Will AI ruin the video industry?
The other day, the first generative AI videos came out from Sora AI and the video world went crazy. I understand why people are concerned, it’s wild to be able to plug in a few words and turn out high quality content. And what you’re seeing right now is the worst it will ever be. But as a company that makes the majority of their revenue doing video production in the Chicago area, are we concerned? Not as much as everyone else. Here’s three reasons why we think AI will change the video production industry, not destroy it…
AI understands what it’s told, it doesn’t tell stories.
About half the videos you come across from agencies, brands, and companies is what I refer to as “button pusher videos.” By that I mean the people creating them have great intentions, but don’t have great storytelling skills. The fact of the matter is, everyone has a 4K video camera in their hands right now. Your phone can create great looking video. But, the device alone can’t tell the story. Lots of video producers have the gear and press record, but a lot of it is just presented facts.
A good example is a video series that we recently came across. A person without a lot of experience would look at the video and say “that’s a good video”. The footage itself looked okay most of the time, though some of the lighting and creative direction was off. It was edited fine, though there were some odd transitions at times. Overall it was fine from a visual standpoint. But, from a storytelling viewpoint, it missed almost everything that makes this company unique. I’ve consulted with them in the past, so I know about their business, and the video lacks what makes their offering unique to their clients. It’s a video that’s presented just fact after fact after fact, there’s no storytelling structure to the video. There’s little outtakes left in to make the people speaking seem likable, but a viewer finishes the video and says “that’s what happened” not “wow, that’s a unique way of approaching what they do.”
AI is similar. It can start the journey for you and give you facts. It can’t understand what makes a brand unique because it only knows what you tell it. The example above is what you’d get from AI. It can identify that the company does x, y, and z, but literally anyone can do that. It can’t bring in the things that make that company unique, and it can’t identify key characters based on how they’d present to camera. Our years of experience and knowing the right questions to ask are where we become experts in identifying those facts that anyone could do, but then digging in and bringing the real story forward. AI can’t do that.
Authenticity is king
I know we’re seeing the worst generative AI can look, but you can still tell. AI looks AI, the same way the best CGI still looks CGI and we’ve seen decades of that. It can get close, but viewers can tell. I think some AI will generally become acceptable (see below) but authenticity will become even more important now.
If you’re trying to communicate to an audience how your brand is legitimate and authentic, you won’t be able to do that with AI. It will be a tool, but the audience will know it’s not real and it could devalue your brand. A great example of this is food photography and videography. It’s a consistent meme that the food you get in a fast food store looks nothing like what you see in a commercial. People aren’t dumb and will be able to sniff out brands who are using AI to save a buck while still charging a premium to customers.
Someone still needs to do the work
Like I said above, everyone has the ability to shoot and edit video right now. It’s in your pocket or hand, and certainly on your computer. Yet every day thousands of brands turn to professional editors and video production companies to do that work. AI won’t change that in the near future. Let’s assume you want to do an all AI video. Who’s feeding it the prompts? Who’s having it iterate on those prompts? Who’s taking those individual clips and putting them together? Who’s adding brand logos, color grading, adding a VO (AI voiceover is not great despite what you’re told), adding cleared music? And then who’s going in and making the revisions to all that as clients and creative directors tweak and change things? That’s the job of a video editor and video production company. Often times we get projects with lots of stock (sometimes all stock), but someone needs to do the work to bring it to life. AI can’t do that now. Who knows in the future, but we’re a long ways away.
Bonus: What AI will destroy
AI is coming for the stock video/photography world in a big way. Putting rights issues aside (can generative AI be used commercially?), the world of stock is in for a big awakening. And it will be in a bigger way than when microstock sites like iStock upended the industry. Generative AI needs prompts and if you’ve ever searched for a unique stock clip you know, we’re already putting those prompts into Getty or Adobe Stock. For a video I needed a drone flyover of a car park with solar panels at sunset. That’s a hard task to find. For AI it will be simple.
A lack of storytelling and authenticity will be the main drivers behind AI not destroying the video industry in the next few years. But it will change things for the better. It will allow custom b-roll content that will be exactly what a project needs in a cost effective way. I’m excited about the potential and putting it to use.