My Life of Learning Curves

In the past six years, in addition to having to constantly acclimate to totally foreign cultures, I have also experienced a number of learning curves that I have had to navigate for my art.

I produced and directed a couple of short films in the waning days of the pandemic, but couldn’t afford a video editor.

So I learned DaVinci Resolve Studio courtesy of YouTube tutorials and edited the shorts myself.

I needed to do pitch decks for some of my film projects. In the past, I always hated pitch decks because the time-honored tradition in Hollywood was that you used visuals from other films in your pitch deck.

I always vehemently hated that.

So I gravitated to AI images as the mood board for my pitch decks. I know some people will not like that I use AI images and say it’s not professional.

However, having lived in LA for over twenty-five years, I’m guessing nearly every screenwriter and producer in Hollywood is currently utilizing this method.

It’s merely to give potential investors or companies an idea of what is in your mind visually. And AI does a much better job of conveying that than images from someone else’s film.

So I learned how to use Midjourney AI and Canva, also courtesy of YouTube tutorials.

I needed to professionally format my two novels that I will be publishing through my own imprint.

So, you guessed it, I learned Affinity Publisher for the manuscript and for the cover art. I used Deepseek AI, which is open-source and free—to help me figure it out, because trust me, I would not have figured it out on my own.

I also used Deepseek AI to put together the full marketing campaigns for my two upcoming novels. And when researching the future colonization of worlds in our solar system and the development of artificial humans—bioroids—I asked Deepseek AI to map out how this would likely be based on the direction of current science and where it’s headed. So, not made-up shit. The research it provided allowed me to craft a science fiction story rooted in fact.

I wrote a graphic novel script, but didn’t want to deal with flaky artists this time around (like I have in the past). So my next learning curve is learning digital art on Procreate. Hopefully, on this one I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew. We’ll see. I’ll be using a combination of YouTube tutorials and Deepseek AI to help me navigate this landscape.

Since I also am planning to animate my graphic novel into a graphic film, I am familiarizing myself with Kling AI as well. Although I will be using voice-over performances from actors—I believe in heartfelt human performances—I will be editing the voices in ElevenLabs.

I will be editing the graphic movie in DaVinci Resolve Studio, which has free updates. Nowadays, every time I do an update there are more AI features on it that can greatly aid the under-financed independent filmmaker.

And I’m sure there are many more learning curves in my future.

Sure, it’s hard getting out of our comfort zones. But I’m excited about what learning will allow me to do as a creator.

I see all of these things as tools that can greatly aid the storytelling process, as long as human creativity is the engine driving it.