Optimizer Live Office Hours

Here's a recording from an informal Q&A during live Office Hours from Tuesday, Aug 1st where we candidly discussed artificial intelligence, the strikes, and how we can keep our heads above water.

 

Here's a Summary of the Topics Discussed:

[00:00]
If they read the past two newsletters (about AI), what are their thoughts? If they had any disagreements or what they agree with.
  • We're watching the degradation and breaking down of industrialized society as we know it.
  • Specialization is going to go away and we're going to return to the roots of our civilization: being generalists.
  • The skill we have to develop is understanding how to navigate and diversify our career paths.
  • We have to learn how to communicate with this technology and how we can use it to diversify the way that we can provide value in a multitude of areas.
 
[05:43]
How quickly will post adapt and use this AI technology to change a workflow, when it's notoriously been kind of slow on that front, where people tend to hold on to what they know?
  • If we're just going to assume that we live in this post production bubble and we adopt things very slowly, that's going to be to our advantage, not a disadvantage, because it gives us more time to adapt and figure this out.
  • If it's a matter of the studios actually creating real content that's going out to the world that they're profiting from, they most likely have years of legal work to be able to do that safely.
  • Assistant editors are not going to be replaced by AI. There's going to be less assistant editors than were needed before, because it's going to be easier to automate a lot of the technical tasks.
  • Whatever your craft is, filmmakers will not be replaced by AI, filmmakers will be replaced by filmmakers using AI.
 
[15:48]
The way to get beyond the fear, don't hate, embrace.
  • If you know these programs that will make you irreplaceable, and it's also going to make your job easier, it's going to allow you to have more free time and that translates to more time to learn from your editor.
  • This is our opportunity to take advantage of technology that allows us to be creative again, even if we're in the quote unquote, technical role.
  • If we take action and we are the ones that are putting ourselves out there saying, "Here's how we can use AI to do automated video editing or content logging or scene detection (or whatever it is)", we can control the narrative and use this technology to our advantage.
 
[22:55]
The cutoff date for ChatGPT training set was 2021. So you may get more current answers on Bing and Google Bard, and they'll link you to the websites as reference links.
  • Chat GPT is a is all about language and writing. The information that ChatGPT has available to it is before AI was even a thing in our industry.
  • Learn how to communicate with the technology and which technologies to use to get the better answer to the best question.
 
[25:00]
For most companies, it's hard to get leadership on board and really lead the charge and I'm really happy that you've wrapped your arms around this and giving it your full attention and they're championing it in our team.
  • The more that I can learn about how this works, the more that I can teach you how to get the most out of this transition that we're making.
  • AI gives me the ability to synthesize and better understand your needs and how I can solve them, I can so much better help all of you and understand where you're really stuck and find solutions.
  • If you need advice fast and you're not available during Office Hours, you can get your own personal Hot Seat based on everything that we've talked about on this program. That is a game changer for all of you.
  • I want to provide tools and better curation. So you can really focus on what you need and find what you need without getting stuck.
  • We have the ability to pivot and transition much faster than the larger companies, which I think gives us an advantage.

Session Chat Log:

 

 Glen McNiel: Generative AI tools like ChatGPT 4, Claude 2, Writer, etc… are great writing assistants. Also really wonderful for generating summaries of YouTube videos (try using one of these tools for our podcast episodes on YouTube.)

 YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@OptimizeYourself/videos

 

Glen McNiel: There are a lot of tools related to video editing:

https://theresanaiforthat.com/s/video+editing/

 Specific for Assistant Editors is this one (which I have not tried yet, so I can’t endorse it, but based on its description, it seems like it would be great for media management):

 https://theresanaiforthat.com/ai/cognitivemill/?ref=search&term=video%20editing

 Direct link to Cognitive Mill AI: https://cognitivemill.com/?ref=theresanaiforthat

 

 

Matt Wertman: Glen, what was the name of the google one you mentioned?

Glen McNiel: Google Bard

Matt Wertman:  Thanks!

 

Glen McNiel: To Luke’s point, definitely check out:

https://runwayml.com

https://wonderdynamics.com

 

Unsolicited Praise for the Optimizer Program

Several attendees from our Optimizer community spontaneously shared their experiences with the program. Here's what they had to say:

I just wanted to chime in to tell the community or those deciding to join the community that the Optimizer program changed my life personally. Many times I wanted to quit on my pursuit of transitioning from assistant editor to editor and the community and the people that I’ve met in this program…I’m just so grateful and thankful and I wanted to let you guys know that.

Oliver K.

For anyone who is interested in joining I just wanted to share that no matter where you’re at in your career I found value in this program and Zack as a friend and someone who is able to help you in unique areas of the industry that you won’t find anywhere else so thank you, Zack.

Yvette A.

I got my dream job and it was in large part in thanks to the support, the workshops, the hot seats and the videos in the video vault. The resources in this community have helped me so much in getting on track and literally my dream job I would attribute to this so I can’t speak highly enough. I'm so grateful and I keep learning every day.

Marc W.

For anyone on the fence about taking a class or joining the community - Zack’s class has been immensely helpful on so many levels. It exceeds expectations and I personally have gained so many tools through him that have helped me through more than just career situations. Thanks Zack!

Jill L.

I’ll say the same thing because I’m sitting here working on a scripted show I never thought I’d be able to do without Zack. And I just got a follow up email from an actor friend who I reached out to about a show that she’s on and she said “let’s do coffee!” And she works with directors that I would like to work with so it’s overwhelming and scary and nobody wants to network but you can do it.

Melinda

Seconded. I am in a very healthy, exciting and positive place in my career which helps keep the other aspects of my life healthy/exciting/positive too. Got here in 2022 and I have to credit Zack and the Optimize Yourself crew for giving me the tools to get myself there.

Nicholas M.