Où sont les rêves (Where are the dreams)
Inspiration
It started with me wanting to create a mind movie to motivate myself to do all the things I want in life, so I could watch it every day and stay inspired. Then I saw the Chroma Awards mentioned online and noticed they were offering free trials. I’ve dabbled in AI image generation before, but this was my first dive into full video generation. With my background in video editing, I was confident I could make it work. What began as a personal mind movie transformed into a full-on movie trailer for my life. Funny how that works, huh?
What it does
It’s meant to inspire me and others to follow their dreams.
How we built it
My MacBook Pro died a few months before I even heard about the Chroma Awards so I had to do the entire project on my 5th Gen iPad Air, relying mostly on web apps and the free version of DaVinci Resolve on iPad, which I had to teach myself because I’d only ever used Premiere Pro, Final Cut, Motion, and After Effects. I started with LTX Studio for the storyboard and initial generation, moved to Gemini with Nano Banana for image generation, then used Envato for most of the videos because they had unlimited generations. Flow and Veo 3.1 were also used for certain shots. I upscaled everything to 4K with Topaz Labs Astra and applied color grading and film grain in DaVinci to remove the “AI” look. Music was created using Envato library tracks, Stable Audio, and Soundtrap, and dialogue was generated with ElevenLabs and synced to the video.
Challenges we ran into
The constantly changing AI models and the frustrating outputs from Gemini and Nano Banana were major obstacles. Upscaling to 4K also forced me to regenerate some footage that was useless for upscaling. Platform policies and restrictions kept changing, adding another layer of difficulty. Veo’s upscaling was particularly limited on my plan, which meant I had to find workarounds to maintain quality.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
It feels like a real movie. Watching it, I often forget it’s AI-generated. The sound design really brings it to life, and the trailer sparks interest and leaves viewers wondering—just like any good trailer should.
What we learned
LTX Studio’s storyboard workflow was excellent. DaVinci Resolve on iPad is incredibly capable, and the biggest lesson was learning to upscale to 4K and “dehance” footage to make it feel less AI-generated while keeping enough detail to watch on a TV. I’m excited to continue exploring new techniques to improve realism and cinematic quality.
What's next for Où sont les rêves (Where are the dreams)
I probably won’t turn this into a full movie, but I do have a short film idea I’ve wanted to create and submit to film festivals. I had considered working with an animator, but I think AI tools will advance enough in the next year that I might be able to do it myself—and that’s really exciting.
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