A Creative Career That Can't Be Automated

AI is coming for your job. The question isn't whether you'll need to adapt. It's can you adapt fast enough to matter.

I've been watching this play out. The scribblers who think they're safe because they've got credits or union protection? They're the ones who will get blindsided.

It’s not about being good anymore. It's being adaptable.

Tech Evolves Faster Than Fear

When I was breaking into features in the '90s, everyone said Final Draft would kill scribbling. Then non-linear editing would destroy the craft. Then Netflix would murder theatrical. And then streaming would kill TV.

Art never dies. The artists just learn new tricks.

My dad was a motorsports photographer. When the world went digital, he freaked out for six months. Then he bought a DSLR and kept shooting. His tools changed. His eye didn't.

AI is another one of those tech/gear shifts. Bigger, faster, and not waiting for you to catch up.

Stop Waiting for the Greenlight

Working in features and network TV I needed a studio greenlight and millions of dollars to make something. Now, the barrier to creating across platforms is basically zero.

You can rough scenes with ChatGPT, storyboard with Midjourney, previz in Runway. Then shoot your flick on your iPhone, add effects with Premiere, and post on YouTube.

But none of that matters if you don't know how to tell an emotional story that is relatable and relevant to humans.

During the Lost years, JJ was obsessed with tracking characters emotionally. Not mythology. Not mystery boxes. He wanted to know how each character’s felt in every scene. AI can generate plot beats all day, but it can't tell you if your character's emotional journey actually tracks.

That's the piece you protect. It makes you irreplaceable.

If you can ideate, develop, produce, and release your work - even in bite-sized formats - you're a studio of one. Not renting someone else's distribution. Creating your own system.

The tools are incredible. The hardest part is not letting them make you lazy.

AI Doesn’t Need Ideas, It Needs Taste

I've spent more than twenty years giving notes to scribblers, directors, editors, and actors. "Make it faster." "Play the subtext." "Turn happens here, not there."

That's basically what prompting is. You're giving notes to an intelligence that doesn't have taste yet.

This is where my ADHD helps. I can finally externalize all those story threads bouncing around in my head, visualize them, test them faster than any whiteboard ever allowed.

Start practicing. Treat prompting like scene direction. Create your own "AI bible" - a document of tone, rhythm, and themes your tools can learn from.

You don't need to code. You need to communicate precisely. And if you're any good at this craft, you already know how to do that. If you don’t know how, you need to learn.

Your Scars Are Not Replaceable

Beyond the Terminator/Skynet of it all, scary part isn't AI itself. It's the idea that someone will use AI to make everything feel the same. It’s gonna be slop city.

When we were developing Hannibal, NBC's note was always "make it more accessible." Bryan Fuller's response? "Make it weirder."

That show shouldn't have existed on network TV, but it did because Bryan refused to average it out. He leaned into what makes him unique. His voice, his taste, his love for oddity.

AI averages everything. It's trained on the middle of the bell curve. The only way to beat it is to live in the tails.

Your unique life experience - the trauma, the joy, the messed-up family stories - that's your competitive advantage. The most valuable thing you own is the stuff that happened to you that nobody else lived through.

On Alias, we made Sydney Bristow a grad student from a broken home who happened to be a spy. We had scribblers who had experienced that kind of family trauma. And scribblers who knew the A-Z of espionage, including the human toll.

If it's strange, specific, or humanly flawed, it has value. The algorithm can't fake your scars.

Story Is a Shared Space

Old model: lone scribbler trying to get past gatekeepers.

New model: small team of collaborators creating a universe.

Scribbling for transmedia and video games taught me storytelling isn't always about control. Sometimes it's about setting conditions for emergent storytelling.

I work on VALORANT, and it blows my mind watching millions of players around the world create their own narratives in our sandbox. Representation and positivity in those characters matter on a global scale in ways that transcend OG TV.

My son's at SCAD film school. I tell him: find your Rebels. The sound designer who gets your vibe. The visual artist who can draw your characters. The producer who loves your unique taste. The actors who can tap and share their humanity.

Work together. Own it together. And ship the stuff before anyone gives you permission.

Heroes transmedia succeeded because NBC let us bring in collaborators from comics, gaming, and web series. We weren't protecting territory. We were connecting platforms.

Legacy Hollywood worshipped the lone auteur. The AI era rewards small, nimble teams who move fast and think wide.

Creative Freedom For The Win

I started scribbling because I could control my output and what I put on the page. After I got movie gigs I started to measure success by how many I could get. Then I pivoted to TV and measured my success by ratings and a paycheck. Then by whether I had my own show. Then whether it got renewed.

I went from understanding the value of intrinsic metrics, to extrinsic values the put all the power outside my control.

Now I measure success by whether I'm making things I'd want to watch. Whether I'm learning. Whether I'm collaborating with people who inspire me.

Old Hollywood measured success by permission - who let you in, who financed you. The new economy measures it by connection - who you can reach, who engages, who cares.

Retention beats reach.

Engagement beats exposure.

Creative freedom beats fame.

You're not climbing a studio ladder anymore. It’s not really there anymore. You need to grow your own creative world.

Treat Everything Like a Prototype

If you've made it this far, try these action items:

Make something small every week. Character sketch. Scene. Pitch doc. Use AI for the grunt work, obsess over the soul.

Learn to promp and direct AI. It takes practice. Keep refining. Don’t settle for it’s first pass.

Document your weirditude. The raw notes, strange thoughts, and lived moments become your creative corpus - the dataset that is uniquely you.

Find your tribe. Assemble your small team. Three people who give a damn will always beat a committee of twenty. And ship before you're ready. Share your output. Accept the input.

I've been scribbling professionally for thirty years. Every five or so, someone declares the industry dead. It never does. It just evovles.

If you're waiting for things to go back to normal, you're already finished. Studios will use AI to take control from creatives, replace the middle managers with machines, and limit headcount. Streamers will flood platforms with cheap content. Game companies will prototype faster and cheaper.

When the future shows up, don't sweat protecting your job. You can invent a new version.

Stay curious. Keep scribbling.

Addendum: AI-Prep Habits for Filmmakers

Ten-Minute Lab: Experiment with one AI tool daily. Visualize, summarize, or remix.

Reverse-Engineer Your Heroes: Feed your favorite scenes into analysis tools. Study the mechanics, not the mythology.

Maintain a Creative Corpus: Archive scripts, journals, and ideas. You're training your future creative model.

Prototype Weekly: Treat every idea like a test flight, not a thesis. Publish fast.

Collaborate and Ship: Form your creative constellation and share micro-projects publicly.

Keep a Weirdness Log: The odd, emotional, specific details of your life are your unfair advantage.

Stay Human-Centered: Lead with empathy, humor, and imperfection. That will always be your analog edge.