We talk a lot in this group about video editing and learning new video techniques, but less about image editing and how it fits into the workflow. For more frame by frame cinematic work, I take my generated images into Photoshop before using them as frames for video. I adjust the contrast to give the image more depth, then color grade it to set the mood. That edited image becomes the starting frame, helping drive the look and tone of the shot. The terms below are useful for generating images and describing edits. Choose the ones that support your scene—you don’t need to put all of them into one prompt. CINEMATIC LENS EFFECTS - Chromatic aberration: slight color fringing along high-contrast edges. - Shallow depth of field: a narrow area in focus, with softer surroundings. - Lens flare: streaks, reflections, or washed light caused by a bright source interacting with the lens. - Halation: a film-like halo around bright highlights. - Bloom: a soft glow spreading around intense highlights. - Subtle optical softness: gently softened detail. CINEMATIC LIGHTING - Chiaroscuro lighting: strong interplay between light and shadow. - Low-key lighting: a predominantly dark scene with selective illumination. - Volumetric lighting: visible light passing through fog, haze, or dust. - God rays: distinct shafts of light breaking through openings. - Backlighting: light coming from behind the subject. - Hard directional lighting: a defined light source creating crisp shadows. - Silhouette lighting: a dark subject against a brighter background. FILM TEXTURE & REALISM - 35mm film grain: fine texture associated with photographic film. - Photochemical realism: a film-inspired look in color, texture, and tone. - Filmic dynamic range: a prompt phrase suggesting retained shadow detail and smooth transitions into bright highlights. CINEMATIC COLOR GRADING - Cinematic color grading: a color treatment that supports the scene’s mood. - Teal and orange grading: teal or blue-green tones paired with warmer orange tones. - Desaturated palette: reduced color intensity. - Cool shadows, warm highlights: cooler tones in dark areas and warmer tones in bright areas.

The success stories are everywhere. Young guys driving Lambos on TikTok. Influencers who film themselves making a sandwich and get 10 million views. For some of us, however, it doesn't come easy. I've been internet marketing since 2011. Like many of you, all I ever wanted was to be "free". To "live life on my own terms". The only problem... Well, I was not very good at it. I was living in Las Vegas at the time and was making no money online, so I found a job on Craigslist doing phone sales. It was miserable, but I earned just enough to survive. I worked as hard as I could. I stayed up late reading sales books every night. Zig Ziglar, Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, you know... all the classics. Those books became my bible. I practiced every day. Slowly, I started getting better. But... Turns out, the company I worked for was run by a group of folks with... Shall we say "questionable business practices". When I started to notice the red flags, I considered quitting, buuuut I didn't. I was finally starting to get good at sales. That was a big mistake. As I turned a blind eye, I also became complicit. The FBI raided that company in 2013, but they weren't after me. Afterall, I was just an employee... I walked out of there, and decided I would never work for a place like that again. I moved back to Reno and decided it was time to go all in on myself. I had my first success online in 2014 when I started an ecommerce business in the action sports niche. I used Instagram automation to drive sales. From there, I developed other businesses too. It was going well. I focused on social media, paid ads, automation, messenger bots, optimizing my sales funnels, and much more. I got good at it. All my dreams were finally coming true... Then, in 2016 there was a knock on the door. Next thing I knew, I was being interrogated by the FBI. Turns out, what happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas... They were building a case on the Vegas fraudsters the whole time. I was indicted as a co-conspirator. You can see the full prison story here:

Bob

Most of you know that I wouldn't waste my money on Veo 3. I did though for this post and Veo did not disappoint me in messing it up. Giving Kling a shot. I have stared at Skaia for almost a minute, several repetitions, and she finally out stared me. So I tried Kling again for Ryn's dress, maybe it was a fluke. Nope she out stared me again. I did cancel my Kling subscription a while back. I went over to GROK, and guess what? She blinked! What is it going to take to get GROK added to the Generators?

So I might have gotten a little carried away with this one. 😂 I just finished a 12-and-a-half-minute YouTube video featuring AI robots, cinematic comedy scenes, recurring characters, and an AI sidekick named Tally who apparently exists just to insult me. And 100% of the AI-generated video footage was created using ShortPulse. No other AI video platforms. Just ShortPulse, ChatGPT, Final Cut Pro, and a ridiculous amount of back- and-forth. I wanted to share the process because I think there's a big difference between generating a cool AI clip and using AI video to tell an actual story. 👻 It started with a Ghostbusters joke. I was working on a project using ChatGPT and Claude together when I randomly thought: "Man... I'm crossing the streams." And then I started wondering why I thought of it that way. Why do we treat different AI tools like we have to choose one or the other? What happens when you combine their strengths with your own experience and creativity? That became the concept for the video. ChatGPT and Claude became two different robots. I became the idiot standing between them. And the whole thing turned into a ridiculous Ghostbusters-inspired production. 🎥 Step 1: Record the actual video first. I started by writing a tentative script and recording my talking-head footage. "Tentative" is doing some heavy lifting there because once the camera's rolling, I tend to go off-script. 😂 I brought everything into Final Cut Pro, trimmed the footage, and organized it into seven scenes. Each scene became its own little production. 🧠 Step 2: Use ChatGPT to plan the visual storytelling. This is probably the most useful trick I discovered. I'm using the regular $20/month ChatGPT plan. For each scene, I gave ChatGPT three things: - The rough-cut video. - Closed captions exported from Final Cut Pro, including timestamps. - My original tentative script. The script showed what I intended to say. The captions showed what I actually said and exactly when. And the video provided visual context.