AI art direction

Member lesson

Rejecting work, including your own

Lesson 8 of 10 in AI art direction.

Ed Catmull: Inside the Braintrust · Stanford eCorner
Lesson

Generation makes attachment worse, not better. Forty frames of effort feels like a stake even though it cost four minutes, and studios keep weak directions alive because of how long they have been looking at them rather than because of anything in the pictures.

A row of eight quiet, pale prints on a wall with one gap. A person in front has taken down the missing print, a bold and colourful one, and slides it into a portfolio under their arm.
The loudest print broke the row. Take it out of the campaign and keep it for yourself.
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Members answer these 3 questions and keep the ticket for this lesson. Every lesson has one.

  1. Question 1, locked

    Which of these words means this? “Ending a direction on purpose. A decision, and worth announcing rather than drifting out of.”

    • Selects
    • Drift
    • Taste
    • Kill
  2. Question 2, locked

    Which of these words means this? “What you already spent. Correctly, it has no bearing on what to do next.”

    • Taste
    • Sunk cost
    • Escalation
    • Gate
  3. Question 3, locked

    Which of these words means this? “The most dangerous phrase in a studio, and sometimes the right one.”

    • Quality bar
    • Contact sheet
    • Good enough
    • Signature move

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