https://www.youtube.com/embed/p-0uUCqrPqk?si=JbrqVFXH2DzWC8DM
Check out Bill’s interview and how he has embraced AI image & video generator, illustrator, & graphic designer. Check out his amazing work at billcahalan.com and see the list of resources he has provided here.
Katty:What I wanted to chat with you about is really just transitions and evolution in your career path from where you’ve started to where you are now today with AI.
So I thought we’d just start in the beginning and if you could just walk us through how over the years as new tools and new technologies have been introduced, how you’ve pivoted, how you’ve embraced and just where we are today. Sound good?
Bill:When I got my start out of art school, which was 86 I thought I wanted to be I was an artist in the sense of a painter and for a day job, I was an arts administrator for a brief moment in my life and decided that was a little too much behind the desk, not enough creativity going on.
So I went back to doing illustration as much as I could. I have a daughter, I was raising my daughter, so the, going back and forth with the illustration, but when I finally got serious about it and had to sit down and start learning more software programs, the Internet came about for the public.
And so one of the things I got interested in was the program Flash by Macromedia creating animation on this new platform and so I got to know that I learned all about it. In order to teach myself, I decided to make a short film.
Just a silly and slightly dark film called Golden Boy that was about three minutes long. And I remember when I sat down to do it, I thought okay, I have limitations. I have this dial up, can’t have people sitting around waiting for something to load. Sounds funny just talking about it. And so I had to keep it light.
I had to keep the frame, which you looked at, small. So it probably looked like what you look at today is like a 600 x 480 JPEG, about that size. And I decided I could make it about three minutes long, and it would take about less than two minutes to download, and the final file size was 998 K. Okay, very proud of this because I got what I wanted and I kept shrinking and compressing.
So there was all this technical aspect of it. I had to learn as well. I don’t know about codex. There was no Internet to teach you this. I was buying books to
Katty: no YouTube back then.
Bill: No, no help at all. Except for a friend. in the building I lived in, who had already had a kind of a head start, would help me out once in a while.
So I did that, and lo and behold, that film, a short little film, got lots of attention. Curators saw it. They put it into a show at the ZKM Museum in Germany. And then it got into the Sundance Film Festival 2002 Sundance Film Festival. Amazing! Yeah, it was a digital, it was the second year they had done the digital Sundance Film Festival, highlighting short films that had been made expressly for the internet.
So they chose probably I think it was like 24, 26, and they’re all about a minute to three minutes long or something. And it was a huge success. They played it in the big theater. Everyone wanted to know what this new thing was about, this digital animation you make just for the internet. What is this?
And so they filled the theater. It was probably, they said it was over a thousand people came in.
So that was my experience. And of course, I wanted to try and get work using the flash. I thought, okay, this I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to, use this because you can do standalone animations.
At that time, it wasn’t necessarily something you could use most efficiently on the internet as advertising yet. But if you had a website, You could do your own animation and present that to advertisers and say, look what I can do. I can do something for you. So I did end up working for a company that did just that they created or wanted me to create animation for their clients.
But even then, at that time, there were companies like Apple was working on something we didn’t know about. It was a secret and it was Apple iPhone, and it wasn’t going to come out until I think 2007. And this is probably 2002. And so Apple was afraid of Flash and animation and any lots of, anything with lots of graphics, because it was gonna just crash the phones.
It was going to be too much for the pipes. And then Google, who had their new search engine, which was this beautiful white page with nothing on it they didn’t want any pictures either. That was too much, too heavy, too big for the pipes, too big for the dial-up that people were still using. Eventually, of course, when cable came in to play, then, the animation and tons of imagery was showing up, of course, because advertising was now something that they could focus on. So anyway, in that experience, or I should say since that experience or however long that’s been quite some time, a few things have come up technologically that have really almost thrown me for a loop as an illustrator and artist.
And the first one was NFTs. And I thought, what is this? And I had to dive into that and figure out what that was about, and I wasn’t terribly convinced, and that was an interesting way to document and show artwork, but it wasn’t really, it was something else. And then a couple years later AI finally, I’ve been keeping my eye on it.
I should say about four years later, I think AI finally got to a place where it was something that I would consider as an illustrator. And so I started learning about it and focusing on a couple of different programs. And finally, the one that seemed to win the day at a certain point was MidJourney, which most people use.
Of course, there’s many others that do many other things today. And of course, today, things are changing all the time. So there’s just tons of change, tons of information. I must have, I don’t know, four podcasts that I listen to every day. There’s news podcasts that are short, that give you what’s going on, and then you can go from there and delve into that, whatever the news of the day is.
And believe me, every day, it’s something that makes you stop and have to reassess what you’re doing. Think about, should I go find another program? A model, I should say. I also wanna be clear to people who are not familiar with ai, that a lot of people think it’s a, it looks like a software program when you’re working with something like Midjourney because they create an interface with parameters, but it’s still Generative AI and it’s a model that’s accessing what open AI has set up for people to as a data assets.
So anyway, that’s what I’ve been working on.
And so a large part of what I do is trying to educate people and in some instances, I usually end up talking my way out of a job because I have to explain to them that, it’s not what they’re, it’s not really what for the project that they have. And give them links and information but now it’s like it is working and people are using it much more in a really efficient manner. As for presentations for pitches, especially it’s really great because it does allow you to generate so many images quickly enough and be a little more nimble as soon as presentations are always changing in the concept phase. And that was something else that I learned recently is that.
It’s really important, I think, for the clients to understand that AI, whether it’s the discussion of AI, or an AI artist or designer, be involved in the conceptual phase, the very beginning of a project, so that they’re very clear on what the limitations are and what they can do, and especially now with so many different models popping up, some of them only have one or two features, but they’re very important features for usually for production purposes.
And so that’s something that, only, if you’re really deep into AI, I think you’re the only person in the room who’s probably going to know about this. And you need to make that clear to the client.
Katty:
You know what I’m finding interesting and seeing as a through line there is just your curiosity and sounds like so much of it is, has been self taught.
You’ve been curious about something and you just like dove in which is really admirable, but also just, like you’re not, fearing, here’s Flash, let me, let me stay away from it. You’re like, I’m in head first. Let me just figure this thing out. And then over time with all the other pieces that you’ve talked about, it’s like that curiosity that’s there.
Bill:
Yeah, I think the first time I sat down where AI was really gonna work, it was, they had hit a new plateau of quality and I really sat down and was just like, one day, really quickly for a couple hours, said, oh, okay. Is it really, is this gonna work?
Two hours later, I was like, I’m done. This is it. This is the future. And I better get on it. And I better, exploit it. And use it to my benefit as an illustrator. Because it’s going to be everywhere. And sure enough, it had already been very quietly integrated into Photoshop’s programs.
A lot of people didn’t realize that. I talked to people about AI and they said gosh, what’s it like? And, what does it do? And I would tell them they’re creatives and I’d say you use AI. Photoshop and where it mostly is where those two of the new AI tools were being integrated by Adobe at the time, and they were surprised to hear that they didn’t realize that’s what was really going on.
It’s been there for some years before it actually came to the public consciousness. And people suddenly aware of it and then chat GPT showed up and then everybody was talking about it.
Katty:
Yeah, exactly. I think that really just brought it to every person.
Bill:
Yeah. And also I should probably you asked me about, how did I learn it? Doing it on your own. And I think that’s part of AI is that it’s scary for people who are not really tech savvy and you do, even with all the help you have today, which is, you can Google everything and there’s a ton of websites, but it’s still it’s confusing and it’s I think sometimes scary and, you just have to delve into it.
You just have to read as much as you can. So you have to be around my age at this point, but when the Internet first came about, I remember a lot of people ignored it, said it doesn’t do anything, there’s no function, I don’t get it, and then other people who started to understand and see what the possibilities were starting to get excited, but also get worried, especially if they’re people with a business or working for a big company.
Because even back then, there was talk about what kind of jobs are going to be lost, through the internet. It’s going to, all these, especially through advertising and especially through business operations. Anyway, people, again, at that time they had to run out and get a book to learn about it.
Of course now you can click and you can find some more information on it, but it’s definitely something. It’s so full of possibilities. It’s so full of positive possibility and positive energy for creatives that I just don’t see how anybody can move ahead as a creative and not be involved with it or find some use for it at the very least.
Katty:
Embrace it somehow in their toolkit. It’s a tool, right? So it’s a, it’s something, it’s another tool in your toolbox.
Yes, it’s another tool in the toolbox, but boy, what a tool.
Yeah, but it’s so interesting that you’re talking about back in the day, we just celebrated the 28 years for artisan creative.
So I remember back in the day, it was paste up and I can’t even remember foam core and spray mount and then desktop publishing came around and you, and then Kind of the, I wouldn’t even say evolution, but like the revolution of what happened on the design side. And then with animations and, cell animators versus now you did everything digitally.
And then I remember we had in our office banks and banks of these black file cabinets because we had these gigantic portfolios for all of our talent. I was like, everybody would just come into the office, drop off their portfolios that were like these big black, you remember that and then little by little, it’s like that even went away.
And instead, everybody has just these beautiful, portfolios online and just, it’s that evolution that, from a creative standpoint, it keeps everybody on their toes, but it also just brings that new excitement into the mix. Scary and exciting all at the same time.
They go hand in hand with each other.
Yeah, I think it’s overwhelming for people that are thick into their career and busy, and thinking, I already learned, I thought I learned everything I needed to know, and now this. Yeah. And that can be that’s really overwhelming.
And you really had to sit down and learn it. I think that I would think it’d be a little easier for maybe a younger generation to because it’s more intuitive for them because they grew up with the Internet. That they really have nothing to fear. I think that it’s especially because a lot of the models that are being created and developed, that are for public consumption they’re, putting interfaces on them.
They’re trying to make them as intuitive as possible. The thing is with AI, it’s the parameters that the way in order to really use it for for its full potential. It’s better if you go in and get the raw version, because you have so many more parameters and other things you can do with it.
More freedom. But anyway, that’s a side bar there, but for the general public and for artists, for creatives, for illustrators, for designers. It’s coming fast, and it’ll get easier, so there’s nothing to fear, I would get into it now, just, even if you don’t use it, just try to wrap your head around it first, and then go from there.
Katty
I did that not that I’m an artist, but I had a friend of mine who was doing some sort of a presentation, and, He had like clip art that he used in his PowerPoint. And I’m like, Oh, come on, we can do better. So just sat around, played around with Dall-e.
And it took me eight hours because clearly I’m not a creative, but just the opportunity of just to see what could be done was pretty, pretty fascinating and pretty, pretty amazing. But I’d like to ask you a question in terms of, When you are working on an AI project, at what stage of the game do you want to be involved in conversations?
What should the creative input be from an illustrator or a designer that is going to be doing something with AI?
Yeah. If possible really from the beginning the conceptual phase, it’s it’s really important.
I think if people, usually they have their intent or know that they’re gonna be using AI, but at some point. And so maybe after the fact, after they’ve been designed, it may be already got that vision in their head of what they want. They get stuck on it. And that’s where I think the projects, they need to include the AI artists and designers at the very beginning, the conceptual phase, but they also need to keep their minds open and be far more flexible.
And this would be better to their benefit. To be far more flexible and let the AI people that designers and artists show them what they can do with their idea first and sure enough, when that does happen, they get new ideas, they see new things, and say, wait a minute, what about we go in that direction?
It doesn’t mean necessarily that they’re going to use AI, go in that direction, and that’s going to be the final product. What it means is, oh, that’s a great idea. How can we work that into what we have now, or how can we work that into the project we’re about to embark on?
Katty
That makes total sense because even now with web designers and developers, for example, Yep, we could design something, but if for whatever reason our development team is going to take them an extra three weeks to execute on that one idea may not be the best thing for the project scope or the budget.
But if they had that conversation early on, they could maybe redirect some of the things that needs to be done and collaboration is going to be really important. Otherwise, everybody’s working in their silos and putting it together at the end may not be the best solution to go with.
Bill:
Yeah, absolutely. Especially at this point. Anyway, people are not necessarily as knowledgeable, even, people that are, creative directors are still trying to figure it out for themselves as well. They’re all very curious. They all want to know, how it works. What can we do, but sometimes I see that they’ve already gotten so far into the project, and, they’re on a budget and they got a client who wants something now and they want what they showed them in the beginning. And you’re limited in those terms, but Yeah, the more educated people become, the more it will be brought into the workflow. And that’s really what’s happening right now. So many people, and most of them are really the artists and the designers who are using AI, are trying to create different kinds of workflow that will work for bigger companies.
Bill
It’s actually incredibly exciting and incredibly creative to figure out how are we going to do this? How is this going to work for us? Because it’s nothing but good.
As long as you have the knowledge and the fortitude and the willingness to maybe at this point do a little dance. Yeah. And get to work. Yeah. Yeah,
I went to the other day on the site “There’s an AI for that”. Yeah.
Yes.
It’s oh my god, there’s so much. So I can completely see how it can be overwhelming to even know where to start, like what’s the first thing to dive into.
So what would you recommend to someone that may be a creative, an artist who is not that well versed in it, but very eager and curious to do that. Are there one or two models that you would recommend that they start experimenting with?
Yeah, I would for image right now, and it’s not completely consistent, but MidJourney, once you get set up, I would say, just sit down, think of a project that you have or want to make or do, and just start working on it.
All I can say, I do give them information, but all I can really say is it’s just practice and it’s a balancing act and you’ll learn soon enough. And if you’ve already, if you worked in if you built websites, the old fashioned way, at any point you’re going to have a head start.
It’s not nearly that difficult but it’s very much like a simplified program where things are weighted, the words are weighted.
So it’s also very prompt, heavy focus, then you got to be really accurate with the types of prompts you’re giving to it.
Yeah, and there’s a lot of misinformation about prompts. In the beginning, there was a lot of people, I think they were just trying to make a buck, who were selling books or something online that you could, with prompts, selling prompts online that you could use, which was, doesn’t, isn’t how it works, because it’s generative, it’s generative and it’s not determinative, or deterministic.
And that means that I can’t give a prompt to someone that I use and let them go and use it on either mid journey or another program like Leonardo or something or Dall-E and get the same result. They’re not going to get it. It’s just doesn’t work like that. It’s constantly changes when you capture you find what you want. You try very hard to hold on to that. And it’s a technical thing and it’s getting easier and better. And it’s becoming more consistent in terms of the results. But again, it’s very experimental. There’s lots of models and you mentioned There’s an AI for that. And that is a great place to go. And just to let people know, don’t freak out when you get there.
Look at the list and go, Oh, look how many came out today. There was 25, 25, and there’s hundreds more, but you can do the usual searches and ask, what’s the best thing to do is what’s the top ones everyone’s using. And usually that’ll come back down as far as the imagery goes, the models that text to image, generative AI there’s about 4 good ones.
I think I already mentioned them, so MidJourney I don’t care for Dolly at this point too much. Because they put a lot of black, they use a lot of black for shading for some, I’m not sure how that works, but the results that come out, I don’t think are quite as clear as MidJourney. And then Leonardo has got some some cool features.
But check them all out. I tell everybody they all have a freemium or a free version. You can at least do that part. And then if it’s interesting, then, the first level of pay is not that much.. And then the second one, it gets a little more expensive when you get serious.
Katty
It’s like when your apps on your phone, there’s thousands of apps there. And maybe there’s hundreds that do the same thing, but like doing the same type of research and the review, which are the top ones.
What’s the free one? What’s the paid one? The process would sound similar enough that you got to do your own due diligence for whatever. You’re looking for that output to be like, how are you going to be using it?
Exactly.
Fascinating. So MidJourney is your preference Leonardo for images.
Do you also any insights you have for Video or for just content creation.
Bill
Yeah. The one, the best model for motion that I use is Runway ML there’s again, there’s many others. But that is right now. That’s the best one for motion. It’s the easiest one to use. It’s the most consistent.
And again, it’s a very similar kind of setup where, it’s, you do it for free you pay you can pay once a month to get X number of tokens, you, the way it works is you use tokens, it’s just points or, they just count down how much time you’re using. Yes,
similar to chat GPT.
Yeah, to compute. So that’s what you’re really paying for. And and then there’s of course, there’s, everyone’s talking about, I want to say Sora, which is coming from basically Open AI has created Sora, but that’s the one where people are seeing examples online prompting from text to video, putting in words to descriptions of what they want to see in a video and building that video with words.
And that video is the output and it’s full as if someone had a camera crew and they’re walking around the people and the objects in the environment and filming. Amazing. And you can go in and fix things. And that’s like a, that’s a feature of Models like MidJourney and Runway read once you make it, you can still go in and do some editing and they’re very valuable tools.
That’s something people should experiment with, even if, maybe a little overwhelming. But once you get into it, it’s like any, it’s like working on a new software. It’ll be okay.
Yes, for that little project that I was doing with my friend and experimenting what I almost got a sense of And this was just on Dall-E, and nothing beyond that, but what the sense that I got was, I almost had to pretend that I was writing a book or a paragraph or a short story in terms of how descriptive I needed to be, Put two people together that are sitting together, one has a, whether like a red background or in a corporate setting or like I had to be really descriptive.
Otherwise, it was generating things that had nothing to do with what this friend of mine was trying to get to. So that was very interesting thing because when I remember when I was writing my book like that’s what I had to keep telling don’t tell people something like show them so they can actually see it in their own mind’s eye.
So like I almost feel like it was the same practice of painting the picture with my words. So the system knew what to spew out.
And that’s where the experience comes in of just working with it over and over. You realize that it’s. In a way, it’s very, uh, semantics. It’s, I asked for I wanted to see a red ball sitting on the hood of a 1956 Chevy, and if that’s all you put in, you get a, giant ball, the size of the car, you get, so you have, yeah, it’s the car, right?
Who knows what you’re going to get. But again, it’s such a balancing act with words. It’s, I find it really fascinating at this point.
Amazing bill. I think everything that you’ve shared today, and it just reinforces how amazing it is to just continually be learning, to have that infinite mindsets not be fixed and just said, just I can’t do this, but to just.
Just embrace the change. I have this quote on my wall that you can’t really see. Let me see, unblur myself. One of my favorite quotes by Emily Dickinson that says, dwell in the possibilities.
Ah, there you go.
The possibilities are endless.
Absolutely.
And just jump into it.
Totally agree.
As we wrap up our conversation Beyond some of the tools that you’ve mentioned are there a couple of things that you can think of for somebody who’s just embracing this and they want to educate themselves on it?
Are there some sites that you really appreciated, the tutorials and so forth, or should they just jump on YouTube and? Figure it out.
I think the best bet because again, they’re even I who had enough experience on it with these different models going on YouTube can be very overwhelming and confusing if you don’t have enough background yet enough information, because a lot of people are putting out misinformation, not necessarily on purpose.
But. They’re, giving tips. I see these tips and it’s just that’s not going to work. What are they saying? They’re making it more, almost making it more complex than it really is and more confusing. So I would suggest just going to those models like Midtourney or DALL-E or Leonardo and read what they have.
Read, go to their site. They really spell it out for you and they try to keep it as simple as possible. And if you want to learn more it’s always, helpful to talk to other people doing the same thing. So one of the best places for that can be Discord or LinkedIn for maybe people that have been in the business a while, professionals.
We’re looking for more information. There’s some pretty good and better information on LinkedIn. It’s more accurate. It’s more professional.
Join a community, the online community.
Yes, and follow people, follow people, experts, and they usually will have, examples pop up every day of new features so you can keep up with what’s going on.
Beautiful. Wise words. So speaking of following people, where can people find you?
Oh, for now, I’m at BillCahalan. com.
Katty:
You and I have had the opportunity to work on a project together and your work is beautiful, so I hope everybody check out Bill’s site, see the amazing work that he does. And I really appreciate you taking the time to come here and chat with us and share your journey and maybe dispel some of the fear that’s out there the just do it thing.
Bill:
Just, just practice. Just try it. Just jump.