How creatives can utilize AI tools at the post-production stage to experiment with ideas, accelerate tasks and expand their options.
A collaborative, flexible, yet carefully considered post-production process is the crucial final step towards a successful corporate video. It can be incredibly exciting seeing your project come to life – and while adding those finishing touches and all-important polish is fun, there are an equal number of tasks that are tedious, time-consuming and put a barrier between you and your deadline. When the finish line is within reach, there’s nothing worse than realizing you need to redo a few lines or extend a shot. By incorporating AI tools into your video production workflow, however, you can streamline and overcome these annoyances, completing your project faster whilst keeping the same level of quality. As with any AI software, using the technology with intention and as a tool rather than a replacement will maximise its benefits.
…Here we’ll discuss some of the ways creatives can utilize AI to do just that:
Audio
Excellent in its ability to enhance emotion, outline key points and guide viewers through a video’s message, audio, including music, voice acting and SFX, requires careful balancing and a keen ear. Adding variety to background music for different versions of your video is one way to keep your work dynamic and fresh, but for many, the time it takes to remix a song for a few seconds of difference is just not worth it. With Adobe Remix however, you can achieve that flexibility in seconds. By inputting your background music, the tool finds the optimal time to cut the song and remixes it, meaning you can ditch the simple fade out and replace it with a brand-new arrangement that fits perfectly for both your extended and shortened cuts.
Expanding your reach is a great benefit to any company, and through AI tools such as AI Blanc, you can increase language accessibility in a matter of minutes. Simply input a voice clip and the tool can translate your message into 47 languages while keeping the emotion intact. Alternative versions of your voice can also be achieved through the AI Altered Studio – if you’ve suddenly realized that a line was read too seriously, or perhaps the tone didn’t quite fit the mood of your video, you can easily tweak it within the app. AI can’t take vocal direction however, and you’ll lose that in–the–moment idea generation and spontaneity if you use it as a complete replacement, but having it there as a last-minute fix is going to save you from a great deal of stress.
Visuals
There’s a ton of work to be done during the post-production phase (especially with AI-enhanced video generation) that involves polishing up the visuals of your piece – whether that’s to cement the mood through lighting or stabilize your brand identity through a consistent color scheme. Being able to speed up these repetitive tasks and focus on the more nuanced ones, however, would be of great benefit to creatives, and with AI tools like NeutralToneAI, you can do just that. With its ability to apply quick color matching and common lighting effects, the tool can ease the workload of colorists and allow them to work on more creative tasks like using symbolism and narrative elements.
Having further flexibility and freedom at the post-production stage is a much-welcomed benefit of AI. If you’ve realized back at the studio that a shot was filmed too tightly, there’s no need to reshoot or struggle to make it work, with AI tools like Adobe’s Generative Expand, you can simply click on the expand button and its predictive algorithm will generate a zoomed-out version of the shot for you. While these AI tools can be a time-saver, make sure that you don’t completely rely on them during your storyboarding and shooting phases. Since you don’t have control over what the extended shot will look like, or if some AI generated b-roll footage will really align with the rest of your video’s identity, you should only ever use the tools as a last resort.
Editing
Creating the right pace and adding the right transitions are an important part of the post-production process. Through editing alone, you can completely shift the atmosphere and message of your video – but you can also spend an enormous amount of time editing a part of your video that lasts just a fraction of a second in the finished cut. Having an AI tool like Capsule, then, is one excellent way to automate the editing process and help you decide whether a “natural” or “energetic” cut is better for the flow of your piece. While having these choices at hand is great, only you can decide if they correctly align with your client’s aims or even the rest of your video. Make sure that AI tools only serve to benefit your editing process, rather than take the wheel and spin your video into a disconnected sum of flashy effects.
The ability to streamline using AI post-production workflows for creatives is truly exciting and marks a new era for the video industry. While these tools can help speed up tasks and expand our range of options, only you know whether the AI’s output serves your client’s mission; whether its color grading suits the intended mood, or whether a remixed song suits the theme of the piece. If you use these tools to your advantage rather than use them to replace the careful decision-making process behind post-production, you’ll be able to close the AI production feedback loop and deliver the same level of quality in less time.
If you would like to learn more about the ways in which creatives can collaborate with AI in modelling, pre-production and at the post-production stage, feel free to contact us at [email protected]
As a journalist specialising in video content, Emily possesses expertise across all facets of the industry, from emerging trends to innovative communication strategies that empower brands to effectively tell their stories.