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I only have so many keystrokes in my hands.
If I didn’t have this tool, you wouldn’t be reading this.
If I didn’t have this tool, these films wouldn’t exist.
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Most discussions about AI eventually become discussions about prompts.
How detailed should they be?
How many iterations?
Which model?
How many tokens?
I wasn’t interested in any of those questions.
Without thinking about it, I had developed my own way.
I started calling it *Zen Prompting*.
I describe a picture to make a frame.
Then I describe what I see.
1. *Warriors race on chariots firing arrows from bows.*
2. *Soldiers opposed by Warriors in epic battle fire guns and arrows from bows.*
3. *Soldiers look for Paiutes hidden in tules by lake.*
Instead of:
1. *A group of knights on horseback charge toward the camera, their armor gleaming. At the center, a knight in full armor raises his bow, drawing the arrow back with focused determination. Behind him, knights carry red and gold flags, fluttering in the wind. The sky above is filled with fiery explosions, casting a dramatic glow over the battlefield. The camera slowly zooms in as the knights advance, capturing the intensity of the impending clash. *
You take what it gives.
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People often ask whether AI replaces creativity.
For me, the more interesting question is who gets to participate in a medium.
These films would never have existed under the traditional model of filmmaking.
Whether that means anything is up to the audience.
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I don’t know how many people have watched these films.
I don’t know how many subscribers I have.
I’ve never paid much attention.
My responsibility ends when the work is finished.
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I don’t expect to spend the rest of my life making AI films.
That was never the goal.
The goal was to finish the stories.
Generative AI didn’t replace my craftsmanship.
It shortened the distance between imagination and finished work.
Stories I carried for years could finally exist.
That’s it.
