AI can make the shots. It can't make the video

Almost every day I get a message from someone who tried to make their video with AI first. Some spent a weekend writing prompts and never got to a finished video. Others got one, and didn't like it.

I don't think they were wrong to try. The tools are impressive, and I use them myself. But the messages nearly always describe the same problem, and it isn't the one people expect.

Even when it looks real, it doesn't work

Most of what people send me is AI slop: faces that drift between shots, hands with too many fingers, text that melts into nonsense, everything with the same plastic sheen. That's the usual starting point.

The best case is footage that looks realistic shot by shot. The light is good, the faces hold, the product is there. Watch it from start to finish and still nothing happens. There's no reason to keep watching after the first three seconds, the message arrives late or not at all, and the ending just stops.

Looking realistic was never what made a video good. An ad works because of what's left out, what comes first, how long a shot is held and where the music turns. Those are editing decisions. A generator can give you a beautiful shot. It has no idea whether that shot belongs in your video, or where.

Why hours of prompts don't get there

Prompting is a slow way to edit. Every attempt comes back slightly different, so you can't adjust one thing and keep the rest. A hand changes, a logo melts, someone who was wearing a blue jacket is now in green. You fix one shot and lose another.

In a timeline I can move a cut by four frames, swap one take, shift the music half a beat. That control is the whole job, and it's what editing software like Premiere, DaVinci Resolve or After Effects is for. A text box doesn't give you it.

How I use AI

I use it where it saves time without deciding anything: cleaning up audio, transcribing interviews, extending a background, generating a shot that was never filmed when stock doesn't have it.

The difference is that I'm using it inside an edit. I know what the video needs before I generate anything, so I ask for one specific shot rather than a whole film, and when it comes back wrong I fix it in the timeline instead of starting over. Knowing how to cut is what makes the tool useful.

If you've already tried

Send me what you have. The generated clips, the prompts that got close, the version you're unhappy with. There's often good material in there that just hasn't been cut yet, and it's quicker to build from it than to start again.

If you haven't started, tell me what the video is for and where it will run. That decides more than any tool will. Get in touch and I'll tell you what's worth generating and what isn't.