The Dark Forest

Hooded figure walks in a dystopian city
Hooded figure walks along the abandoned subway tracks
Hooded figure climbs to the deck where the plants grow.

Inspiration

We were inspired by the dark forest theory of the internet and also the idea that everyone needs a personal space, digital or physical, where they can tend to, feel safe and at home. When the world feels chaotic, having a small garden of your own can make all the difference. As artists and filmmakers, the idea of nurturing a creative haven really resonated with us.

What it does

Our short film uses the structure and tension of a thriller with noir elements, then flips expectations at the end. Instead of a criminal, the hooded figure is a young woman arriving at her underground garden where she finally feels safe enough to paint. We wanted to use suspense to draw viewers in but leave them with a hopeful ending. Our goal is to encourage people to cultivate their own gardens, whether it's digital or physical.

How we built it

We began with a lookbook that set the tone and visual flow of the story. Using Midjourney, we created initial images for each shot and built our main character. We placed her into scenes with Nano Banana, then animated everything using Adobe Firefly with both the Firefly and Veo 3 models. Sound and music came from Veo 3 and Eleven Labs. Editing was done in Adobe Premiere, and titles were designed in Photoshop.

Challenges we ran into

Character consistency was our biggest challenge. The hooded figure stayed consistent through prompts, but the young woman required extra steps. We created her in Midjourney, composited her into scenes with Nano Banana, and then animated her in Veo 3.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

This is our first collaboration and our first AI short film. We are proud of the story we created and the process of building it together.

What we learned

GenAI filmmaking is genuinely fun. We learned which models handle character animation more accurately, and we figured out a workflow that keeps characters consistent. In the end, we developed an AI filmmaking pipeline that works well for us.