After working on The Minecraft Movie, which was released earlier this year, I was motivated to continue pursuing opportunities in kids' media. I had already been tracking over 100+ AI artists at the time and saw how animation was being disrupted by a new wave of untraditional filmmakers from diverse backgrounds. I felt that with my experience in film development and the growing accessibility to create animation, which has historically been very expensive and time-consuming, this was the right moment to start on this project.
The character references and settings were created using Midjourney and Runway while the reference images / storyboards were created through a mix of Midjourney, Runway, Flux and Gemini 2.5 Flash. The image editing tools were key to maintaining consistency though the storyboarding process. Character interactions were animated with Veo 3 Fast while the transition sequences and environmental animations were done with Kling 2.5. The music and voice modifications were produced with ElevenLabs. Samuel was the mastermind editor who put it all together.
With previous experience in TV&Film, I understood the initial mechanics of prep. However, the production and post production phases had many "build the ship while you sail it" moments. Due to the introduction of new technologies every week, it required a lot of flexibility (and patience) to go back through and fix old reference images or animations as the new technology could make it that much better. A prime example of this would be the introduction of Google's Gemini 2.5 Flash image editor halfway through the animation process. I had to go through every storyboard and re-edit them to look more consistent and then re-animate the shots I had already completed. On top of that, there was a learning curve to figuring out which prompting formats provided the best results. While there is a long list of challenges we faced during production, this was easily one of the most time consuming.
One of the biggest lessons we learned from this process was the importance of producing and editing in real time. By sending shots directly to editorial as they’re created, we’re able to build and refine on the fly. Given the evolving nature of the technology, it can be difficult to predict whether certain dialogue deliveries will flow naturally with a scene or if specific actions will feel authentic. Real-time editing not only streamlines post-production but also allows us to more efficiently adapt to new tools and technologies as they emerge.
We’re officially moving on to Episode Two—marking the next step in a ten-part series!
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