While debriefing a case the other day, one of my students said, “this case would make a great movie.” The class laughed and I agreed – action, pain, crazy lawyer antics, and greed all wrapped into one film.

You may have seen presentations before about using legal movies as a teaching tool. One of my law school Professors would use “My Cousin Vinny” clips to teach evidence. It was an excellent visual aid and an innovative way to engage our class.

My student’s comment and my memories from evidence motivated me to use Ai to create a video short this week. I limited my Ai use to free trials so this post in no way serves to endorse one program over another (unless someone from these programs is reading this blog and wants to send some upgraded subscriptions my way).

I started with a simple prompt into ChatGPT, “Please make me a video that depicts an auto-accident.” In hindsight, the prompt was too simple, and the robot’s response let me know that (thanks Robot). Now, the free ChatGPT cannot generate videos, but it did generate two options which could enhance our classrooms.

The first option was a visual storyboard. The robot provided a visual storyboard, a vision board if you will, that you could use to improve your slides or hypothetical storytelling in the classroom.

The second option was a ready-to-paste cinematic Ai video prompt with a referral to Ai video tools (Runway, Pika, Luma or Sora-style generators). The prompt provided, “A realistic daytime urban intersection. Two standard sedans approach from perpendicular directions. One vehicle enters the intersection late, causing a low-speed side-impact collision. No injuries visible. Cars come to rest. Drivers exit vehicles. Police lights appear in the distance. Neutral, educational tone. Cinematic camera movement, realistic physics.”

I chose to use the free version of Runway to test the prompt. After copying and pasting the cinematic prompt instructions, I was happy to see that the free trial of Runway produced a ten second video that sufficed to meet the needs for use in a classroom. An upgraded version could produce longer videos and allow for more Ai editing within the video itself.

Inserting a few cinematic clips based on your own prompts can help break up a dense lecture and is a great way to get students to creatively engage in written analysis. Instead of a written hypothetical prompt, try a visual depiction followed by a short writing prompt. The prep for this activity also only took five minutes, which is far less time than I would spend watching a legal movie (which may have problematic screenplay depictions of bias and stereotyping) to find certain teaching points. I hope today’s post serves to push your creative content wheels – happy “filmmaking.” 

(Amy Vaughan-Thomas)