In this article, we talk with Creative Director Jorge Calvo, a former Curious Refuge student who took our AI Advertising course.

We just chatted with Jorge Calvo, an award-winning artist, architect, rock musician, VFX and graphic artist based in Madrid, Spain.

His life story is super interesting, and we hope you can learn a bit about how creative professionals are using AI in their workflows, while maintaining artistic integrity.

Spoiler alert: AI doesn’t replace human creativity! It’s a tool that enhances it.

An Interview With Jorge Calvo

Check out our conversation with Jorge below!

Hi Jorge! :) Tell us a bit about your creative background and experience.

After studying two years of Architecture, joined a succesful rock band Ñu, with which I recorded two albums, Cuentos de Ayer y de Hoy and A Golpe de Látigo.

I toured Spain for a few years while getting a Master’s Degree in Psychology. And we are still in the 70’s... 😉 After that, I went to New York and lived there through the 80’s. I was a bike messenger, played in an Off-Broadway show and jammed in some bars.

By the mid 80’s I discovered de Amiga1000 and started doing stuff with it: drawing, painting, even doing some basic composing of graphics over live video. I took classes in animation and taught computer graphics.

Then came Quantel’s Paintbox and Harry (minute 4:09) and it revolutionized the creative world! For the first time, you could manipulate every single frame of a video. I took classes on that and freelanced as a Harry-Paintbox Artist until I came back to Spain in the 90’s. Back here, I worked at the top two post-production houses in Madrid, working mostly in advertising with the best agencies and production companies, and top directors in film.

At the turn of the century, I founded my own post production house, Mad Pix Company, which was extremely cool and very successful! There was a total investment of 6 million euros in our equipment, 7 miles of cables and 40 employees.

Video clip from Jorge’s work on “Hable Con Ella” (2001).

While I was there, I was nominated for a VFX Goya (Spanish Oscars) for “Hable con Ella” the 2003 Almodóvar film. Our director Pedro Almodóvar was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director and won the Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay and won other awards all over the world.

After Mad Pix was sold to Das Werk (the German Post Conglomerate) I founded my own boutique for Visual Effects and Motion Graphics, Chelsea22.

Since then, I have specialized somewhat in film titles sequences, and in 2013 there was an article in the NYT Times that featured me and titles I did for Rodrigo Cortés’ 2012 film “Red Lights” featuring Robert DeNiro, Sigourney Weaver and Cillian Murphy.

Just last year, I did the titles for another of Rodrigo’s films, 2024 Escape, with Martin Scorsese as producer.

But I am still very active in VFX and graphics for both Advertising and Film. This last year I was lucky enouth to work on location at Kadokawa studios in Tokyo where some of the Godzilla films were shot and many others, like “The Ring”.

This is incredible! You’ve lived such a rich, fascinating creative life. What inspired you to join our AI Advertising course?

In the last few years, I’ve been using these tools daily: Flame, DaVinci Resolve, After Effects, etc... To be clear, these are not “AI tools” they are traditional tools. What is happening is that AI is "sneaking into them" more and more, and that is how I started with AI.

But I wasn’t particularury interested in Generative AI until I saw Dave Clark’s Adidas spec ad and his “Washington Lottery” commercial.

I thought that if a “normal” commercial director is using AI, maybe there is something to it.

I saw the AI Advertising course and jumped right in!

Is there anything you notice about AI tools, updates and changes to the advertising world that you think other people should know about?

People interested should follow you [Curious Refuge] to stay on top of things! (I do for sure).

How has working with AI transformed your workflow? What did your creative process pre-AI look like vs now?

I am not particularly interested in MAKING AI Advertising, rather in USING AI in Advertising.

And now it’s a part of my workflow almost every day. From fixing problems with live footage, to changing formats, background plates story boards, animatics, etc...

Having said that, there are a couple of projects where I am going to have fun generating AI pictures: a 70’s style New York film title sequence for “Grand Central”, and a documentary about Antoni Gaudi’s life.

Now that you've finished the course, how do you approach working with clients on AI-driven projects?

Like I said, I don’t do a lot AI driven projects. Not yet, anyway. The main Advertising and Film worids don’t take kindly to AI. Sometimes I use it without telling them! There also people that come to me to use AI to save money and get the same results as in a “proper” producion. Fat chance.

There is a market that is starting to use AI: the Video Corporate market. They don’t have the budget for a regular shoot, and they are happy to use some generative AI.

I have a piece for SoMe for such a case: it was fun and the client was very happy!

What would you say to somebody consider taking a Curious Refuge Course?

Do it! I have recommended it to a lot of my colleagues.

It’s a great place to “land” in the world of AI. Sure, there are a lot of videos with tutorials that are very helpful: I use a lot of them, of course. But there is a lot of information floating around, it’s very overwhelming, really. And a lot of it is just garbage.

The Curious Refuge courses give you an anchor to get started, and you can grow from there in the direction that it takes you.

Jorge’s opening credits sequence for Rodrigo Cortés’ 2012 film “Red Lights” featuring Robert DeNiro, Sigourney Weaver and Cillian Murphy.

With the AI Advertising course that I took, I got three outstanding teachers:

Dave Clark: Having a real director walk you through his creative process and how he uses AI to tell this stories is priceless. He has gotten me to take generative AI seriously.

Caleb Ward: His deep knowledge of AI and Advertising is phenomenal and it shows every step of the way. I find funny that he keeps apologizing for taking time away from the “fun” stuff to teach some “theory”. I think the course is worth it, just for that theory he explains so well!

Mauricio Tonon: If you are serious about AI, you have to roll up your sleeves and really dig into it. You need to learn to use AI workflows that let you control the AI and go far with it. And Mauricio will get you there. His ComfyUI lessons will help you unleash the real power of AI!

We’re so glad the AI Advertising course and instructors felt so valuable! What's next for you? Do you have any upcoming projects you're excited to get started on?

There are two upcoming projects:

A 70’s style New York film title sequence. You can watch a style exercise here.
A documentary about Antoni Gaudi’s life. That’s in development, and not confirmed yet.

Thank you so much! We can’t wait to see these projects come to life!

We hope you enjoyed checking out this interview!

You can see Jorge’s work here, check out his Vimeo page, and see more from his company Chelsea22 Studio.

Learn the Best AI Advertising Techniques

If you want to learn more about how to create stunning AI videos, but don’t know where to start, we would love for you to join us in our next session for AI Advertising.

We update the course content every single week based on the latest tools. (We even had SORA training just one week after it launched.) This is a wonderful way to enhance your AI skills, but no pressure!

Student Success Stories | Interview With Jorge Calvo