AI video takes a leap: meet its creators

A robot crosses the desert

A robot in a cowboy hat crosses an orange desert. Vehicles float, ruins stand and dolphins have become the world's new rulers. Silas is searching for Perseida, the woman he loved. Humanity has vanished, but someone still has a reason to cross this landscape.

This is Looking for Perseida, by Barcelona director Ernest Desumbila. On 3 October, he won third prize at the Astana AI Film Festival: $100,000. The next day, he told Kazinform he had made it in ten days, shut away at home, after his wife told him about the competition. Interview and award.

Watch Looking for Perseida — full film on Ernest Desumbila's channel.

The world on screen deserves a closer look. The dust, the mechanical bodies and the desert light all belong to the same film. There is a clear visual direction. Its credits name Seedance 2.5 for video generation, alongside a team handling editing, sound, mixing and effects compositing. The ten-day feat also involved a collective effort. Desumbila wrote the story and directs the whole.

Gossip Goblin takes his world to the cinema

Zack London, known as Gossip Goblin and based in Stockholm, has built another future. The trailer for Gods Don't Give Gifts shows humanoid bodies with exposed parts, reconstructed faces and mechanical figures among trees and flowers. The light looks like something from a film set. What it lights up belongs in a nightmare.

Watch the trailer on Gossip Goblin's channel.

The film brings together four stories on a planet where bodies can be swapped and consciousness is traded. In October, AGC International announced that it had added the film to the catalogue it presents to buyers at the American Film Market in Los Angeles. Its US release is announced for 4 December. Net Influencer reported around 15 million trailer views. That is a figure published in the press, separate from the counter on this YouTube video. Deal and announced release date.

This is where going beyond realism starts to make sense. The texture is familiar; the body is impossible. That combination lets a creator invent an entire society and make it look photographed. The project brought together writers, artists, animators, voice actors, musicians and post-production professionals over more than ten months.

The characters can return tomorrow

Kavan Cardoza, Kavan the Kid, has a different ambition: a series. The Chronicles of Bone mixes dark fantasy, fairy-tale characters and large-scale adventure. Chapter five features stone interiors, pale faces, armour and conversations by candlelight. Then comes an ambush in a canyon.

Watch The Chronicles of Bone, chapter five: The Reunion.

Magnific funds the series. Kavan handles much of the writing, generation, editing and musical composition, with help to fix effects. Forbes reports his comparison of two works with similar running times: about two weeks with Seedance 2.0 versus three days with 2.5. Profile and funding.

To sustain a series, a character has to remain the same when the framing changes. The models accept reference images: the creator shows them a face, an outfit or a setting and uses those images to guide subsequent shots. That makes it possible to move from a portrait to dialogue, and from dialogue to action.

Kavan said in September that, on a normal day with Seedance 2.5, he still generated twenty versions to get one usable shot. Improvement also means being able to choose. A director gains a great deal from discarding nineteen interpretations and keeping the one the scene needs. A conversation about the process.

A dinosaur, a mummy and a spaceship

PJ Ace takes Nexus towards fantasy comedy. The short presented on 30 October, directed by Chris Capel, pits warriors against creatures in a forest. A red-skinned character wearing glasses leads the absurdity, which includes a dinosaur with explosive pimples and little companions called Bobos.

Watch Nexus — PJ Ace's original post.

Ace stated that this short cost $28,775 and that episodes of Nexus had accumulated more than 62 million views. These are his production and audience figures. The budget puts the phenomenon in perspective: small teams are already spending tens of thousands of dollars to produce fiction with visual ambitions that reach much further. Short film presentation and statements.

In Galicia, Alexandra Rodríguez takes the opposite direction. In Evening at the Museum, a soft-looking mummy smokes, slumped in an armchair. It then settles into its sarcophagus, while a guard and his boss complete the scene. The bandages, exaggerated faces and materials recall modelling-clay puppets. The humour lies in the gestures and the timing.

Watch Evening at the Museum — Alexandra's post. Work profile and stills.

SwordSpeed looks to the science fiction anime of the late eighties. In THE CABLE, a white-haired female cyborg floats inside a spaceship, connected to a black cable. Her hair spreads through the industrial corridor. The artwork retains the outlines, hard shadows and mechanical parts that evoke Japanese animation from that period.

Watch THE CABLE — excerpt and the creator's explanation on Kling.

The variety matters. These creators are choosing materials, movements and genres. Resembling camera footage is one aesthetic option among several.

Why so much has changed

The tools have moved fast. Kling announced early access to 4.0 on 30 September and dates its general rollout to 15 October. It offers generations of up to thirty seconds and references to control characters and shots. That gives an action room to unfold and an emotion time to last. Announcement and rollout.

Seedance 2.5 arrived earlier, on 31 July. It generates image and sound together: movement, voices and ambient sound can come from the same generation. The creator can then replace or work on that audio in the edit. ByteDance's introduction.

Google launched Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash on 5 November: fifteen seconds per generation and an announced price of seven US cents per second at 720p. Its approach is to test at lower resolution, make corrections and upscale the best shots, meaning increase their resolution for the finished work. Generating alternatives costs less. Selection is still work. Google's announcement.

The process can start with an image that establishes the character and composition, continue by animating it and end with upscaling, editing and sound. Each step solves one part. Sora, meanwhile, has already closed: OpenAI shut down the website and app in April and its API in September. Official timeline.

It sells cars too

Billy Boman shows the commercial route. His German JAECOO 7 advert, published on his channel in September, shows a car on mountain roads and by the sea. There are carefully crafted reflections on the bodywork, bends and a charging point facing the coast. It is the familiar language of car advertising, produced with AI according to his studio.

Watch JAECOO 7 — official advert on the BOMAN Studios channel. Project and credits.

Here, awards, funding, distribution and commissions converge. The deepest change comes before all of that: who can attempt a film. A creator can now build images that would have required studio resources a year ago. They can show their world in action, with characters who speak and scenes that continue.

That changes the starting point. An idea can reach the screen before its creator gets a meeting. A talent for directing, editing and storytelling has a much larger testing ground. And the viewer already has something concrete to judge: the film.