GEN AI Tools: Nano Banana Pro, Seedance 2.0 & Suno
This project started as an entry for an AI film competition that I joined way too late, which forced me to be much more methodical.
After writing the script, I broke down everything I'd need. It had to feel epic and packed with characters, so I built every prop I thought I might use. Spoiler alert: You never know everything you need at the start of the project.
Then the real fight started: the ark. I think location consistency is the hardest thing to achieve in AI. I can't even count how many versions of the ark I made, and how many variations I needed for every single shot.
But the biggest lesson on this one was that you don't ask AI to make things look wetter as the film progresses. You have to create a variation of each prop for each moment of the film. I learned this with the ordinary notepad, which starts off perfectly legible and turns into a mess once the rain hits.
Again, a lot of trial and error.
With all the frames ready, I started animating, using an AI animation agent I've been building over time. Seedance 2.0 being so much smarter than Kling made the job much easier. The biggest problem was water simulation, which varied a lot from shot to shot, so I added most of the water later in post.
I also tried something different to help Noah’s acting. Instead of prompting vague facial expressions, I recreated the expressions I wanted and gave each generation the reference closest to what I had in mind. A bit like how it's done on proper animation projects.
My biggest mistake on this one? Rushing it. One week wasn't enough. With one more week, I'd have been way prouder of the final result. And I wish the ad could have been 35 seconds, because at 30 it feels a bit rushed.
But oh well, live and learn.