Play - Animated Short Film

Inspiration

"Play" is a short film about remembering who you were before the weight of the world settled in. It follows Leo, a new dad caught in routine, who reconnects with his childhood love of music. Play is a tender reminder to make room for creativity: to schedule in joy, curiosity, and the passions that make us who we are.

What it does

This story is a reflection of my own rediscovery of creativity and what it means to return home to the things that bring me joy. Play was born out of a shift in my own life, as I began to reconnect with a more creative career path. It’s a reminder to myself and others that it’s never too late to make space for what lights you up.

How we built it

The concept and script was written by me. I took inspiration from stop-motion style and wanted to create a character world that was made using fabrics, as if it was hand made. The core fabrics I landed on were felt and fluffy cotton.

All images were made using Midjourney and upscaled with Magnific up front. I then turned images into moving clips via Kling AI, Luma Labs Ray 2, Hailuo/Minimax and Pika Labs. At the time, frame to frame was a brand new feature and it helped very much with pivotal shots like the opening shot (via Pika Labs). The voice work was done by myself with voice modification via Eleven labs for each character. Editing was done via Capcut.

Challenges we ran into

Lip sync was a huge challenge on this project because the talking characters were not human. At the time, no lip sync software was working for any of the object characters. The movement of mouths syncing with sound was done completely manually via Capcut video editor.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

This film was a finalist at the Curious Refuge Animation Competition (5th place) and was an official selection at the AI Film Awards in Cannes 2025.

Built With

• capcut
• elevenlabs
• hailuo
• klingai
• lumalabs
• magnific
• midjourney
• pikalabs