Over the weekend, I watched a documentary about the making of Wicked. I will take all of the BTS content I can get, but one part stood out to me more than any other: the sets.

They actually built three massive sets: one for the Emerald City, one for Munchkinland, and one for Shiz, the university.

Why Real Effects Matter

Naturally, I started thinking about Star Wars. One of the reasons the prequels got lampooned so much is because they were all shot in front of a green screen.

And even if people didn’t know that, there was this ineffable quality about them that just didn’t feel real.

What made the original trilogy so popular was the practical special effects. They looked amazing because nothing like that had every been seen in movies before.

But we moved away from practical effects in the early 2000s, when CGI became the shiny new toy.

We got weird, uncanny valley movies like The Polar Express, and 2007’s Beowulf.

The Audience Knows the Difference

Thankfully we’re seeing a swing back to practical. Movies today are making a big deal about the practical effects they’re doing, and for good reason: they look better. They feel better.

Even if people can’t explain why, they know. It’s natural. It’s real.

I can’t help but feel the exact same way about AI-generated content vs. human-created content.

Yes, AI-generated content might be fine…even good. But it’s ineffably unnatural.

The real, raw emotion we feel and convey when we create something? That can’t be replaced by some computer-generated facsimile.

And we need to remember that.

I saw an ad for an AI company saying brands won’t need user-generated content anymore because their tool can generate it in 10 minutes.

That’s bullshit.

Because when an actual person uses something and talks about it, it’s way more convincing than a computer-generated knockoff. It’s real. It’s honest.

It connects.

AI advocates can talk all they want about how it’ll replace people and be cheaper. But if you actually want to connect with people? You have to do it yourself.

One of the reasons I have so many automations and processes in place is so I can spend time on the things that really matter.

We have such limited time, and we need to spend it wisely. Actually creating content is a wise use of our time.

Just like CGI vs. practical effects— your content has to be real. The audience feels the difference.

And you just can’t fake that.