When the Vision Was Bigger Than the Budget Kremer Johnson Rethought 'Underdogs' With AI

Photography and Director Duo Kremer Johnson are known for their creativity and conceptual imagery and motion that always tell a greater narrative. They always have ideas swirling and take time in between commercial shoots to create personal work. Sometimes for personal work, the idea is bigger than the budget and they have to get extra creative to realize their vision.

Their series Underdogs was an idea conceived a few years ago. Norman Rockwell meets The Sandlot, evoking nostalgia and the ache of rooting for the underdogs. From the start, Kremer Johnson imagined these characters living inside fully built-out environments. But when it became clear that producing the project as originally envisioned would require a major budget, they pivoted. Instead, they created portraits of these characters against seamless.

Now, with the evolution of AI, the team had the tools to create the original scenes the envirioned without the large production footprint. Using the same studio portraits shot a few years ago, they were able to generate the backgrounds, evolving the work while staying true to the original intent. The AI platform used aided in creating hyper-specific prompts to build the scenes down to the granular details; how would the siding of a house look in 1961, or what would the quality of light be emanating from the windows? The obsessive attention to detail is not new to Kremer Johnson, and the AI allowed for their original world-building aspirations and art direction to follow suit, while keeping the budget and production footprint small.