'CHOW'

An man loses it when replaced by AI

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Inspiration

After seeing food delivery robots pop up all over my neighborhood sidewalks, I thought they'd make a fun antagonist for a dark comedy about anxieties surrounding AI. So I wrote a story connecting job loss to these cute-by-design AI bots, and then guided the story to a worst case scenario - as a way to express the most extreme fears about our rapidly accelerating AI economy.

What the Film Explores

I was inspired to make a story-driven stop motion animated film where the focus is on the character's performance to hopefully achieve clarity, nuance, and humor — things often eluding films made with AI tools. Overall, my hope is that the film looks and plays like a traditional stop motion animated film with an emphasis on solid narrative structure, thoughtful camera design, and engaging animated performance.

How I built it

All the film's shots are AI generated. AI tools used are Luma Dream Machine, Veo 3, Midjourney, Hedra, ElevenLabs, and Suno. 'Traditional' tools include Procreate, Photoshop and Davinci Resolve.

Challenges I ran into

Things taken for granted in other mediums, like character consistency and intricate control of animation, are far more challenging with AI. To make consistency work, I first sketched out the character in Procreate, then developed him photorealistically in Midjourney, and made final enhancements in Photoshop. From that came a character sheet that was used as reference when generating shot first-frame stills in Midjourney, and text-to-video in Luma Dream Machine and Veo 3. LTX Studio was also helpful in developing story. Some dialogue was generated with the video renders in Veo 3, but most was created in ElevenLabs. This included all of the robot recruiter's voice, and various 'ADR' inserts of the main character's dialogue whenever it didn't work through Veo 3.

What we learned

I learned that knowing what I want ahead of time - and then coercing the AI tools to get there - is key to achieving something to be proud of. AI should never be in charge of intention, story, or look in my opinion.

What's next for 'CHOW'

I plan to make an AI generated feature film that has all the hallmarks of a big budget animated studio film - but done with one ten-thousandth the budget, and just by a handful of fellow artists at most (perhaps even just by me). After testing animation workflow with this film, for the first time since starting to use AI, I think I can pull it off. Very excited to see where this takes me!

How I Learned About The Chroma Awards

Thankful to #FBRC.AI for introducing me to Devpost and the Chroma Awards.

Built With

  • davinciresolve
  • elevenlabs
  • ltx
  • luma
  • photoshop
  • suno
  • veo3
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