Simone Nobili

"Oh hell there he go again messin with other people's IP!" So many WAN-Animate experiments are rolling through my feed but so few are focused on full-body transformation. Everyone is showing waist-up, hands and face. Why? That has already been out. WAN is better than Act-2 at waist up, but imo the unique part of WAN-Animate is that it can do full body. With unique hair motion! Here is my experiment. One piece of stock footage, body-transferred into 10 different people in 10 different outfits, all wearing the same Nike Vaporfly 4's. The shot was broken into shorter clips, start frames were generated using Nanobanana, run through WAN-animate, and then cut back together in AE with some light comp work (mostly to fix differences in the regenerated bg). I think this would be quite hard to do using any other means: maybe shoot 10 people running on a track and get them all to maintain the exact same body position/foot placement etc through the entire sequence? Or how about reskinning the same CG rig with 10 characters with different hair, skin, outfits etc? Sounds hard. At the end I pulled stills of the Vaporfly 4's and did some Kling start frame / end frame gens to get a kinetic product shot at the end. The logo break / reform at the end is also Kling with AE time displacement on top. ***The Mago beta looks amazing for this stuff, I probably should redo this whole project tomorrow 😭

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Here’s a dangerous thought about the future of all creative industries: In this new world of AI-powered thinking, once an idea is spoken, it’s already in production. And until it’s shipped, it’s still being concepted. Once the dust settles, curious and talented people will be fine. But not sure any currently operating structure will still remain. How are you preparing for that?

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Why do we give Creative Directors classifications of Art or Copy? Do Art CDs just ignore all headlines? Do Copy CDs not care about typography? CDs oversee both. They should master both the power of a period and clever use of white space. In fact, I think CDs should be more than that. Great CDs need to be salesmen, strategists, behavioral scientists, mentors, and more. What do you think when you see Art/Copy CD titles and roles? #advertising #creative #creativedirection

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It’s been one year since Donut Studios was acquired by New Engen. Since then, New Engen’s been named Digiday's Most Innovative Agency of 2025 and ranked Top 5 on ADWEEK's Fastest Growing Large Agencies list. It's been energizing to be part of a team pushing the industry forward, and even better doing it with a partner moving just as fast. Having been through a few very different acquisitions, here’s what my cofounders Brian John Kim Arielle Jessel and I learned: When acquisitions do work: — You share a bias for action — Leadership styles are complementary — The vision gets bigger, not blurrier — The team gains more, not less (career growth, resources, flexibility) — You scale without losing momentum (stay operationally sharp: rethink roles, shift team structures, adapt in real time) When acquisitions don’t work: — The cultures don’t align — Decision-making slows down — Productivity gets buried under process — You spend more time in meetings than making things — What made you great gets diluted < big watch out If you’re considering an acquisition, I’d ask: — Can you move at the same speed? — Do you solve problems the same way? — Will your teams make each other better? — Will the culture scale with the business? — Can you grow without losing your edge? — What gets easier post-acquisition - and what get harder? — Will your people feel more supported, or more sidelined? — Are you merging missions or just combining headcount? We waited for the right fit, and I’m really, REALLY glad we did.

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ChatGPT went down yesterday. And modern creatives did too. Suddenly, the brainstorms got quiet. Decks stalled. Output crawled to a snail's pace. Not because people couldn’t create. But because they’ve forgotten how to start without a prompt. Meanwhile, some of us - those who wrote scripts in Word docs, pitched ideas without Midjourney mood boards, and learned to trust our gut before the algorithm - barely noticed the outage. We just did what we’ve always done. We made it work. We made work. When I got my first job as a Copywriter back in 'The Day™', I brought a physical dictionary with me. The CD at the time laughed and asked why I had it when we had Google. I said, "I'm ready for when the internet goes down..." (I don't think I once used it, but still... the point stands 😂) This isn’t a smug generational pat on the back. It’s a serious question: What happens when creativity becomes contingent on connectivity? The allure of AI is obvious: it speeds things up, smooths the edges, fills in the blanks. But when it goes offline, what’s left? A blank page… and often, a blank stare. So how do we fix it? 🔧 Don’t let AI do the hard thinking for you. Use it as a partner, not a pilot. 🧠 Reinvest in critical thinking, taste, and intuition; skills no outage can interrupt. 💡 Make space for boredom, friction, and slow ideas... the birthplace of true originality. Because the best creatives don’t just use tools. They become them. But as soon as we forget that, we're just one server crash away from creative paralysis.

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Ok this is super interesting and as a creative if you are not paying attention to foundational tools right now you are going to be left behind… Runway just raised $315M to scale world models… yes world models. Most people read that as a big bet on AI video. But I think it’s something much bigger. Runway is building world models. (Says old school Flash kid) Systems that understand physics, light, space, time, and causality. And if that sounds too pie in the sky, here’s the more grounded version… imagine a creative environment where you no longer manipulate pixels or edit frames. You describe what you want, and a model that has internalized how reality actually works builds it for you. Spatially coherent. Physically accurate. Editable. Extensible. That changes what a creative tool even is! Right now, creative tools are essentially a sophisticated manipulation environment. You push pixels. You cut frames. You adjust layers. Even the best generative AI tools are still prompt in, asset out. The tool is the product. World models move the value beneath all of that. If the intelligence lives in the model, if the model is the environment, then the tool becomes just an interface. A skin. And whoever owns the model owns the platform. Look at who invested in this round. NVIDIA. ADOBE. AMD. Those companies didn’t invest in a creative tool. They invested in foundational compute infrastructure. This move tells me everything about where this is going… We’ve seen this pattern before. The shift from print to digital didn’t just change the tools. It changed what a tool even was. World models have that same vibe. The question for every creative company, agencies definitely included, is are you building on top of the current architecture or preparing for the next one? We (Code and Theory) have spent the last few years building systems that treat creativity as something living, adaptive, responsive, evolving in real time. World models are the foundation that makes all of that possible. Pay attention. https://lnkd.in/eaRH_FSz

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What happens when independent agencies succumb and give up what they stood for. Their agency manifestos that they were initially built on. They will steadily start loosing out on the most valuable parts of businesses and will be left handling high-volume, low-meaning work that demands speed more than thinking. As more of that work will start becoming automated, by tools clients can easily deploy themselves, the retainer fee will be then renegotiated down to unsustainable levels. And at that point, the pressure will be on the investors behind these indie companies. How long will clients be willing to keep holding on to indie agencies who are no longer delivering meaningful margins? That’s when in-house client teams will flourish. And that’s when Advertising will die. And it will be marketing driven teams only with a bunch of graphic designers and Ai automations to deliver bulk and quick- just like a cold brick pizza.

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A lot of people are freelance right now. Some by choice, some not. However you ended up here, it’s never quite what you expect. There’s no guidebook. No induction. Most of us are figuring it out mid-air. And soon realize that we aren’t set up for success. So, if you’ve found yourself self-employed here’s a few sites and resources that might be helpful. This is not an exhaustive list at all, but here goes: (Mostly relevant if you’re in the UK or US.) 🔹 Get an accountant. Yes, it’s an expense. But it should (in the long run) pay for itself. Especially if you’re juggling different currencies, clients, or tax systems. 🔹 Set up your company properly. UK: Sole trader vs Limited Company. US: LLC vs S Corp. Ask someone who’s done it. My accountant told me if you’re earning over $100k/ £80k, it’s probably worth it. If not, maybe wait and scope it out later. 🔹 Talk to other freelancers about rates. Don’t guess. And don’t just go off what recruiters tell you because it’ll always be 20% less than what you can really get. Real numbers come from conversations with other real freelancers. 🔹 Track your time. So boring, but please keep your own timesheets, even if no one asks. Because someone will eventually. And you’ll have no idea what you did last Thursday. 🔹 Use invoicing software. QuickBooks, Xero, Revolut, whatever it is. Pay for something that keeps it all in one place. You will lose track and it will send you insane. 🔹 Find your freelance people. The ones who’ll send you a spare brief, recommend you, or voice note you at 11pm when you’re spiralling. You need them. And they need you. Freelance can be freeing. But also lonely, messy, and a EXTREMELY feral. But admin is part of the job, and so is asking for help. So, leave the shame at the door. And yes, you’ll probably need to make peace with spreadsheets. Here's the free resource document I pulled together with links and other bits here: 👉  https://lnkd.in/e2_asnVf (Please feel free to share.) And if you’ve got your own resouruces, these ones are slightly out of date, I would love to add yours 👇 #FreelanceTips #CreativeBusiness #WeAreShelance #FreelanceUK #FreelanceUSA ----- 👋 I’m Hollie Fraser, I'm a Freelance Creative Director. Full-time Resource-Sharer. 💜 Founder of We Are Shelance. A global collective of top freelance talent.  ⚡ Find your next fantastic freelancer with Shelance

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