“Can’t we just use AI for that?”
That’s the question of the year.
And understandably so. Generative AI can do amazing things and the idea that it can deliver a knockout uppercut at jab-level budgets is growing.
But GenAI is not quite there yet, and video production companies spend considerable time separating myth from reality during client meetings.
Our clients have asked if AI can do everything from product demos to a web series to commercials. The answer is yes, but that they would need to lower your expectations. We can’t confidently tell clients that AI can do what they think it can do.
One area that GenAI can be somewhat reliable is b-roll. We still often resort to stock libraries, but more and more GenAI has been our go-to for clips.
But again, it’s not perfect, and often takes multiple generations to get what we need.
We recently tested GenAI to see how reliable it can be for b-roll. All the test clips were based on real stock footage we’ve licensed over the last several years.
Here’s the reel showcasing our test results.
GenAI nature b-roll
Most of the nature shots turned out OK. The landscape of the California coast look great and at the level we would use in a video.
With other generations, however, there were some minor mistakes and when we incorporated a level of complexity, it didn’t do well.
For example, we generated an aerial shot of a solar farm. The environment around the solar farms turned out well, but the solar panels themselves were inconsistent. It also generated too many panels, which is not realistic.
We also generated a fishery, similar to a stock clip we licensed for an explainer video we produced for Swarm, which was acquired by SpaceX. The fishery itself looked okay but failed when it was asked to generate overlays.
GenAI office b-roll
We use a lot of office-type b-roll for our corporate videos, especially for testimonials. This includes people in meetings, on the phone, on their computers, walking down hallways, etc, etc.
For the most part, GenAI did well with these. The only problem is when there is text somewhere on the screen such as on white boards or computer screens.
GenAI b-roll with overlays
Even just a few months ago, we didn’t expect GenAI to create motion graphics overlays that we could use. The results of this test surprised us. The overlays were surprisingly better than what we had expected. The clips still struggled with text, but the icons and overall graphics were not too far from what we would do manually.
Overall, GenAI is capable of doing many b-roll options and we anticipate that in a few short months, almost all of our generic b-roll would be AI-generated.
There are, of course, some situations where AI won’t be used. For example, if we need to show a real person, like in a testimonial, then we would not use AI.
Picturelab is a creative video production agency that leverages AI tools to augment our production capabilities. To learn more, contact us at info@picturelab.com.