SOPRO - Blow

Born from the question of what lies after death and the impact of my father’s illness, this film imagines a limbo where corals and mists embody memory, breath, and passage.

Comment

Inspiration

For years, I developed the habit of writing down or recording audio notes as soon as I woke up, capturing dreams while they were still warm and vivid. Images and sensations that resisted fading. As AI tools evolved, I began experimenting with ways to visually materialize this dreamlike haze. A territory made of fragments, symbols and atmospheres. A multiplicity of worlds.

This is how Dream 01 was born. A series of images inspired by a recurring dream of a world covered in coral-like structures, where beings seemed to merge with the landscape in a continuous symbiotic transformation. When I started animating these images, they began to suggest a story. Not a linear one, but a sensory and emotional experience. At the same time, my long-standing research on the afterlife resurfaced. I immersed myself in accounts of near-death experiences, mythologies and rituals of passage. I also approached ancestral knowledge in an attempt to sketch a symbolic mythology for what may happen after the last breath.

It was during this creative and spiritual convergence that I received the news of my father’s illness, a lung cancer diagnosis. Only then did I realize that I had already created forests of coral that resembled alveoli. That the smoke was already there, as presence and transition. That these worlds, once fragmented, were starting to connect.

What it does

The film emerges from the intersection between an aesthetic and spiritual research and a deeply intimate experience. It is an attempt to turn the invisible into image, and silence into breath.

After creating a storyboard from the generated images, I started weaving a deconstructed narrative with symbols and layers. I wanted to build a singular mythology through characters and archetypes. My intention was to create a sensory journey in which we become observers. The camera sliding through tunnels becomes a point of view, as if someone is entering this passage, discovering a new world, new shapes, new beings. Breath and smoke act as elements of transformation, physically and spiritually.

How we built it

The project began with a sensory script that explored a journey of transition, with characters and spaces in a liminal state, as if suspended between lives. I divided the script into scenes, each representing a specific emotional phase.

Passage. Fear, disorientation, visual intoxication, escape, motion Arrival. A new universe forming, undefined, unfamiliar Discovery. New beings, new rules, new gestures Movement and transformation. Guided by the call of smoke, the choice to leave or stay New journey. The beginning of another cycle

From this recurring dream and the script, I built an aesthetic board with the colors, textures and visual materials I saw in my dreams. I wanted these coral beings to exist within a specific chromatic universe that matched the atmosphere I had envisioned.

I created moodboards in Midjourney to ensure consistency in aesthetics, palette and texture. Over 3,000 frames were generated. I curated them carefully, guided by symbolic, aesthetic and narrative coherence. Selected frames were refined through small edits using Midjourney Edit, and later I worked on light and texture using Magnific AI.

I animated the frames using Kling, Runway and VO3. The direction was based on alternating between fast camera movements and slow drifting. Always advancing, retreating or hovering, as if the point of view belonged to someone outside their own body.

The film was then edited using CapCut. The montage followed a sensory rhythm, mixing deconstructed narrative concepts with the pulse of the soundtrack. The sound was created with Suno. I used elements like wind, water and human whispers, blending them with sound textures developed during the mix.

I chose an inverted approach to color. Instead of grading after the final edit, all color decisions were made in the initial frame of each animated segment. Through precise prompt engineering, I maintained chromatic consistency throughout the film.

Because this project is deeply personal, I decided to use my own voice for the narration. I speak about my father and this transition in a symbolic, intimate way.

Challenges we ran into

This film was created before AI tools offered seamless continuity of characters and aesthetics. It was produced earlier this year, and maintaining aesthetic control and consistency was the most complex aspect. Each frame had to be sculpted individually, which required time and attention.

A significant challenge was an aerial shot of a white coral desert. The image was extremely detailed, and none of the AI tools I tested were able to animate it without noise or distortion. I had to leave it out, even though it was one of my favorite visuals.

When animating, I use multiple tools simultaneously to understand which one achieves the result I am searching for. This broadens creative possibilities, but it also creates inconsistencies. Even with the same frame and the same prompt, each tool generates something different. This becomes an issue when precision is essential.

I see AI not only as a tool but as a language. It proposes ideas I would not have imagined. One example is a final scene at timecode 2:39, where the character leaves but her face transforms. It was unexpected and magical. A distortion I could never have conceived, and it aligned perfectly with the narrative shift, inviting the viewer into a new life and a new cycle.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Sopro is an experimental film with a deconstructed narrative, far from conventional storytelling. I was unsure how it would be received, since my intention was always to propose an experience rather than simply present an image.

The film was welcomed with generosity. It participated in RAIFF, the first AI film festival in Brazil. It was selected for the Miami Art Tech Summit. It was also screened in Paris at the 17th edition of A Shaded View on Fashion Film, in the festival’s first ever AI film section, where Sopro was chosen for its language and aesthetics.

Additionally, one of its frames was featured in The AI Art Magazine, a printed German publication dedicated to AI art.

What we learned

This process was essential for my creative drive. It showed me that I could expand my abilities and desires as a director and storyteller. I learned to use AI as a language, a partner in creation, a presence that responds, transforms and generates new paths. It is a new way of shaping ideas, a hybrid field between imagination and algorithm, between control and unexpected discoveries.

What's next for SOPRO - Blow

I want the film to reach new audiences and new platforms. My intention has always been to create an experience that touches and connects. I am submitting it to new festivals and I am already in conversation with the Nowness curatorial team, who expressed interest in showcasing the film.

I see Sopro as part of a larger universe. I want to return to this mythology, these characters and this symbolism. I want to deepen this research on post-life imagery and create continuations, micro-films and expansions. Fragments that belong to the same world.

Built With

  • adobe-premiere-pro
  • ai-assisted
  • animation
  • capcut
  • kling
  • krea
  • magnific-ai
  • midjourney
  • midjourney-edit
  • photoshop
  • prompt-engineering
  • runway-gen-2
  • suno
  • vo3
Share this project:

Updates