Elevate

Inspiration

In a culture where “improvement” is marketed as self-care, we were struck by how quickly satisfaction evaporates the moment a new standard appears on a screen. The elevator became a perfect metaphor: it only moves up, but the passenger’s sense of self keeps falling. We wanted to visualize how cosmetic enhancement, media-driven comparison, and fragile identity spiral into quiet self-destruction.

What it does

Elevate is a narrative short film and AI art project that follows a woman cycling through an elevator between the street and an upscale cosmetic clinic. Each ride slightly upgrades her face, yet giant media screens outside instantly outdate her new look. Over time, her reflection becomes more distorted and less human, while her expression grows emptier. The project exposes how algorithmic beauty standards turn “self-improvement” into an endless descent into self-erasure.

How we built it

We first scripted the elevator loop as a repeating sequence: entrance → payment → surgery → mirror → street → media comparison → renewed inadequacy. Visually, we generated keyframes and imagery with Midjourney, then used Runway to create and refine the moving shots. The final structure, pacing, and visual rhythm were edited in Adobe Premiere Pro. For sound, we composed the musical atmosphere with Suno, then added voice and narration using ElevenLabs, designing the audio to echo the cycle of hope, comparison, and collapse.

Challenges we ran into

One major challenge was escalation: making each elevator cycle feel different and more disturbing without resorting to gore or explicit horror. Another was keeping empathy for the woman intact, so she never became a caricature of vanity but a mirror of our own vulnerability to comparison. On the technical side, synchronizing AI-generated visuals with AI-generated music and voice required careful timing and iteration, especially to keep the loop emotionally readable rather than visually noisy.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud that Elevate distills a complex social pressure into a simple, contained space: an elevator and a few screens. With almost no dialogue, the audience can feel the brief rush of satisfaction, the sting of comparison, and the hollow repetition of chasing an impossible standard. Elevate was recognized as a Runway Gen:48 Aleph Edition – People’s Choice Honoree, which confirmed for us that the theme resonates beyond a niche art context and speaks to a wider, algorithm-shaped audience.

What we learned

We learned how fragile “I’m finally satisfied” really is when it rests on external metrics like trending faces and filtered feeds. Designing this loop also showed us how powerful repetition can be as a narrative device: small changes in posture, lighting, and reflection can communicate deep psychological shifts. We also learned how AI tools like Midjourney, Runway, Suno, and ElevenLabs can be orchestrated not just for spectacle, but for a focused critique of cosmetic capitalism and the quiet violence of comparison.

What's next for Elevate

Next, we plan to expand Elevate into a site-specific exhibition installation. Our goal is to let viewers “step into” the elevator environment through multi-screen projections or a narrow corridor that mimics the ride between clinic and street. We are exploring ways for the installation to subtly reflect each viewer back at themselves, not through literal face-tracking, but through pacing, scale, and sound design that make the audience feel the weight of each “upward” step. Beyond that, we envision additional iterations for galleries and festivals, where Elevate can live both as a short film and as an immersive AI-driven spatial experience.

Built With

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