BOUND

Inspiration

About ten years ago I live pitched an experimental short about Black hair and history at Edinburgh TV Festival. It was wildly ambitious for the budget and I never actually thought I’d get to make the piece I’d imagined.

This summer I made it using AI tools 0 It felt so liberating to create this vision without asking permission.

What it does

BOUND is a 2-minute visual poem in which braided hair transforms into epic vistas - ancient kingdoms, ocean crossings, island fields - looping back to the present. It’s designed to be immersive, tactile and emotionally resonant.

How we built it

I used Midjourney, Runway and Veo3 for hyper-real motion sequences, music using Suno

Challenges we ran into

Keeping the work respectful and historically sensitive while experimenting with surreal imagery; getting consistent braid anatomy (three-strand plaits not twists) across AI generations; and delivering a coherent 4K finish from disparate AI assets within a short timeline.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We achieved a unified, cinematic visual language that feels both intimate and epic. The film has already been selected by Larissa Lumina and Black AI Fest, and Escape.ai featured BOUND on their carousel and Narrative Collection.

What we learned

AI can rapidly expand visual possibilities but requires rigorous human curation. Careful prompting, iteration and ethical stewardship were essential to preserve nuance, historical fidelity and creative authorship.

What's next for BOUND

Festival circuit through autumn. Longer term: expand the project into workshops and talks about AI filmmaking, authorship and cultural representation.

Built With

• midjourney
• suno
• topaz
• veo3