Creator interview: Albert Bozesan

In these creator interview posts, I’ll be asking a series of questions to people using AI tools for their work or artwork.
I hope you will enjoy the read and learn one or two useful things ;).

Madebyai: Can you tell us who you are and how you ended up doing AI-generated art?

Albert: I’m a writer and filmmaker. My company Peak State Entertainment works mostly for German networks and companies like ProSiebenSat.1, Audible, Hugendubel and startups, making quirky sitcoms, dramas and (occasionally) viral social media content. But I spent the first half of my life in Silicon Valley, then studied IT and Economics for three years here in Munich. So I feel like I have more interest in tech than most people in the entertainment industry – especially in Germany. That got me on the AI art train early!

Madeyai: I am really curious about your skillset and experience, I saw on your LinkedIn profile that you are into media production, you are a voice actor and a writer, yet you are great with PS, Blender and SD, it seems that combining all these skills make sense in term of ” AI art ” could you tell us a bit around that? Which part of which skill is helpful when it comes to ai art?

Albert: My day job is a mix of video production, writing screenplays and TV pitches, and some voice acting. Everything else I do is a way to make that easier and cooler – and earn a living. When live-action video jobs dried up during the pandemic, my co-founder Robert Sladeczek and I taught ourselves Blender 3D and some virtual production skills, for example.
I guess the pattern for me is: whenever the creative process gets too slow, I find a techy way to make it fun and fast again. AI art is the most efficient storytelling tool I’ve seen so far. If you have a good imagination, it’s never been easier to express it.

Madebyai: You started a YT channel a couple of months ago around AI-generated art where you share your knowledge and learnings, Can you tell us what motivated you to start this channel?

Albert: I saw the “img2img” feature in Stable Diffusion – where you can provide an image as inspiration for the AI – and tried it out with a medieval fantasy scene. That video went viral when Ahsen Khaliq shared it on Twitter, then 80 Level picked it up etc. There was clearly an audience eager to learn how to use this tech, so I made my first tutorial to help them get started!

Here is the original timelapse

Here is the channel:

Madebyai: I am curious to hear if you are already using AI art for work project or is it only for fun / learning / content creation so far ?

Albert: I used AI for work as soon as it was available! Early on as a screenwriter I learned that no matter how good your story is, the presentation needs to be great to get a producer’s attention. I used to photobash to illustrate my pitches, but when generative AI art came out, it immediately became part of my toolkit! It’s entirely possible that I sent out the first movie pitch ever to use AI art, in June 2022.
Now I use it every day for both work and fun.

Here are two movie concept examples for a Western starring my co-founder Robert and me. Production companies could let us train the AI on their actors to make custom art for film projects. The prompts included modifiers like “movie still, Western, cinematography, low DOF, dramatic cinematic lighting, photoreal” in Stable Diffusion. Of course these consist of many different images edited together, so there’s not “one perfect prompt” to do it.

Madebyai: What do you think is the next big thing that gonna happen in the next couple of weeks/months, ai-tech related?

Albert: Video production is going to change radically. What RunwayML is doing with their editor blows my mind every couple days, and now several people are building text-to-video AIs, so you won’t even have to film in a few years.
But I think the biggest AI-tech “related” thing to happen will be a desperate need for Universal Basic Income. What robots and factories did to blue-collar jobs, AI will do to white-collar. That’s a great thing if we can all relax and make art instead of working, but a world-wide catastrophe if we don’t distribute the money fairly. We have to start talking about it right now.

Madebyai: With your experience using the tools, you probably discovered a couple of tips and tricks, Which ones would you be ok to share with our audience?

Albert: I’m willing to share everything I do, because these tools are a collaborative effort at their core. Secrecy is ridiculous with open source projects like Stable Diffusion. Every detail of my process can be seen in hours and hours of content on my channel – it’s mostly just time and sweat.
My biggest suggestion before you get into the tech would be to learn basic composition, light, color and imagining your result before you start! When my image turns out bad, it’s because I didn’t think hard enough about what I wanted my result to look like! I check out movie stills and paintings I like, and sketch out a rough image inspired by them. One genius I can recommend for composition and light is Gustave Doré. Just beautiful, and his work influences loads of filmmakers today like Alfonso Cuarón.

Madebyai: What is the next thing you are going to try using Ai tools?

Albert: A lot of my next things are “behind the scenes”. Thanks to my channel, I’ve been in touch with many exciting people in the AI and entertainment spaces. I’m already using AI in pre-production for clients. Munich is home to some of the world’s best VFX houses, so I’d also like to develop AI art from a novelty into a production-ready tool for them.

Madebyai: Is there anything else you want to share with our audience?

Albert: If you’re a “traditional” artist who feels threatened by this, remember that I’m closer to you than I am to the programmers who built these AIs. I just learned the new equivalent of “Photoshop”, and you can, too. With your existing skills and your imagination, you’ll be better at it than most AI artists. Put your fears aside and I promise you’ll love it.

Madebyai: Where can people find out more about you?

Albert: If you want to learn how to do this yourself, subscribe to my YouTube Channel. I’m responsive to comments, so feel free to ask for specific videos!
If you want to connect with me professionally, say hi on LinkedIn.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you, Ben!

I want to say a big thank you to Albert for sharing these insights with us, check also some of his creations that I added in the “ studies “ section.