“Fire on the Water: The Battle of Valcour Island”

This is a new project I’m working on. An exciting moment in American History that happened in my backyard here in upstate New York! The trick with a documentary like this on a subject from 250 years ago is the lack of imagery. With no cameras invented yet, and very few paintings and drawings, telling this story for a documentary is a challenge to say the least!

So I’m trying my hand at using AI.

I know…many hate AI, there’s a lot of slop out there. But I ran some tests in different platforms and found the results can be quite realistic and convincing! I signed up for a year on Higgsfield AI, and started making this. I’ve been afraid that AI would take over what we do as film makers. I’m sure it will take over many aspects of it, but telling a story and creating the shots, the framing, the camera moves is all still needed. It can also be very creative but also frustrating as AI slop is still alive and well! Here are some images of what it gave me….

Anyway, I have so much more to learn, but it’s actually quite exciting. And the end result should hold people’s attention more than panning an old painting (as it’s always been done in the past). Though I will still be doing that in this as well.