What Is Paloma?
Paloma is the 60-75 minute film of a story written by Peter Simcoe. It takes place 300 years in the future where a man living a solitary life in a post apocalyptic land finds a note from a mysterious woman that will change his life forever. It is an adventurous and challenging production for an independent filmmaker requiring an innovative approach and execution. It is important to explore different methods and techniques for crafting a tale with compelling visuals and soundtrack as there are many ways to tell this story including live action, AI generated content, CGI and hand drawn animation.
As part of the pre-production process a 20 page document containing details on the social, political and environmental aspects of life in the 24th century was produced. This enabled me to write and evaluate the storyline in depth whilst addressing some of its weaker elements. Having established the story theme and direction, an animated storyboard has was assembled to communicate the concept.
Creating The Storyboard
The storyboard began as a series of sketches on paper. These were individually input into Midjourney, a description added and drawing style applied. Using it’s vast bank of reference images, Midjourney’s generative AI generated a more refined version of the original paper sketches. There is some variation in the pencil strokes, fine detail and overall styling
To animate each of the frames, Midjourney was then tasked with creating variation on the original image. This process was repeated at least twice which resulted in a series of frames that could be input into Premier Pro. The animated sequences were grouped using the nest function and assembled in the correct order on the timeline. Preview production logos were added to the sequence from www.videohive.net. Introduction text was added in Premier Pro and sound effects were added using the Soundly desktop app plus existing sound from my own library.
Generative AI Experiments
A variety of production techniques are being considered including using generative AI to tell the entire story using platforms such as Runway, Firefly or Luma Labs. Developing this idea further, it is also possible to combine AI generated imagery by compositing it onto existing video and blending the video and AI generated elements using Photoshop. See other AI experiments I’ve been working on using the links below:
- Creating Music Videos With Generative AI
- Toyota PC Lock Screen With Generative AI
- Creating AI Generated Immersive 360 Images
Why Create A Video At This Stage?
Creating a pre-production video highlighting key elements of the story whilst providing a visual guide to the composition of each scene is useful when communicating the story to interested parties. These may be potential stakeholders, design clients, other filmmakers or even friends and family. Using simple animation techniques to create the impression of moving frames adds dynamism to the presentation, providing an additional hook to keep people watching.
I look forward to bringing you more developments on Paloma in the near future. If you are interested in supporting the project, please contact me at design@simcoe.co.uk or donate to the project at https://www.paypal.me/petersimcoe.
