MEDCOM Panama today produces several of its most important promos and campaigns, with generative artificial intelligence.
Richard Santa
Artificial intelligence is here to transform the audiovisual industry. Today the fundamental challenge is to know how to adopt and adapt it, to facilitate the day-to-day production and post-production processes. And that is exactly what they have achieved at MEDCOM Panama.
During the last few years, a group of professionals have been dedicated to researching and learning about this technology, managing to produce a good number of their most important branding promotions and content, with this tool. To find out all the details of this process, TVyVideo+Radio spoke with Robert García, Creative Manager of MEDCOM Panama.
He recalled that the first steps were taken, when they faced a problem with the audio of content recorded in a desert in Qatar for the 2022 World Cup. At that point they found a solution from Adobe, which allowed them to correct the audio the first time, without major operational traumas. This sparked a greater interest in researching new machine learning tools.
He added that "I have more than 30 years in the industry and I know that bad audio is a real problem, very difficult to repair. At that time our Special Projects Coordinator Guido Ramírez - who for me has been a cornerstone and key factor in this whole issue, because he has been passionate about discovering new things and researching solutions - proposed to fix it with this tool and it was perfect the first time. In addition, the repair was real-time. That's when I thought: the world and our industry have just changed."
The first tools were based on machine learning applications. Then came generative artificial intelligence of images and videos for professional level, and that changed several perspectives for us. At MEDCOM, the first thing we activated were copywriting topics, using ChatGPT and training it to write promotional texts.
"We do between 80 and 120 on-air promos a week, which is a huge volume. So we said, there are some copies that can be made by this tool. I remember that the first time we entered it, we used 30 copies of mine and fed that to the tool. So I asked him for a copy for a film and I was surprised, because he wrote very similar to me, with my style. To this day, many of the copies we make week after week are made by this tool, curated and adjusted by us," recalled Robert García.
At MEDCOM we generate a GPT for novel promos, a GPT for films, a GPT for institutional pieces, with prompts built to respond to each need. The curing or adjustment process is becoming less and less, because it is getting better and better.
First successful experience: Calle 7
Calle 7 is a competition program - where two teams face each other physically - with great recognition in Panama and audience leader in its time slot, broadcast from Monday to Friday. "For its tenth anniversary, the idea was to present all the winners, but it was an almost impossible task to bring them together, since some were not even in the country or had radically changed their look. We decided to try doing the anniversary promo with AI, using historical photos of each of them, turning them into superheroes."
"We wanted to do like an Avengers, with superpowers. Some were flying, some were muscular, strong, some had electricity, lightning in their hands, things like that. We used Midjourney and the result was very cool. Then we thought about animating them with Runway and gave it a prompt with the personality of each one, with details that outlined them individually. That was our first piece, generating images, animating them with AI," he explained.
After this anniversary campaign, they decided that all the seasons of Calle 7 were going to be made with AI, because Calle 7 is a young program, which is watched by young audiences, that's why its promo always has that modern and irreverent touch. For the following season, the production gave a concept called The Factory, for which they thought of an industrial theme, which is enriched with fire, smoke, earth, iron, heat and molten metal, everything that the hostility of the industrial has.
He stressed that "AI likes us, it treats us well, because for the campaign of the following season of Calle 7 it gave us a tremendous result. What do we do? we combine traditional assembly technique with AI tools. We don't let the AI edit, we edit the piece. So, the AI provides us with the scenes and against those scenes we edit. In addition, our prompts include details such as camera type, lens type, framing, lighting, and optics. Part of the team that is in production and the creative area has also helped us there, to tell us to put in such a lens, such lighting or such a camera. That has also helped us a lot."
He added that "One of the keys is that we are working with the usual criteria, but with modern technology. In other words, the instruction we give to AI is as if we were giving it to a director, a director of photography, a photographer, a screenwriter, an animator designer or a musicalizer, it is one more collaborator within the team. The creative team meets to generate ideas, and we give them these technical criteria as instruction."
Thanks to the result of the promo of Calle 7 La Fábrica, she was registered in the Open TV Awards, awards given in New York to creativity in open television for the entire Latin American region. The piece was nominated in shortlist in the reality, artificial intelligence and film categories. And they won in the film category. Robert García recalled that "For me it was a great surprise, because not a single take was filmed. So one thinks, the judges have advanced criteria and adapted to the new scenarios. I think it's very important and very interesting, because you're not rewarding the filming process, you're rewarding the result of the filming, and in the end this is filming, it's just virtual filming."
And he added that "I don't want to be misunderstood, because suddenly what I'm saying can offend camera directors, film directors. If you put me between AI and real realization, I'm left with real realization. But where does AI seem to me to work? Where do I think AI is powerful, hard, power? When you do with it what you couldn't do with filming. We couldn't film the Calle 7 piece La Fábrica as we conceived it, because we didn't have the resources or the time for that. So where does AI come in there? To make possible what is not possible."
Robert García also stressed that ethical factors are very important. "There will always be those who transcend respect and the law, that is inevitable. But as long as it's regulated correctly, that's going to be restricted. There must be limits and they must be adhered to. The process of generating images is delicate, because I can take a photo, make a video and put someone's face in that video. It is something that must be taken care of and the rights of the people involved must be respected. There has to be a legal scenario happening behind this, regulations adapted to this new scenario to protect human talent, because the world is changing so fast, that no one has seen it coming."
Constant learning
Robert García is a publicist by profession, with 34 years in the industry. His beginnings in Venezuela were at Radio Caracas Television, then he went through Venevisión, where he became Vice President of Image, and for 11 years he has been Manager of Creativity at Medcom in Panama. In each of his positions he has faced important challenges, both technically and creatively.
The team he leads today as creative head is made up of about 20 people, including coordinators, producers and designers, who have managed to develop a highly competitive work, due to the volume of promos they must do weekly. With the support of AI, they have had a constant learning process. They learn a lot with each piece made.
"With artificial intelligence, creativity is key. You have to create for the tool and know it. The creative process has to be very specific, that's the key. You have to use time in the prompt process. To want to speed up the prompt process is to have a bad result from the outset. It is a painstaking process of trial and error. When we started there was no way to train, there were no experts to teach. It was daring and trying. We take advantage of two great talents that our team has, luck and courage. Today we are formally training, and we have learned that the same tools have their propmts improvers, which allows the processes to be constantly improved. I feel that at MEDCOM, modesty aside, we have been pioneers in this issue in Panama, with high quality and competitive results," he said.
AI tools are used to optimize videos, repair audio, lengthen videos, and optimize processes. Chat GPT is used to optimize already trained copywriting processes. For the generation and animation of images they use tools with very good standards, including Midjourney and Runway, in addition, they have incorporated others such as Freepik, KlingAI and NanoBanana.
To have these tools and train us in their use, they have had the help and support of Lorena Sánchez, the Director of Open TV, the General Director of Media Manuel Pico, the Director of Technology Javier Della Cella and the Senior Manager of Human Management Israel Barcos, who have trusted in the work they are doing and support both processes and investments. "The group's managers have been very open to technology, they are not afraid to explore new things. That's why we're using the best technologies available today, and the result is showing."
Robert García concluded this interview with TVyVideo+Radio by pointing out that "Without wanting to polemicize, I can say that AI is going to replace us, but in the specific functions we do now, and at work as we see it now. We are going to become another type of professional, television is going to retain its power and strength, but the processes of content generation are going to change. We are living through one of the most important moments of change in humanity, compared to the industrial revolution, but much faster. The historical process of change and replacement of functions has already occurred before, and human beings have demonstrated the ability to reinvent themselves and adapt to the new scenario. For me the word replace is not negative, it is the evolution of the world. The television producer and content generator is not going to disappear, it must be updated and evolve by interacting with AI, as a determining tool in its creative and operational work".
