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Fast Hours

Drew Brucker & Rory Flynn

Fast Hours is a weekly generative AI podcast where Drew Brucker and Rory Flynn dig into the craft, taste, and business of making creative work with AI.

Every week, they unpack what’s changing across AI image and video generation, creative workflows, models, platforms, culture, creative careers, and the business of creative work.

What matters? What works? What’s overhyped? And where does leverage exist for creatives?

Expect AI news, practical workflows, experiments, guest conversations, and strong opinions from two dudes actually using it in their professional work.

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  • 23 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 1 hr 26 min
  • English

Episodes 23

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  • S2 · E36
    January 1 · 1 hr 43 min

    Ep.60—Fast Hours 2025 Wrapped: The Tools, Shifts, and Wake Up Calls

    In this final episode of 2025, Drew Brucker and Rory Flynn zoom out to dissect what actually mattered this year across Midjourney, Nano Banana Pro, ChatGPT Image 1.5, Weavy, video models, workflows, and the uncomfortable truth about how fast all of this is moving.They unpack the real inflection points no one labeled at the time. Why March quietly changed everything. Why Nano Banana Pro rewired image editing expectations. Why Veo 3 reset video. Why Midjourney still feels magicalWhy workflows (not models) are becoming the real creative advantage.Along the way, they spiral into mood boards, personalization hacks, node-based systems, AI video limitations, why Hollywood feels creatively bankrupt, how Grok quietly became a research weapon, and why Midjourney’s next move might determine whether it stays an artist’s playground or becomes a professional tool.It’s opinionated. It’s nerdy. It’s honest. It’s occasionally unhinged.And it’s the clearest snapshot of where AI creativity actually stands heading into 2026.If you’re trying to keep up, slow down, or figure out where to place your bets next year, this episode is your unfair advantage.---⏱️ Midjourney Fast Hour00:00 – Episode 60 kickoff and end-of-year reflections01:50 – From niche experiment to mainstream behavior04:00 – AI finally reaches non-technical families06:18 – Why working solo in AI can feel isolating09:03 – Music, creativity, and early signs of AI music adoption11:02 – How fast AI actually shipped in 202512:14 – 100+ major releases and why that number matters13:01 – The real start of image editing workflows14:46 – March 2025 was the quiet inflection point16:06 – Multi-modal chat changed prompting forever19:20 – Veo 3 and why video suddenly jumped ahead21:41 – Why Google quietly dominated 202523:00 – Why hype cycles now last 48 hours23:51 – Nano Banana Pro and precision image control26:02 – Grok as a real-time research engine27:49 – Why physics in AI video finally started working29:12 – Nodes, workflows, and why visualization matters30:26 – Why Nano Banana Pro felt like “AGI for images”31:26 – Will 2026 move even faster?32:25 – Release cadence, VC pressure, and reality checks34:03 – Images vs video: who’s actually ahead36:18 – Why Grok might be the sleeper winner38:36 – Data, platforms, and why distribution matters41:28 – Consolidation and acquisitions are coming44:14 – What Midjourney must do next45:23 – Image editing as the make-or-break feature48:43 – Workflow fatigue and creative burnout52:50 – Personalization, mood boards, and creative joy56:44 – Why mood boards drove the best work of 202559:12 – Personalization profiles vs mood boards01:00:43 – Why Midjourney still feels different01:02:27 – Scale, permutations, and professional use cases01:06:36 – Resolution, editing, and real production constraints01:10:22 – Why small failures still matter01:13:00 – Hollywood, creativity, and AI backlash01:17:17 – Why creators beat platforms01:22:25 – Audio and voice as the next bottleneck01:23:55 – Constraint-driven prompting in 202601:30:14 – Looking back at January vs now01:38:23 – Final predictions and advice for 202601:42:34 – Season two wrap and sign-off

    • Transcript
  • S2 · E35
    Dec 21, 2025 · 1 hr 11 min

    Midjourney v8 Countdown, Are "AI Artists" A Thing? + Nano Banana Pro vs ChatGPT Image 1.5

    Drew and Rory stumble back from the holiday chaos—one fresh off vacation, the other barely resurrected from a mystery NYC illness. Between fever dreams and booger fingers, they somehow manage to tear into ChatGPT's Image 1.5 disappointment, expose why Nano Banana Pro is quietly dominating their workflows, and reveal the Weavy automation setup that's actually working (while FreePik continues its reign of mediocre terror). The duo gets brutally honest about why OpenAI feels like it's slipping, why negative prompting might be more important than what you actually want to create, and how to build your own custom AI tools in Google AI Studio without selling your soul to another subscription. Plus: vintage Kodak rally cars, the art of perfect thumbnails, coconut water in cocktails, and why their illness prevention protocols involve more vitamin C than common sense. If you survived their holiday absence and made it through the mandatory 20-minute ramble tax, you'll be rewarded with legitimate workflow gold that actually ships. --- ⏱️ Midjourney Fast Hour 00:01 A Mr. Sniffles cold open 05:18 Prompting while sick, then getting cooked on X 07:35 An “Am I an AI artist?” reality check 15:08 Moodboards, unsettling styles, and “what counts as art” 27:39 Blade, Pluribus, and movie still inspiration sites 31:42 Midjourney V8 quiet, Style Creator alpha changes 37:45 The pace of releases and tool fatigue 40:37 World models, Veo 3, and the next leap 43:28 ChatGPT Image 1.5 talk and why it’s still behind 46:12 Nano Banana Pro flex, Freepik waits, and why it matters 49:17 Weavy workflow walkthrough: from ref to shot list 55:26 Contact sheets, “mini LoRA” vibes, and system rules 59:14 Kling o1 keyframes: why 3–10 seconds is a cheat code 01:03:32 Real text and brand risks in outputs 01:06:52 Build your own Nano tool in Google AI Studio 01:08:01 Writing models: ChatGPT vs Gemini vs Claude 01:09:23 Negative prompting becomes the main event 01:11:25 Wrap, thumbnails, and holiday chaos

    • Transcript
  • S2 · E34
    Dec 3, 2025 · 1 hr 8 min

    Midjourney Edit Models + Nano Banana Pro: Eating Lunches in the Upside Down

    Rory and Drew celebrate crawling their way to 30k subs, then immediately prove they are barely qualified to handle it by turning a Stranger Things binge into a full-blown lecture on composition, lighting, and how to reverse-engineer blockbuster shots into Midjourney and Nano Banana Pro prompts. They talk like film school dropouts who discovered prompts instead of lenses. From there, they unpack fresh Midjourney office hours: the upcoming UI/UX overhaul with continuous scrolling, better color control, a reworked style system, and the big one: parallel edit models that finally keep you inside Midjourney instead of forcing you into five other tools. They break down what “better text handling” could realistically mean for real-world client work, what to expect from Midjourney V8 training in January, and why business use cases will decide who actually wins this model war. Then it’s a long, dangerous slide into Nano Banana Pro obsession. They show how they are using it for real campaigns: ingredient flat-lay diagrams with perfect labels, knolling that actually respects object counts, thumbnail iterations in minutes, hyper-real food tweaks (“make the cheese more brown and bubbly”) and product work where text on bottles and labels actually holds up. Think: turning moodboards into branded cars, movie-poster typography onto existing art, and multi-shot car sequences that are clean enough to use as video keyframes. In the back half, they zoom out into systems: building custom Nano tools in Google AI Studio, using JSON prompts, if-then logic, and style libraries to create reusable pipelines for teams that are not prompt nerds. They rant about broken N8N workflows, fake Instagram “AI automation” grifts, and share where affiliate tools actually see conversions today across YouTube, X, and LinkedIn. It is part Midjourney V8 rumor mill, part Nano Banana Pro clinic, part therapy session for creatives trying to stay sane in an algorithm that clearly prefers trolls and evolving Pokémon. -- ⏱️ Midjourney Fast Hour 00:00 Midjourney Fast Hours hits 30k subs 01:28 Stranger Things S5, film craft & AI framing 05:39 Turning cinematic shots into AI prompts 07:33 Pop culture prompts, memes & brand tie-ins 08:38 Nano Banana branding tricks & model hype cycle 09:38 Midjourney swag, “non-sponsored sponsors” 10:12 Midjourney UI overhaul & scrolling-style feed 15:46 Midjourney edit models and in-app image editing 20:16 Midjourney V8 timing, text handling & business use 24:41 Midjourney vs other models for real client work 26:47 Free image tools, casual users & competition 30:57 Nano Banana Pro: real-world client use cases 36:31 Micro edits, product shots & text stress tests 42:33 Product versioning, depth tests & asset variants 44:25 Car branding, moodboards & Nano video keyframes 46:20 Polaroid race car branding & design details 50:09 Building custom Nano tools in Google AI Studio 55:21 Style libraries, handoff workflows & reverse prompts 59:17 If-then logic for prompts, GPTs & image systems 01:03:01 From tokens to full-blown image systems 01:04:21 Instagram grifts, empty funnels & manychat rage 01:05:15 Platforms that actually convert for AI tools 01:06:38 Algorithm chaos, Pokémon and death threats 01:06:58 Midjourney swag, the Faye cameo & water bottle talk 01:07:58 Future video model hype, skepticism & sign-off

    • Transcript
Showing 21–23 of 23 episodes