AI Creative Director

Alex Naghavi Portfolio

alexnaghavi.com documents Railbound — an image-to-video tool she built to turn photographer Mike Brodie's archive into an award-winning documentary, winning Runway's Gen:48 People's Choice Award and a Gold Cube at the 105th ADC Global Awards — alongside 17+ years of traditional creative direction for clients like Google, Spotify, and Red Bull.

Generative VideoImage-to-VideoAI FilmmakingCreative Direction

What makes it work

A breakdown of the choices that make this portfolio stand out.

1

Building the tool as part of the creative work, not just using an off-the-shelf one

Railbound is presented as a tool she built, not a template she applied — the technical construction of the pipeline is inseparable from the creative direction of the resulting documentary.

2

Competition and award wins used as objective validation

A People's Choice win at Runway's own Gen:48 film festival, plus Gold/Bronze Cubes at the long-running ADC awards, gives two independent forms of validation — one from AI-tooling, one from traditional advertising craft.

3

A named real-world subject grounding the AI experiment

Anchoring the project to a real photographer's real archive gives the generative-video work a documentary purpose, harder to dismiss as a tech demo than an abstract prompt experiment.

What AI Creative Directors can take from this

Specific, actionable tips to apply to your own portfolio — no generic advice.

  • If you build your own tool or workflow rather than only using an off-the-shelf AI product, say so explicitly.

  • Enter AI-specific competitions — a placement there is validation a portfolio alone can't provide.

  • Anchor an AI experiment to a real subject or existing body of work rather than an abstract prompt.

Ready to build your portfolio?

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AI Creative Director Roadmap