Mike Vogel: 0:02

welcome to the first episode of how I generate it. I'm your host, Mike, and I'm excited to bring this new series dedicated to interviewing filmmakers artists and really just anyone who's doing something cool and interesting with generative AI. We're going to talk to creators about their work, their workflows, and hopefully get a chance to meet the people behind some of your favorite AI videos, or at least some of my favorite AI videos. Thank you for being here and without any further delay, here's my interview recorded a few days ago with mean orange cat. So I am here with the creator of Mean Orange Cat, thank you for being on the very first episode. of how I generate it.

Mean Orange Cat: 0:44

Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.

Mike Vogel: 0:46

It's probably not news to you that a lot of the AI content that's out there right now there's a lot of trailers. And I think the one thing that really sets, I think one thing that sets yours apart is that you've, you've really take a lot of attention to the storytelling elements both in terms of like the script and also the visuals like the one thing that I think , you see in a lot of AI videos is just like three second clip three second clip three second clip and there's not really a lot of variety in The shots and yours are just very dynamic like actual movie trailers But they're starring an orange cat So if you, we could just start like what, what gave you the idea to come up with this consistent character in all of these different themed movies, because you've just published one about, the matrix, you've done a, Mad Max one Gladiator. You're going to sort of, I imagine movies that you really enjoy. And what was the idea to kind of bring this consistent character into all of those?

Mean Orange Cat: 1:43

Well, it's funny, you know, it kind of happened organically. The company is named after, and, you know, at least partially inspired by our actual mean orange cat. His name is Buzz uh, and he is he, he was a rescue. He was discovered in the trash and has had a, you know, trashy attitude ever since. He's not afraid to chase us down the hall, you know, give us, give us some bites every once in a while, just to remind us who's in charge and that sort of thing. So, you know, he's a cat with attitude and you know, he was, you know, Definitely a big part of our inspiration in but you know, I named the company, like I named the company after that. And I made one video that I was like, Oh, there should be like a, get to know the mean orange cat as like a concept video. So we did this, little sprawling epic of the cat going on a series of adventures. Set to the cat came back, like an old timey recording of the cat came back and I just had so much fun putting the cat in these various scenarios that I was just, I felt inspired to take that a step further and kind of drill down on specific looks and you know, scenes and, you know, films and that sort of thing. And yeah, it just kind of happened organically. It was like, Oh, this would be fun with a human. This is a fun idea, but let's see if we can make it more fun and have it be, you know, an animated character that maybe is a little more forgiving in terms of some of the AI morphing and that sort of stuff. But also I think it's a fun character to, to follow, you know,

Mike Vogel: 3:32

And in that original one, I had that same feeling when I was watching it of just like, I could tell that you were having fun placing the cat in these different environments, you know, like there's out to sea and in forest and like all of these different types of things. So it's really interesting to hear that it was almost like it sounds like you started like making a video for your actual cat and then like, Hey, let's spin this out into different videos different movie trailers and stuff like that.

Mean Orange Cat: 3:57

is exactly what happened. Yep. Absolutely.

Mike Vogel: 3:59

that is so cool. And quick question. Cause so buzz in your videos has an eye patch all the time, which I think is a nice distinctive way to set him apart. Does buzz have one eye in real life too?

Mean Orange Cat: 4:12

He does have both eyes, but he is lacking a tail.

Mike Vogel: 4:16

Oh,

Mean Orange Cat: 4:17

has no tail. So there's, that's like a harder thing to translate into the, you know, the AI verse. And that's where the thing, especially if we're playing half of these videos in like medium shots and costumes and sort of stuff. But I figured eye patch, half a tail, you know, they're similar, you know. And plus I think it gets the attitude across. It gives them a little bit more of a instantly identifiable.

Mike Vogel: 4:42

yeah, absolutely. And that's the one thing that I really like about it is because you know, there's a lot of trailers that people have out and they have like, like, you know, a big one right now is the Panavision 70 millimeter thing. And there's just like every, you know, you see a lot of versions of that, which is really fun and I love it. But there's like, if you make one of those, how do you, how do you Get someone interested in your next one. Do you know what I mean? And I think that like the cat does that because you can see the cat and like you could do a Panavision one starring the cat and it would be instantly recognizable as one of your videos, which I think is a really smart move on your part.

Mean Orange Cat: 5:17

Oh, well, thank you. And that's a fun idea. I might might

Mike Vogel: 5:19

Yeah.

Mean Orange Cat: 5:19

to investigate that.

Mike Vogel: 5:21

Yeah. But so you've got the cat doing different things. And you also it's always the orange cat. I patch, I think it's, he started smoking cigarettes at some point,

Mean Orange Cat: 5:31

Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Vogel: 5:32

one smokes cigarettes anymore, you know,

Mean Orange Cat: 5:34

No, exactly. And

Mike Vogel: 5:36

I should say.

Mean Orange Cat: 5:37

and that is something, and, and it's funny, we, we don't smoke so that's, it is just like a random character thing, but it is almost a regrettable character thing as the AI does love to destroy, you know, Any, any like visual semblance of cigarettes, like pretty regularly, you know, it's like, Oh, gosh, okay. It's just such a fine little detail. Half the time in shots that like, you know, the, the morphing can really get at it. So it's not, it wasn't, Always the best idea, but you know,

Mike Vogel: 6:07

Well, you can evolve it, you know, and as you go to, you know, figure out what's working, what's not, because it seems like he's evolved a little. And

Mean Orange Cat: 6:14

yeah, I think he'll, I think he'll probably put down the butt at some point, you know,

Mike Vogel: 6:19

that's good. The, the styles are a little bit different for each one too, like, so it's still the same kind of cat. The costumes are obviously, you know, related to whatever movie trailer he's in. But the, one of them is much more like a realistic, like you can almost see fur on it and one looks a little more like a not quite stuffed animal, but you know, less realistic, maybe in terms of like when you're generating them, , are you just kind of starting with a general idea for the prompts of like an orange cat with the eyepatch and then all of the styling comes in from the rest of the prompt, if that makes sense. Like when you're prompting for something that's in like ancient Rome, you're going to get a cat that looks different than you know, one who's, you know, in a prehistoric jungle or something. Yeah. So,

Mean Orange Cat: 7:03

you know, I, I try to stay in with the basic prompt you know, the same basic prompt set up for the cat every, every single time, but it seems like. A lot of the variety comes in on what the scenario is, or if I have other characters in frame, sometimes it looks different. It, you know, the character consistency features haven't really crossed into the you know, the anthropomorphic animal side of things quite as much. You know, as well as I would love, but but we'll see what happens in the next mid journey update, I guess. Um,

Mike Vogel: 7:36

Have you experimented a little with that then, like where you've tried to like find, you know, or, or like pull

Mean Orange Cat: 7:41

Oh, totally.

Mike Vogel: 7:42

Yeah. And it doesn't work.

Mean Orange Cat: 7:44

Well, we get, we get off model like stuff pretty regularly, but but you know, you just throw a, throw another render at it. Try some, try to like change the prompt up, you know, change the wording up a little bit. And, you know, I, I think character consistency is still a bit of a struggle for us, but you know, we're working on, I think, That's across the board. I think that's what everybody's pushing towards too. So,

Mike Vogel: 8:08

Yeah, that's definitely if it gets character consistency and then temporal stability, I guess, you know, like, where it's just sort of like, it stays the same over the course, because that's the other problem, too, is like, once you start moving the camera, or you start moving the character, they just start not looking as much as they should, like

Mean Orange Cat: 8:27

Oh yeah. believe me. I know.

Mike Vogel: 8:32

But I think that like you, you do a good job with the editing in terms of really getting around some of those shortcomings by like, you know, having like quick edits and I feel like the, the framing, you know, sometimes I feel like a lot of shots are always pushing in, in AI stuff like that. It's always kind of like, Trying to put a little camera motion in, but sometimes it's really just the framing and a little bit of motion of a character within the frame does just as good a job. And I feel like you've got a lot of those, I think like in the the Mad Max one, the road warrior one there's things like where it's just kind of a shot and there's not a lot of movement, but. It feels like cinematic because of that. I think it feels more like a real movie because of that.

Mean Orange Cat: 9:11

I'm so guilty of the zoom in and move a shot every single time. Like I, you know, I'm so guilty of doing that all the time. And it's something that I consciously have to stop myself from doing. Because. You know, I think if you watch a real movie, the camera isn't doing that all the time. So it's one of those things that you have to like, you're like, okay, settle down. It's okay. Like it's, it's all right. If every shot isn't, you know, a crazy moving dolly shot, like tell the story, like focus on the story, focus on the beats. When you do have a nice camera move or, or some kind of like dynamic presentation, it makes those shots stand out more because now they're, standing out taller in the field.

Mike Vogel: 9:53

it adds a nice flow. I feel like when they're when not every shot is moving, you know, it kind of gives your eye a moment to rest on what you're looking at. And some of those shots of like the in the Mad Max one, the pig and stuff like that are furry road. I should say I should call them by their actual titles. Not the

Mean Orange Cat: 10:10

no, that's okay. No

Mike Vogel: 10:11

that. But like in In Furry Road, you know, where there's like some of those shots of the pigs are just like, I love them and they're like great shots. It feels like, wow, this is something that you would see in like a, you know, a rated R Pixar movie or something like that. It just looks very like real. So I think those are great.

Mean Orange Cat: 10:28

Well, thank you.

Mike Vogel: 10:30

I know people are always interested in like, what is everyone's workflow? Like how do people work? And you've kind of alluded to it a little bit, you've mentioned a couple other, you know, people, it sounds like there's other people on your team in terms of like, when you're starting a new. Project. Like I know you just did the meow tricks. So like when you're doing that, like how long does it take from start to finish to do one of those? Where does, where does it all start for you?

Mean Orange Cat: 10:53

the um, you know, the other members of our team I I'm basically the only person doing the AI editing and all that kind of stuff. The other members of our team are my wife, who's the producer and then occasional writer. And then we have another producer. Person that's involved that is on the writing side of things who doesn't write everything, but is my go to consult and wrote the control freak short and is wrote our upcoming short that we're about to get underway with. So it's, you know, it's really a small team, but the beginning of the process is, you know, I will come up with an idea. Either in this case, in the meow tricks was a suggestion from somebody on discord where I was, they were like, Hey, like, we love this most recent video, the cat eater video or whatever, but it would love to see the matrix. And I was like, oh, you know, that's a fun idea. And where where these always go. It's like, okay, that's a fun idea. Let's see what I can get. And so. I'll watch a trailer or revisit a movie or whatever and try to pick a couple frames or scenes or concepts and that sort of stuff. It's like, Oh, can I get them in the costume? Can I get them in this environment? Can I, you know, what can I get? And if I get enough key frames or, you know, inspirational ideas where you're like, Oh, I can have it set in this world or like the, the Mad Max thing, it's like, Oh, it'd be really fun if. We're in the Mad Max world, but it was the George Miller world. So it's the penguins from his movie Happy Feet and it's babe from, you know, his movie, babe. You know, these are the, like, springboards to the next step, which is the writing. So it's like, okay, once you know that you can get some of the stuff you're after. Then you can like actually drill down and start coming up with a story. I would love to say that I do all of these for the full script written out and know exactly where I'm going, but you know, that's really not the case. I, sometimes I just get to a certain point, you get inspired and you're like, okay, this is great. Like I have three quarters of a story and you start generating the images to try to catch up with it. And then the rest can kind of take care of itself. You know, you. Build up a momentum and you're like, Oh, now I see the direction that needs to go. But in an ideal world, we're writing everything out and you know, doing the, doing this, the images first, and then moving on to the motion and the editing and that sort of thing. And I try to do it that way. You know, obviously during the editing process, I frequently go back and add shots or, you know, Change things around because you just start putting stuff on the timeline and not just kind of get in your head and to realize like, oh, I can't go from this. medium shot to this medium shot because the characters in the same space are very similar space. And that looks weird. So it's like, okay, well, how can I break that up? And, you know, it's, it becomes a much more organic process further down the line. But but yeah, that's kind of how things go.

Mike Vogel: 13:52

And I actually think that's smart to not try, like, because there are so many unknowns with like, you know, what's going to happen when I take this image and try to add motion to it and it just doesn't work out or it doesn't look the way you planned. You know, I feel like it's the, the traditional way is definitely probably to like, storyboard the whole, like, script the whole thing, storyboard it out and go film it. But when you can just , re film anything by opening your computer you just want to get it going and make sure that it's working, and like that, the visuals are like the costumes and stuff that the meow tricks, is it a Mr. Smith? It's been a while since I've seen the matrix that the Sphinx cat that plays Mr.

Mean Orange Cat: 14:32

Oh, yes,

Mike Vogel: 14:33

is so perfectly cast. If that's, that's the right term. It's

Mean Orange Cat: 14:36

Oh, awesome.

Mike Vogel: 14:37

he's such a strange, like looking it was, that's good casting right there. Yeah.

Mean Orange Cat: 14:42

Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. We're we actually like came up with the idea to use that cat as a villain for another one, which might happen further into the summer. So we'll see where if he makes another appearance, you know?

Mike Vogel: 14:55

That's kind of, I like how this evolves. Like now this could be like, like he could play the villain in future movies. That's really cool.

Mean Orange Cat: 15:02

Yeah. I think that's, that's the fun thing that. that I'm discovering as we're doing these is like kind of building out the stable of go to characters. In the Meowtrix, there was a deleted scene where I had the weasel from Catiator be the, guy that like the traitor character from the, from the Matrix, the one that's like on the ship with them. And Turns into the bad guy or whatever. So there was like a brief moment where he showed up again. But yeah, just like, you know, building the world out, making people familiar with the different characters and this sort of thing, I think is a fun direction to take this stuff.

Mike Vogel: 15:37

Yeah. Absolutely. And I want to, I'm going to ask a follow up on that in a little bit about the building the world out. But before I do that it seems like for the most part people when they're creating movies and stuff. You're not sticking to one tool necessarily. You're using lots of different tools. And I know, you know, based on the little credit screens that pop up for yours, I, I feel like that's the situation you're into. If you could just like really quick kind of say which ones that you use and like which ones are sort of your, your standby for certain things.

Mean Orange Cat: 16:07

Yeah. So I use to generate images, I use mid journey. Exclusively and then occasionally I'll when I have the the cash flow, I will sign up for Magnific and you know, up res from there, but for image to video, I use basically everything. So I use runway quite a bit. And I've just started using Leonardo, which I like quite a bit as well, and Hyper, Pika , and then I've run everything through Topaz after that. Oh, Lensgo, I have just started messing around with Lensgo a little bit. Like in the Cat Eater video, there's like a shot that I got from a stock footage website of somebody shooting a flaming arrow, and I was able to use the style transfer tool. To set it back into the the snowy scenario that we're in, in the beginning of that. So that's been like a fun tool to explore also. But,

Mike Vogel: 16:59

haven't used that one. So wait, what does it, what does lens go do? It like transfers the style.

Mean Orange Cat: 17:05

yeah, it's a style transfer tool. I mean, they have several different tools baked into it. But one of the major things that they offer is style transfer. So you can upload your video, upload an image, a reference, and it will apply that reference image to the video, you know, varying, varying degrees of success. Of course if you, if you're trying to have somebody on screen speaking and drop like the Pixar filter over it, their eyes might go a little crazy every once in a while. They might go across. But but you know, if you're just. looking for something that's stylish and interesting. I think it's a really great tool for that.

Mike Vogel: 17:44

Oh, cool. I'll have to check it out. And the for Leonardo, I feel like it's, I think that they use like stable diffusion or maybe the, like some flavor of stable diffusion. I like the stuff that they do too, for certain types of shots, like those panning shots, like where orbits around someone, I feel like those are pretty good. It does a good job of keeping

Mean Orange Cat: 18:03

that I haven't cracked yet. I just haven't I, I, yeah, if Leonardo uses that, then that, that makes sense to me because just the way that I've seen their renders do look similar to stable diffusion. So that, that does make sense. But but Yeah. that seems to be the one that, that has eluded me thus far. Maybe it's just intimidating. I'm not sure.

Mike Vogel: 18:23

I, yeah, I agree. I've, I play around with that a little bit. And then whenever I try to do, I feel like you have to have like a nice computer, like with uh, uh, the NVIDIA card and all that kind of stuff to really do like the open source local stuff. And all of that stuff that I see on like the Sable Diffusion Reddit forum is amazing. Like it's mind blowing, but like, it's stuff that

Mean Orange Cat: 18:47

Oh, all the morphing stuff and that

Mike Vogel: 18:48

Yeah,

Mean Orange Cat: 18:49

Yeah. it's so wild. And it's just like, Oh my gosh, like I, I'm not doing that with, with any of the other tools that I'm using right now. You're like, oh,

Mike Vogel: 18:56

I know it's cool too, because the workflow piece. I don't know if you've seen this, but they can copy a workflow. So you can basically just get this like little file. I think you can do it as an image or just like. a file and then bring it in and like all of this like connections and stuff will happen in comfy UI. So it can do this really complicated workflow and people just like share an image and be like, here's how we did it. And they'll drop a workflow and you can just take that workflow and do it. So I love like the open source community and I love how they share stuff like that, which is

Mean Orange Cat: 19:29

No, that's, that's so cool. And that is such, that's something that's like super prevalent in the AI generating community in general. It's just like, everybody is very upfront about sharing their workflow and, you know and sharing in general. And it's, it's great. You know, it's very fun.

Mike Vogel: 19:48

I know. That's the one thing I like about it too. And a lot of it too, I think is because I don't know how much you did in like the discord servers or like, I think a lot of generation is still done in the discord servers. I know like runway and Pika and hyper all have their like browser based versions. But when it's in discord for a lot of it, some of those wouldn't let you do private generations on your own server. So you're just out there with everyone else, like generating content and everyone's kind of just like, you know, like out there, putting your prompts in, seeing what you get. And I feel like at first that was really weird to me. Cause it's like, Oh, I don't want people to see like my mistakes or I don't want people to you know, like I have this idea and I don't want someone to steal it. Like, I think that's a good idea that you have at first, you know? But then it's just kind of like, no, this is great to see what everyone's working on and everyone's kind of has their own creative vision which is

Mean Orange Cat: 20:39

Especially I would, I totally agree with you. And especially early on in the process, I think it's so helpful because you get to just see everybody's stuff just right there, laid out and you're like, Oh, I wonder how that turned out. And you can just scroll up and see how everybody's workflow is going. And like, Yeah. I, I remember it was one of the things that was, that was fun. Really exciting to me when I first started doing any of this stuff. So yeah, it was definitely a space to, that's worth continuing to create in.

Mike Vogel: 21:09

Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned having you know, expanding the world of these characters and stuff like that. I think that's a really interesting. See an idea because as the technology changes and gets better, you know, eventually we'll have things like Sora and whatever Google announced this week. And the quality will just keep getting better. Like, I feel like we're like, everyone feels like that's right around the corner. To me, I feel like that kind of stuff is, I feel it's just going to be so either so expensive or so time consuming that it's not going to be in the hands of.

Mean Orange Cat: 21:41

Oh, I am. I totally agree. Yeah. Yeah. I am. I am not waiting for Sora, you know, like it'll it when it shows up, it'll be great, but, and presumably, but I'm not waiting for it. And you know, it's, it's exciting and it's cool. But I totally agree. I have my expectations for it. are I'm not going to be able to afford to play with it. So,

Mike Vogel: 22:03

Yeah. It, it, there's so many stories about like, and I, I don't know the exact cause no, I don't think anyone really knows, but like, you see just like how long it takes to render like one minute of video and how many, you know, GPUs it takes to render that

Mean Orange Cat: 22:18

Oh yeah,

Mike Vogel: 22:19

like that. So it's just going to be like, Exorbitantly expensive, which I think is why they're trying to go after, you know, more business users rather than like independent creators where I think stable diffusion and like some of these other companies are trying to look at like how to help individuals be more creative, which I think is great. Sora, like you said, Sora will be great. I will try to use it when I can get it, but like, I'm not holding my breath for it either.

Mean Orange Cat: 22:44

Yeah, exactly.

Mike Vogel: 22:46

but it will, so, but there will be improvements Just across like the ones that you're currently using like with Hyper and Pika and Runway And so how do you envision like the kinds of stories that you tell? changing over time

Mean Orange Cat: 23:01

well, that's the thing is like our next video is not a cat video. Our next video is, is like a wholly original story. It's going to be like a more animated style. And yeah, I think, you know, the tools are only getting better. Things are, you know, kind of like the image fidelity is going to get better movements going to get better. It's all going to get better really what you have to concentrate now on is okay, like, the technology will catch up. What kind of stories do you want to tell and., I don't have like a big roadmap for, for what,, I envisioned the brand as, but I think it'll develop as we're going down the road. If if people like the original thing that we're putting together. There's definitely a world where we do more episodes of that. And then,, maybe a couple of, of the cat tribute stories like it in the in between. I don't know. I, I like the organic aspect of all of this stuff and, the speed and relative low cost for all of it means that I can fly by the seat of my pants a little bit. And. Just worry about, each project as an individual, like I kind of have an idea of some of the stuff that I want to do down the road, but it's not, you know, it's, it's very flexible and, and yeah, I think that's a fun way to approach the creative process. It's like, okay, like what's inspiring you right now? I wasn't planning on doing a matrix short. Somebody mentioned it and I was like, you know what? I can explore that., let's just go ahead and do it.

Mike Vogel: 24:33

Well, I have like a saying that helped me when I first started like getting into the video stuff. And the thing that, resonated with me was like generate and iterate. You're going to generate something and then you'll get the result and you iterate. So just generate, iterate, generate, iterate. And I feel like what you just said is almost like a zoomed out version of that. Like, it's not just an individual clip that you're generating, but you're generating a trailer. You're going to learn something from that and then move on to the next thing. Try a new short, learn something from that and move on to the next thing. I think it's that constant exploring of, you know, what you want to do creatively that. makes AI videos so exciting right now.

Mean Orange Cat: 25:11

That was so much better put than what I said. Thank you That is exactly what I meant.

Mike Vogel: 25:18

Speaking of the future, we kind of talked about Sora a little bit, but One thing I've personally felt, and I know some people have left comments and I've seen people talk about this in like Reddit and discord as well. There's this sense that like, there's so many things coming out every week, you know, like you'll be working on a project and then like mid journey, they'll come out with like consistent characters. Like, Oh, do I go back and restart this now? Or like, how do I do this? And, and then like, for me, at least I'll open up YouTube and like half of my videos are like people talking about Everything's a total game changer. And this is, this update will blow your mind and stuff. And it's just like, feels so overwhelming. How do you focus on getting, you know, Work done in light of the fact that like from the time you start the project to the time you end it There's probably gonna be like three amazing Mind blowing updates, you know that have come out in that amount of time.

Mean Orange Cat: 26:11

Yeah. I mean, you're totally right. This, the technology is moving at such a rate that, you know, the stuff changes very quickly. Like there was a day I remember I was doing a bunch of work on a Sunday and then I logged in on a Monday, I think it was just a runway or something and like the entire UI had changed. I was like, oh, my gosh, like, just overnight midway through a project and you're like, all right, I hope this doesn't I hope I hope everything still looks the same. But, you know, I think you just have to learn to roll with the punches a little bit. And, you know, I, I think each new development. Is a potential thing to explore, but I think you have to, you know, kind of eat what's on your plate before you move on to the next thing. You know, just the temptation to go back and fix things is very real. I, like, you know, I created a bunch of stuff last summer just, you know, Purely for fun, just personal work or whatever. And the the temptation to redo every single one of those is, is very high for me, but it's, you know, I, I think you just have to explore new things and get inspired by what's, what's out there. What the new thing that's being offered is or see, see how that new thing can, you know, improve or affect the next project.

Mike Vogel: 27:35

mm hmm yeah in in Also, like there's going to be another update six months from now that will make you want to go back again. Like,

Mean Orange Cat: 27:44

That's that's it. Right. it's

Mike Vogel: 27:45

months. You know,

Mean Orange Cat: 27:46

yep. No, you're totally right. That, that is exactly what happens.

Mike Vogel: 27:50

So I think people like tips, I've done a couple of demos for runways, multi motion brush. And

Mean Orange Cat: 27:56

Oh,

Mike Vogel: 27:56

feel like people ask a lot, like. How do you make people blink, though? I know in one of your videos, there is a character, I noticed it, I was like, Oh, that character blinks. I have to ask about that. So is there a trick to that? Like, did you prompt it or is it just one of those like lucky kind of things that happened

Mean Orange Cat: 28:13

I think I know what you're talking about. I think it's in, in Control Freaks, right? It's in

Mike Vogel: 28:17

Control freaks. Yep.

Mean Orange Cat: 28:18

animated one. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think we just got lucky. Like, I think, you know, I you know, we used Pika exclusively for that one., I used a variety of different prompting to get results for that. And, you know, I actually used the discord mostly for that one

Mike Vogel: 28:34

I thought it was a cool use of Pika's like the, I forget what they call it, but like where you can replace a thing. Did you use that?

Mean Orange Cat: 28:41

You know what? It's funny. We, we didn't use it. I just did, I did the very region in mid journey. and then I would just make hard cuts. I would animate both ends of the shot and then just do hard cuts.

Mike Vogel: 28:55

That's interesting. Oh, very cool

Mean Orange Cat: 28:58

but

Mike Vogel: 28:58

because I thought for sure you because I saw you use Pika and I was like Oh, that's a really good use of like their like, you know, add sunglasses or you know, change their outfit or whatever So, okay, so you did it in Midjourney

Mean Orange Cat: 29:09

yeah just did an image in your journey, but, but presumably it works the same way. You know, with, with Pika, I just haven't really had a chance to explore that.

Mike Vogel: 29:18

Cool, so you did it in the discord nice Yeah,

Mean Orange Cat: 29:22

just, again, like, kind of using traditional filmmaking techniques to do that, if they were trying to make somebody disappear in the, you know, like silent movie era, they just stopped the camera, take the person out and then roll the camera again. And so that's what I was kind of doing throughout that process.

Mike Vogel: 29:40

that's awesome. Yeah. It's like there's times where like, there's all of this amazing new technology and sometimes you just have to remember like, Oh, you can just go back to the basics and just like do a

Mean Orange Cat: 29:49

Exactly.

Mike Vogel: 29:50

have to like, you don't have to generate it. You can just cut it.

Mean Orange Cat: 29:53

Plus we were on a timeline for that. We're on like a deadline. So it wasn't really the, like, the chance to explore technologies at that moment. I was like, okay. Let's let's get this done. Come on.

Mike Vogel: 30:05

I do want to know, , what is something that you that you wish AI was a little bit better at right now? The AI video is a little bit better at that would make your life easier as you're creating these

Mean Orange Cat: 30:16

Well, very selfishly eye patches. I wish I was able to have the eye patch not go away. Have like three quarters of my generations are just like, Oh, he's like looking in one direction and the eye patch is gone. Or like the eye patch becomes sunglasses and that sort of stuff. So I guess stronger image fidelity would be great. You know? Improved resolution would be really great. One of the places that I feel like. The stuff really struggles with are those in between shots, like it has the close up and the medium shot down, it has the epic wide shot down, no problem. It's that, that like kind of standard wide shot of like a character in a space where it starts to get funky, where it's like, okay, like you can have the background move in a certain way and you can have the foreground move in a certain way, but you're going to start losing those details that make. The characters identifiable.

Mike Vogel: 31:15

Like, that's specifically like in the image to video process you're talking about, right? Because you can generate those images, no problem in mid journey, but then like when you bring them in to move it, it's like all of a sudden, Oh, it's just a blur now. Yeah.

Mean Orange Cat: 31:26

Yes. Yeah, exactly. Right.

Mike Vogel: 31:28

And in terms of the future, what about the future excites you right now?

Mean Orange Cat: 31:34

gosh. I mean, we've only been involved in, you know, doing stuff publicly for a couple of months and, you know, It's been really exciting. I've loved every moment of just being able to share with the community and and continue these relationships with other creators. I think that's it. I think I would love to just continue. You know, talking to people and how, like having each other influence each other's work and you know, I, I,

Mike Vogel: 32:07

yeah. I think community, I think that's what you're getting at. It there's not as many people doing this as it seems like there is. Like when you're in this, it seems like everyone's doing it, but

Mean Orange Cat: 32:16

it's a very vocal community. Yeah.

Mike Vogel: 32:18

Yes.

Mean Orange Cat: 32:19

And that's great because the other side is pretty vocal too. I don't know if you've ever tried to share anything AI with like other subreddits, but but I've, I've learned that the tolerance for AI is not as broad as I thought it was. It's funny to me that people react so strongly in the negative to something that isn't ruining the world. I don't know. Like I, the, the fear of AI is, is real and I get it because it's, It's a new technology and new stuff's always a little scary, but I don't know. I think it's just so fun that if anybody that is down on it spent a couple of days playing around with these tools, I think they'd be changing their tune pretty quickly.

Mike Vogel: 33:12

I feel like since I've been able to do AI stuff, the amount of consuming other people's stuff, you know, watching tech talks or whatever has gone down a lot. And now I'm just creating stuff instead of consuming things.

Mean Orange Cat: 33:25

Oh, you're so, you're so right. Yep. And that, That's that is exactly what's happened to me as well. You know, I, I come from a traditional filmmaking background. I made a short film that I, we released last year that took several years to make. And it was great. Like we were like very happy with the way that it turned out and everything, but it took several years for one 10 minute long project. Whereas this year alone, you know, if we've released, you I don't know if like four or five, six, six videos that, you know, all I would say are, you know, up to a similar standard of creativity and storytelling and, you know, they're exciting me and I'm having fun doing it. So, you know, I think it's, it's really, really inspiring.

Mike Vogel: 34:10

I feel like this is happening for so many other people too, who like you come from a traditional film background. There's people who haven't, but they love watching movies. And it's like, now they're able to try and make them too. So I think it's like for the people who are embracing it are just like, I haven't heard anyone say I don't like it. It's not that fun. Like, it seems like everyone just really gets into it, which is awesome. Yeah.

Mean Orange Cat: 34:36

the possibilities, I don't see how you, it's, it's hard to slow down, you know, I've only increased my subscription rates to these things. I've only increased my tools, you know, it's, it's, and you know, the work has only gotten more fun. So, yeah, I think it's it's infectious.

Mike Vogel: 34:56

Yeah, my subscriptions are out of control.

Mean Orange Cat: 34:58

Yeah.

Mike Vogel: 34:58

So, thank you so much for being on this first episode of How I Generate. It's been so fun talking to you. And I hope you'll come back sometime when you're doing some of these other projects that you're talking about now. It'd be fun to check back in with you and see how those are going too.

Mean Orange Cat: 35:13

For sure. I would love that.

Mike Vogel: 35:14

Where can people find, you? And I will put links in the description as well.

Mean Orange Cat: 35:18

So we are a mean orange cat just everywhere, basically on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram. Any of those other places, mean orange cat. And then you should be able to Google us at this point. I think we have like a standard website, but that should be it.

Mike Vogel: 35:35

That's great. Well, it was a pleasure talking to you and thank you again for being on the show.

Mean Orange Cat: 35:40

Likewise. Thank you so much for having me.

Mike Vogel: 35:43

and thank you listener for joining us on this episode of how I generate it. If you enjoy conversations like this with AI creators, don't forget to subscribe. Until next time, stay curious and keep generating and iterating.