Inside Newport Pyramid — Project Overview

Inspiration

Inside Newport Pyramid began as a 60-second retro holiday advert for a fictional pyramid resort set in Newport, South Wales — a town famous for its err… industrial charm.

That first AI experiment made us wonder what the rest of this bizarre attraction might look like, and soon it grew into a larger idea: Inside Newport Pyramid — a daytime “local interest” documentary with all the grandeur and gloom of regional TV.

See "Newport Pyramid 🔺 Wales' Most Mysterious Restaurant Complex 🔺" here:
https://youtu.be/JreMBb01_Zg?si=FRUUESSOKVcvmj7T

See our competition entry *"Inside Newport Pyramid" * here: https://devpost.com/software/inside-newport-pyramid-episode-1?ref_content=my-projects-tab&ref_feature=my_projects

What it Does

Episode 1 introduces The Pyramid — part-hotel, part-restaurant, part-mystical-hub — through the eyes of its security guard, Geoff Sadler.

It’s a mock-documentary that plays like an “exclusive access” TV special, blending reality-TV tropes and absurd mythmaking.

Using generative video tools we transformed Newport’s bland concrete textures into a sort of budget-pharaonic dreamscape.

The project works simultaneously as a narrative film and a technical experiment — merging real-world voices with AI-generated motion.

How We Built It

We began by scripting the episodes, recording the voices, creating still frames and establishing shots in Freepik, and then assembling the visuals in Veo 3 using structured cinematic prompts. Each scene was directed as if for broadcast — specifying lens type, movement, tone, and even humidity.

The workflow combined:

Freepik and Photoshop for stills
ChatGPT and Gemini for refining prompts
Veo 3 for motion and environmental realism
Premiere Pro and After Effects for editing and compositing
ElevenLabs for voice performance
Synch.io for lip-syncing real-life voices

Each generated clip was treated like a live-action shot — logged, matched for lighting continuity, and produced with seed-locking for character consistency.

Challenges We Encountered

The hardest creative challenge was tone: keeping the parody grounded. AI visuals were often too polished for something meant to feel like a half-broken regional promo. We had to intentionally downgrade shots — softening focus, adding banding, and embracing awkward camera placement.

Technically, Veo struggled with low-light interiors and reflective surfaces, so we built detailed lighting prompts (e.g., “sodium-lit car park haze with damp asphalt reflections”). Maintaining character continuity required consistent seeds and repeated physical descriptions across scenes.

Accomplishments We’re Proud Of

We’re especially proud of how Inside Newport Pyramid now looks and feels like a real piece of regional TV — the kind that means well, tries its best, and accidentally captures something hilarious. There are moments in the footage that genuinely made us laugh, and that strange blend of sincerity and chaos is exactly what Newport Pyramid should be.

We also put together a functional prompt bible, which will help keep the Pyramid’s aesthetic consistent — even as the building itself keeps insisting on being inconsistent.