Back in high school, I took a graphic design class during which I learned to use Adobe InDesign and Photoshop. My image editing experience ends there — and I haven't even touched video.
Theoretically, that makes me an ideal candidate to test Runway, a generative AI platform that aims to make photo editing and filmmaking more accessible to the general public.
The platform has already made a splash in the echelon of Oscar winners: Its tools were critical to producing best picture winner "Everything Everywhere All at Once." And brands like New Balance are using the tool for brainstorming, storyboarding, and prototyping, Insider previously reported.
Runway relies on AI models to let users revamp images and videos in a variety of creative ways, and create images from text prompts.
But its most unique feature is that it can generate full videos from text prompts. Right now, that feature is only available to a limited set of users on the chat app Discord, Axios reported. I wasn't able to access it for the purpose of this story, and Runway did not immediately respond to Insider's request for a comment.
In a previous interview with Insider, Runway's cofounder Cristóbal Valenzuela said the platform's ultimate goal is to make itself available to artists with and without resources.
"It's the responsibility of every generation of artist to use the maximum amount of tech out there to make art," Valenzuela said. "Art is a point of view, it doesn't need to be technical or sophisticated, it just needs to communicate something that's meaningful."
Still, I was a little skeptical that I would actually produce anything of artistic value in my trial of Runway.
Here's a closer look at my experience: