AI

This little AI short film I started for a small contest had three main rules:

1. Use a carton of milk
2. In a supermarket
3. Use the line of dialogue “You’re early”

So I sat down to come up with a story, thinking and writing in an old, traditional way. While I was working on it, a character I created around 15 years ago suddenly came back to mind. It fit, and that became the seed of this film.

I never managed to finish it for the contest, but the story stayed with me. So after a few weeks, I finally finished it. We are really in an era where small creators like me can tell stories that I thought I wouldn’t be able to tell. And now we have close to 100% control of the output with AI, or maybe 95%.

All the shots were storyboarded manually by me. I used Blender for the camera movements, the images were built with a mix of models, and the shots were generated with Seedance 2.5 and MiniMax across a lot of different platforms, like Higgsfield, ComfyUI and my own platform that I am building. I even created my own storyboard and screenwriting app, personalized for me. Crazy times.

I directed it the way I would a live-action shoot: generating one shot at a time and using traditional methods as much as possible, like filming myself, motion capture, storyboarding and so on.

So the contest passed, but the idea didn’t. It took an old concept and today’s tools to get it on screen.

If you watch it, I’d love to hear what you think.

Behind the scenes

How UR Early was made: a sketch from 15+ years ago, the script, character design, storyboards, live action and mocap blocking, Blender with my phone as the virtual camera, Seedance generations and the final grade. You can watch it in the behind-the-scenes short below.

The machine renders. The decisions are still the filmmaker’s.