Welcome to The Future

We’re living (and working) through weird times, and it’s not an understatement to describe the current conversations around AI and creativity as an existential crisis. Are the robots coming for our jobs, or are they opening new creative doors for us? It’s a dramatic question! Which is why, instead of adding to the pile of think pieces, we decided to lock arms with our AI besties to make a rock opera about the situation.

The project, directed by DC CDs Jessica Wyatt and Jessea Perry Hankins (aka Swamp & Bonnet) and produced by Keenan Hemje and Banana Stand, our in-house production arm, combines Midjourney, Runway, ChatGPT, Suno, Flow, and Higgsfield into one delirious odyssey. The lyrics and music track were developed with ChatGPT, Suno, and a lot of human meddling. Once we had the properly face-melting robot jam, the DC creative department worked with Midjourney to create visuals. The brief: what does creativity look like in the future? To unify these many visions, we developed a narrative frame: A man in a bunny suit, our officially unofficial mascot, watches interdimensional television on a desolate planet. Animation, motion graphics, editing, finishing, and sound design were also helmed by Jessica Wyatt, Banana Stand’s creative lead.

We’re going to hold your hand when we say this: The idea that AI makes production instant or effortless is a myth. Plenty of human hours went into this piece, hours spent thinking, shaping, revising, experimenting, finessing, and sparring with robots over prompts. The result is something we never could have made without AI – and something AI could never have made without us. In the end, it’s not human vs. machine; it’s human with machine. And for now, we’re still the loudest part of that duet.

To see more of our human-driven work, check out some of the links below.