So it’s January in Ohio, which pretty much means… ultimate depression. Dark days. Snow. Sub-zero temperatures. Generally, not my favorite time of year. To be honest, I’ve been feeling really low lately, but rather than give in to the depression, I decided to make a song and music video about the celebration of life. It’s called, Life’s Too Short. It’s a track off a new album I’m working on, called The Party Album, which is just collection of fun songs designed to make people feel good. Keep an eye out for it. I don’t have a hard release date for it, but I’m working on it.
Anyways, the new music video is the fourth music video in CLW universe. If you are new here, the order of releases have been; Jack of All Trades > Mirror, Mirror > The World Takes Two > Life’s Too Short
If you look back through them all, it’s interesting – you can see how my workflows and the technology have improved over the past 6 months. In between all those releases, I’ve done a bunch of little shorts and also some client work, but honestly it’s just kind of Mind-blowing how quickly this area of study is evolving.
I like doing this because it keeps my mind occupied.
Out of the four videos, I probably spent the most time working on Mirror, Mirror, with what I’m guessing to be about 150 hours clocked on that video alone. Here’s a rough breakdown (or my best guess) of all of them:
Jack of All Trades: 80 hours
Mirror, Mirror: 150 hours
The World Takes Two: 70 hours
Life’s Too Short: 50 hours
Total hours spent with me, myself, and AI: 350
Yeah… it’s a ton of time… but I’m learning a lot.
The funny thing is, my new favorite is now the latest; Life’s Too Short, and that’s the one I spent the least amount of time on! I think the reason for it needing less time, is because of my upgraded hardware, and my now better understanding of workflows… also the advances in the technology – there has been some pretty massive updates with conjuring techniques over the past few months. Once again, it’s all kinda mind-blowing. (Trust nothing, friends.)
That said, there are still some limitations to AI conjuring – lip syncing is still rough, strange creatures are (kinda) hard to keep consistent, and cutting on action is almost impossible, but it’s getting there. With this latest video, I probably conjured over a thousand clips in total to try and get the “perfect shot” for each little section… Some of the outtakes are pretty hilarious, maybe I should post them…
There were some certain concepts that I wanted to include, but it was proving to be too difficult, so I had to switch direction a couple times. For instance, I wanted to show CLW, crawling out of the pod, or even have her dancing with the creatures… but… it just wasn’t happening. Limitations. They are real.
I think the main thing that makes Life’s Too Short work is that I kept the emphasis on the vibe, rather than trying to stay locked in on a particulate concept. With music, it’s all about the vibe, right? The Party Album has about 10 tracks now… hoping to add more. We’ll see.
For the next project, I’m thinking I might dust off some old illustrations I did back in the 2010’s and try to make an animated/illustrated music video based off my style from yesteryear. I think it would be the ultimate challenge for AI, so… we’ll see. Haven’t decided yet.
Anyways, I hope the new song/video brings some joy to the world.
Check out CLW’s other stuff on Spotify:
Wilde Times:
https://open.spotify.com/album/7u8th5MaIMdIAPyMm3q6wJ?si=i4T9ZnwDRqWO31avd3OIvg
The Poker Album:
https://open.spotify.com/album/1RPzVYlu3I8TSifx4piJEP?si=yhKZinjRRjaMrBO1RXbxSw