06 Mar Behind the Stream: Is AI the Future of Video?

AI is making waves in video production, and we’re diving into how it’s impacting the industry. But here’s the thing– can AI really do what we do, or is it just another tool to help us work smarter?

In this week’s Behind the Stream, we’re sharing our recent experience with AI– from text-based editing to writing scripts with ChatGPT– and what we learned along the way.

We’ll spill the beans on the good, the bad, and the unexpected surprises, but there’s one key lesson that’s shaping our approach going forward. Curious? You’ll have to watch to find out.

Beth: You may have heard of a little thing called AI. Well how is it being used in the video industry? I’m glad you asked because on this week’s behind the stream we are getting into it.

Beth: Okay. I have a little story because– I have a lot of stories– but this one just happened to us recently where we were on a call with a client and the client, a service that we charge for, normally said, “Can we just have AI do this?” and Stephanie and I looked at each other and we’re like, well, look into it. We don’t know. It’s all happening so fast that we honestly didn’t know the answer to this question for specifically what he was asking because there’s been so many advancements in AI. And I’m not gonna say this didn’t panic us, it panicked us a little bit because it was like, can AI really do this thing that we are charging for? This is a like our business. This is how we feed our families. You know, are we just being put to pasture as it were?

My hunch was no, but as I always think with AI that it’s all about input and it’s about the person that is using the AI. First thing that I want to say is, I don’t know how this happened, but I, in our industry or in my networking circles, I’ve become the chat GPT expert. I’ve presented on it and here is what I know to be true about ChatGPT. It is, again, only as good as the input and if you use it as a tool and you know the questions to ask it, can it write a script? Absolutely. Can I get it to write a better script than someone that hasn’t spent 20 years writing scripts? Also absolutely. So the person that is yielding the AI tool is really important to the output that ChatGPT can do. While we’ve had an AI revolution in the last couple of years, I have been battling AI as it relates to video production pretty much since I started my business.

I remember one of the first years on the job, I made a video for my dad’s 70th birthday and everybody just asked why Jake couldn’t do it. My 12-year-old nephew– because he was playing with iMovie and it seemed like paying a company– let’s not get into why that was offensive and why I need to go to therapy for it– but the question was legitimate and I had to ask myself, yeah, Jake is putting out these incredible things but those were AI, those were templates. They were pre-built editing templates. And again, I go back to its input.

Steph: I agree with Beth on the AI makes life easier on people who know how to use the tool and so the biggest one for me in the last year or so has been text-based editing in Premier Pro because we have gone from having to, what I used to do is export the audio, put it into another, I guess kind of like an AI thing, Temi, get a transcript and then use that transcript to build the video. Now you can do all of that in Premiere, so it automatically will transcribe your interview and you can use it like a document, highlight the part of the interview you want, it’ll pop it into a timeline, an edited piece for you. It saves money,

Beth: But you still have to know what story you’re building and you have to know what to go search for. It makes all of those things–

Steph: I have to troubleshoot! Things come up. I mean, I just, what was it, two weeks ago, I was sitting there yelling at my computer because it wasn’t doing something and then I realized I just hadn’t flipped a little switch that needed to be flipped, and if you don’t know where to look for that stuff, you are gonna get very frustrated.

Erica: This text based editing has kind of been a game changer in the industry. The audio and what it’s been able to do with audio has been pretty incredible. We just have to look at it like you said, as a tool, when you know how to use a tool, you can use a to your advantage and, and help you advance how you’re going, but it, I don’t think it’s gonna replace anything– yet, but it’s good to know what’s out there.

Beth: It is a tool and I do think they’ll keep improving it. And I think somebody that probably spends all day using that tool is gonna wield it better than, you know, somebody that doesn’t use it at all. When you’re making videos, it’s about authentic, effective, efficient communication. You have to learn the fundamentals and that’s what we’re gonna keep kind of going back to; Good storytelling, good connection with your audience, good messaging in the right places. But those are our thoughts on AI. We’re using it every day. We’re trying to learn as much as we can to not be scared, but also to mostly not be scared. I’m kidding. To make us more efficient in what we do.