Can You Use AI To Make Good Art? — With Fred Graver
Natalia Quintero interviews four-time Emmy winner Fred Graver, a former Letterman and Cheers writer, about using AI as a virtual writers' room for film and TV, arguing it only helps if you already know what you want to say.
The gist
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Graver suggests writing a who I am as a writer document, then asking AI whether your idea fits you and who its audience is.
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Quintero says plugins like Compound Engineering and Compound Writing codify experts' steps, acting like bowling rails that keep you from making AI slop.
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He frames production as a loop of ideation, production and marketing, and says reaching audiences is the unsolved part since golden-age TV jobs are gone.
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Before opening any AI tool, he says to spend a day or two dumping everything you know onto a page, by hand or voice.
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Graver uses Claude as his main room, with a deliberately unpleasant morning check-in agent, ChatGPT as a film student, and NotebookLM podcasts for feedback.
"If you start out as a writer and you want to use AI, I have kind of a few things that I say you should do. You should create a 'who I am as a writer' document, and you should throw in your inspirations, what you love, what you read, what you aspire to do, all of that. And then..."
▶ Play at 13:30"The reason why I use Compound Engineering is because I'm not an engineer and I trust Kieran as a really brilliant engineer, and now actually a whole team that maintains that particular plugin. And so when I want to build a new product, I want to defer to experts in that field ..."
▶ Play at 15:387 creators recommend it, including Kieran Klaassen, Matt Van Horn, and Dan Shipper.
See all on the Compound Engineering page"I think I was using Compound Writing and then I was using Claude Code to try and figure out a way to, in kind of five bullet points, hammer away at any idea I might have."
▶ Play at 31:312 creators recommend it.
See all on the Compound Writing page"I've lived in Claude for a long time. So, it's the room I keep going back to and I will say, Claude, here's a folder of all my work. You know what I do? Let's talk about this... I will have a very long conversation with Claude about the reality of that idea."
▶ Play at 44:08250 creators recommend it, including Riley Brown, Chris Koerner, and This Week in Startups.
See all on the Claude page"I'll go back to ChatGPT. ChatGPT is the film school student who has read every guide, seen everything, does not know what it means. It's great at: I know you're trying to do this, and here's, as they say in the Olympics, the compulsories. Here's what you haven't done or what y..."
▶ Play at 47:16159 creators recommend it, including John Coogan, Riley Brown, and Peter Yang.
See all on the ChatGPT page"And then I might even go to NotebookLM to say, hey, look at my documents, look at this stuff, and can I listen to the podcast? I am so shallow. I am a sucker for those two podcast hosts going, 'Well, we're talking about something fascinating today.' ... It's the best. It's the..."
▶ Play at 47:417 creators recommend it, including Alex Mathew, Ethan Mollick, and Kevin Rose.
See all on the NotebookLM pageWhat they recommend · 8 picks
AI tools
8 picks · Fred Graver and Natalia Quintero
"If you start out as a writer and you want to use AI, I have kind of a few things that I say you should do. You should create a 'who I am as a writer' document, and you should th..."
"The reason why I use Compound Engineering is because I'm not an engineer and I trust Kieran as a really brilliant engineer, and now actually a whole team that maintains that par..."
"I've lived in Claude for a long time. So, it's the room I keep going back to and I will say, Claude, here's a folder of all my work. You know what I do? Let's talk about this......"
Fred Graver
6 picks · guest
"If you start out as a writer and you want to use AI, I have kind of a few things that I say you should do. You should create a 'who I am as a writer' document, and you should th..."
"I've lived in Claude for a long time. So, it's the room I keep going back to and I will say, Claude, here's a folder of all my work. You know what I do? Let's talk about this......"
"I'll go back to ChatGPT. ChatGPT is the film school student who has read every guide, seen everything, does not know what it means. It's great at: I know you're trying to do thi..."
Natalia Quintero
2 picks · guest
"The reason why I use Compound Engineering is because I'm not an engineer and I trust Kieran as a really brilliant engineer, and now actually a whole team that maintains that par..."
"I love NotebookLM podcasts. They're so great."
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