Exciting Times
I’m thrilled to share that my film, Beyond Darkness, graced the big screen at the JAX Fuse Film Festival this past Saturday (9/14/2024), showcased on thelink Nocatee’s magnificent display – and it was a sight to behold.
The Journey
Crafting Beyond Darkness was a journey through the use of AI-enhanced creativity, involving over 100 hours of meticulous work. I dedicated a week to fine-tuning the narration and sound design, experimenting with ElevenLabs voices to breathe life into the script, before zeroing in on the perfect tone for our narrator/captain.
Seeing Beyond Darkness endure and shine in a cinema setting filled me with gratitude. A special shout-out to Neal for the tip on upscaling the video clips with the impressive tools @krea_ai provides— the outcome was spectacular!
Gratitude
I’m deeply grateful to my friends & family who supported Beyond Darkness: Joyce Spataro, Scottys & Son, LLC., Melisa Harder, Pulitzer Joubeaud Family, Marshall & Marie, Max Lakritz, Every Icon, Tom & Jeanne Lombardo, & Lukie the cosmic cat.
Beyond Darkness is scheduled to be shown at the AIFilm3 Festival in Arizona, October 31-November 2, 2024.
What is Beyond Darkness About?
Beyond Darkness is not merely a science fiction horror short film; it’s a visual and emotional journey, drawing its roots from my original science fiction horror picture book with the same name. This film adaptation delves deeply into the metaphorical use of a black hole, which serves as a powerful representation of emotional anguish and turmoil. The black hole is not just a cosmic phenomenon, but a poignant symbol of how internal struggles can consume and fragment the soul.
Why did I create Beyond Darkness?
I wanted to take my book Beyond Darkness from book format to film, because I felt imagery neatly lent itself to the experience of emotion and sensory adventure. I wanted to further capture of the emotion of feeling trapped and knowing there is “no way out” so that the feeling of transcendence can be conveyed.
How did I create Beyond Darkness
I took the book manuscript then created a film manuscript and storyboard. Outlining the action that I wanted to create and how the narration would be conveyed. I put in over a 100 creative and production hours in Beyond Darkness, which is about 2 months of work.
Technical Details
Duration video is 8:51 seconds and 10 nano seconds
145 clips
· 73 video clips
o Video clips are 5 to 10 seconds except for the end credits which is 59 seconds
· 31 voice clips
· 8 music clips
· 33 sound clips
AI models used
7 AI models
- Pictgen for concepting
- MidJourney -V3 of 903 images generated, narrowed it down to 545 good images, then for the final book curated to 177 images book has 125 pages – the project took 3.5 months from concept to publication.
- Lot of Adobe Photoshop reworking and editing. The book was published in 2022.
- Not all of the images from the book were used to create the art for the film because it wasn’t necessary and also because the model changed to v6.1.
- Runway ML Gen3, Gen2 and imploration and inpainting tools
- Krea for frame to frame generation and upscaling
- ElevenLabs for voice and sounds – exploration and lightening
- Udio for music
I used Adobe Premiere Rush because it’s not bloated like Premiere Pro. The special effects were created using RunwayML and Krea.
The final cut is rendered at 2160p 4k ultra HD. Beyond Darkness trailer uses the same tools.
What I learned
I have a gift for video production editing and I actually enjoy the nuancing. I wanted to experience creating this film alone so that I can understand the many details it takes to creating a film. The next film that I create I want to work with a team of creatives so bring more insights and creativity to film production.
In the News
Ryan, Shaun, September 21, 2024, JaxFuse spotlights creative economy, Ponte Vedra Recorder. Mention for AI science fiction film, Beyond Darkness.