The stream only gathers a crowd when it falls...
2025
It’s time for YOU to make something. Youtube was on the cover of TIME magazine when it started because it gave YOU (a member of the public) an opportunity to have a voice (via the internet) in the same way as mass media. Only before by public access and before that transmitters. Way before that, things like learning to read and printing were an act of rebellion. Literally withheld from people as a threat to power.
Sora is a free app and you can render 30 videos a day. From mobile they will be mobile size, from a desktop you can change to horizontal (standard). It renders with sound. It DOES accept negative keywords (finally). ‘Anomaly’ does interesting things in prompts. Try rendering like a commercial or trailer. Example;
“Commercial for (movie title) nes game, 1984.”
then try
“gameplay for (same movie title), 1984 no narration.”
Put some good gameplay in the middle if a commercial so it begins and ends naturally, pretty cool! obviously use your own variations and or other things. A really good free phone editor I use is YouCut. I don’t know or endorse but I use, often.
Also telling a story can be fun, make it authentic. I used ‘VHS footage’ at the start of the prompts to make my two 80’s childhood stories. Try adding the media that was used in the time of your prompt, adding subtle effects can connect pieces together more fluidly.
December
9
EVERYONE knows and is aware of AI. I leave the Sora watermark on and say its AI, it’s also labeled as synthetic content. At first I just Ignored the haters who said everything I made was AI trash. Then I responded and fought, but it was effecting what I wanted to do so I started to block. But I found a hide setting, this way they still see their comment with no interaction. Its less confrontational because they feel satisfied thinking they are venting. A recent viral short video on channel 2 of course had people sayin AI, AI suck, ai trash etc. But I found an even better feature, a content moderation filter. so I filtered “AI”, thank you Youtube. No other words or comments are filtered.
8
Working on the virtual gallery, adding adobe tutorials to the old Adobe channel I forgot about. I have discovered a few time/sanity saving tips in Illustrator and actually even reference them myself when setting up preferences on new installs. Here is a timelapse of all of my freelance illustration work for the past 20 years condensed to 1 hour;
7
Going over everything on the sim and realizing what I noticed other places. Like when I was painting at the junkyard. There is much more detail where people are most of the time. For that reason and to finish this out (still about 2 years left) I am making like a headquarters with links to every other area so I can have a base but also go ‘camping’ in other areas to fill them out. Look at the foliage for example. Completed and full in the initial landing area but sparse in the remote corners.
4
Sorting back through hundreds of videos I have to say this is my favorite. 3 likes and 70 views but that’s not the metric that matters. (my own art and photography) Wisconsin hwy8 into Michigan, South Dakota painting of a car I found, Nebraska country road in the north part where the wavy clouds allude to the shape of the hills below, A bus someone was living in in Louisiana and my painting of St. Paul.
Maybe its because I started with trash and the curved window I find so rare that initially stopped ppl, I always liked trash and garbage and finding things and making things, but I understand. It wouldn’t be discarded in the first place if people liked it.
2
Of my about 200 oil paintings, 150 are mostly complete, 50 are proabably sellable (not studies) but… I can never seem to complete them 100%. Like I ALWAYS see more to do.
1 pm
Picked out the ones that I think people would be interested in. Went to Micheals and bought some new detail brushes. Will complete and post as they are done on the shop page. Bypassing Etsy.
Found an interesting set of ai images I rendered this spring;
1 am
new month, new course correction. For the next week, sora shorts on yt, hardcore VR gallery work (once I confirm backups work). And… Oil! Getting my oils out of storage and starting again!
I have one week, M-F off of work and on this. The vr gallery wont help me financially but will be strong for my brand completion not now. And the oils, I think I can probably sell or at least have some restored confidence with them out of storage.
Going to storage to see what I have. If I need any more supplies to paint I will have to wait until next payday. I am going to open the ETSY store back up today or tomorrow. *OK, Etsy wants $29 just to sign up now…. Plus fees etc. I am going to skip this entirely and just post the ones for sale on my sales page directly. 🙂 got my MOOG synth too! Maybe some new tracks to add the soundcloud this week.
Going to get some Mineral spirits and a couple brushed from Micheals to touch these up for sale. WARNING If you or anyone you know oil paints, PLEASE tell them to use alternatives to odorless thinner, it is very toxic, It took a lot of experimenting but I found that Gamblin Mineral spirits work exactly the same with much less toxicity. Just because it’s odorless doesn’t mean it’s not harmful!
November
19
Focus, VR Gallery (ONLINE NOW), Midwest Activity book (hand drawn), 3 Book projects (freelance work) Give this one month and then try to get back into painting. no pressure. Take a break from videos (I’ll try)…
Luxury vs. Quality. Quality can be valuable in practical ways. A shirt that cost $49 but lasts 4x’s longer than a $20 shirt is cheaper. The $49 shirt actually costs $7.75 less over time. My oil change was $109 but now lasts 10,000 miles whereas I was paying $60 every 3,000 to do it myself. Now $90 less. Luxury is unnecessary excess.
18
We should destroy Vincent van Gogh’s Starry night painting and every copy and print of it. We don’t deserve it. He relied on his brother to support his art until he heard that his brother was having a child and didn’t want to burden him further. He shot himself in the field of crows he was in he process of painting and died days later in his brothers arms.
17
Still have my Adobe for a month, might as well continue and complete the hand drawn Midwestern activity book. My windows and doors coloring book sold well, this one might too! Going to put some serious effort into this and post updates. With a longer term goal of going back into painting and not freelancing.
16
Going to try to go back to oil painting. Thinking of a series of panels I could sell here or etsy. hold on, brb. (give me like 5 days)
15
Freelancers have it harder than ever. When I started freelancing, there were little to no competitors. Work came to me. The relationship I had with my clients was ideal. Coming to you, means you are serving a need and no cold calling. It is a much different relationship when you are asking for someone to hire you and now its even worse because of global competition and ai.
A past client encouraged me to come back and was worried she would not find another artist that was not a scammer. The cost of doing business as a freelancer is much higher now too, with lower pay. Software, hosting, and now paying just to reply (among many others) to job postings (i.e. upwork ‘credits’) After these two book projects I am winding this all back down. (unless I get enough new work to at least cover its monthly costs.)
AI videos were extremely difficult at first, taking days to complete one video with barely usable .05sec segments. NOW, the ai videos can be rendered PRE EDITED, which is the part that I enjoyed the most. I knew it would happen. I’ll still make them, but with increasingly less input in it’s creation. I do see a time where ANYTHING is possible, that will be a time where it will be like filming with a camera. When it is so perfect that the technology has to add defects to make it seem more realistic. I heard that swiss cheese was loosing its holes until they found a mixture of airborne bacteria that came from barn hay, seems similar to this. Artificial grit.
I also heard the new AI in china can render unlimited, so like a whole movie, podcast etc.. Soon all human/ai work will be purely idea based. I.e. no other labor/skillset.
9
Working on a NEW hand drawn Midwestern activity book. Mostly mazes and some midwestern trivia. *(on hold)
4
3
I noticed a few of my favorite pieces of artwork were missing from the site, let’s look for them in the image archives;
As I go through all the past images that were trimmed for one reason or another I get to thinking. How trimming things for effect or meaning is good, but trimming to please this person and that person really makes the whole thing fall apart and things get lost in the process, valuable things.
Bingo, This is the one I was looking for, going to make a video with it. BRB.
1
October
30
Got some of my paintings out of storage. It’s nice to look at and remember. I think it will motivate me to go back to storage and get the unfinished work out to complete, not yet.
28
My son sent me a code to get into Sora, I used it to create 29 video clips, then with another account and same pass I was able to create 30 more. After that I put two quick videos together from those renders and will try again once 24 hours have passed. (Using two google accounts) SORA INVITE CODE J6R32N
A pivotal moment in my life was a chance encounter with a wise man when I was a cashier at Walgreens. 17 at the time and fixated on writing. He said something in another language and I replied in Japanese (which I was taking in school) He laughed and told me he knew 12 languages fluently. He asked me what I planned to do with my life and I told him I wanted to be a writer. I went on to tell him that I was studying psychology so that I would know how to create characters. He told me to focus on observing as many real people as possible. That while psychological profiles were potentially flawed interpretations, observing real people in real life was never wrong.
27
While going through my divorce, I was devastated. I remember it coming in waves and feeling as though I had dived into a pool but couldn’t find the ladder to get out. It was during this time, alone and hopeless, laying on a blow up mattress. That I reached for my other hand across my chest. I held my hand in the other and the other with the other. I knew then that I would always have my own back. It was comforting, and still is. Every video has 2 likes from me and my alt acct, because I never stop believing in myself.
26
Last month, Google offered a 50% discount for VEO3 ($125 for 30 days) which have just now expired. I had been anxiously waiting to use it and It was amazing! Googles VEO3 seems to operate the same way production does. i.e. works best with two main characters and a quick choreographed scene. I noticed some visual effects repeating, like an 80s retro digital sun and a propensity for ‘tunneling’. Surreal is almost always clocks and fish but it does seem to understand negative terms (finally). I was grateful for the opportunity and loved making them. The result was -12 subs and .03 cents so far. That’s ok, they are archived. They may be more appreciated once the AI hype has subsided a bit (hard to be seen in a crowd, let alone understood.) I think Sora will surpass VEO in ‘realism’ because it seems less framed for production and just filming what you want . If I am ever able to afford and gain access to Sora (or others) I will definitely push incoprea further. Here is my only attempt at Sora 1.
25
As I continue to converse with the infinite void, an interesting, re-occuring Herzogian thought plays in my head as dark visions. Flashes of things squirming, filling the darkness. Pointless moving masses, eating, breading and dying while simultaneously overlapping.
It is a further desconstruction of human social constructs, first I was focussed on larger more tangable aspects like the mechanics of it but now I’m examining the social aspect. The respected order and form of routine expectations. Everything we do, the act we play. The human animal broken down to primitive need and survival, full and short.
Stimulation; I used to think people were motivated by things food, survival, love, peace and war but STIMULATION covers all of these (when needed). Of all the clients I worked with at the state hospital and over the years, one thing was common among ALL diagnoses, Seeking stimulation. There are probably some disorders that involve a numbness to this aspect but everything else follows. While a carrot on a stick is the motivational factor, the will behind the peruse is entirely stimulation (in whatever flavor (hunger, approval, routine..)).
Worked non-stop through my initial 30 day Veo3 subscription and created ALL of the videos I had written out and planned leading up to this. The result so far? I lost 9 subscribers lol. I STILL will not do pop culture or viral trends. Worst case, I make what I want and post them to archive. I HAVE to focus on freelance work and day job this week so that I am able to continue.
I will still probably work in the background (slower) I am also keeping the VR gallery open and online on the OS grid. I found a freelance programmer in Portugal who helped me put it on there for only $20 a mo (Similar ‘land’ in SL would be about $3,000 a mo).
23
The Micheal Jackson AI music video, I reciently saw, had very little to do with what I think he would have approved of, it seemed wrong. Existing copyright laws can still work when people profit from work under copyright.
On the flip side, laws do not always equal morals (there have been MANY unjust laws). Copyright overlaps with peoples lives (experiences) which brings to point, how much, if any, of our ‘experience’ is owned by corporations?
My personal favorate ‘side effect’ of ai has been in the dymistification of entertainment authority and marketing (people believe less of what they see on edited media) With all the trickery behind the scenes, creating a ‘healthy skeptisism’
21
Programming is like water, even more so with the assitance of ai. I added youtube videos to my vr gallery, it is coded so that you cannot but AI can write code that goes around even that, like water. Also im 50 today.
18
In my VR gallery, I created a small sphere. I made it white and added a slight glow. I scripted the tiny sphere so that it would (within a range) randomly go up and down (within a range) randomly move a short distance, then randomly repeat (or not). Each one released (same code), traveled different paths around the map ‘feeling’ alive. I believe it is the randomness and perceived choices. Trying to create alt AI residents that can create original works of art and music. I’m sure it will be clunky at first.
17
The VR gallery is back ONLINE ( get there in bio )
16
When I think about meaning in art, I think about what I want to know from others. I want to know their firsthand experiences. Anything else is just something that they heard and thereby less authentic. I’d rather know how someone got their can of beans than what they heard on the radio, as fantastical as it may sound. Insecurities play a lot into what I say and do as well. Projecting something deemed generally positive to make up for some maybe nonexistent flaw. And to that extent, seek to copy what has done well in the past. TWO of my former classmates have moved to create better images, one artist who now says Seattle based and one singer who now bills as Nashville artist. Fine and dandy, but what is real and true is experience and I am a midwestern artist. As unglamorous as that may seem to be in flyover country. I embrace it, because I know nothing else.
15
MIDWESTERN URBAN The Midwest is a vast open space with few neighbors. Midwestern Urban outcroppings became meeting places of these distant individuals. Here you will find collections of artwork that made it directly from the folks to the nearest beacon of an audience available. But the midwestern audience has a more practical eye. Opting to value first what is of use during harsh and scarce winters. Thick timber in sturdy railway warehouses and other repurposed structures into lofts and businesses remain. A slower pace of change than our costal counterparts. Slow enough to gather fragments of every era layering its skyline in reluctant, evolutionary ramps of human architectural progress.
The local flourishing apples are hardy and strong but sweet. The corn and wheat is are no different; practical, laborious, essential. There are unverified stories of ancient meeting-places in the midwest between hunters and possibly certain policing roles that were rotated to different individuals each year. Most likely aligned with harvest and winter. What IS known is the Native city of Cahokia where St. Louis is today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia
11
Well, that was a fun run! I may try more if an idea hits but I think I want to work on game design for a minute. brb. https://godotengine.org/
5
Can’t stop, wont stop. When I was in 9th grade, I got certified to use the public access studio in our local high school. I checked out cameras and edited videos but was always to scared to ‘go live’ My friends made a show called the Hour o Joy and they did not have the same fears I did. I loved their show! I made one music video set to Time by Anthrax using media captured by VHS off of our family T.V. (that tape is out there somewhere) Later I worked for a production company in Minneapolis as a graphic designer, working my way up to Art Director. We made corporate videos, commercial and produced large meetings and events. I was often at these events for delivery, set up and to QUICKLY edit for clients and work with them on presentations. I would often run the visuals from behind the curtain. It’s nice to finally have a say in what I want to make.
1
Good morning! Happy to work on new things and meet new people at work today. I was able to afford a computer and Veo3 via Flow was offering a half off discount. Once I had both, I used three of my sick days fro work (I have never used any before). The videos are a core passion, but continuing at this time would be putting a burden on me and my family as it is just in hobby mode (not revenue generating). I dream of one day being able to do this full time AND support my family, the archetypal YouTuber dream. Interestingly, the (out of copyright) Blind Willie Johnson song is banned from being viewed in Russia…
September
30
Last day of Sept. and hopefully last day of making videos for a while. I used all the credits I could afford and made everything I wanted to +. We’ll see how it does. Now I want to focus on my freelance work and day job. I also am learning game design, but it will be a while before I am able to post anything playable. (soon enough)
28
Admittedly, I went overboard and rendered insanely. What might have been a very good 2 minute video ended up being 12 minutes (edited down from 17) I published it and right away lost two subscribers. It’s fine, and I understand. I unlisted it. I will take a break and try to learn some more game design. I understand some of my experimental stuff is not going to be as palatable. still seeking balance without restraint.
27
Ok, I have a break to take a breath. Been running as fast as I could with the Veo 3 in *unlimited Fast mode. At this moment, I am being timed out, very few renders are getting through and I don’t blame them. I have been firing off renders for about 5 days straight. Lots of good new work. Keeping all ads off, which is an alternative benefit to partnership. I am going to look into making games and getting the VR gallery back online. Once Veo3 is fluid again I will switch and again neglect this blog.
I continue to unlist ‘bury’ my less popular (experimental) work in playlists and links; i.e.
23
ok so, VEO3 is through FLOW and it is $125 for 25,000 credits and renders are 100 credits. so 50 cents per render (with audio_currently unlimited in fast mode!). The Sora 720 included unlimited with gpt $20 is good too, but without audio Flow seems to be the best deal. OMG wow! yeah veo3 is enough.
looked at artlist and bought some credits but didn’t even get to render before I requested a refund. They want 3,000 credits fro 6 second (unseen)… maybe its Veo3 and maybe its great but $20 for 16,000 credits sounded like a lot but, 16/3 = $5.33 per 6 second render. I asked for a refund. Still looking into Veo3. I like the sound ability. Kling was good at both.
22
This is my first attempt @ Sora ($20/mo tier) 720 limit. The only other option is $200/mo (to remove watermark without cropping and achieve higher resolution) Runway is about half that price. Unsure what to do, a luxury rn.