I wrote a separate prompt for each photograph, as shown in the video. I like how this model added sounds to the output. I don't know how well one can manipulate audio, but it will be interesting to experiment.

Overall, I think it did a fantastic job of interpreting the prompt and photographs. I laughed at how that goose turned out because it's so true. I was very impressed by the fishing sandhill crane, though the fish itself seems a bit out of proportion, the dynamic background was an awesome touch. The video with the wood ducks nicely captured the atmosphere.

Thank you for visiting.

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I was crossing a bridge over a pleasant clear stream that flowed into the ocean, when I spotted a Common Goldeneye duck, or possibly a Barrow’s Goldeneye. The two species are related, but the facial patch on this male was round and not crescent shaped. The wings also had a white jet streak instead of the more subtle marking of the Barrow’s Goldeneye. So, I’ll stick to the common variety, but I could be wrong.

As I photographed the views of the ocean and downtown in the distance, a flashing movement caught my eye. I saw a duck pop up to the surface and shake water off his head.

I thought it was a Barrow’s Goldeneye male duck at that moment, but further research later on led me to believe it was actually a Common Goldeneye. I see flocks of the former floating around the bay, where they forage underwater. They dive, disappear below the waves, come up, shake their heads off, and dive back into the mysterious depths of the ocean. It was a great experience seeing them through the clear water in the rippling depths.

According to the Audobon website, the Common Goldeneye duck migrates in fall and winter. Although, it seems the males don’t mind staying up in the north.

They are aggressive with each other and don’t mind laying their eggs (4-13) on another species’ nest. The opportunistic behaviour happens during breeding season between April and September when they lay one brood. To celebrate their devious deeds, they feast on insects, mollusks, crustaceans, fish, and plant matter (Bird, 2016).

As can be seen in the accompanying video, they’re expert divers who can hold their breaths for a little while. I have seen videos of birds diving but never seen the behaviour in the wild. This was such an unexpected find.

Thank you for stopping by the trail. I hope you enjoyed the sights.

Resources

David M. Bird (Ed). 2016. Pocket Birds of Canada.

Related Posts

Wandering River Sights

Growing the Future

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Images by @litguru

The first one shows a single skate skating across an icy surface that is incomprehensibly wet creating a surreal effect. In the original image, I prompted a mix of impressionism and sfumato styles to soften the edges and provide a more paint-like effect.

The second image was better in its realism.

I was going to explore more, but I was quickly burning through my HBDs, so I will just leave you with this slightly off-kilter and gnarly Sasquatch that was the result of a very preliminary experiment.

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I took several photographs of the misty city recently, and as I was reviewing my photos, I came across this particular shot of the downtown buildings wrapped in mist. My imagination took flight, sort of speak, and I decided to play around with AI to create an animated version of this particular shot using Seedance 1 Lite (available on PeakD) and Grok 1.1.

In Seedance 1 Lite, I was able to control the aspect ratio, resolution, duration, and other parameters for a small fee. I used a simple prompt for a flight through the misty city. I'm using the free version of Grok 1.1, and this places limits on some settings. I did not use a prompt when using Grok but just let it do its thing automatically. The Grok video also has sound as the video shows.

Seedance 1 Lite

Grok 1.1

Both results are incredible. I'm not sure why the Seedance video added a drone. I had used to word drone in a prior version of the prompt but omitted it in this one. Perhaps it retained some memory, or the word flight in the prompt triggered generation of the drone.

I was happy with the outcome of these video models. I think that while Grok has some advantages, both models show a great level of sophistication that is only going to get better.

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Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three.

Screenshot from video

Nowadays one can easily travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific via trains, planes, and automobiles. After the grand prairies in the west, the rocky mountains loom with their majestic forests, snowcapped tips, icy lakes, and emerald rivers glistening as they happily meander among the rocks. Beyond the mountain ranges, the land flattens out and meets the Pacific ocean.

Map of Athabasca region. Image provided under the CC Attribution 2.0 generic license courtesy of the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections, who in no way endorse any of my sheninagans

In the late 18th century, these lands were still unexplored by Europeans. The last fur-trading outposts reached to what is now the province of Alberta in the Athabasca region of the mid-west. Beyond, lay the wilderness and unknown territories where a passage to the Pacific was to be found, in theory. The dangers (real and imagined) were innumerable. Wolves, bears, cougars, river rapids, harsh weather, ice, and other possibly lethal obstacles awaited any would-be explorer. There were also many indigenous tribes who did not like strangers in their territories, let alone strange foreign men with pale skin. For this reason, Mr. Mackenzie- who was born in Scotland but now found himself at the edge of the new world- assembled a small skillful team without whom the trek would not have been possible, and included indigenous guides.

But how did he get this idea in the first place? Apparently, during his stay in one of the outposts on the western frontier, Mackenzie met a loose canon by name of Peter Pond. An adventurer himself, Peter Pond filled the young Mackenzie with fantastic ideas about a great river that flowed west towards the Pacific ocean. Impressed by Peter Pond’s maps, designed with the aid of local native knowledge according to Pond, Mackenzie took up the quest to find a passage to the Pacific.

Peter Pond map of the Athabasca region available in the public domain

Funded by his company, Mr. Mackenzie convinced a crew that included two French-Canadian fur traders (and their two native wives) who had expertise in canoeing and wilderness survival; a native chief, his two wives, and children; a mysterious German; and so on. Each one of them possessed unique skills in outdoor survival.

With Peter Pond maps in hand, they set out to find the great river, which was said to be in Slave Lake, today's northern Alberta. Getting there was no easy task. They had to carry all their survival gear in canoes, and when it was not possible to continue down the river, they would have to carry the canoes through swamps and difficult terrain.

Along they way, they encountered various tribes who had never seen Europeans before and did not necessarily welcome them with open arms but with clubs, spears, bows, and daggers.

Thankfully, the presence of the natives in the expeditionary group put the nervous locals at ease, especially because the natives in the party were able to convey their intentions through their dialects and gestures.

Mackenzie gifted these new encountered tribes with tools like awls, flints, steel knives, axes, and beads. The people usually became friendly and gave them warnings not to go further or they would encounter violent people, animals, and even monsters. Often, their knowledge was good about their immediate territory but they did not seem to venture out beyond certain boundaries, and so their knowledge of far distances was limited, as Mackenzie wrote:

Suffice it to say that they would wish to make us believe that it would be several winters before getting to sea.

Mackenzie took all their warnings seriously. This was an unexplored frontier after all, and the possibility of monsters was very real in their belief system. He wrote down his observations in his journal that he faithfully filled up. He even taught himself a few words of the languages spoken in the region. His journal included the descriptions of people, plants, and animals that had never been seen before like certain species of mountain sheep, goats, and marmots along with astronomical observations necessary for wayfinding.

Onward they trekked following a great river through snow, fog, storms, and other dangers that threatened to derail their quest to reach the Pacific. At one point, the sun failed to set in the sky, and to Mackenzie’s amazement, he realized that the river that Peter Pond had drawn in his map did not flow west but north. The ragged band of explorers had reached the Arctic ocean instead of the Pacific, as evidenced by the fact that the sun did not set below the horizon. This in itself was a historic accomplishment, and the river is now called the Mackenzie river in his honour, but at that moment- observing the otherworldly ice flows across the water that indicated they had gone off course- Mackenzie christened it, River Disappointment.

On the way back, the team encountered a group of natives that spoke of another great river that flowed westward and passed through the lands of strange people, who were better left alone. Mackenzie resolved to try again, but not before completing a side quest in London, England where he traveled to update his navigation and map-making skills. Being in London is said to have been a torture for the outdoors man, so he focused on completing his studies as quickly as possible, and soon grabbed the next ship back to his adopted land in the great white north.

Again, he put together an agile but skillful team with the aim of reaching the Pacific. His navigation and map-making instruments were not state of the art but he was much better prepared than in the previous expedition. Soon, Mr. Mackenzie and his team set out to find a passage to the Pacific.

The awe inspiring and gargantuan size of the mountains in Alberta and British Columbia cannot be understated. Having experienced some mountain trekking in this area of BC, it’s unfathomable to me how someone can make a trip through that rugged and difficult terrain filled with many dangers from the living and non-living.

It wasn’t long before the group got into trouble and at one point, their canoe crashed against the river boulders, and they had to salvage what they could then build a new canoe to continue.

Wolves, grizzly bears, and unwelcoming tribes met them every step of the way. Through it all, Mackenzie motivated his team to think of “the honour of conquering disasters, and the disgrace that would attend them on their return home” should they fail in their quest. To have “courage and resolution.” The group was committed in spite of the hardships. They had come so far together. With this superhuman perseverance, they pushed through all obstacles until finally their efforts paid off when they reached the Pacific on July 19, 1793.

Afterwards, Alexander Mackenzie was knighted. He championed the idea of joining the companies across the west, and thus, it is believed to have been one of the early conceptualizations of Canada as a united country.

Making The Video

With that lengthy preamble out of the way, I want to discuss the design and development of this video that was inspired by the theme of Memories in the Alien Art Hive and NFT Showroom challenge. I am not formally entering because I’m not sure about some stuff 😉, but I got the idea to work with the cultural memories of the country, which has undergone different historical periods. The more I read about Mr. Mackenzie’s adventures, the more amazed I became. How is this not a Hollywood blockbuster, I asked myself?

At this point, I only had a vague idea about what I wanted to do, so I pencil-sketched several scenes that stood out in my mind. I brainstormed different possibilities but slowly the narrative began to center around the vivid imagery from the adventure, as described in the introduction to this post. I jotted down notes and a few prompts by hand then refined them later. I wanted to create a cinematic effect with the scenes that highlighted the sense of wonder and the thrill of exploration.

AI Art

Images from the Mackenzie era are not existent because photography had not yet been invented in the late 1700s. There were camera obscuras and soon there would be daguerreotypes but true photography would come later. I found a few images that were in the public domain related to Alexander Mackenzie and used those for inspiration, decoration, and AI art. These images included a couple of maps of North America drawn in Mr. Mackenzie’s time.

There are no specific images of Alexander Mackenzie himself per se. So I used Grok Imagine to manipulate a painting available on his Wikipedia page. I prompted Grok to rotate the camera around this figure, so Mr. Mackenzie could be seen from an over-the-shoulder angle, seen on the following images.

Sir Alexander Mackenzie original. Public Domain image

Rotated viewpoint with Grok Imagine

I used this as the reference image for the creation of several videos in which he appears. The other videos I created directly without a reference image.

With the prompts, I attempted to convey scenes of Mackenzie’s travels but most important the spirit of exploration in the face of insurmountable obstacles. I was not aiming for historical accuracy. For example, his companions are missing. His travels would not have been possible without his merry band of explorers, who brought their soft and hard skills, as well as their courage and determination, on the historic journeys.

MS Clipchamp work area

I put the video together in MS Clipchamp using effects and media (such as the audio) found in the app. I attempted to give the art and the reel a vintage feel, mixing still images and combining them with motion. I hope you enjoyed the results.

Thank you!

Resources

Alexander Mackenzie on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Mackenzie_(explorer)

Alexander Mackenzie on NWT Timeline:
https://www.nwttimeline.ca/stories/1789-sir-alexander-mackenzie/

First Across North America: Alexander Mackenzie's Quest in Adam Shoalt's (2017) A History of Canada in Ten Maps. Penguin Random House Canada.

Mackenzie, Sir Alexander on Dictionary of Canadian Biography: https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/mackenzie_alexander_5E.html

Sir Alexander Mackenzie in The Canadian Encyclopedia: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sir-alexander-mackenzie-explorer

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While the light is dim to nonexistent inside the caves, there are still many plants (and I suspect animals) that call this place home. There are a variety of species clinging to every available lit surface, especially near the entrances.

On the other side, the cave opens up to a realm of wild vegetation and jungly vines that encompass a circular space in which lies a verdant lake, gleaming like an emerald.

I marveled at the lifeforms that lived so close to the cave. These fishes were docile and did not seem to be concerned about the nearby humans as they slowly meandered near the mouth of the cave. I had to fight against my caveman urge to grab one.

In the past, the cave system was used by the Taíno people for religious rituals and fertility ceremonies. I felt a bit of a vibe in there, for lack of a better term. Kind of like being in a cathedral in the presence of something grand and beyond description. But it could just be my overactive imagination.

Thank you for visiting.

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Robert Frost, October

The Fall is a magical time in the Great White North, where the cooler temperatures cause trees to undergo a dramatic change in foliage. The spectacle of the bright leaves elicits a mix bag of feeling from nostalgia to bittersweetness and wonder.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

Another famous poem by Robert Frost references a yellow wood, and I imagine it might have looked something like the picture above, except in this photo one road leads into the water, so there's no choice but to take the straight and narrow path. Not as existentially romantic.

The leaves will all fall, and the tree will remain bare until Spring when the first signs of life will stir in the warmth.

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This particular crow in the photo was not part of that group, but instead, I found him solitary among the branches in another part of the city.

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I haven't been to this restaurant before, and I was feeling adventurous that evening.

Inside, the restaurant had a well-lighted, clean, and simple look that is typically Japanese in design precision and use of white (empty) space. I loved how orderly everything looked with exacting attention to detail.

The hostess explained the nature of the restaurant. One used the sushi board screen to order items, and the food was brought to the table.

Just then, a snazzy white and red tray whizzed by with a plate of sashimi. This miniature bullet train filled me with boyish delight.

Ordering with the sushi board was fairly straight forward. Once the order was submitted, an animation on the sushi board appeared with an offer of free games for prices. The number of games was based on the amount of the order, or at least that's how I understood it. The game was simple, but I didn't win anything.

The hostess brought green tea and took drink orders, but aside from those interactions, the food ordering process was all automated. Introverts rejoice!

It took some patience to get video of the speedy bullet tray. It kept passing by at random times, so the clip you just saw was the best I could do without being too annoying in a public setting. Thankfully, my companion and I were seated in a cozy semi-private booth.

The food was delicious with great quality ingredients, which is important for sushi. The experience was seamless and playfully high-tech. I felt like I was in the future with an intelligent building as a waiter. It was uncanny to see the little bullet train show up and patiently wait for the dish to be taken. Then zoom! back it went to the kitchen.

It was a surprisingly fun experience in a playful kind of way. I've gone to sushi places with the conveyor belt mechanism but this was a novel experience that made me think some gnarly thoughts about robotics and automation.

It was the kind of evening that enveloped you in its cool northern embrace. Perfect for a stroll after supper.

Thank you for visiting.

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This body of water used to be part of the ocean but after some work on a nearby viaduct, it was turned into a fresh water lake.

I saw a variety of ducks species in the water, including one species that I haven’t seen before: the hooded merganser. This duck sports an illustrious white crest that looks very noble when extended. You can also see this duck in the video.

Other ducks were diving near the surface, where half their body remained visible out of the water, as they searched for food at the bottom.

At the nearby Lost Lagoon Nature House, I found a poster with illustrations of different species found in this area.

Inside, they had models (possibly taxidermic) of birds that inhabit the region.

This natural space is not too far from downtown, and it's a great place to enjoy the scenic sights and learn a few things about the ecosystem around us.

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Linda Partridge (1974, 1975) examined this theory by testing two species of songbirds: the coal tit and the blue tit. The coal tit prefers pine woods, while the blue tit prefers oak woodlands. It was hypothesized that each species would be more efficient gathering food in their preferred habitat, as measured by the amount of time the birds took in gathering food using various habitat-specific techniques.

Partridge tested these ideas by hand-rearing young birds of each species. They were then tested on a number of food gathering tasks. In the wild, each species uses different techniques and strategies that appear well suited for the type of environment they inhabit. The blue tits, for example, live in dense oak woodlands and are good at obtaining food by hacking and pulling covered food, hanging upside down from branches, etc. Coal tits do not use these techniques because they live in more opened spaces. When tested, the blue tits outperformed the coal tits in tasks that involved these skills, indicating that birds were not generalists capable of foraging in any habitat but had adapted to their specific environment. There are theoretical and experimental limitations to this study, but in general, it showed that adaptation to a specific habitat made a species more efficient at food gathering and thus more fit (if we take food gathering as a measure of fitness) (Alcock, 1993).

As I was reading this article, I wondered if I could use AI software to create a relatively accurate illustration of the two species doing their thing in their natural habitats. I would not have attempted this a few months ago for several reasons:

• Species identification. From past experience, trying to generate an accurate animal species was a hit and miss affair, particularly if the animal was not well known.

• Environmental context. I wanted to show each bird in their preferred habitat. Would the software understand this from a general description?

• Split screen. This is a relatively new function in videos generated with Imagine. The command allows you to split the image into several segments that can be independently animated to show split-screen sequences.

• Incorrect 'tit' output. Given the risky name of this bird, I was concerned (though slightly curious) about the software output.

First, I tested the software with a general prompt:

A dual split screen with the first one showing a blue tit bird foraging for food in its preferred environment and the second screen showing a coal tit bird also foraging for food in its preferred environment.

Base image for second animation

Notice the vagueness of the prompt. I was not aiming for intricate artistic flair in this illustration but scientific accuracy with minimal input. The software generated multiple versions of the birds side by side, and though I cannot vouch for the biological exactitude of the output, they looked good to me. I chose the one that more closely fit what I was aiming for and animated it without any further prompting. The chirping sounds were a bonus, but I cannot confirm whether these are actual sounds from those species and not just some random bird sounds.

The one problem that I noticed in this particular image and video was that the coal tit bird is the one foraging up on the tree and is not really hanging upside-down. Given that blue tits were the ones who excelled in the experiment, then that is the species that should be hanging around on the tree branch. I edited the prompt and used more specific language:

A dual split screen with the first one showing a blue tit bird foraging while hanging upside-down on a branch and the second screen showing a coal tit bird also foraging for food on the grass

Base image for first animation

In this version, the species remained in the same positions, but their environment and foraging behaviour was altered. The agile blue tit now hung from the branches like a pro.

Broadly, I made the following observations.

• Species identification. The software seems to have generated the correct species for the blue and the coal tits. It does require careful verification.

• Habit/foraging behaviour- It appears accurate, at least good enough for demonstration purposes. It would be interesting to find out if the software understands that different birds exhibit different foraging behaviours and techniques.

• Split screen. This function worked flawlessly and could be made even more complex with varying dimensions and effects.

• Incorrect 'tit' output. I was relieved (phew!) that the software understood I was referring to a bird species in my prompt and not something more spicy. :P

• Sounds. I had honestly forgotten about sound, so I was pleasantly surprised by the chirping, though I cannot confirm its biological accuracy.

The ability to generate images based on artistic styles is one thing that is amazing in and of itself, but adding factual scientific information to images and videos is mind boggling. There are many educational topics that are not so easily understood and graphical visualizations help clarify these complex ideas. Traditionally, developing such videos required a lot technical and info-design knowhow, time, and resources. A tool like Grok Imagine streamlines the process and puts vast amount of design power in a user's hands.

Resources

Alcock, J. 1993. Animal Behaviour: An evolutionary approach.
Partridge, L. 1974. Habitat selection in titmice. Nature 247:573-574.
Partridge, L. 1976. Field and laboratory observations on the foraging and feeding techniques of blue tits (Parus caeruleus) and coal tits (Parus ater) in relation to their habitss. Animal Behaviour 24:534-544).

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In keeping with the theme of Halloween, I decided to craft a cosmic ghost story using animation, photographs, video, and music in response to the nftshowroom X alienarthive challenge. I’m not formally entering the challenge, but it was in my thoughts as I began to sketch the narrative in my trusty comic notebook. I’m not showing my sketches ‘cause honestly they suck, but I used most of the scenes I drew, except the one in which the astronaut was supposed to be exiting from a tunnel.

My past experience creating an animation by stitching xAI Grok Imagine clips helped me think about how to storyboard more complex scenes. I took the sketches and began to recreate them in xAI Imagine, but as I was being more ambitious this time around, it wasn’t long before things got complicated with scene and character continuity across each 6-second clip, as discussed in my previous post. Additionally, the video editing software, MS Clipchamp, was unable to do some things that I wanted, so I had to work around that by mixing the timeline of events while keeping the cohesiveness of the story. I think that adjusting the flow of events in reaction to the technical limitations actually made more sense for this unusual cosmic situation that the hapless astronaut finds himself in. A light bulb went off in my head when I realized this, so I adjusted my process and the linearity of the narrative. There’s something to be said about serendipity.

MS Clipchamp environment showing media artifacts

In addition to the Imagine clips, I used new and recycled images of nature, along with a video of towering trees swaying in a soothing Pacific breeze that I captured on a recent hike. These media were captured with an Olympus camera and a Pixel phone.

I used AI music software UDIO to generate a score called Whispers of the Cosmos that is an ethereal piece with a space age theme.

As mentioned, I put it all together in MS Clipchamp. I should really get a more powerful video editing tool, but this software has a no-frills Zen simplicity that I enjoy. This time around, in spite of its limitations, the software was integral in obtaining the right sequences of scenes to then animate in Imagine, then back and forth. I was thrilled to use Clipchamp for something it wasn't designed to do.

Thank you for viewing. I hope you enjoyed the video. Happy Halloween!

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The use of botanicals and chemicals was a normal practice among Taoists and in particular, they used a drug called Cold-Food-Powder, which when combined with wine caused the drinker to experience the heavenly pleasures of the perfected mind they sought to achieve. Besides its addictive properties, this elixir also caused them to feel hot and take off their clothes, probably while reciting Taoist poetry.

This particular personage of Liu Ling has a poem dedicated to his carefree nature, and the short animation in the posted video is partly based on this poem (with a few artistic liberties).

There is Master Great Man-
For him heaven and earth are a single morning.
A thousand years just a short moment.
The sun and the moon are mere windows for him,
The Eight Wilds are his pleasure garden.

So begins the Jiude song (In Praise of the Virtue of Wine), which details the cheerful misadventures of Master Liu Ling, who travels "without wheels or tracks...without house or hearth" but always with his wine-cup and goblet. His cheerfully rebellious good nature, soon attracts the attention of officials who-

flapping wildly their sleeves,
Pulling up their robes
Anger in their eyes,
They loudly gnash their teeth

They explain to me
The rules of ritual and order,
Raise for me their lances
To show what’s right and wrong.

But the worry-free master merely drinks from his cup and acts all drunk until he’s left alone, and the officials left with “ruffled whiskers.” Just don’t let it fool you, he’s not called a Master for nothing.

Without ever moving he gets drunk,
Then with a start he sobers up.

He listens keenly and watches carefully the world around him. It’s not that he’s not aware of what is happening but has simply chosen a path of engaged detachment in accordance with the flow of the mysterious Tao.

Unaware of the cold biting his flesh,
Unmoved by the afflictions of common greed.

This version of the Jiude Song was re-printed in Livia Kohn's the Taoist Experience: An Anthology, 1993.

I read the entire poem and using a pencil, I crudely sketched out images that popped in my mind, not worrying about the technical or artistic feasibility. The notebook I used allowed me to break the scenes into different panels like a story board or comic book. I do have basic experience with xAI Imagine video/animation software, but I had never attempted to create a cohesive story.

The Imagine software creates 6-second videos from a prompt, image, or combination of both, and to create a longer story, the clips need to be stitched together. The tricky part is keeping consistency across characters and scenes, and I quickly realize that my sketches were not really feasible as separate scenes. However, once I figured out how to keep consistency of characters and scenes across clips, then I used my initial sketches as general visual guidelines for the narrative, thus allowing me to maintain my artistic and production vision.

The trick for scene continuity in Imagine, as of publication, is to take a frame from a clip and re-Imagine it with your own prompt to guide the actions of the next sequence (Elon reposted this tip from an X user). I began with the creation of a single image that I had sketched out in my notebook. It depicted a man sitting under a tree smoking a pipe. The poem is about the Virtue of Wine (plus Cold-Food-Powder), but I find pipes more romantic and easier to handle than cups or goblets, so I took the liberty of adding a smoking pipe instead.

As you can see, I used 13 clips in MS ClipChamp to create the story. I generated the music in the excellent AI music generator called UDIO (beta), which allows you to use a prompt to generate any type of music of your choosing. I was trying to create a traditional Chinese instrumental sound with greater complexity than one heard in the video, but try as I might, I could not bend the software to my will. The composition is more relaxing than I would like it to be. Thankfully, the Imagine video clips themselves contained music and sound effects, so I was able to enhance the music with the audio from the software generated clips.

The flow of the creation process was different than I expected from past experience. I created many more clips than shown in the video to sculpt the narrative. At one point, the software changed the gender of the protagonist, so I had to start referring to him as the “male apprentice.” The scenes with the two officials went smoothly. I was expecting more consistency trouble between clips. There’s a decrease in quality towards the end of the video, but that’s entirely my fault. Instead of using video editing software to extract single frames from the video, I used a screen-capture tool, degrading the quality of the original.

The software was remarkable in how it allowed me to direct the action with the prompt and a single image. I also tried to manipulate the sound by adding birds and other effects, but audio was not a focus in my video creation process.

I’m excited about this new tool in the AI arsenal. It gives creators a lot of control over the process. I’m sure someone with more experience could create even more complex and refined pieces than the one I made. Still, the tools are changing fast and providing more creative freedom to novices and experts alike. I hope you enjoyed the results.

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