25 April 2023

It's the cool new thing of 2023 and has got people from all walks of life fascinated, intrigued and full of fear all at the same time. Has the day finally come where robots can do our jobs rendering us obsolete?

We’ve all been aware of the automation of jobs for many years now but what’s making some of us panic is that it’s coming after the creatives too?!

Personally I have my doubts about this tool that is only in its infancy but, despite this, I’m prepared to explore its scope. And, so, here, at the house of Fat Rat, we thought we’d put the artificial intelligence tools to the test. The experiment explores how AI is going to change social media videos and how it can be a helpful tool for all our lovely non-profit clients.

The AI experiment: The controls we’ve set ourselves are simple; our in-house editor Charlie will feed a singular script (written by us) and images/videos into the chosen AI program of the week. Depending on how good the video output is, we will spend a maximum of 2 hours tweaking it. The only variable will be the AI software used each week.

N.B We will be only using AI software that is free to use or has a free trial available.

Week 2: Pictory

The issues I have with Pictory are very similar to last week’s software used (InVideo) although I do rate Pictory slightly higher because it takes less time to create a video which is better for the company. That said, the limitations of the software that make this time saving possible means the level of creative input from our end is vastly reduced.

• After the achingly long first output, we asked the prog to keep the video under 50 seconds which has improved the pacing but is still by no means perfect. Still, it’s nice to have this function.
• Unfortunately, there is no option to add atmos or SFX.
• It is possible to add music but only from their own stock libraries which are very corporate and don't have many options.
• There’s no eye for how the images sit together visually to tell a story.
• Colour and movement has not been taken into account either.
• The VO lacks personality. There is an option to add our own VO but there’s less options to time assets as there's no timeline view in Pictory which could get very fiddly unless you recorded the audio to match the video after creating it.
• As Charlie mentions the auto-suggested footage is better/more on point than InVideo's but it still doesn’t seem to understand dates and the chronology of the timeline - and unfortunately this software doesn't even give you an option to tag. You can only upload images and drag and drop them.
• A positive of this software is that it does allow you to drag the images within the frame so that all information is included and no information is lost in a crop.
• The text on screen is slightly more exciting than InVideo’s due to the two-tone colour it automatically generated. But it's not responsive to the images/footage in the background so you have to change each as you go to make sure the overlaps look correct. 

Whether you’re a filmmaker or a client, how do you think AI-generated videos might impact the creative industry?