever you're trying to do yeah, I need to download that stuff because I think I would use it a little bit more than you do, just because, like a lot of times, I do a lot of text on stuff and it's like, oh, I would love to have the price come out from behind of a car or something like that. Yeah, I always just do it the old-fashioned way, which takes it takes a lot of time. Yeah, yeah, another ai thing that I've seen and I've not used, but it looks awesome. But have you seen the one for podcasts where it auto cuts it? No, so you drop in your podcast, go and edit it, like for this podcast there would be three angles and there would be two audios. It goes through and finds when the person's talking and cuts to that shot until you stop talking. Then it cuts to the other one and it's kind of cool.
Speaker 1:The other thing is I think it's for Premiere I do not know what it's called. I'm a Final Cut user so I don't have access to it, but it's cool because I've seen the clips. I've seen they like press a button and you watch it, go and like cut through it. How good it is. I do not know. I've seen the ads for it.
Speaker 1:Algorithms have been feeding me that and it seems like a actual useful place for ai and that kind of leads me on what I want to talk about next is there's some stuff that people like with ai. That I think is already old and I can tell that ai did it and not a person. When I first heard about this I thought it was very cool. But it's the thing where you, where you, upload. So it's like upload like a long form contact content and it chops it up in the segments for stories and stuff.
Speaker 1:I thought that was cool, but every time I see somebody that's using that, I can tell there's something about it that it just doesn't have it like the way it's cut and maybe it's because it does it the same no matter who it is using it like. It uses the same effects, it uses the same text that comes flying in. It's like ADD editing where like emojis are popping up. I get that there's a place for that and I know that some short form content is throwaway, but I can I immediately skip stuff like that.
Speaker 2:It's that same like viral, secret style editing. Yeah, I agree. And then even like I've also feel like, as far as using ai to cut things, ai doesn't really recognize like the nuance of like human interaction, so sometimes like dramatic pauses or like people making faces or whatever, yeah, it's not really detecting that they're they're cutting out all the dead space. It's gonna. It's gonna detect dead space and cut that out. And there are times for dead space when you're trying to make something like quality and you're trying to make something entertaining and then even like deciding on parts that would reach your audience or send the right message you're trying to send or again convey like the different, like nuances in it. I feel like it's ai is just never gonna.
Speaker 1:Maybe not never, but yeah, it's not gonna detect that's why I think that AI is good for podcast editing.
Speaker 1:That's simple and also I don't know how AI works, but I imagine that it looks at like audio waveforms and like, when my microphone is quieter than yours, it knows that you're talking. I'm just guessing that's how it works. But stuff like what we were just talking about, like short form stuff, especially if it's from like, let's say, there's some type of convention and there's a guest speaker and they talk for an hour and then they upload that clip to the website and then it cuts it up. I don't know it. Just there's not life to it. And I'm totally not discounting it. Stuff is going to improve, but to me I'm kind of over these hyper edited formulaic videos that are kind of saturated on Instagram.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's no value in them. It's just a bunch of weird stuff in your face.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and from like a content creator perspective. I know you don't like that term, do you?
Speaker 1:I like it, fine for other people, but I don't know that I necessarily like it From somebody that making content for social media, you know that's filler, you know that they're like we just need something to post, feed the algorithm, just do that and that's fine. And if your audience likes it, keep doing it. Yeah, but in my opinion I I skip right over that and then like the other thing that's crazy is I feel like they use the same music and stuff. I don't know that's kind of that was the one that I had in my mind that I I don't care for. Oh, I got one other big one. Okay, ai voiceover. I hate it. I get that. It's cool. Just pay a real person, please. I've been sent stuff for commercials that I immediately know it's AI, almost like the text-to-talk thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I've never even seen.
Speaker 1:I got sent that for a commercial. I did and it was like the commercial was kind of fast-paced, moving, but the audio AI come down to this dealership and it killed the whole. It did, it did. And I'm just dealing with what. What I was sent and that's fine. You know, at the end of the day I'm there just to do the visuals and do the thing, but I don't think AI.
Speaker 2:I never thought people would actually be like they would think that that would be a good idea for a commercial.
Speaker 1:I think that within time it'll get better. I think humans hear a voice and they, they.
Speaker 1:You could distinguish what's a real person, yeah yeah, even if it's like the most minute thing I think that you can tell you ever heard of like I think it's called the uncanny valley, where where something's just like a lot of times if you ever see like human life dolls or something like technically it has a nose eyes, whatever, but your brain's like that's, there's something off about it and it's so close to being there, but that little bit is what your brain's picking up being like. No, thank you.
Speaker 2:I feel like the what I see as far as AI goes in like video editing. I feel like I see it most in like, um, not necessarily among like actual videographers and stuff, but cap cut is the biggest ai and video tool that's so easily accessible. I use cap cut a for like, easy um, like if you just want to splice something together really quick, specifically for social media. But I will argue up until as of right now, cap cut is the best option to use ai to add captions to videos and all the different platforms are trying to add ai caption. Even final cut is like yeah, we have it too, and it does have it. It's doesn't look good. It it's very plain. It'll generate it for you, but it's very plain. It doesn't look good. Capcut, the AI generated captions. It's so easy to use. I am a big CapCut caption user for social media clients where I'm posting across multiple platforms and I just want to have the same video and be able to upload.
Speaker 2:It's very similar to just adding captions in app on things, but if you're bulk creating and you're posting across a bunch of platforms, so you want to do one video and be able to just upload a video to each and not have to generate captions and eat for a video in each individual app then yeah, capcut is such a good tool for that. I just just the where I think the ai goes too far in cap cut is like I can tell so easily when I'm scrolling through and a video that was made in cap cut like, even if the footage is quality footage, but the transitions and effects, are cap cut a like cap cut effects. It's obvious.
Speaker 1:Have you ever noticed the apps that you use to control? And I think even in like the drone you have, I think it has the thing where it's like you want us to auto stitch a recap.
Speaker 2:It hasn't asked me that yet, but I haven't tried.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if it'll be in there. It's kind of like an older thing. It's like an auto edit. I know I've seen it in the insta 360 and a gopro, where it's like a little preview of whatever you just shot, with all the clips, and I I'm like, okay, that's kind of cool, but would I post that somewhere? I don't think so. But again, how I use things is different. Like if you're just taking a gopro or insta 360 on vacation and you don't want to spend time and color grade and do all this stuff to it, it might be the perfect thing, and I think that's who their target audience is, or even if you just don't know what you're doing, like if you're not a professional videographer or whatever.
Speaker 2:If you're just like, you want to make social media content that you like or whatever and you don't like, you're just editing stuff on your phone I will, every single day, always till the day I can't anymore, recommend cap cut to people yeah there's a free version.
Speaker 2:It's super user friendly and then you can add. You know all these freaking long list of effects and transitions and stuff. I'm not referring to that. Yeah, I'm referring to. I can tell when someone who gets paid for videography work and their final product is clearly made with CapCut, all those videos start to look the same. What it's the easiest? Thing on hand and you can still learn starting from there, but that's the biggest.
Speaker 1:Those are the biggest areas where I'm seeing ai in our world I know some videographers use, use ai, and then we'll pivot a little bit on writing scripts oh yeah, or coming up with ideas, yeah, yeah I think that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Tracy does it on some of the stuff I use chat gbt for all kinds of stuff, but even yeah, just like having it even for like clients and different, like short form content ideas.
Speaker 1:I'm asking a question especially with clients with that are for things that I don't necessarily I'm not an expert in and so I don't necessarily know everything that my like good information for their like niche or whatever, yeah, I'm asking chat, gbt about all different ideas, and then I you know I'm going through the list like, so I would find this interesting as someone who doesn't know and you can search for like so many things and tracy's been using gemini for most of the stuff she does, but she'll take it and she's she's learned how to prompt it, so like she'll be like from the viewpoint of a business owner, you know, like that kind of stuff. I think that stuff is great. I do. I have seen people that just like rely on a full script from ai and I can immediately tell have you seen the videos?
Speaker 2:that was like I'm gonna write a script, I'm gonna have ai write a script, like for a um video, and I'm gonna make each one and like see, oh really, which turns out?
Speaker 1:I haven't seen that. That's actually a pretty interesting idea, but I can tell, because it's just it's not quite there yet.
Speaker 2:The nuance? Yeah, like the nuances of being a human, aren't there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think maybe when it does reach that where you can't tell, that's when we should be worried.
Speaker 2:That's terrifying. Yeah, that's giving iRobot.
Speaker 1:That's giving Terminator. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I don't. I am one of those people like I don't wear a tinfoil hat all the time. But when it comes to AI and how we use it and how it advances, I do start to worry, like it does start to freak me out a little bit. I just when you start taking the humanity out of human intelligence, it can be a really scary thing.
Speaker 1:I don't worry about the rise up of machines against humans like Terminator, but what I do worry about is humans using this technology for bad things, and it's already been done with deep fakes. I also don't like that. This opens up a out for people that are lying like if they're a politician.
Speaker 2:Oh, that was that was ai that was ai, that wasn't me where it's like, well, you don't do anything nowadays, it's like it can, but it can't it can and it probably shouldn't.
Speaker 1:But I mean, like that's like a serious thing that I do worry about, because that becomes an excuse where before, like if you had somebody committing a crime on tape, like on camera, and you're like I see you doing this thing, they could use the excuse. Well, let's say, I so good that you don't know if it was me it was ai.
Speaker 2:I feel like ai has implemented or um invaded the photography world way more than videography, because it's still. They're still figuring out really how to use it in video, like well and like, but photography we're using it degenerative fill, oh yeah remove the removal tool yeah we're using that stuff constantly and all the time. That's a part of most I would would say most professional photographers.
Speaker 2:Some sort of AI is a part of your regular routine whether it's to like sort and cull their gallery before they even start editing, expanding about like even just if your paper background doesn't take the whole frame, just turning it in to like the rest. I've done that plenty of times and I feel like that's the photographer secret, kind of.
Speaker 1:One of the things I've seen that since AI has been more popular in photography, is that like photo contest. Where do you draw the line with what photographers are able to do in post?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Is do you refill too much AI?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or you could just use the clone tool and do it like the old fashioned way. You know, that's kind of an interesting thing because you get what I'm saying Like it's well, it's even like it's scary.
Speaker 2:We've seen where we live. There's someone that's pretty infamous around here for making questionable, almost scary photos relating to weather and stuff. And then posting them on social media as without any disclaimer that they are AI, and causing a lot of panic in those local areas for literally no reason, just for like some virality on social media.
Speaker 1:Was there anything else you wanted to hit on about AI stuff? I don't think so.
Speaker 2:I think there's good and bad things with it. As the novice that I am, I encourage people not to rely heavily on it and not to especially people beginning now. Don't go into the industry using AI for everything, because you'll never actually learn how to do the job. We could also get to the point where they're like, actually no buddy, we don't want AI in the industry at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then you know, like you never know, then, what are you going to do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you never learned how to do the job, or even you could be doing working somewhere where it's not available yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:That's really good. That's a good point. I think, like anything like final thoughts, is that you got to adapt. As a videographer, photographer, you can't, because if you do not adapt, if I, if I said no drones, no gimbals, I'm only doing things handheld. You got to be flexible and I think the same goes with AI. You use it responsibly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's silly to think to try to avoid it. It's like it's here it's helping and moving the industry.
Speaker 2:But yeah, exactly, think about how you're using it, why you're using it and can you do the job you're trying to do without it? You, you're using it and can you do the job you're trying to do without it? You're ready for song of the week? Song of the week very nice, you want to go first. You want me to go? I'll go first. My song of the week this week is fox and veed's new release, high agenda. They put out another fantastic song and everyone should go listen to it. It will be on our playlist.
Speaker 1:My song of the week. I'm going, my musical taste is all over the place, but I am picking LL Cool J's Murdergram, part 2. Wow and it has Eminem on it. The dude still has it. I've been using it in a few videos for social just because I really like it, but it's a lot of fun. It's in the playlist Check it.