Behind the Scenes - Wouldn't it be cool?

Inspiration

After launching Wouldn't It Be Cool? an AI-generated climate change documentary series, I wanted to pull back the curtain on the process. My company Origen Story is founded on transparency and the ethical use of AI and I believed transparency about the workflow, challenges, and creative decisions might be valuabe for other creators exploring these tools and for a broader audience curious who these kinds of videos are made.

What it does

This behind-the-scenes video is a broad look at my creative process from mining IPCC reports with NotebookLM to final assembly in Premiere Pro. It shows how AI filmmaking workflows blur the lines between traditional pre-production, production and post-production stages.

How we built it

The BTS video combines voiceover narration with screen recordings of the AI tools in action, clips from the original documentary, and examples of the iterative creative process. It walks through the workflow across research, pre-production with Firefly Boards, image and video generation via Freepik's AI models, and audio creation with Suno and ElevenLab.

Challenges we ran into

Balancing technical detail with accessibility was key. Providing enough specificity for creators to understand the process without turning it into a dry tutorial.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Creating a transparent document about the state of AI filmmaking tools that doesn't oversell or undersell their capabilities.
• Demonstrating decades old workflows can still evolve to adapt to emerging technology and techniques.

What we learned

Making the BTS reinforced that the "messy middle" of AI adoption is actually an interesting part of the story. Embracing some of the imperfection of AI and writing that into the story was part of the joy of the project.

What's next for Behind the Scenes - Wouldn't it be cool?

As the series continues with episodes on energy, agriculture, construction, and transportation, each will have its own BTS component documenting the evolving workflow. Future behind-the-scenes content will track how the tools improve, how creative approaches adapt, and continue demonstrating that urgent climate stories can be told in a clear and accessible way with emerging technology.

Built With

• adobe
• premiere