Journey - US Postal Service

Inspiration

As a filmmaker, I'm always looking for new ways to tell a story. This project was an opportunity to challenge myself to tell a story using only generative AI. It was challenging, tedious at times, but incredibly rewarding.

What it does

This is an advertisement for USPS. It's about a daughter who misses her deployed father so she sends him a magical greeting in the form of a wind-up toy who travels the world, connecting loved ones, with the aid of USPS.

How we built it

I created the storyboard images using ChatGPT 4. After boarding the whole spot, I used a combination of Runway and Kling to turn the images in to video. Once I had all my footage generated, I edited in Adobe Premiere and used Eleven Labs to create the sound design.

Challenges we ran into

Character continuity was an incredible challenge. Although ChatGPT did a decent job, the characters faces were constantly drifting. It was also very challenging to get complex camera moves or blocking to work the way I imagined. Often, I found that I'd run into a wall and have to figure out the simplest way of accomplishing a shot that moves the story forward.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I'm proud that when people watch this, they tell me it pulled at their heart strings.

What we learned

I learned how to make a commercial with AI! Since I created this, technology has improved, making character consistency even better. It will be fun to see how it progresses.

What's next for Journey - US Postal Service

This project is done. I'm now working on a short film called Alex Ingall using Nano Banana and Kling. Hoping to have it done late October, 2025!

Built With

• chatgpt
• elevenlabs
• klingai
• runway