DE

Workshop

What happens when machines join the work?

You can talk about machines for a long time. Here I show what I build with them: films, spaces, voices. Each report tells what the human did, what the machine did, and what it cost.

Workshop notes

Finished, or nearly finished

  1. Open-plan office with a neon sign reading “Make it pop”: an agency boss stands in front of his team on beanbags. 2:23

    01 · Series · Rough cut

    THE AGENCY

    What happens to an agency that sells hours when hours get cheap?

    of machine computing, episode and making-of
    15:28 h
    my time: 5:40 h measured on my turn, plus 50% for viewing
    8:30 h
    Claude tokens, 96% of them cache reads
    1.77 bn
    Read the notes
  2. Wheat field near Arles: a man in a suit holds an umbrella while a red-haired painter in a straw hat works at an easel. 2:28

    02 · Series · Finished

    ANCIENT MARKETING

    How much story can an artist take?

    from the first sentence to the rough cut
    ≈ 2 h
    takes, each one continuous clip
    14
    reshoots
    0
    Read the notes
  3. Over-bright office building with the KROLL logo at sunrise, rainbow, doves, lawn sprinklers. 1:34

    03 · Series · Finished

    Kroll. We get it done.

    What happens when a mid-sized company decides: as of today, we are AI?

    films: the corporate film and three episodes
    4
    video models tried for German dialogue
    3
    of image and video credits discarded, mostly searching for good German
    48%
    Read the notes
  4. Title frame of the infographic film: Kroll logo on dark blue, below it “Das dritte Quartal 2026” (The third quarter 2026). 1:23

    04 · Tool · Finished

    Kroll. The third quarter.

    What becomes of a meeting when the machine is listening?

    one transcript, six formats: Word, two CSV files, slides, a figures page, a film
    1 → 6
    figures, each with its moment in the conversation
    45
    tasks with a name and a date
    15
    Read the notes
  5. Black-and-white photo: a vintage studio microphone in front of a stack of manuscript pages on a dark wooden desk. The microphone cable lies in a loop on the paper and is the only element in color, a muted khaki.

    05 · Experiment · Finished

    An essay becomes an audio piece.

    How close can a machine get to a real audio feature?

    episodes, German and English, a little over twelve minutes each
    2
    versions until sign-off
    9
    ElevenLabs models compared: Multilingual v2, v3 and v4
    3
    Read the notes
  6. 3D animated cutaway of two rooms: on the left a bearded voice actor with headphones at a microphone in a foam-lined booth, on the right behind the glass a director with wild grey hair, round glasses and a mustard scarf at the mixing desk. 1:57

    06 · Film · Finished

    DIE SESSION

    How many directions can a single sentence take?

    sentence, read seven times
    1
    from the first draft to the finished film
    ≈ 2:15 h
    clips in the film, 18 of them lip-synced afterwards
    21
    Read the notes
  7. A dark ghost-train corridor: on a platform stand three glossy animatronics, a grim reaper, a vampire and a witch, with red LED eyes. In front of them a young woman in a pink hoodie holding a dust sheet and a huge stitched monster in a too-short tailcoat holding a letter. On the right, a veiled bride stands against the wall. 1:56

    07 · Film · Finished

    SCARED REDUNDANT

    Who gets scared by a machine that is never unsure?

    script versions until the metaphor held
    4
    from the first line to the finished film, one night included
    ≈ 22 h
    shots in the film, 30 clips generated
    22
    Read the notes

What runs through every case

Seven cases, five patterns

  1. Making gets cheap. Judgment stays expensive.

    In no case did the AI cost exceed about €134. Every time, the bottleneck was a human who looks and decides.

    THE AGENCY · Kroll. We get it done. · DIE SESSION · SCARED REDUNDANT

  2. Method beats tool.

    With the same machines, my time fell from eight and a half hours, making-of included, to just over three. What made the difference was what the first case had taught.

    THE AGENCY · ANCIENT MARKETING · SCARED REDUNDANT

  3. Choosing a model is procurement.

    At Kroll, almost half of the image and video credits went into the search for a model that speaks good German. That choice has to be made again and again, because the models change.

    Kroll. We get it done.

  4. Versions become a method, or every time starts from zero.

    Nine versions left standards behind that carry every further episode. Whoever files only results loses the reasons.

    An essay becomes an audio piece. · ANCIENT MARKETING

  5. The check runs before the human.

    Scripts check text, names, loudness, frame boundaries and lips. Sign-off stays with the human, and so does the question whether everyone agreed to the recording.

    Kroll. The third quarter. · An essay becomes an audio piece. · DIE SESSION

How I work here

  • The idea comes from a human. Script, selection, timing and every sign-off are mine. The machines are assistants.
  • Every number is measured. Times, credits and calls come from the production logs, not from memory. Euro amounts are converted at list price. How I measure →
  • AI content is labeled. Every video carries the “AI GENERATED” mark. People and companies in the films are fictional.