3 creative tips from our Flow Sessions artists

The biggest sparks often happen when artists are free to experiment, follow their instincts and bring personal stories to life.

Last September, we piloted our first-ever Flow Sessions, a creative partner program that brings together artists for six weeks to connect and build with Flow. Today we're closing the third chapter of our latest class of talented artists. This was the first time we focused on recruiting different kinds of creatives to understand how this tool might unlock something beyond traditional filmmaking. The artists span diverse disciplines, including journalism, advertising and fashion, and bring varying levels of AI experience.

Co-creation is at the heart of this program because we believe the best tools are built alongside the people who use them most. We are continually inspired by how creatives use Flow as a partner and an extension of their own vision.

Here are a few lessons we learned from this group:

1. Be open to surprises when you start.

Some of the most exciting work began with experimentation. Artist Julie Wieland used Flow "as an endless playground," following curiosities to inspire new directions as the story unfolded. Her project "Until We Meet Again" is a cyclical tale of a stone golem observing the fleeting life of a dandelion with every new season. In addition to using Flow, she used AI Studio to create an app to lower the frame rate to achieve a handmade stop-motion style and developed a complementary soundtrack to unify the piece. For Julie, the process was less about arriving at a final frame and more about discovering new possibilities in real time.

2. Don't be afraid to get personal.

As technology increasingly helps lower the barriers to storytelling, artist Calvin Herbst says creatives should "make what matters most to you." Marrying photography with AI, Calvin used archival 16mm footage from his childhood to train a style transfer in a separate tool, and experimented with animation techniques that transformed a memory of his dog into a visual elegy. His film, "A Small Gap in Time," is set in Calvin's sunlit childhood home, and captures surreal memories of a farewell to his dog, Annie, in a way he had not been able to do previously.

Another artist in the program, Stephane Benini believes, "what matters is what you're trying to say before you even touch Flow." His film, "Echoes of Us," tells the story of a father searching for his daughter across a world of fragmented memories. Stephane used Flow's volume of outputs and Veo's visual drift as storytelling techniques to move through complex feelings of nostalgia, grief and impermanence.

3. Use video as a tool for expression across industries.

Part of what makes Flow so unique is its ability to be used outside of traditional filmmaking by artists in other disciplines. In the short film "My Body Knows Things," fashion designer Charline Prat partnered with COMBO, a French creative studio, to imagine a world surrounding a real embroidered garment she designed. They used Flow to exaggerate textures and material qualities beyond what's physically achievable with sewing. To maintain visual consistency, the artists created reference libraries for Flow to pull from, ensuring that each fantasy world, texture and character remained consistent with their original vision.

Chloe Desaulles, a creative director and researcher, took a journalistic approach in her piece, "Veneer," which depicts a fictionalized New York City neighborhood that looks remarkably real. The work uses traditional documentary styles while exploring themes about realism in the context of AI-generated media.

This cohort was defined by their willingness to explore. Using Flow, these artists and filmmakers continue to discover new possibilities and unearth surprising creative directions.

Try Flow at flow.google.

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