Would I Use AI Again?

After five posts about using AI on HAPTIC, I suppose I should answer the fairly obvious question: Would I do it again?

If I were self-producing and financing another film with similarly limited resources, yes. I said as much when I wrote about the shot references. They gave me access to a part of visual planning I hadn’t been able to afford on my previous films.

If I had the budget and resources to work with a human collaborator on that work, I would prefer to do that. I don’t see any contradiction in those two answers. Both the circumstances and the particular job I'm trying to get done are important factors.

What I would be saying yes to

On HAPTIC, AI was useful when I gave it a specific job. Creating visual references helped me explain images that had previously stayed in my head. Generated environments and individual effects plates gave me material I could build into scenes through my own compositing and finishing work.

Those uses helped me get past real limitations and I couldn’t have made this story in the same way with the budget I had without that assistance. I may not have been able to make it at all.

That doesn’t mean I would start the next film by deciding which parts I could hand over to AI. I would start with the story, what it needed, and the resources available to make it. Then I could decide where a tool might help - it's the same distinction I’ve kept coming back to in this series. I wanted to make HAPTIC and using AI was one part of figuring out how to get it made.

I would still want the people

The shot references helped me communicate, but I would still prefer the opportunity to work with a storyboard artist if the resources were there. A reference is useful, but working with someone who brings their own experience and perspective is something else entirely.

And the people who performed in and helped shoot HAPTIC weren’t an optional part of the process. They made the film with me. The writing, casting, rehearsal, direction, camera work, and performances remained human. So did the editing and final creative decisions.

That’s where my boundaries stay. The stories I write are personal, and I want actors bringing their own humanity to them. I can use generated elements around a filmed performance without deciding that the performer is the next thing to replace - for me, there is no replacement there.

I would go in expecting the work

The last post covered some of the limits. Shot references took trial and error. Generated plates still needed rotoscoping, compositing, color, lighting, and blending. The Monster Hands sequence used no AI at all.

None of that makes the useful parts disappear, but it does give me a more realistic basis for deciding what to try again. I need to consider the work involved in getting from an output to something I can actually use.

I also need to leave room for another approach. Having a tool available doesn’t require me to use it, and time already spent on a result doesn’t require me to keep it. The scene still has to work.

The same care applies outside the images. AI can help with research, organization, outlines, and the business tasks that come with making an independent film, but a human still has to review the information, correct errors, and decide what is relevant. A useful starting point needs someone to finish the job.

The questions don’t end with this series

I’m still both excited and concerned about what these tools make possible. Labor, consent, rights, privacy, and environmental impact don’t stop mattering because I found a use that helped me.

I need to understand the practices of the platforms I choose and look again when those practices change. If I’m not comfortable with what I’m handing over or supporting, I can choose a different approach. Finishing a film doesn’t exempt me from those decisions.

What I can offer here is my experience making HAPTIC, including the parts that worked and the parts that required considerably more effort than the word “generate” suggests. I’m not treating one film as an answer for every filmmaker.

So, yes, I would use AI again where it helped solve a specific problem and fit the boundaries I’ve described. I would also welcome the resources to do more of that work with human collaborators. I want more possibilities for making the film, and I want to make those choices carefully.

That brings this series to a close. Thanks for spending some time with the process behind HAPTIC. What mattered to me at the start still matters now: telling the story, protecting the people who help me tell it, and being able to stand behind the finished film.