Hi everyone!

A while back I wrote a short story about a crew of Dutch sailors who had to put in at a tropical island after a cannonball punched a hole in their hull. They gathered timber there and repaired the ship. They were Dutch because, during a smoke break, one of the sailors claimed that he had once seen a ghost ship “Flying Dutchman” sail past in the middle of the ocean, and after it passed, the hole in their hull mysteriously sealed itself.

Since I'm currently learning Google Flow, I thought this little story would be perfect for a test adaptation. And I stumbled right at the very beginning—on what seemed like the simplest scene.

The air was so thick and humid you could stick a fork into it.   "Closer to the water!" the boatswain barked. Grunting with effort, the knot of sailors lurched to the water's edge beneath the log like some giant cuttlefish, then dumped it onto the growing pile. A cloud of mosquitoes rose into the sky. "Smoke break!" The boatswain sat down on the sand and lit his pipe.

The problem was this line: " then dumped it onto the growing pile."

When you read it, nothing seems odd. They carried the log over and dropped it. But the moment you actually see the scene with your own eyes, it raises a question. Wait a second... how exactly? The log is being carried on the left shoulder, but it's supposed to be dropped to the right. That means they'd have to lift it over their heads and throw it off the other side. Obviously, real sailors would have carried it on their right shoulders instead.

So, I told the image generator exactly that. "Have them carry the log on their right shoulders." The generator is a cooperative fellow. Right shoulder? Right shoulder it is.

"No, my friend," I said. "That won't work either. Why are they approaching the pile from the water side? They should be bringing the log out of the forest. And where did the sixth sailor disappear to?"  How do you explain that?

So, I told it, "Fine. Remove the log altogether."

Done.

Then I took the image into Photoshop and, to the best of my artistic ability, moved the log onto the sailors' right shoulders. I was basically saying, "Just do exactly this—only, you know... professionally."

Here's what it came up with.

Honestly... I could have strangled it. Good grief! And this is only the image generator. What kind of madness is the video generator going to create from this?

In the end I reluctantly rewrote the script. I cut out the whole "giant cuttlefish" sequence and started with the moment when the log had already been carried over and was being dropped.

Well... I don't even want to tell you about all the other adventures I had along the way. Eventually, somehow, I limped across the finish line. If you can make it over to YouTube, have a look.