Working Against the Clock; Tips to Optimize Your Workflow Using Tools like ChatGPT

Using ChatGPT to Optimize Your Creative Workflow

Click to Read the Summary of 'Optimize Your Workflow Using ChatGPT'

1. To-Do Lists: Creating a comprehensive to-do list based on project requirements can significantly reduce stress and streamline your workflow. A detailed list ensures you don't lose focus amidst the chaos of development.

2. Teamwork and Task Delegation: Leveraging connections and delegating tasks according to each team member's strengths are crucial, especially under tight constraints where teamwork must be balanced with individual creativity.

3. The Dos and Don'ts of Using AI: Utilizing AI for feedback, prompts, and ideas is beneficial when working alone under time constraints. Ethical considerations are important, emphasizing the responsible use of AI without over-reliance.

4. Disaster and Our Old Friend Murphy: Planning for the unexpected is essential, as unforeseen problems are inevitable. Pre-planning for pitfalls can mitigate potential disasters.

5. Make Sure You’re the First One to Find Mistakes: Vigilance in identifying and correcting mistakes is crucial for maintaining reputation and competence. Double-checking work can prevent minor oversights from becoming significant issues.

If you are out of the loop of filmmaker initiatives like myself, you probably haven’t heard of the coming and going of Monkeypaw Productions’ NO DRAMA, Powered by the Universal Filmmakers Project and TIFF (Link). I only learned about it from a promotional email; the festival caters to providing emerging filmmakers a platform to receive funding and development support based upon a pitch package. Nothing unfamiliar to the film industry, and the festival opened on February 1st, meaning it was still very recent, an exciting prospect. But one thing I nearly missed was the submission due date of February 29th… I learned about it on February 26th; uh oh. If I wanted to make my submission before the deadline, I had only 4 days to make everything? Needless to say, I was in a panic.

Source: Vivek Madurai, Medium

You’ve likely heard of this business management model; the Time, Cost, Quality triangle. In a nutshell, this triangle was a foreboding omen that I was in for a horrible time. It appeared that I simply didn’t have the time or money to make an exceptional submission, and this gnawed at the back of my mind. Every second spent in contemplation and doubt was valuable investments and connections down the drain.

But what else is there to do other than put your nose to the grind wheel, and take your best shot? I knew it was doable, I just had to use all the resources at my disposal to make it happen, including one of the most valuable, and controversial, tools of our time; machine learning.

I can only hope you never find yourself in a similar situation, but if you do, I’d like to offer some tools and advice that I used to complete my submission. Here is my guide to finishing your creative work on a time budget.

Step 1: To-Do Lists

You’ve likely heard this adage by Charles Kettering before: "A problem well-stated is half-solved." In essence, if you can exactly define what needs to be done, you’ve reduced the amount of stress, work, and time needed to complete your project, and this cannot be overstated.

As soon as I decided to form my pitch deck, before I even had an idea for a short film, I went to the FAQ section of NO DRAMA, and carefully read over the submission requirements for the festival. To spare you the details, this was the to-do list I made for my submission:

• Conceptualize Your Short Film: Focus on monsters across genre, cultures, time, and society. Consider horror, fantasy, futurism, sci-fiction, suspense-thrillers, magical surrealism, etc.

• Write Your Script: Ensure it's completed, 15 pages max, exploring the theme of monsters in innovative ways.

• Prepare Your Résumé: Update to include chronological paid employment, filmmaking-related honors/awards within the last 15 years, and produced or optioned projects. Limit to two pages.

• Gather Letters of Recommendation (Optional): Up to two, from industry professionals familiar with your creative work.

• Compile a Lookbook: 8-15 pages detailing genre, theme, tone, setting, art direction, character descriptions, and comparable projects with visual references.

• Record Videos:

• Pitch Video: Max 3 minutes, outlining your project's vision and key points.

• Personal Statement Video: Max 3 minutes, detailing your personal journey and the importance of your story.

• Creative Portfolio Reel: Max 5 minutes, showcasing samples of your previous works.

To create this list, I input every requirement and specification I could find in ChatGPT and asked it to output a to-do list. It reiterates a lot of the same points over and over to ensure I am not letting my project’s focus slip in the chaos of development; the last thing you need in a race for the finish line is confusion. Creation is already hard enough, and having to read a wall of text every time you sit to work can make the most battle-hardened of filmmakers overwhelmed.

As early as you can, establish what needs to be done, and clarify what each element needs. There is not a single piece of creative media in the world that can be overplanned, and once you have a plan set out for yourself, it’s as simple as checking off the boxes as you go, and patting yourself on the back for well-earned progress. For me, having a clearly laid out to-do list puts wind under my sails, and ensured I had the mental fortitude to see this project through.

However, as with most things in filmmaking, remember you are working on a time constraint. Miscellaneous tasks that would be nice to complete are not a luxury you can always afford; establish the key elements first, and ensure each one gets its due time. Only when all the key parts are complete, and you have a package you can submit right this instance if need be, should you go back to add any flourishes, embellishments, and personal flair. If you’d like, add a section at the bottom of the to-do list, and write each idea down as you work on the key parts so you can revisit them later.

Step 2: Teamwork and Task Delegation

When working on a budget, connections are everything. For this project, I knew my weaknesses would harm the final product, but I didn’t have time to overcome them through tenacity alone. More importantly, NO DRAMA forbade submissions by filmmaker teams; applicants are required to be sole writer of all submitted work. So how do I use teamwork under such tight constraints?

Keeping in mind the need for being the sole creator of this project, I thought outside the box. I needed inspiration for the lookbook’s format, outside perspectives for my script, and support in using DaVinci Resolve, an editing suite I was unfamiliar with (which is significantly better and far cheaper than Adobe Premiere Pro, but I digress). To remedy this, I sought the advice of a cinematographer, reached out to personal friends to critique my script, and contacted an editor who knew DaVinci to get advice. Additionally, whenever I felt stuck, I used ChatGPT as a bounce board for ideas, not because it was actually helpful, but because its responses are instant, numerous, and useful for identifying errors.

My case was quite unique given the constraints, but the broader point stands; don’t be afraid to ask favours of your support group. Effective teamwork, especially in filmmaking, begins with recognizing and delegating tasks appropriate to each member's capabilities. By identifying my weaknesses early and openly communicating where I needed help, I was able to ease the burden of the most difficult tasks. A few quick meetings helped identify key issues that were holding back the potential of my project, but remember; your support group is there to support you, not do the work for you.

By leveraging the strengths of your team without over-reliance, you maintain the integrity of individual creativity while benefiting from collective achievement, and it’s not a wasted effort for your team either; you now have a list of future collaborators you can employ.

Step 3: The Dos and Don'ts of Using AI

For projects such as this one, with such limited time constraints and the burden of work falling entirely onto one person, using a generative machine learning algorithm to provide feedback, prompts, and ideas for you is, in my opinion, acceptable.

My siblings recommended a valuable source for learning how to use ChatGPT effectively; @iamkylebalmer on TikTok (Link) introduces a fantastic prompt creation framework called RISEN.

To briefing summarize his post, the RISEN framework is as follows:

• Role - Introduce who the AI will be writing or responding as.

• Instructions - Give instructions for the overall prompt that the AI will satisfy.

• Steps -  Steps to guide what you need, as if you were instructing a human freelancer.

• End Goal - The exact purpose and goal the AI should cater its response to.

• Narrowing - Constraints such as language use, word count, etc.

By utilizing this framework, I have found that ChatGPT has been able to provide skeleton drafts and ideas better catered to my goals with minimal struggle. However, as many of us in the creative industry know, this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to AI.

Ethical Considerations of Using AI

Let’s address the artificial elephant in the room; machine learning threatens all of our livelihoods. Iterative AI models are built upon the stolen work of both big and small creators, and in using AI, the questions arise of whether or not we are exploiting them. The Writer’s Guild strike brought attention to the haphazard integration of AI in studio settings, and the film industry is full of examples of rampant and blatant plagiarism; a great exposé I highly recommend to learn more about plagiarism is @hbomberguy’s ‘Plagiarism and You(Tube)’ on YouTube (Link). But I believe solely blaming AI excuses the true perpetrators of exploitation; AI adds to the industry’s repertoire of exploitative practices, but the true blame falls solely on industry titans who believe they can replace artist’s livelihood. Does that make its use entirely unethical?

Allow me to pose some hypotheticals. Does using the three act structure template count as stealing? Does integrating Reddit advice constitute plagiarism? Can the idea of a hero be trademarked? For most people, I’d suspect you answered no, and this is a key distinction to make. If you choose to use AI, such as I do, to assist in your creative workflow, never allow it to be your sole output. For example, I used ChatGPT in this blog to provide bullet points and ideas for each of these headers. Have I compromised my creative voice, and allowed the stolen work of other artists to build my message? No; everything you’re reading now is original, and I’ve spent the past hour revising and rewriting this paragraph to properly convey my intended message. I don’t think ChatGPT building a “5 easy steps to xyz” template constitutes a loss of my creativity.

The key point I’m trying to make is; know the capabilities and limitations of AI. The community outcry and personal loathing I feel towards AI art doesn’t stem from solo animators generating references, or independent writers generating prompts, but on the destruction of creative integrity and omission of talented artists by corporations who believe their livelihoods can be replaced by stolen labour. Do not build an over-reliance on AI, and like any craftsperson, know when to use the right tool for the job.

Step 4: Disaster, and Our Old Friend Murphy

Murphy’s Law is a real thorn in the side. In filmmaking especially, the adage “anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time” has proven true time and time again. This is where planning becomes abundantly necessary.

Some attribute the idea of Murphy’s Law to cosmic inevitability, universal karma, or some intuitive fifth-sense; I argue that Murphy’s Law holds true because most of the time, you already know where the issues will arise, you just cross your fingers that they don’t. Don’t allow yourself to be sucker-punched by the issues you could have foreseen.

Now, this is obviously easier said than done. Many of us, myself included, are early in their filmmaking career; there are things I don’t even know I don’t know. But that doesn’t go away with experience or practice; you simply learn patterns that allow you see them coming. The difference between a novice and an expert is that the expert sets themselves up for success before the battle has even begun.

This is where all of my previous tips most apply, as pre-planning, teamwork, and AI integration can all support and prepare you for unforeseen problems. For instance, I knew the video-making process was going to be the most taxing and time-consuming part of the project, especially since it would by its nature come last. As such, I used ChatGPT to build a draft early and set it aside for future revision, and I continued with finishing all other components with a few Red Bull-fueled all-nighters in order to buy myself a full day of work should the need arise, which it ultimately did. Was having to crunch at the last minute horrible? Yes, but it was better than failing to submit the videos at all due to a lack of foresight and planning for disaster.

Step 5: Make Sure You’re the First One to Find Mistakes

It seems almost silly to point this out, but sometimes the obvious is so overt that you become blind to it, so double check everything. Mistakes are exactly that; mistakes. But in filmmaking especially, mistakes can cost you a lot in your reputation, perceived competence, and support, so be sure to set aside time for double checking. From learning the hard way, these are some of the things you should keep an eye for;

• Naming requirements, ie. FirstName_LastName_Project.pdf.

• File types, ie. the only accepted format might be .mov, not .mp4 or .avi.

• Video specifications like maximum time, minimum resolution, fps, audio quality.

• Storage structure, do they expect a zipped folder/subfolders?

• Formatting, especially important in screenwriting.

• Upload limits, some platforms only allow 1 video file and 3 PDFs, other only allow a maximum of 1Gb files, etc.

• Names and titles, the worst thing you can do is misspelling your, or an investor’s, name.

• Grammar and punctuation; it’s annoying, but nobody trusts an author who mixes up there, their, and they’re.

These are just a few of the faux pas’ you should stay vigilant to, but especially when you’re tired and hours from the deadline, it’s easy to let things slip. As annoying as these last-minute checks are, they can really save your hide.

The issue with filmmaking is that you will be remembered for your work, not your merit. Reputation gets your foot in the door, but if you can’t follow basic instructions, no one will trust you to do your job. This is where ChatGPT becomes exceptionally useful; I often use it to check for tenses, grammar, spelling, and punctuation as I work, and browser extensions like Grammarly can really help. For those dealing with dyslexia, I understand my rhetoric is very ableist, but simply put, most producers don’t look kindly on small oversights like these; find a friend who can check your work for you, or where possible, use audio submissions to mitigate such problems.

I do hope this point doesn’t fall on deaf ears, because I’ve made these mistakes and have seen it happen. Even when everything is done right, and your project is unique and exceptional, it’s the small things that can catch up with you; don’t let your success be pulled out from under you because of a missed ten minutes of checking.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you never find yourself in a situation where these tips determine whether or not you pay rent this month, but knowing how to work under a time constraint is a valuable skill to practice and develop. While I talked for a long time about the damage of AI on artist livelihoods, we need to acknowledge that Pandora’s box has been opened, and the earlier we discuss how we can use it ethically, without compromise of our creative integrity, the better the future of human art stands. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors, and remember to use all the tools available at your disposal wisely.

I hope this article provided useful tips for integrating AI into your work! If you enjoyed this article, you may be interested in my blog post on Navigating Canada's Job Market. If you’d like to join my newsletter or visit my social media, click Follow My Work, and show your support by sharing this post or donating $5 by clicking Support My Work!