Another experiment, this time using Davinci to try and turn text into video. As with any tool, what you use for your experiments will determine not only with what you get for your efforts, but how interested and motivated you are to use the service more.
There is such a range of intro experiences with these services. Most make you sign into a trial account before you get anything. But even then, to get output, you often are prevented until you sign up for some upgraded account.
I get it, creating videos and other things from AI can get very expensive. But in order to see what can be done, how long it takes, how easy it is to do, etc. – well, you sort of have to be able to complete something representative.
And that then comes to the challenge of the blank slate. I sometimes play with ongoing ideas/themes so I am both not starting from scratch, as well as invested in the results.
But that doesn’t always make sense. With Davinci, I just tried playing with something new:
Start with a white room. Slowly into the room roll and bounce balls of different sizes and colors. As more balls enter the room, they start bouncing into each other and eventually seem to form a creature made just of the balls.
And this is what it came up with for me:
Meet Ballzac. Those are French balls, specifically post-Napoleonic. I just state that in case you’re a ball afficianado.
I’m playing with subtleties between image creation tools, as well. The intro image to this post was using Gemini, as I have traditionally done. Gemini also then helped me enhance my prompt and suggested I try it elsewhere. I did, at Midjourney:
A square, top-down flat lay photograph looking down on a rustic, dark-grained wooden table. In the center lies an old vintage book bound in worn, dark brown woven fabric. On the front cover is a small, off-white fabric label neatly stitched around the edges, printed with the antique serif text: “La Comédie” as the title and “Ballzac” as the author. Beside the book sits a half-finished ceramic cup of black coffee on a matching saucer, with slight crema clinging to the rim. Scattered nearby across the wooden surface are several small, smooth spheres and felt balls of assorted bright and muted colors (teal, ochre, crimson, and olive). Warm, soft overhead directional lighting with gentle shadows.
Besides it changed it to “Ballac” it is a little more what I had been aiming for.
Updated (2026-09-20): Playing with the video-generating features of Gemini, I tried this ball experiment again. I was very pleased, both at the final product and the speed: