# midjourney matching v.1

## intro
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So, we’ve all seen ai-generated images.

Today, they’re everywhere...

##### cut to stream of midjourney images

and they are probably the first piece of generative ai content most people saw.

AI art started to hit mainstream social media in the spring and summer of 2022, but it became a major conversation after

##### cut to [nytimes article and art](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/technology/ai-artificial-intelligence-artists.html)

/this work/ won a fine art prize in Colorado

Now, they're being strung together to create ads:

##### cut to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE39q-IKOzA)

and trailers:

##### cut to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-8DT5Q8kzI)

Today, we'll be using an activity to explore the strengths an d weaknesses of the most widely-known ai image generator:

##### cut to graphic, maybe made with deforum?

/Midjourney/

We'll be matching quotes from five shakespeare plays:

##### cut to graphic of list of plays

Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Midusmmer Nights Dream, Macbeth,and King Lear

... to the image generated from said quote.

##### cut to edited video

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## outro

As you can see, syntax was a huge issue. We were actually the most efficient when only presented with the images.

This is interesting, as the midjourney prompts never featured the play names. When fed the play names, the generated images were too obvious:

##### cut to kevin's images generated from the names

Yet, we were going off of plot points and guessing the quotes. The quotes themselves ended up confusing us a bit.

And this comes down to how prompting works on midjourney:

some ai understands long commands, that are linguistically complex. It can parse the syntax of a demand, to clearly understand what you DONT and DO want

##### cut to screen grab of a chatGPT conversation

But midjourney does not "think" in the way ai chatbots do. It doesn't understand complex commands, but uses simplistic syntax (red + dog) to "dream." These dreams result in complex, fractal-like images that you can tweak with stylistic cues.

We have a full video on midjourney, which covers a tutorial, applications, and prompoting theory and tips. To learn more, check out the video here, and as always, please like and subscribe.