What was the moment that changed how I thought about using AI in my creative work?

For me, it didn’t start with a decision to “use AI” or rethink my workflow. It started with a video I almost scrolled past.

It was someone filming another person in a parking lot. Just a phone. No crew, no lighting setup, no sound rig. And in real time, the background was being replaced. Not as an effect added later, but live. The person being filmed was suddenly standing in what looked like a cyberpunk, futuristic Tokyo. Neon signs. Depth. Atmosphere.

What made it stick wasn’t just that the background changed. It was that the lighting matched. The subject didn’t look pasted in. The shadows made sense. The scene responded to the person in frame like it actually existed.

It was essentially live rotoscoping, running on a phone.

What caught my attention wasn’t how impressive it looked. It was how little it depended on everything I’d spent years optimizing for. The weather didn’t matter. The lighting didn’t matter. The location didn’t matter. There were no extras, no permits, no setup time. The only thing that really mattered was that the person behind the camera could imagine the scene clearly enough to describe it.

That was the moment I realized something simple: if I can imagine it, I can probably make it now.

Not perfectly, and not instantly, but enough to get the idea out of my head and into something real. And that was new.

Why did that realization feel so significant at the time?

Up until then, my instinct had always been to solve creative problems by upgrading equipment. I’d spent years as a freelance video producer reinvesting almost everything I made back into gear. Cameras, lenses, monitors, lights, audio. I don’t regret that at all. That gear taught me how images work, how pacing works, and how story translates visually.

But watching that video forced a comparison I couldn’t ignore. If I wanted to create that same scene in a studio, under ideal conditions, it would have taken real money, serious planning, and multiple people. Even then, I’d still be limited by what I could physically build or afford.

Meanwhile, this was happening live, on a phone.

That contrast made it clear that I had been spending a lot of energy solving problems that no longer needed to be solved in the same way. The issue wasn’t quality or professionalism. It was that the constraints I was optimizing for had quietly changed.

How did I actually start applying this to my own work?

The first place I applied this wasn’t client work. It was my own content.

I spend a lot of time walking. I record videos and audio notes while I’m out. I notice characters, situations, small moments during the day that stick with me. For a long time, those ideas lived as fragments. Things I could talk about, but couldn’t always show.

AI gave me a way to make sense of those ideas and extend them visually.

I could take a memory from a walk, a situation I’d run into, or a point I wanted to make, and place myself into a realistic but fictional scenario that helped illustrate it. Not to trick anyone, and not to be flashy, but to make the idea clearer. To bring the feeling of the moment closer to what I experienced.

I still record the same way. I still rely on instinct. But now, instead of hitting a wall when something wasn’t captured on camera, I had a way to continue the story.

What did this shift change about how I think about creative workflows?

Before, my work started with logistics. Where can we shoot? What gear do we need? Who needs to be there? How much will it cost before we even know if the idea works?

Now, the work can start with the idea itself. If the idea is clear, the tools can help you explore it before you commit to the heavy lifting. You can see versions of something, test directions, and decide what’s worth finishing.

That doesn’t remove judgment or taste. If anything, it makes them more important. The tools don’t decide what’s good. They respond to how clearly you can articulate what you want.

Does adopting an AI workflow mean abandoning traditional skills or craft?

No. It changes how those skills show up.

Everything I learned about framing, mood, pacing, and storytelling still applies. It just applies earlier in the process. Instead of using those skills only at the end, they shape the idea from the beginning.

This isn’t about skipping work. It’s about skipping the parts of the work that only existed because the tools were limited. The craft doesn’t disappear. It stops being gated by access, budget, or ideal conditions.

Is this the kind of realization most creatives will have eventually?

I think so, not because anyone is forcing it, but because at some point most people will see something that makes the old tradeoffs feel unnecessary. They’ll watch someone create something compelling with fewer constraints than they thought possible, and it will quietly change how they evaluate their own process.

That moment isn’t dramatic. It doesn’t feel like hype. It just feels obvious in hindsight.

Once you see that imagination is no longer the primary bottleneck, it’s hard to go back to building your workflow around limitations that don’t carry the same weight anymore.