Preface: not co-written with Claude. Picture taken in 2024 in Hong Kong at a Thai restaurant, text and picture are unrelated.

Posting things you think about and putting it under scrutiny of the public is a scary thing, writers are not exempted from it. The difference is that even scared, we don't cease to learn, to express, even if it may or may not be understood. To be completely honest, I did not read all the books I wrote about page to page. I skimmed through them, looking for tools that can help me improve my writings, while identifying possible issues of following their directions word for word. It's also coming from a place of care, I hope to let upcoming writers, like me, to know that it's okay to take risks, to dare to question the prestigious books, even though the fact the books are so widely used proves how useful they are. While these books are being praised for all their brilliance, I thought the opposing view is equally important: read them, learn a ton from them, admire authors genius-ness, but also forget about them, and trust your instincts when your heart says, this story has to be told this way. Because there's a genius inside you as well. But to do these books justice, I've decided to actually read them word for word this time, and take notes.

To be completely honest again, the posts have gained more interest than I expected, and it's getting scary. I feel like I'm being held against a higher standard: not just free writing my thoughts anymore, it has to be better organized, more reliable, or at least I feel like I have to have carefully examined the text or whatever it is i'm writing about, for me to feel confident about my opinions, instead of half-formed complains. But people's ideas and perspectives are always changing, being "fully-formed" means being stubborn, and I don't want to be stubborn, I want to be open. I am open. So I guess I'll always write about things I feel at the moment, and my opinions and heart will change later. That's okay right? Just part of being an indecisive human. But anyways, here are the notes and my second and a more serious, personal review of the books we discussed from post 13 to 16. I say we "discussed", but it's more like a one way street of me dumping my unorganized thoughts onto you. I do wish to have discussions on these though, I'm just not sure how to go about it yet.

I know I'm writing about "filmmaking in the age of AI", and it is what it's about. "In the age of AI" is the keyword. It's about filmmaking, but it's also about the timing. What can we do with these new tools? What are these tools good at, where do they fall short? To what degree should we be okay with the use to artificial intelligence to make our work still feel personal, real, and reflective of our inner worlds, while substituting the time spent on more tedious tasks for more serious creative work, using it as a second opinion, a fact checker, an information gathering research tool, a sounding board that help us piece things together.

It is about filmmaking, but it's also a journal of my journey, what I read, how I use what I read against what I write, and right now, I'm on the "rewriting the third draft" stage. I'm going to revisit the books while dissecting my draft, putting all of it online in real time. I'm going to deviate from reading voluminous text without fully digesting them just to give myself a quick to-do list. I'm going to carefully read, and compare it with what I have, jotting it all down here. And when I have a draft that's somewhat closer to being complete, I will move onto the next stage, which is casting, rehearsing, location, production, sound, directing actors, editing, visual effects. If you are coming in here to look for some magic tricks to teach you how to make movies overnight, this isn't the place to be. I'm not equipped with the knowledge to teach anyone, what I can do, is to share my struggles, what I'm going through, and how I solve them, so that anyone else that's on a creative journey can feel less alone. Anyways, this is brain in real time, deal with it. lol.