The Companion
One of the more interesting things I've wanted to test out was the capabilities of AI to produce narratives stories but in particular stories that which I had written but had no real way of producing. So when I saw that Luma AI was putting out a brand new img to video feature that was apparently pretty impressive on twitter I jumped on it immediately. Needless to say I was blown away. Now it's not perfect but using my skills in midjourney (in which I was already proficient in) I managed to take my script and the visuals I described and build out and make this opening sequence which would be the opening of my movie idea "The Companion". Overall it turned out really good and I'm super proud of what it is. Some of the pulls from Luma from Midjourney imo were just insane that it did the camera move I wanted or did a camera move I didn't even know that I wanted. Other times it would struggle. It had a hit rate of about maybe 25 - 45 percent but for some like the closing shot it got the look I wanted and camera move I wanted on the first go so it's honestly quite impressive in that regard. What's crazy in my mind is that I was able to even make something like this at all when even a short while (less than a year or so) this simply would not be possible or affordable to the average person to be able to tell stories like this.
Now when I first made this I had a particular look and feel and idea I was going for. However, though I had my perfected version using different music and slightly different visuals the rules are rules so I had to go back and get music for it that I had permission to use. Enter my friend Jake London Rivers who thankfully allowed me to use his song "Glass Sky" for the short. I had considered using something from Suno however, I found that in general it just couldn't quite match the feel of the music and the visuals that I wanted and hit up Jake and he had the perfect stuff for me.
So what is "the Companion"? Well, it's a cybernetic love story where a guy falls in love with a Robot that he wins at a company event and over time they go through all the expected hurdles and life challenges one might expect from having a robot wife. She doesn't try to kill him or take over the world or some other robot horror story. Instead it's more philosophical and asking the question of "what makes us human" and "what does it mean to be in love" and "what is free will". I hope that someday someone might see this and want to get the full story and maybe if we are lucky get a full length feature film from it.