The Patrons of Poznań – Documentary on Symbols and History

Given 48 hours to script a film about Poznań’s patrons and coat of arms, a young reporter uncovers a much larger story about the city and tries to honor a promise she made to her grandmother.

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Inspiration

This project began with a 48-hour deadline to script a film about the patrons and coat of arms of Poznań. Research quickly revealed a much broader story about the city — and revived a personal promise I once made to my grandmother.

This episode is likely the first short AI-supported docu-fiction about a real Polish city. It blends real people (local entrepreneurs and, in selected episodes, stage actor Michał Grudziński) with AI-generated imagery to create a hybrid cinematic form.

It is the second episode of the Film Chronicle of the Fyrtli — a series documenting local identity across Poland. AI made it possible to tell these stories visually in a way that was previously unreachable for independent creators.

What it does

The film tells Poznań’s story through its symbols — the patrons Peter and Paul, the coat of arms, architecture, and historical events.
It combines real footage, interviews, narration, and AI-generated scenes into a compact, educational, and cinematic form that is easy to understand and visually engaging.

How we built it

Human work: script, directing, production, editing, post-production, music.

AI workflow:

  • Text & prompting: ChatGPT (Wena), Claude, Gemini Pro
  • Voices: ElevenLabs
  • Keyframes: Midjourney, Nano Banana + JSON, Runway (Gen-4 Image)
  • Footage: Kling Studio, VEO 3.1 + JSON, RunwayML (Gen-4 Video, Aleph)
  • Lip sync: lipsync.studio, Runway
  • Upscaling: Topaz AI

Editing & post-production: CineStudio & DesignStudio (MotionVFX)

Pipeline:

[ \text{idea} \rightarrow \text{logline} \rightarrow \text{synopsis} \rightarrow \text{outline} \rightarrow \text{script} \rightarrow \text{prompts} \rightarrow \text{storyboards} \rightarrow \text{generative footage} \rightarrow \text{editing} ]

Challenges we ran into

Maintaining consistent character appearance across many shots remains the biggest technical challenge — subtle changes in style or proportions accumulate in longer films.

A major creative challenge was merging film-school storytelling principles with an AI-driven workflow in a practical, repeatable way.

Combining multiple narrative modes (dialogue, voice-over, music-only sequences, text segments) into one cohesive rhythm required many iterations.

Another challenge was learning the cinematic language itself: conscious camera movement, working with light, and shaping the relationship between foreground and background — elements that demand a different approach when combined with AI.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Creating one of the first AI-supported docu-fiction films about a real Polish city.
  • Designing a fully hybrid workflow that merges film craft and AI.
  • Building a scalable production system for future episodes.
  • Successfully blending real footage, narration, history, and AI into one coherent film.

What we learned

This episode deepened my understanding of Poznań’s patrons, coat of arms, and key historical events.
I learned to structure and condense complex content into clear cinematic storytelling.

I gained practical experience in emotional voice tagging, custom ChatGPT agents, Kling Studio, VEO 3.1, JSON workflows, and Runway-based production.

The key insight: a disciplined hybrid workflow makes AI a powerful tool for high-quality, scalable filmmaking.

What's next for The Patrons of Poznań – Documentary on Symbols and History

Next steps: new episodes of the Film Chronicle of the Fyrtli.
Currently in production: Kiekrz, Gniezno, Międzyrzecz.

Long term: developing several dozen episodes to build a modern cinematic archive of local Polish stories.

Built With

  • banana
  • chatgpt
  • cinestudio
  • claude
  • elevenlabs
  • gemini
  • kling
  • lipsync.studio
  • midjourney
  • motionvfx
  • nano
  • runwayml
  • studio
  • topaz
  • veo
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