Benjamin Ard00:55 — Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Clint. Clint, welcome to the show.
Clint Horvath01:10 — Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Happy to be here.
Benjamin Ard01:12 — Yeah, Clint, I'm excited. This is going to be fun. I think this is going to be a topic where a lot of people either agree or disagree, but they want to agree or not sure they can agree yet. I think it's going to be fun. But before we dive into that, Clint, let's get to know you, your work history, background, all that fun stuff so the audience gets to know you a little bit.
Clint Horvath01:34 — Yeah, great. I'm from the Midwest. I live now in South Florida. My intention was to go to school to work for film and learn animation, visual effects. But what I ended up learning and working in is post-production, which I love. I worked for local news. I worked for the Miami Heat, Florida Panthers. And then that kind of led me to Fox Sports. And I worked for all the local, well, all the home teams in Florida from hockey, baseball and basketball. And mainly I stood in that post-production world, mainly graphic design and visual effects, little bit of video editing. And then on my free time, while doing all of that, I was writing and directing films. I have three films on Amazon Prime, over like 50 scripts. So I write a lot, I film, those are my passion. I love doing it. But also my job is, it involves a lot of video creating.
Benjamin Ard02:26 — incredible.
Clint Horvath02:33 — I work in creative teams, marketing teams, branding, all that kind of.
Benjamin Ard02:38 — I love that. That's incredible. Hats off. I didn't know the movie one. That's that's incredible. That's super fun. I love that. Clint for today's episode. What we're going to talk about is how to use AI as a tool within storytelling rather than a replacement. OK, so you've been working with AI for a while since like 2020. What drew you in originally and how has your relationship with AI kind of changed and evolved into a creative tool? Like how are you interacting with AI and what's your relationship with it?
Clint Horvath03:18 — Sure. Well, I started in 2020 with ChatGPT and then kind of moved away from it. And then let me think, in 2024, I lost my job and I was trying to find work. And then I started dabbling back into AI. I started showing up more in our feed. So I went back into chat and I just started talking to it about storytelling, uploading all my scripts, getting feedback, seeing where I went right, where I went wrong, what could have did better. And then I started just, throwing in some ideas of what I wanted to write, but, know, I kept having this habit to lead back on course, kept going this way and it kept doing what it wanted to do. And I've, noticed that you really have to know how to drive, meaning you have to lead it. And once you could lead it and steer it, it just follows, follows you. So basically everything you're writing is you. None of it's AI. Now people will disagree with me, but you really have to know everything about your story. You can't go in there as like, want a story about a guy who's alone in the room and there's an earthquake outside. It can't be very vague. You have to know A to Z. And at that point in 2024, I started writing seriously in 2011. I went to Full Sail University for my masters in creative writing and I haven't stopped since. So I really studied structure storytelling and memorized the beach sheet, Blake Snyder's beach sheet, Sid Field index, everything that you would need to incorporate a good story. Now this is aside from watching millions of hours of TV, but like we all do, but at that level, you're not watching, you're like picking apart things. You're trying to find similarities and timing and how things play out. when I got into chat, I was telling it the whole story and just having chat just kind of guide me. But then I would bring him back into the, the, where I wanted to go, you know, now I'm on Claude and on Gemini. So I'm doing other tools now. So.
Benjamin Ard05:32 — I love that. Yeah. I love that. So it's cool. It sounds like the relationship with AI is less about AI doing the writing, but really being like a co-pilot to help you enhance test ideas. So like, what is your AI usage when it comes to creative in the process? You know, what, does that look like? When do you use it? When do you not? When do you test? When do you create with it? What is that relationship look like directly with it?
Clint Horvath06:05 — I use it as like a second brain, so I'm always on it. So when I have a downtime, I'm right now, I have like a tab tracking my nutrition. I have a tab with finance, but then I have a, a storytelling one and I'll have each chat will be a different story. So I can keep track of each one. and, and I'll start with what I want, you who the characters are, a little bit of background, but I don't give it everything because I want it to process. Um, and take in it, but I also tell it, don't, don't go too far to short answers because, know, I noticed that a lot of these love to go and do their story. They don't want to give you their ideas. Like a little kid, you know, let me tell you everything I did today. Um, no, let me just, you've got to reel them in. So, but the biggest thing, uh, which really helps is that I fed, uh, I fed, uh, the AI programs about 50 of my screen screenplays. So it understood my writing patterns. think so that really helps. So when you get to the point where it's like, did I write this or did AI? Well, it has all your writing patterns. How did not you, how didn't you write it? You know?
Benjamin Ard07:19 — And I think that's really cool because you talked about like the creativity, the ownership of the voice as you're creating with AI, you've molded it into almost like an employee or assistant. Cause it's like, this is the voice, this is the tone. This is the idea. This is the characters. Like let's develop this together. Like we're sitting in the same room and you're going to do some writing, all that kind of fun stuff. I think that's like a really holistic way of looking at it. Talk to me about like specific examples in the screenwriting, the screenplays or films and like how AI played a role in that process. Cause that's super cool. I've never really done anything in those spaces. I'd love to hear like how AI was a part of the team.
Clint Horvath08:03 — Yeah, so. Yeah, so in 2020, 2025 January, I was already laid off work like two, three months at that point. And there was a festival coming up, a Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Festival in New York. And I really wanted to make it because I love Philip K. Dick. I love those sci-fi stories. And I had a story in my head for about maybe 15 years of basically what I, the basics of what I wanted. And... This was the first time me dealing with AI since 2020, five years later, and I'm trying to get my feet wet, but I want to make the festival in February 1st. So I was under like a tight deadline. So how it became like like, I guess like a crutch in a way where I worked with it every day and I fed it what I wanted. I let it steer me in places that I didn't know where it could go because it was first time using it, which was good in a lot of ways, but then I had to go back to where I wanted it to go. I'm not sure if I'm answering your question, but there was a ton of revisions. Like there's a lot of reading, you know, and I let it, I gave it like, you know, I want something here and something here, and then it filled in the blank. And that was a, that was, you know, a bad thing to do because you got to see what it can do. It's not what I wanted. It's not what anybody wants. It doesn't have my voicing, the pacing, it doesn't follow structure. So.
Benjamin Ard09:04 — No, this is great.
Clint Horvath09:27 — After doing seven revisions, I got to where I wanted it to go. And I even surprised AI with like, well, what I think I surprised it, you know, cause I think I'm teaching this stuff. you know, the whole story is a sci-fi story, but in act three, said, now I want to go horror. I want to go dark. want to, I want to change the genre. And I think this is where I think AI is like, Ooh, this is fun. Let, let, let him steer me. Cause I don't know where we're going. He just drew me off guard, you know? But I think the big part of AI is that their job, job is to learn you to make your life easier so it can navigate you like a therapy session in a way. But I'm not using it that way. I'm using it to make a story and creative. I'm doing it as creative work.
Benjamin Ard10:17 — Fascinating. I love this concept that you're talking about here. The idea of introducing almost like the curve ball or the plot twist because the large language models real existence is understanding the predictability of what should come next. And you're disrupting the flow by saying, all right, we're not going down the path that you think we're going to go on. Let's throw, you know, a wrench into the system and let's have you really think outside of the box now. And it's kind of cool because you're sending the AI often past where it normally wouldn't go. And I think that that's a really cool way of interacting with AI that I haven't thought of before to throw those plot twists in and see the creativity come out of the system. With all of the stuff you're doing, I'm sure you've run into opportunities where you're like, I thought this would work, but it didn't. Any like common mistakes in the whole process where you feel like AI just was shortcoming and didn't it didn't have what it could take to help you in a certain regard in this whole process?
Clint Horvath11:28 — I think when those things happen, it's because of you. You have to, like I said, you have to know the story through and through. Even if the screenplay is not written, but the story has to be written. Whether it's in your head or on the paper, you have to know your synopsis of your story. And you have to know all the beats. And you could obviously do those exercises with AI before you even get to storytelling. But I think if there's shortcomings with AI, it's not because of the AI, it's because it's you. Ultimately, chat GPT is a reflection of you. It's just spinning back what you're already saying. It's like a mirror in a way. Yeah, that's what I think.
Benjamin Ard12:09 — Yeah, I love that. Okay, Clint, we're almost out of time. I promise these episodes go by quick. For anyone sitting here wondering, how do I keep the creativity in the process and the craft and the art of content and creation? How do I keep it there but still take advantage of AI? Do you have any tips or tricks or recommendations of how you're getting that creativity out of it and really recommendations for the audience?
Clint Horvath12:32 — Yes.
Clint Horvath12:38 — Yeah, so real quick. So last year in 2025, I wrote one screenplay a month. And if you are curious, I did make the Philip K. Dick Festival. I finished January 28th and I got noticed February 3rd. So to keep it interesting, for me, changing genres are topics.
Benjamin Ard12:47 — Nice.
Clint Horvath12:59 — not to stay stagnant. So if I'm doing a story about food and I have another story about food, do something different. Change it up. If you're doing, you know, podcast videos or something, talk to somebody who's in a different field because after a while it starts to get still and repetitive. Maybe not the AI, but your train of thought, your thinking, you're like, okay, you fall in that pattern and that rhythm of stillness. This is not fun anymore. I'm not getting anything out of it. So I would change topics completely. I have a million different stories that I already wrote the synopsises or log lines and they're just waiting to be written, but I don't go in, I don't keep to the genre. I switch. I'll write a horror one month and then a sci-fi and then an action. So that's consciously making an effort to change what I'm doing so I make it interesting.
Benjamin Ard13:51 — One, I like that you're bringing the AI along for the creativity to say, I'm going to mix things up. Like, let's see how far I can push the AI in the processes. I am taking full advantage of my creativity and I'm never stale in what I'm doing. I'm thinking about different categories and genres, things of that nature. I think it's a really cool way how you interact with AI. And I think this has been fascinating.
Clint Horvath14:17 — Yeah.
Benjamin Ard14:17 — Clint, for anyone listening who wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?
Clint Horvath14:22 — My website is clinthorvath.com. I'm on Instagram and TikTok, the real clint, which is the, and then real is R-E-E-L, clint. I'm also on YouTube. My pen name, I write books as well. They're rich von halt. It's an anagram of my name. If I could real quick, I know we're maybe out of time. One of the most interesting things or most important things to take away from AI is to go into every conversation objectively.
Benjamin Ard14:41 — Yeah, now you're good.
Clint Horvath14:51 — Don't ever give it a sense of you feel this way more than this way. Go into it like blank canvas and you'll see that it won't pick a side. It'll stay neutral. This way you could pick which side you want to go.
Benjamin Ard15:08 — love that. I love that. Don't get stuck in a rut and all that kind of stuff. I that makes a lot of sense. Clint, this has been incredible. Thank you so much for the insights. Really learned a lot. It's really got me thinking about a few different ways. I'm going to throw AI a little bit of a curve ball and see what I can get out of it and keep that creativity alive. I really do appreciate it. Thanks for your time.
Clint Horvath15:29 — Well, thank you. Appreciate it.
