I’ve been using Midjourney since the early days. Back when it was all on Discord, and the images were… well, pretty terrible. Wonky faces and six-fingered hands everywhere. But it was new, and it was exciting.
Fast forward to now, and AI video is actually good enough to use. And Midjourney has finally launched its own video model.
Is it any good?
I already use a bunch of other AI video tools. Runway, Luma and Veo are all part of my workflow, and some models, like Minimax’s Hailuo, give amazing results. Honestly, I don’t think Midjourney beats them on quality.
But the good ones are slow. You can be waiting a long time for a single clip.
Midjourney is fast. Really fast. Instead of one clip, you get four versions to choose from in one go. In my job I need to test ideas quickly, so that’s the bit that matters most to me. And most of what I got out of it was usable, with hardly any re-runs.
Turning pictures into videos
The main thing it does is turn an image into a short video. You can use one of your old Midjourney images, or upload your own. You can pick “low motion” for something subtle and cinematic, or “high motion” for something more dynamic. You can also tweak the prompt to guide the animation.
I tried it with a picture of the Dubai skyline, and it made a drone-style shot. The movement and the parallax were spot on.
Not bad at all!
What’s not so good?
The resolution. The videos come out quite small, which isn’t great if you want to show them on a big screen. But Topaz Video AI sorts that out. A quick upscale, and they look surprisingly sharp.
What surprised me most was how well it keeps the style of the original image. I went back through my old Midjourney images and turned a bunch of them into clips. Each one still looks like the original, just moving.
Here are a few from my archive:
So, will I use it?
Yes. It’s not the best-looking AI video tool out there, but it might be the most useful one for my day-to-day work. In advertising, being able to get an idea moving on screen in a few minutes, with a few versions to pick from, is really handy. For quick tests like that, it’s earned a place in my toolkit.
Further reading
- 👉🏾 I’m addicted to Midjourney AI, my post from the early days of Midjourney images