'The Mechanimal Zoo'

The Mechanimal Zoo is the last place on Earth after the 100% extinction of all animal species that you can go to see, 'The Mechanical Animals'. However, even they risk extinction if no one speaks up!

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My Inspiration:

'The Mechanimal Zoo' was originally created as an experimental work to test and try out my experimental prompt engineering skills to make anatomically correct mechanical 'Steampunk' inspired clockwork and steam driven 'mechanimal' animals. I wanted to create exactly the same type of animals as you'd normally see live in a real zoo. These, 'mechanical' animals are still one of the hardest ideas and concepts that you can try to to generate using AI. Most attempts prove less than satisfactory, however, I've managed to achieve this high level of work by careful, thoughtful and clever prompt engineering input for both image and video generation and creation. It was a labour of love for over three months.

After I had finished my experimental film, 'The Mechanimal Zoo' I discovered that there was going to be a 'Steampunk Festival' in Lincoln, 'The AXV', in fact, the largest Steampunk Festival in the World, I decided to create three further films and to ask the organiser's if I could show them at the long bank holiday weekend festival. Thankfully, they said yes and I was able to show my three films over four days to several thousand steampunk attendee's. Whilst at the festival I was also asked by the organiser's to get involved in creating two new AI films just for the Friday evening 'Cyberpunk' mystery game. What an honour! After I returned home, I discovered that 'The Chroma Awards' was happening!

This brand new edited and remastered version of, 'The Mechanimal Zoo' is my own personal, 'Director's Cut' in order to meet the 22 min deadline length of entries for the film categories' in the competition rules and guidelines. I've managed to cut off around 4.5 mins from the original nearly 26 min first film. As the climax and finale happens in the last five to seven mins of the film, it was essential to cut the length so that the end was watched to complete the film story. Having now completed this project I'm entering this into 'The Chroma Awards' AI Competition for 2025. I was unsure if I should enter this into the 'experimental' category or the 'sci-fi/fantasy category, in the end, I chose the sci-fin/fantasy slot.

What it does:

'The Mechanimal Zoo' tells a visually striking and Steampunk musical story about the global extinction of all of the known animal species on earth. The only place on earth that you can now see, replica, 'mechanical' mechanimals, is the ARX foundation, the last functioning 'Steampunk' mechanimal zoo on the planet. However, it's now also at risk of extinction as humanity gets closer and closer to the edge of survival! Offered as both a historical narrative about past extinctions as well as a contemporary 'Steampunk' conceptual world building project, 'The ARX Foundation' is as much fantasy as historically fitting to the Steampunk Neo-Victorian style and genre which I wanted to represent specifically in film.

How I built it:

This involved my real world professional artistic and creative knowledge, skills and abilities in an assisted combination, collaboration and co-creative process of using several AI tools, to help me create 'The Mechanimal Zoo' film entry for 'The Chroma Awards' Competition.

Film Score and Music Creation Build Steps:

  1. Make the film music which involved using my midi-keyboard to work out the basic song structure.

  2. Make several musical acts and sections to match my animation and film action.

  3. Upload these to SUNO for creating my 'music persona' and midi 'reference' track.

  4. Create in SUNO several dozen variant's.

  5. Download the 'stems' of the best songs.

  6. Edited, mixed and produce the original finished song in Audacity and Reaper DAW's.

  7. Outputted as an MP3 for synchronisation with my film.

Video Creation Build Steps:

  1. Sketch, draw and illustrate an original storyboard concept based on the storytelling narrative of, 'The Mechanimal Zoo'.

  2. Used real world scans of my sketches, drawings and illustrations as AI reference images.

  3. Uploaded these reference image 'datasets' and created images in Magic Light AI.

  4. Chose the best 'single' static image/storyboard to video sync and action to my film score music.

Putting it all together:

  1. Magic Light AI created all the images from my reference images and created a video of my concepts.

  2. Exported the finished video as a MP4 HD 19:6 Landscape AI Animated Video.

  3. Used Filmora Pro to add the film score music, edit, add start titles, end credits and logo assets.

  4. Uploaded to Social Media for Submission to The 2025 Chroma Awards Competition.

Challenges I ran into:

  1. The biggest issue and problem that I faced was the creation of the actual 'mechanimal' animal images. Once these had been created, the rest fell into place quickly and without too many further problems.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of:

  1. I'm extremely proud of my film scores, composition, arrangement, production and musical audio for 'The Mechanimal Zoo'.

  2. I'm proud that I took courage and experimented with Magic Light AI's Kling Animation model and the video results using Magic Light AI's integrated 'Kling Animation' model feature has really made a difference to the final film production and quality. I'm so pleased with the video animations created.

  3. Kling AI really worked fantastic with my video prompts, camera directions and prompt engineering. I'm really proud of the way the mechanimal animals move and articulate as a result of using Kling AI.

  4. I'm pleased that I kept pushing the 'Magic Light AI' new AI beta tools to see what they could do and what was possible from them even in their buggy beta test stage and with repeated errors and mistakes.

  5. Keeping going even when I was not physically or mentally well, using the process as therapy and healing for my mind and body. (I have a terminal illness which is why I use AI to speed up my projects)

  6. Pulling several all-nighter's at 63 years of age and still working on the project for the next 3 months.

What I learned:

  1. I've learned that nearly all current AI models that specialise in generating images or videos, struggle with creating images without errors of mechanical animals with correct anatomical form and structure. However, with very careful, considered and thoughtful prompt engineering, I've achieved something that most other AI artists couldn't create six months ago with accuracy and such fluidity of movement and form. That said, AI is advancing daily, so now, it's possible to get closer to a mechanimal concept.

What's next for 'The Mechanimal Zoo':

Since making, 'The Mechanimal Zoo' I'm looking forward to creating new projects based on my original and unique 'mechanimal' animal concepts and ideas. Such as, an 'Alien Zoo' on another planet or, an underwater sea world of mechanical aquatic mammals, fish and marine life. Time will tell.

Built With

  • affinityphoto2
  • audacity
  • chatgpt
  • filmora
  • klingai
  • magiclightai
  • reaper
  • suno
  • wordpad
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