Sora: What's all the fuss?

June 09, 2024

With new AI use cases flying all over the place, I feel it's best to get to grips with the big ones whilst they are relatively new.

Whilst 'Text-to-Video' is not new (in the world of AI: Runway VEED.IO and countless open source options on Hugging Face), it's what OpenAI have brought to the table in the form of SORA AI.

Let's Be Clear

What is SORA?

By now (I hope) you are familiar with 'Text-to-Image' solutions like DALL-E Open Ai and Midjourney.

These products allow the generation of an image from a text prompt. Simply, you tell the software what you want in your image and +poof+ magic happens.

The principle is the same for SORA except it's creating a video from your instructions. This is 'Text-to-Video'.

But in SORA's case, it's next level.

Let's See the Goods

I think it's best I show you an example:

And here is the prompt used to generate this video:

Prompt: Beautiful, snowy Tokyo city is bustling. The camera moves through the bustling city street, following several people enjoying the beautiful snowy weather and shopping at nearby stalls. Gorgeous sakura petals are flying through the wind along with snowflakes

Nothing too complicated.

It is possible to create videos with even simpler prompts, but one thing I have learned is to be clear and detailed when dealing with prompts.

But what is important here is that Sora can generate videos up to a minute long while maintaining visual quality and adhering to the prompt.

Here's another example with a bit more imagination:

Prompt: Several giant wooly mammoths approach treading through a snowy meadow, their long wooly fur lightly blows in the wind as they walk, snow covered trees and dramatic snow capped mountains in the distance, mid afternoon light with wispy clouds and a sun high in the distance creates a warm glow, the low camera view is stunning capturing the large furry mammal with beautiful photography, depth of field.

So What?

You may be thinking this all very interesting, but what does it mean for me?

When it comes to Marketing and Content Creation the tools you have at your finger tips are the difference between good and great content.

Here are a few ways you can leverage this tech for your team.

Content Marketing

From sponsored content to advertisements - the sky's the limits.

And I am excited to see how marketeers use tech like Sora. Whether that's creating new product videos using generated waterfalls as the backdrop to a new shampoo, or creating travel destination videos without the need to film locally.

Check out this video of the Amalfi Coast as an example. I can already picture it with the TUI branding:

Taking it one step further, if Sora integrates the use of text in the output video, you could technically make a whole digital advert within Sora - now that's exciting!

Storyboarding

Rapid prototyping and having the ability to share ideas is a must for Marketing teams.

What better way to translate the ideas in your head, into something others can see and interact with.

If you're trying to create a video concept and want to convey tone, movement, pacing etc - then using simple prompts to generate 3 to 5 videos would be extremely helpful.

Stock Video

Can't find the right video from the 1000's of videos available on stockvideo websites?

What if you could create your own original and on-brand stock footage in a matter of seconds. Suddenly you have brand assets which don't need to be filmed.

If Sora follows the same copyright model as Dall-e and Midjourney, then you would be able to own the rights to commecialise your creations.

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