You Can't Prompt Taste: A Filmmaker's Take on AI - Dan Sickles

Dan Sickles, award-winning filmmaker and founder of Depop Studios, shares his insights on incorporating AI into filmmaking while preserving artistic integrity. He discusses his approach to crafting narratives that center underrepresented communities and his vision for multidimensional storytelling through his new project "New Here."

• Dan is drawn to communities living on society's fringes where new rules and identities emerge
• AI serves as a valuable tool in the pre-visualization and ideation phases of filmmaking
• "You can't prompt taste" - human creativity and judgment remain essential despite AI advancements
• AI helps extend limited budgets, allowing independent filmmakers to hire more people
• The "New Here" project aims to be an infinitely extendable film centered around community and co-creation
• Future storytelling will blur boundaries between media: "films are games, are series, are posters, are memes"
• World-building will become increasingly important as creators gain more tools to curate digital experiences

Stay up to date with Dan's projects at depopstudios.com and through their Substack newsletter.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Dan Sickles
• 3:00 AI in Filmmaking's Creative Process
• 8:17 AI Tools vs. Traditional Filmmaking
• 12:15 The New Here Project Unveiled
• 14:55 The Future of Storytelling
• 18:35 Closing Thoughts and Contact Information

Transcript

Stephen King
And hello, welcome to another episode of The Inconquerant. I think this is episode number five and returning is Aayushi Ramakrishnan

Aayushi
Hi! Aayushi Ramakrishnan, yes you got it right this time!

Stephen King
So today we just had a wonderful, wonderful conversation. Who did we speak to today?

Aayushi
We spoke to Dan Sickles, he is an award winning filmmaker and it was amazing talking to him.

Stephen King
Yeah, he had some very good insights into the emerging technologies that are being incorporated into film and some really good insights into AI and content creation, which was very useful. I think he came up with a statement of something like, you can't prompt taste. I think he said something that I thought was very deep. Any other key takeaway that you have?

Aayushi
I really liked how he mentioned that AI can't replace, can only build. one thing that I know everyone's really nervous about in the upcoming decades and stuff is that is AI gonna steal our jobs? Well, from what I heard Dan speak about, I feel like AI won't steal, it'll just help us through the process. And he was just talking about how it helped him through process and how much explorative, how much we can explore using newer technologies.

Stephen King
Yeah, it was really good. So without taking any more away, let's go into our wonderful interview with Dan Sickles from Depop. Here we go.

Aayushi
Hello and welcome to our episode with Dan Sickles, is a filmmaker and the founder of Depop Studios, a company dedicated to crafting compelling narratives across emerging media and dimensions. Founded in 2023, Depop Studios partners with world-class storytellers and creative technologies to create develop sustainable models for the financing, production, and distribution of new media. Dan's filmography reflects his passion for innovative storytelling, centering hidden narratives through collaborations with leading talent across disciplines. In 2020, Dan began developing his new project, New Here, a multi-format, multi-platform adventure story.

About the power of art and technology as told through the eyes of a new user journeying through cyberspace. So let's get started. First things first, your work fearlessly includes people from underrepresented communities. What motivated you to take that route and how do these communities inspire you?

Dan Sickles
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It's really good to me. But you know, like I think that I sort of fell into this, so to speak. And you know, the communities and the people that I feature in my work really are sort of...

What interests me most naturally, I'd say, these are communities that really tend to live on the fringes of society and where these really beautiful sort temporary autonomous zones.

are established, where sort of new rules and new identities are invented. That's always been a really, really interesting and fun place for me to explore both personally and in my work as a storyteller.

Aayushi
That is really beautiful. And with your new project, you're introducing AI into filmmaking. So in your experience, where do you see AI influencing the creative process in filmmaking, where it can add the most value? So do you believe it adds more value in the visual elements like VFX or in the background work done for storyboarding or editing or somewhere else?

Dan Sickles
Yeah, think, you know, it's still to be seen sort of the reaches of where AI and sort of generative AI can go in helping us imagine, you know, visual stories and in the content creation process. I think right now in the immediate, like, it really helps me and I'd say a lot of other filmmakers in... kind of the ideation phase and the pre-visualization phase. Sometimes it helps explain better than the words that I might be able to find to describe what I'm looking for. And that's really how I like to use it in my work, to really help other artists and other craftspeople kind of show what it is that I'm looking for.

Aayushi
Okay, so towards the pre-production stages, you'd say.

Dan Sickles
Yeah, definitely. mean, in sort of the most recent project that I'm working on now, like, it's like we've been in post-production for quite some time, but like, even in that post-production phase, there are so many different layers to the animation process, where just being able to quickly generate something that just helps pinpoint something that you've had in your mind, or help you iterate to then help you find the words has been pretty invaluable.

Stephen King
And so I'm assuming that is cutting the costs in terms of making reviews and edits and feedback and screaming at people for not doing what you had in mind.

Dan Sickles
I mean, that's what I'm at it for sure. The other way, you know, I wouldn't be able to even necessarily start a conversation with certain animators, you know, at all. it just, it makes the entire sort of dialogue more efficient. And I think in my case deeper because then I'm really then able to get specific.

Along with the people that I'm able to hire. But like, you know, even only a few years ago, I wouldn't be able to push the resources that I have as far as I could. And like the market for independent film, especially in the States, you know, it only lives one way, you know, like you can't raise an infinite amount of money for projects like this. And I think that like anything that's, And I think that sort of can be used as a tool to help you explain what it is that you're looking for so that you and your team can hop into it as quickly as possible and really make the most of the time that you have is a value add. I'm able to hire more people and do more in terms of the animation, get more accomplished with the time and resources that I've been given, I'd say.

Stephen King
That's very interesting, hiring more people. That will be good for everyone. Because there are two camps here. There's one camp which is very much do not use AI, do not come anywhere near anyone who uses AI. And I've encountered that in two, pretty much in graphic design communities. And the film, there was a huge strike on a couple of years ago when this first came out, I recall. How has that changed now - how has what changed the dialogue?


Yes. The dialogue between different creators and curator communities, because there still is, and I encounter it quite hostile, when say I use AI for some of my projects and they're like, get out of my face, because that's stale jobs. And this comes from people who are graphic designers, young graphic designers in particular discovered. I don't know whether that's what you've discovered in your field.

Dan Sickles

Yeah, mean, absolutely. But like that really, I think comes from more a place of fear than practicality. know, like I think at the end of the day, like you can't replace taste. you know, people can generate things as much as they'd like using like the latest generative AI platforms. But at the end of the day, if it's not convincing an audience that it's worth their time.

then it's just simply not going to work. And like that's what I would say the artists that I'm drawn to most are really in favor of and that is the ambition is to make their story live in ways that they imagine it can, you know? And that's just an endless pursuit.

And I think that if you can pick up other things and use them as tools along that way, then more power to you. I'm excited to see actually what teenagers are able to create using some of these awesome platforms. Because I think that it's gonna unlock the ways that we imagine film in general, in ways that we can't really perceive just yet.

Because a lot of my imagination, I think, has been tied to production cost, you know, when it comes to being able to make, quote unquote, movie. But now, if there are ways that you can really hop in and start to chisel away at getting your story told in whatever form, then again, I think that's pretty awesome.

Aayushi
Your previous work focuses on capturing emotion while still exploring human expression and uplifting communities. And you said you could use AI to help you through the process. How exactly would you balance that while still preserving the artistry of traditional filmmaking?

Dan Sickles
Yeah, mean, guess like filmmaking is young enough that, you know, I don't necessarily consider myself bound up with what the traditional form of it might mean. So I think it's still something, you know, flexible enough to continue to explore. Like it's really a form for visual storytelling, right?

And again, like it's like the soul of the story, how it breathes, know, that is something that does require craft and focus and diligence to pull off, especially in like longer form films and like longer form story.

And the way that I see a lot of these sort of platforms are very much tools to aid in that process. And yeah, I mean, it's still exciting for me to see new releases from these platforms because it just gives me better ways to communicate to my team.

Stephen King
That's super. In terms of communication, there's a question here we have about communication. Netflix just created this whole platform of new guidelines that producers have to follow. Effectively it says you have to declare which elements of your work was done with AI, similar to way that we as academics would have to report it to a journal. Do you see that as adding an extra cost to...

the way that you do things or is this something which is welcome?

Dan Sickles
Yeah, no, think it's absolutely welcoming, right? We have to start the conversation from somewhere. I think the guidelines will ultimately change as the tools change, because again, I think people want better stories. So however they're told, I think will become a bit less relevant in the same way that we don't distinguish so much between a photo that was taken from somebody's...

phone and a photo that was taken from somebody's Leica, you know, if it's posted in the same medium at the end of the day, which is really more and more on the internet and through the internet, then again, the story is going to matter most.

Aayushi
Yeah, I wanted to touch on your new project that's coming up. So it explores a world building kind of online space. And I saw that new Alexandria would be the heart of the New Year universe, can I say? And I wanted to know more about your vision for the world and how far you'd be willing to explore that.

Dan Sickles
Yeah, so I mean, New Year is, you know, it's hopefully an infinitely extendable film in a lot of ways. So really what's on the site right now is kind of like a preview of different sort of features that kind of the film and the story plans to unlock as the film itself rolls out and then further into the future, right?

So really like what's on the website at newhere.xyz is kind of a preview of kind of what's to come. And a lot of pages and lot of details will be filled in later. But a lot of it centers around community, a lot of it centers around co-creation, and a lot of it has to do with like using new tools and using new technologies in order to do that.

Aayushi
Looking ahead, how do you imagine AI would reshape the role of directors, writers and editors over let's say the next decade?

Dan Sickles
Yeah, I think that the next decade is gonna look pretty crazy, I think, in terms of what these tools will enable. But I think a lot of mediums, again, are sort of kind of folding in on themselves and kind of becoming everything, films are games, are series, are posters, are memes, you know? And I think that that is something that's going to speed up. So world building, I think, is going to be much more of a conversation than, say, just making a singular film, right?

Because we'll have more tools, think, than to sort of curate the actual experience of digital experiences. So, you know, I think that, again, like the job of being a director and a producer and a writer, it's going to become all the more precious, but all the more valuable. Because everybody will have the tools at their disposal, but it's really going to come down to how you wield them, but then how you craft them for other human beings because at the end of the day, we're still trying to tell stories to each other. nothing will ever be able to fully sort of encapsulate and kind of replace that. Even the best AI tools today, you don't just turn them on and they just spit out a beautiful story. They do have to be prompted and those prompts do come from somewhere.

So they're already in dialogue, which I think is a more positive spin than necessarily looking at all of this as a potential replacement for who we are and what we have to offer.

Stephen King
I think that's wonderful. think we're currently at time for today. Unfortunately, we could have gone so much further. I really like the whole idea of multi-dimensional storytelling and this world building is potentially co-created if once you've created the central platform, which I'm assuming that might be something you hope someone will build upon and create a kind of your own, I know whether you like talking in, but that kind of a legacy where you have a world which people just grow and grow and grow.

Dan, is there any other final comments or any kind of a plug for any of projects that you are currently running on that you would like to leave us with?

Dan Sickles
You can stay up to date at dpopstudios.com. We do have our own sub stack where we keep everybody up to date with new releases and new projects. And if you're working on anything that you'd like to talk about in the emerging media space, definitely feel free to reach out to us there. And thank you both so much for your curiosity and the really great conversation.

Stephen King
We have lots of curiosity you know whether the conversation is great but that's your appreciation and we're grateful for that. But on that note I'm just going to wrap this up thank you all for tuning into this episode and if you're inspired by the content please do leave us a comment and a thumbs up or a like or whatever it is that you could rate in the channel that you're listening on.