Every time a new tool or algorithm comes out, I test drive it, to see where they're at, and if it might be of some use in my process chain. So a few days ago Runway Gen 3 arrived, in it's most basic form, and I made a spec video for a smaller band as a test of it's workflow. I'll send this over to those guys, and donate it to them, since their official video is fairly vanilla, and the track is racking up millions of views. Doesn't matter what happens after that, this was all about learning about RG3's benefits and disadvantages.
Now the part that's relevant to you other filmmakers, the review.
It's very good sometimes.
But those times are sporadic at best.
It has basically no controls or inputs, just a text field.
I need around 70-80 controls to direct a film with any nuance.
They are planning to add some of those controls later, but I already have them built, so kind of a step back from what I was already working with in many ways.
Visually, it's far superior to any of the previous models. Animation and coherency, same.
Usable ratio was pretty bad for me, and it took around 800 shots or so to get the 40 good ones I needed for this video. That's not out of the ordinary for filmmaking, I'm just saying that people going in should temper expectations. It doesn't just spit out the stuff you see in the commercials with no work. This video was maybe 30 hours work total.
I see myself using it a bit, to quickly create alpha channel animations for compositing and reanimating in the pipeline. This model does have some real strengths.
It can create greenscreen or isolated footage on command. That's quite useful, and did not work in previous builds.
It can create more convincing animations of more complex actions over a longer time. Still limited, but the best we've seen so far.
Bottom line, for a youtube creator, or someone who just needs stock footage, this is already fantastic. For filmmaking, it's not ready to use yet as a standalone suite. If you're in my position, and already set up to make a film without it, it's a formidable extra tool that handles some specific use cases better than anything out there.
For anyone curious about how to use a popular song in their videos. There is a way to do that, but it takes some effort. Pros already know this, but for the new kids on the block, here's the procedure. You take the song, make a video for it that's superior to the one they already have, and then present it to the band or record company that holds the rights to the song, either for sale, or gifted. If they accept it, then you've got a resume credential and some publicity.
I didn't do this one to make money, I just needed any random target to try out the new tech. I'll send it over to the artist today and see what they think.
For comparison, here's the original version of the same video. I picked one with a very low effort video, so I could easily surpass it.
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