I learn by making. The best way for me to absorb something is to make something, so recently I set out to devise a project leveraging new generative AI tools against a task conceivably practical to my experience. I’ve made storyboards and style frames and even UIs with generative tools, but nothing as yet in motion. After some deliberation, I settled on creating a Mood Reel.
Essentially aesthetic tone poems, Mood Reels are usually made up of select clips and sounds from existing movies or TV shows to accompany scripts or decks when pitching cinematic narratives — allowing a glimpse of what the end result might feel like. I can say firsthand, having cut this reel for a show I was developing, that the process is meticulous and often arduous. Would it be possible, or even easier, to make a viable Mood Reel entirely through generative AI?
Generating a Process
First, I needed a story. I felt it would be pretty tone-deaf to use ChatGPT for concepts or copy (I’ve always found its “creative” writing dull and trite anyway), so I dipped into my well of “someday I’ll have the time” ideas. I settled on a half-baked novel I’ve kicked around for years called The Concentric Circle for which I happen to have some interesting story points to explore and a decent moodboard collected on Pinterest.