James Gerde

Combining the unpredictability of AI with the beauty of human creativity seems unlikely until you run into some of James Gerde’s handiwork on Instagram. This Seattle-based filmmaker blends his passion for storytelling, film production, and video editing with Generative AI to create engaging content for his audience and clients.

“By combining the human touch with AI's capabilities, we can create content that truly connects with people on a deeper level.”

Today, he has a massive fan following on Instagram (2M+) and runs a successful business that handles creative projects for clients. Some of his recent Instagram reels, for example, showcase the intersection of food, humans, and dance in a creative setting. Not only did these reels garner praise from all sides, but the more popular ones racked up an impressive 50M+ views!

The Journey Begins with Poetry

The creative field caught his fancy at a very young age, when he started drawing, doodling, and most importantly, writing poetry. “My poetry got published when I was around 10,” James says, “and that’s when I knew that I’d like to be creative for the rest of my life.”

His philosophy is rooted in a firm belief that great storytelling goes beyond any medium or technology. James carries his philosophy into his business as well, and explains how maintaining a high standard of creativity and quality was challenging when navigating the rapid pace of technological change.

AI is Just Another Tool for Creatives

“I saw the potential of AI to revolutionize content creation,” James says. It was an opportunity to make content more dynamic and personalized by merging his expertise and creativity with cutting-edge AI. He continues, “Our focus has always been on pushing boundaries to help people bring their visions to life.”

“We see AI as a partner in creativity, enhancing what we can do rather than replacing it.”

However, integrating AI into his creative workflow required a significant amount of time and resources. What’s more, it kickstarted a process of continuous learning and adaptation. “Technology moves so fast,” he explains.

As a business, James’ company handles a variety of client projects and when asked to elaborate on the process he says, “we begin with a deep dive into understanding the client’s vision, goals, and the target audience.” Next, they move on to brainstorming sessions and concept development – involving both creative and technical teams.

Once they have a solid concept, the project moves into pre-production where James maps out logistics, storyboard, and design.

Diving Into the Workflow: From Video Production to AI Upscaling

The production stage involves capturing raw footage and creating initial drafts, followed by extensive editing and refinement using a mix of creative applications and AI tools. Describing the feedback loop, he says, “Continuously communicating with the client and getting their feedback is a critical part of our process.”

“The idea sparks when I see the right movement or motion,”

James explains. From there, he starts cutting together a scene by rotoscoping out the subject, and builds the scene from scratch to create a pre-composition, which captures his vision and gives him a reference.

“Primarily, for my AI workflow, I use ComfyUI with Stable Diffusion or Flux AI and AnimateDiff.”

His workflow includes applications like Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, and Topaz AI. While the first three applications help him nail down the video editing and production side of a project, James uses Topaz AI to upscale a final AI-generated output to bring everything up to a higher resolution.

A Powerful Setup: VRAM, VRAM, and More VRAM

When it comes to hardware, James stresses the need for powerful GPUs with as much VRAM as possible. Even with his current RTX 3090 SUPRIM setup with its 24GB VRAM buffer, he constantly hits the upper limits of usage and is already mulling an upgrade.

“I actually didn’t have a GPU that was good enough, so I couldn’t do anything that I wanted to do.”

Before the MSI RTX 3090 SURPIM], James had no option but to rely on cloud services to get his work done because his old RTX 2080 Ti just wasn’t fast enough. However, working on the cloud wasn’t perfect either because of the long set up times. “It would take 20 to 30 minutes to get a collab notebook up and running the way I want it,” he elaborates, before continuing, “on my own hardware, I can just leave everything running and pick up right where I left off!”

“When things just work, it makes my life a lot easier as I can just come up with ideas and make cool things.”

Being limited by your equipment isn’t ideal because it’s a waste of valuable time that you could otherwise spend being creative. The right setup gives you one less thing to worry about, so you can focus on what you truly love and excel at – being creative.

Getting off the cloud was a gamechanger for James because it sped things up exponentially. It allowed for more time to develop concepts, brainstorm, shoot, edit, and basically do a lot more than just waiting around for a render to complete.

“Equipment shouldn’t be a barrier to creativity.”

“Powerful hardware lets us enjoy a smooth, uninterrupted workflow,” says James, “enabling us to work faster and push the boundaries of what we can create.”