Brief, idea, process: Creative Partners and Upscale Day

On 4th November I spent time in Malaga with the Magnific team. In the morning I was in their office for a meeting, which they invited only a selected group of Creative Partners to.

During the Community Morning, the Magnific team shared updates and solutions they are planning. I can't reveal the details yet. They also asked what else we might need and what they can do for us as a community.

After the meeting, there was also brunch and networking with other creators. I also met two people who took part in last year's Prompt Battle with me: Kike Rodriguez Lopez and Fabiana Aguilar. I really like Kike's animations and the entire narrative built around his pacynka.

In the evening, the Upscale Day took place in the auditorium of Museo Picasso. The theme: brands today want series, returning characters and worlds that audiences return to. The program had three parts: Magnific keynote, a case of an ad made without a photo shoot plan, and a panel on storytelling. Below are my notes from each of them.

I compiled the entire day's report into a reel in Magnific Move, which I controlled with Claude.

The links to Magnific in this article are affiliate links. When you use them for a paid offer, I receive a commission. The price for you remains the same, and the commission helps me develop the knowledge base.

Process is a new step in creative work

The keynote was opened by Joaquín Cuenca. He spoke about pace: every two or three months models can do something that was previously impossible. An example from video: once the model received the first and last frame, so when the character turned around, it had to guess what they looked like from behind. Today it receives references, for example a character sheet, and uses them throughout the shot. The takeaway from the scene: we all start from scratch, regardless of what we have written in our position.

Nicklas Hansen leads the creative team at Magnific, which only works with AI. He showed that between the idea and the execution, a new step has appeared: process. The client asks for a photo, video or campaign, and the team builds them a tool, workflow or entire production. Examples from his presentation:

• For a sports clothing brand, the team built a path from a flat shirt design through material and size to a photo on a model.
• The client wanted the same film with a different character, so they received a workflow that replaces the character and works in subsequent countries.
• The concept for a beer brand campaign was composed entirely in one chat window by the team.

Hansen summed it up with the phrase 'relatable beats wow': people remember content they can relate to, and the special effect makes an impression for a moment.

An ad without any photos

Yago de la Sotilla from Glassy Films talked about the campaign for the insurer AEGON in Spain. From the brief to the TV broadcast, they had just one month. The film features 27 characters in 22 outfits across 12 locations, and everything was created using AI. Glassy usually produces hybrid productions: they film what is unique and protected in the campaign, such as the product or the actor, and generate the rest. Here, they suggested recording the actors, but the client wanted the first fully AI-powered insurance campaign in Spain.

They worked like on a set: storyboard, casting, locations and costumes, pre-production meeting, after which nothing changed, then days of generation, editing, sound and colour correction. The director and operator worked remotely, each from a different city. Lessons I took from this:

• AI doesn't know your story. The more precisely you tell a scene, like you would tell a bedtime story to a child, the better the result.
• Every prompt was made twice: one precise according to the director and one looser. The looser version often gave shots that ended up in the film.
• Instead of writing 'a bit bigger', they wrote '10% bigger', and instead of 'faster', they wrote 'twice as fast'.
• Characters are directed like a director directs an actor: they describe what the character should feel.
• Shots were approved in the team. The client watched the video immediately, because it's hard to imagine movement from a single frame.
• According to some, sound, music and voices make up 60% of the effect, so editing and sound design were treated as separate crafts.
• The images on the buses and outdoor displays required a lot of retouching on faces, skin and hair.
• The campaign has an AI label, in accordance with EU regulations.

We produced it like a shoot. The only thing missing was the camera. Slide from Glassy Films, Upscale Day Málaga

Story is more important than the tool

Panel 'Storytelling in Film with AI' was led by Linus Ekenstam. On stage were Ángela Sarria, who is responsible for Originals and the community at Magnific, Kavan the Kid from Phantom X, and Javier de la Chica and Guillermo Miranda from Contanimation. Everyone came back to one point: the tools are available to everyone today, so what makes the difference is the story and the person who tells it.

• Kavan the Kid regularly, every month on the first Tuesday, releases another episode of his YouTube series 'Chronicles of Bone', each around 25-30 minutes long. There's no mercy here: conferences, travel and so on, and the project has to be delivered. He said that in the week before Málaga, he slept only three hours a day, although he himself advises to sleep at least six. I know this from somewhere: you wake up in the morning, sit down and work, and keep doing that until victory. Sometimes, like in that meme, it turns out that sleep is for the weak, and AI was supposed to speed up work so we could work less.
• With dozens of characters, Kavan needs to have the entire story mapped out, otherwise the plot lines get lost. Scenes that don't fit into an episode are moved to the next ones.
• Contanimation said that working with AI today is more about selection than creation. They throw out beautiful shots if they don't serve the story.
• They design their characters with intentional ugliness, for example with spikes on their faces. This makes it harder to maintain consistency between shots, but it gives the characters personality.
• They tell Spanish stories and see that the local content reaches audiences around the world.
• We had a long conversation with Javier and Guillermo in Málaga. They are wonderful guests with huge experience in traditional animation. We talked about the hype that spreads as soon as someone senses AI.
• Ángela Sarria described Magnific Originals: the company provides creators with tools, funding and distribution, while creative control remains with the authors.

What I take from this

AI has drastically reduced the cost of generating a hundred shots. The real value has shifted to the ability to reject ninety-nine of them. At Upscale Day, everyone talked about this: Glassy generated about 80 clips that they didn’t use, Contanimation throws away successful shots, and Kavan moves entire scenes to later episodes. Everyone works like a film crew, with a story, a plan, and decisions they don’t change later.

As always, after events at Magnific, I return inspired. Thank you Myriam Valle and Ángel Sarria for the invitation. Find out more about the event on Upscale Day Málaga page.

Photos: Magnific (cover, Creative Partners meeting and brunch), Krystian Wydro (Upscale Day at Museo Picasso).