Directing When AI Makes Takes Cheap: Write the First Minute

I've outsourced most of my programming to bots. I'm working in languages I couldn't touch two years ago, and I've never been more empowered as a maker. The catch is that I now have far more options than any guest will ever see, and somebody has to pick.

This is part 1 of a short series about how that changes the work. Worldbuild.io does directing, producing and distributing, and this one's about directing.

Inside Glass Angels: an open book on a table between two lit candles, with an old radio behind it.

So What's the Problem?

A model can spit out scenes and scripts, even whole builds, faster than a guest can finish one path through your piece. You can have a hundred near-copies of a beat before anyone has picked the one the guest actually goes through.

It's tempting to start with the folder and leave the guest's first minute for later. Then the guest gets a pile of almost-right options, and whoever's on the floor fills the gaps by talking them through it.

(Nobody has ever said "wow, what a lovely pile".)

So What's the Solution?

Direct the first minute first.

Write it as one continuous pass, from the moment they arrive to the end of the first beat. Where do they stand? What do they touch? What do they have to notice? When does the beat end? Then cut anything that doesn't serve that pass.

Glass Angels is a good example of a first minute you can say out loud. (Jason Mollink wrote and directed it. I'm the worldbuilder.) Julia Malgas opens the piece from a video on the moon and hands you the lantern. From then on, your job is to walk through the Owl House at night and light 59 candles, one at a time. That's two sentences, and it tells you what your hands are for.

Inside Glass Angels: close-up of a candle burning inside the guest's lantern, with the house dark behind it.

Once the minute is written, treat everything a model gives you as a take. Pick one. Bin the rest, or park them for another project with its own brief. Your cut is done when a stranger can finish the path without anyone talking them through it.

Inside Glass Angels: the Owl House at night under the stars, with lit candles on the sand leading to the front stoep.

What's Next?

Here's how I'd run it on the next build:

Before the next generate run, write the first minute as a timed scene.
Generate only to fill gaps in that scene.
Cut any take that doesn't change what the guest does with their hands or eyes in that minute.

Give it a go and tell me how many takes survive. :)

Part 2 is about producing: Producing When AI Makes Takes Cheap: A One-Page Run of Show.

Virtually yours, Deac