Beyond the Prompt: Building Worlds with AI | Michael Gilday

SPEAKER_1 (0:07)

Our guest today is Michael Gilday. He is the founder, CEO, and executive creative director of Deep Vibe, a creative studio pioneering Taste Networks, including The District and WRXLnoise. Today we explore what's possible when human imagination meets emerging technology.

Welcome to the show, Michael.

Michael Gilday (0:30)

Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_1 (0:32)

Yeah. Chris and I are excited because you've had a really cool career across television, radio, advertising and technology.

Even some early work on the show Lost. Is that true?

Michael Gilday (0:44)

Yeah. I worked on the pilot in the first two seasons. My wife and I were actually in two episodes too.

SPEAKER_1 (0:50)

Oh, you're kidding.

Michael Gilday (0:52)

Whoa. I played Gerald DeGroote. We were the people who started the Dharma Initiative.

SPEAKER_1 (0:58)

Oh, wow. Chris, do you know anything about Lost or am I throwing you in the deep end on that?

Chris (1:06)

I watched in the beginning. So I would have seen you. Beyond that, it was one of those things that I wasn't as into as everybody else. Then when everybody was disappointed at the end, I was like, oh well, I guess it isn't what I thought I was going to miss.

Michael Gilday (1:20)

It's about the journey, not the destination.

Chris (1:23)

Right, right.

SPEAKER_1 (1:25)

I'm just wondering if that thread has led you to where you are now with world creation and Deep Vibe. I mean, it's appropriate. For anybody out there that knows the story of Lost, I just think there's some parallels in maybe your philosophy. What's the thread, man? What's kept you wanting to be a creative? Is there a through line for you that you can pinpoint?

Michael Gilday (1:48)

Well, I already was a creative before because I went to Emerson College in Boston. I actually went to UMass Lowell first, and I hated the radio station when I was there. I got to Emerson, I spent a lot of time at ERS, and I was a huge fan of mostly did audio production, and then new media became a thing. So I started video editing and doing early HTML and After Effects 3 and Photoshop and all that good stuff. So out of college, I got a job in digital marketing when we were first inventing it in 1999, working on the Truth Anti-Smoking Campaign. And I did that for a few years, and I ran actually an in-house sort of video content, what would have been user-generated content website for youth, like early internet broadcasting. And it didn't even go live and it went nowhere, but I built a whole little community of creators and a little studio years ahead of... It's a constant thread in my life that I'm years ahead of the curve.

So as I get older, I'm trying to get closer, because by the time the thing I'm doing hits, I'm usually on to the next thing. It's an enduring problem that I'm trying to solve.

But yeah, I ended up doing that for a few years. And then I went into radio professionally. I was a DJ at WFNX in Boston, and then in Hawaii at Star 101.9. And then I answered a Craigslist ad and ended up getting a job on the pilot of Lost. And then I got into the union and did that for the first two seasons. But that was, you know, I went to a film school and I did not study film. Lost was my film school. I mean, it was a master class every day working with these 30 plus year veterans, learning just what they did in real time in very difficult conditions on location all the time. So much both from the technical crew and the art department, and especially some of the actors.

The ensemble cast that we had was amazing. So long story long, I was one of, I would say, the top three fans of the show on the show.

So there was three of us who really knew everything, like all the lore, all the details, because I was an on-set dresser, so continuity was important, but I was also a big fan. So me, the script supervisor and one of the wardrobe girls, we knew everything. They would call from Burbank and ask us questions sometimes.

Chris (4:25)

Oh, that's super cool.

Michael Gilday (4:26)

They would ask the script supervisor, but she would talk. I didn't know who I was. But every time the script came out, people would disappear because people actually liked it. But that was how I watched the show, was reading the script for the first almost two seasons.

I'm diving into that world and that world building and the mystery box opening JJ's philosophy and stuff. And Damon Lindelof is an incredible writer. So I learned so much through Osmosis.