ALL THE IMAGES BELOW WERE CREATED WITH ME DIRECTING A.I.
I’ve always made myself be at the leading edge of film tech. I made an early switch from film to digital in 2006. Then was the first director in NZ to place an anamorphic lens on a digital camera. It’s all just tools. And I want to use every one to push my images into new territory.
Directing with AI is still in its infancy, with the best cutting edge motion picture generative AI still in testing and not available. So for now it’s about working in still images. One thing I’ve always heard is, “AI can’t replicate true human experience.” So I challenged myself to create images of people that make me believe they exist and have real stories. To create an AI image with human soul. All these human images are third or fourth iteration. I kept tweaking to find nuance and heart. Aka, giving direction. Just like being on set, the substance of an AI image currently remains all about direction. Or as Hemingway put it, having a robust bullshit detector.
With these curious images I wanted to test AI to see how far I could push it. I wanted to create nature based images that tested colour, light and camera glass. None of which physically existed. I set out to make images that felt a bit damp, that got a bit of dirt under your fingernails and feel authentic despite their fantasy. These images are extreme examples of playing with the unexpected, while using light, lens and random elements to ground the subject in reality.
If an AI image is going to feel authentic, it needs a kind of gravity to tie it to the real word and gravity comes through the little details: hands on Dad’s shoulders. A curl of incense smoke. Feet wet in the rain. Details create gravity. Gravity creates reality. I’ve spent my career creating these feelings in the moving image world, with direction and nuance AI images can also feel real, despite their lack of any actual reality.
And then there’s just the absolute freedom AI gives us to create images that would be prohibitively expensive to even dream of. Want an image of a working microwave on the floor of a dilapidated French Chateau? Sure thing! I’ve been able to create images with AI that have been waiting in my head for years.
Thanks AI. Why thanks?
Because beyond all the commercial imperatives of this moment, creative image making has been a ceaseless lifelong journey. When I think of myself when I was a kid and how I made images… Now this…
It feels like a dream to be able to do this.