The House Between Us

Inspiration

An original story I wrote seven years ago about a South Asian 47-year-old widow who wants to sell her house and contacts a real estate agent. He’s Caucasian. They slowly fall in love but can’t act on it. Social conditioning, inhibitions, and professional boundaries stand in the way. But once the house is sold, it opens the door to new beginnings.

What it does

It explores how cultural differences can feel enormous in the moment but soften and fade within the fabric of time.

How we built it

ChatGPT for conception, Midjourney for early ideation, Runway for initial trials using two-shot sequences, and Veo 3.1 with Google Flow — which was instrumental. Dialogue and music were beautifully embedded already. InShot was used for editing and additional music (two tracks came from the tool itself). Created in one day.

Challenges we ran into

Maintaining character consistency — characters would melt or become disfigured. A lack of diversity in generative models, which still struggle to represent non-Western features accurately.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The story came together! It’s pure drama — not sci-fi, even though I was tempted because I love that genre. I challenged myself to see if we could make something cinematic, grounded, and emotional.

What we learned

With more robust tools, proper licensing, and additional refinement, this kind of story can be even stronger. But creating it was genuinely fun.

What's next for The House Between Us

Help us win! I’ll share it on social media — and hopefully Chroma will enjoy this little slice-of-life film and amplify it.

Built With

• chatgpt
• flow
• inshot
• midjourney
• runway
• veo