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Formula Acid Thumbnail
What Is Formula Acid?
Formula Acid is a fictional post-apocalyptic racing universe set in 2085 developed by Cassiano Alcassa (a.k.a ALCASS) as a scenario to experiment with creative tools & AI technologies for film, music and games, harnessing technical expertise and narrative design in many formats, starting with a retro video-game soundtrack concept album released in 2023, which is heavily influenced by games such as Twisted Metal, Hot Wheels Xtreme Racing, Motorstorm Apocalypse and films such as Ready Player One, Death Race & 2012.
Development
This trailer was made as a submission project for The Chroma Awards 2025, which required a significant use of AI to craft a TV/Film movie trailer from scratch. At first I was experimenting some visual concepts with Google whisk and Gemini for a music video submission. After I succeeded developing a whole story for it, I pivoted it to a movie trailer submission related to racing, my niche as creator, since a movie trailer would require me more focus and a deep technical expertise on many competences, from narrative, universe, dialogue & character design to commercial good practices for editing a good movie trailer, presenting the movie's tone, premisse and character arcs.
I wrote an argument containing general information about the universe of Formula Acid, in which I would build a storyline for a concept movie with some trailer beats. I researched and watched many racing movie trailers, like F1® The Movie - Main Trailer as well as Gran Turismo, Speed Racer, Ford Vs. Ferrari, Ready Player One Death Race & Rush movie trailers. That deep research helped me to build story beats in a script, which helped me to generate footage with more focus.
Before generating anything, I opened up RemixLive - a music making app - to record some Formula Acid trailer drafts, experimenting with distortions and heavy saw synth sounds. Then I imported the .wav files to CapCut and edited a background music for the trailer, marking specific moments such as title calls, transitions and tone shifting - from action to suspenseful danger (like in the "...if your survive" part at 0:58). I would use this soundtrack to help me inspire while generating footage, listening on repeat every time I worked with Google Whisk, VEO 3 and Dreamina.
I wrote a lot of prompts to craft specific camera angles and movements, using Whisk import feature to get detailed description of images I uploaded and generated as references, importing it to ChatGPT as well as a template prompt with artistic directions such as tone, style & color palettes to fill a video production Json template that I would use at Google VEO 3 and Dreamina (in a shorter version) to generate exactly what I imagined, which was a huge success.
After I got all the footage and developed some design assets with Canva's AI tools, I edited everything on CapCut, generating additional footage as necessary and focusing a lot on beat syncing. CapCut was super useful, since it has audio & video AI improvement tools, which I used extensively to normalize and mix everything professionally.
With the main edit in hand, I started sound designing it. VEO 3 got me some useful sound effects already, and I used ElevenLabs to generate specific additional sounds like engines roaring, tires screeching and racing cars doppler effect. Then I recorded a voice-over for the Formula Acid competition announcer's voice, researching some voice style exaggerations on ElevenLabs, and generated 2 character voices with it, a man and a woman, to add some human presence to the story.
Challenges I ran into & what I'm proud of
Since I decided to submit a project to The Chroma Awards I knew I was going to have a lot of hard work all alone. The first difficulty was the limited resources I had to subscribe to some of the AI tools I used, like Google VEO 3 and Dreamina. Thankfully, both of them contain a trial period I used to get some credits to generate video. I had to guarantee I was communicating in industry terms exactly what I had visualized in my mind for the trailer sequences, since I couldn't by any more credits if I misused them on bad prompts. It took triple time to do so, since I opted to fine tune every prompt with Google Whisk first, generating lots and lots of concept imagery. At this point, I would only my prompts on VEO 3 and Dreamina if I noticed a consistency on what Whisk was outputting.
Since I was doing a movie trailer & differently than normal movie trailers, which are supplied with footage from the studios, for Formula Acid I had to develop visually what would be a complete film in that universe before developing the trailer itself, acting as a movie producer, writter and director, ensuring that the editing afterwards was showing parts of a whole story, instead of random scenes for a small video project, requiring a deep research on how trailers are made (I watched the F1 main trailer more than 30 times) to ensure I was understanding how to choose and show wisely story beats, a dynamic emotional tone and a narrative in about 1 to 2 minutes.
It was an absolute happiness when I saw everything coming together while editing. The thrill to wait for every prompt at VEO 3 became a blast of joy when some scenes popped up into the screen, exactly as I imagined so many times. I learned a lot of how to manage a project as complex as this trailer was all by myself, from resources and credits for footage generation to time for sessions of development, since I have a tiring daily house and work routine. I now exactly where I can be faster and more efficient the next time, capturing some great new ideas along the way. The accuracy I got from the image and video AI tools I used really got me surprised this time, it's literally impossible for me to do anything resembling Formula Acid any other way.
What's next for Formula Acid
I am researching some AI short films to get inspired in doing one for Formula Acid. Developing the trailer for this competition got me motivated to go further into the world I wrote for it and now that I know exactly how to generate consistent footage and sound for movie projects, it fells possible as never before. This time I will search for partners to help me along the way too, sharing editing skills and resources. Also, I plan to use Formula Acid as a learning case, so I will develop a series of making of videos about this trailer and it's narrative to film students and creative industry professionals.
Tools I Used
- Narrative development: Google Gemini, ChatGPT
- Footage Draft & Research: Google Whisk & ImageFX
- Final Footage Generation: Google VEO 3 & Dreamina AI
- Vocal Research & Additional Characters Voice: ElevenLabs
- Sound Effects: Google VEO 3 & ElevenLabs
- Video Editing & Audio Mixing: CapCut Pro
- Soundtrack Composing: RemixLive
- VFX, Titles & Cover Design: Canva Pro, Google VEO 3 & CapCut Pro
Formula Acid Storyline
Formula Acid is a deadly racing competition organized by the remnants of mankind after a series of environmental and chemical disasters devastated almost the entire world, forcing the survivors to either live inside a huge fortress city or to slowly die outside, consumed by the decaying atmosphere. Winning is a way to earn eternal glory and comfort inside the fortress... if any racer survive.
Written & Directed by: Cassiano Alcassa Produced by: Cassiano Alcassa (KALEIDOSCOPE | Limitless Perspectives) Soundtrack & Trailer Theme composed by: ALCASS
Built With
- canva
- capcut
- chatgpt
- dreamina
- elevenlabs
- gemini
- imagefx
- remixlive
- veo3
- whisk
