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The Last Waltz trailer is here.
A game of cat and murder.
It started with a single image: a ballroom at night, all shadow and silhouette. The image became a concept reel. The concept reel went to Annecy and came back with a win. Now the film has a trailer.
Three hundred ses. A bride dead by eleven.
Watch it below. And when the police arrive — remember that everyone was watching, and no one saw a thing.
The Last Waltz, an animated pink noir murder mystery, currently in production at WellerVision. Winner, Project Proposal Track, Dreamina AI International Animation Conference, Annecy 2026.
A game of cat and murder.
It started with a single image: a ballroom at night, all shadow and silhouette. The image became a concept reel. The concept reel went to Annecy and came back with a win. Now the film has a trailer.
Three hundred ses. A bride dead by eleven.
Watch it below. And when the police arrive — remember that everyone was watching, and no one saw a thing.
The Last Waltz, an animated pink noir murder mystery, currently in production at WellerVision. Winner, Project Proposal Track, Dreamina AI International Animation Conference, Annecy 2026.
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2025: "Worse case scenario, Children of Men & Gattaca"
2026: 'Worse case scenario, Terminator& Matrix"
2028 "You like Mel Gibson movies? i got some fun ones."
2026: 'Worse case scenario, Terminator& Matrix"
2028 "You like Mel Gibson movies? i got some fun ones."
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C.E. Whitmore retweeted
Odyssey with Grok Imagine is beautiful, well made and exciting. If it's turned into a series it will do well. Some will hate it, always. And some will reject it for a specific reason.
There is an energy signature to human creative output, not to be confused with a creative signature. And that missing human signature is what some are noticing and rejecting in AI film.
I don’t know what distinguishes an amateur filmmaker from a professional one. But when I watch a film with a very small budget and perhaps less capable acting, it’s apparent that the main thing any of us ever reacts to is emotion in other people. That spark of humanity ignites an involuntary response within us.
That spark is not in AI film (yet?) AI film speaks differently. It relies on something less clear. Beautiful and fun but still. It may be partly why hybrid uses of AI have flown under the radar while pure AI productions face backlash.
I love creating with AI. I doubt it will ever have the same anima found in human creations (famous last words), and that’s fine. We are learning it is still possible to spark emotional responses through stimuli and storytelling. It's all just shadow, story and symbols.
The delivery seems to come down to whether or not you like yours with a little anima, and how much. I love them both though I lean toward maximum freedom and a dash of curiosity.
I don't know where AI filmmaking tops off but I'm betting on the human creativity behind the tools. It's the same human energy steered differently.
There is an energy signature to human creative output, not to be confused with a creative signature. And that missing human signature is what some are noticing and rejecting in AI film.
I don’t know what distinguishes an amateur filmmaker from a professional one. But when I watch a film with a very small budget and perhaps less capable acting, it’s apparent that the main thing any of us ever reacts to is emotion in other people. That spark of humanity ignites an involuntary response within us.
That spark is not in AI film (yet?) AI film speaks differently. It relies on something less clear. Beautiful and fun but still. It may be partly why hybrid uses of AI have flown under the radar while pure AI productions face backlash.
I love creating with AI. I doubt it will ever have the same anima found in human creations (famous last words), and that’s fine. We are learning it is still possible to spark emotional responses through stimuli and storytelling. It's all just shadow, story and symbols.
The delivery seems to come down to whether or not you like yours with a little anima, and how much. I love them both though I lean toward maximum freedom and a dash of curiosity.
I don't know where AI filmmaking tops off but I'm betting on the human creativity behind the tools. It's the same human energy steered differently.
Watch Episode 1 of our Odyssey series made with Grok Imagine.
Let us know in the comments if you'd like a full breakdown of how it was done!
Creative collaboration with @WonderStudiosX and director Dev Walker @glumlot_
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The only time I’ve wanted to watch The Simpsons in the last 20 years.
Props to The Simpsons for actually committing to stop motion for their Nightmare Before Christmas homage. But it’s crazy how this just makes me appreciate the original even more and how painstaking that process was. Like the quality is still night and day.
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Odyssey with Grok Imagine is beautiful, well made and exciting. If it's turned into a series it will do well. Some will hate it, always. And some will reject it for a specific reason.
There is an energy signature to human creative output, not to be confused with a creative signature. And that missing human signature is what some are noticing and rejecting in AI film.
I don’t know what distinguishes an amateur filmmaker from a professional one. But when I watch a film with a very small budget and perhaps less capable acting, it’s apparent that the main thing any of us ever reacts to is emotion in other people. That spark of humanity ignites an involuntary response within us.
That spark is not in AI film (yet?) AI film speaks differently. It relies on something less clear. Beautiful and fun but still. It may be partly why hybrid uses of AI have flown under the radar while pure AI productions face backlash.
I love creating with AI. I doubt it will ever have the same anima found in human creations (famous last words), and that’s fine. We are learning it is still possible to spark emotional responses through stimuli and storytelling. It's all just shadow, story and symbols.
The delivery seems to come down to whether or not you like yours with a little anima, and how much. I love them both though I lean toward maximum freedom and a dash of curiosity.
I don't know where AI filmmaking tops off but I'm betting on the human creativity behind the tools. It's the same human energy steered differently.
There is an energy signature to human creative output, not to be confused with a creative signature. And that missing human signature is what some are noticing and rejecting in AI film.
I don’t know what distinguishes an amateur filmmaker from a professional one. But when I watch a film with a very small budget and perhaps less capable acting, it’s apparent that the main thing any of us ever reacts to is emotion in other people. That spark of humanity ignites an involuntary response within us.
That spark is not in AI film (yet?) AI film speaks differently. It relies on something less clear. Beautiful and fun but still. It may be partly why hybrid uses of AI have flown under the radar while pure AI productions face backlash.
I love creating with AI. I doubt it will ever have the same anima found in human creations (famous last words), and that’s fine. We are learning it is still possible to spark emotional responses through stimuli and storytelling. It's all just shadow, story and symbols.
The delivery seems to come down to whether or not you like yours with a little anima, and how much. I love them both though I lean toward maximum freedom and a dash of curiosity.
I don't know where AI filmmaking tops off but I'm betting on the human creativity behind the tools. It's the same human energy steered differently.
Watch Episode 1 of our Odyssey series made with Grok Imagine.
Let us know in the comments if you'd like a full breakdown of how it was done!
Creative collaboration with @WonderStudiosX and director Dev Walker @glumlot_
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Working on a murder mystery, you've got to search high and low for a good movie to learn from. I think I've found one and I'm taking notes.
A Talent for Murder opened yesterday. A murder mystery thriller from Anton Corbijn. Haven't seen it yet but the process of working out d motives rings so true.
Oh and the real Highsmith spent her last years in Switzerland, in a house called "the bunker". She also kept about 300 snails and once brought some of them to a cocktail party in her handbag, on a head of lettuce.
Are you kidding?
::sprinkles eccentrism all over my body::
A Talent for Murder opened yesterday. A murder mystery thriller from Anton Corbijn. Haven't seen it yet but the process of working out d motives rings so true.
Oh and the real Highsmith spent her last years in Switzerland, in a house called "the bunker". She also kept about 300 snails and once brought some of them to a cocktail party in her handbag, on a head of lettuce.
Are you kidding?
::sprinkles eccentrism all over my body::
A Talent for Murder is a decent mystery thriller held back by an unwieldy metafictional conceit.
Our review: bit.ly/4BrrNiU
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Next step: Longevity and Rejuvenation. We are almost there.
Researchers in Bonn turned blood cells from an 80-year-old into neural stem cells with a molecular age below 20. More than 60 years younger by epigenetic clocks, which estimate age from chemical marks on DNA.
The team lood precursor cells into neural stem cells, skipping the usual pluripotent stem cell stage. The rejuvenation unfolded gradually and could be tracked for over 100 days.
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This is what happens when every frame of a video is written as code instead of generated as an mp4.
The Pearl, a fight over the light that holds the world together. Every frame is rendered from code. No camera, no video model.
No consistency issues. Just story.
It feels like it takes four years to reach a Seedance moment.
The Pearl, a fight over the light that holds the world together. Every frame is rendered from code. No camera, no video model.
No consistency issues. Just story.
It feels like it takes four years to reach a Seedance moment.
I feel like we're looking at something so much BIGGER than just better and more detailed SVGs.
SVGs are essentially images made entirely from code. Instead of storing millions of pixels like a PNG or JPEG, it uses math instructions to describe shapes, paths, colors, gradients, etc....
and Quiver is now generating these incredibly detailed illustrations that look almost like polished 3D renders, except they're actually editable vector graphics.
But what happens when these models eventually get so good that they can generate SVGs that are indistinguishable from photorealistic images? At that point, why would we need image models at all?
and if you can create any image entirely through code, you could theoretically generate every frame in a video in the same way and suddenly, instead of generating a fixed sequence as an mp4, you would be able to generate fully editable programmatic scenes.
I don't know what this means for the future, or if it will even work in this way, but holy molly, it's gonna be interesting
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China's first fully AI-generated feature, Sanxingdui: Future Past, opens today across more than 10,000 screens.
It took 100 people over two years and more than 10 million yuan - or $1,497.443 - to complete. Pre-sales as of this morning: 80,000 yuan - or $11,979.54
On Douyin, more than 200 billion views in September alone. But, one Weibo user put it plainly: "If it's free to watch on streaming platforms, it could become legendary. But paying to watch?"
This is a major test in a market that loves AI content.
Would you buy a ticket?
Would you pay to see a fully AI feature in a cinema? Will Chinese viewers? Trailer below.
It took 100 people over two years and more than 10 million yuan - or $1,497.443 - to complete. Pre-sales as of this morning: 80,000 yuan - or $11,979.54
On Douyin, more than 200 billion views in September alone. But, one Weibo user put it plainly: "If it's free to watch on streaming platforms, it could become legendary. But paying to watch?"
This is a major test in a market that loves AI content.
Would you buy a ticket?
Would you pay to see a fully AI feature in a cinema? Will Chinese viewers? Trailer below.
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The Wildwood reviews are coming in...
"Wildwood is obsessed with impressing you instead of immersing you. Its marketing has emphasised the 16 year journey to make the film, the meticulously crafted puppets, sets and outfits and the idea that Laika had to become worthy of making it. All of this serves to put you in the cinema in a position to fawn over Wildwood’s technical brilliance, while paying no mind to the film’s underwhelmingly hollow story. A film should earn your investment in its world and characters, Wildwood takes it for granted."
"Wildwood is obsessed with impressing you instead of immersing you. Its marketing has emphasised the 16 year journey to make the film, the meticulously crafted puppets, sets and outfits and the idea that Laika had to become worthy of making it. All of this serves to put you in the cinema in a position to fawn over Wildwood’s technical brilliance, while paying no mind to the film’s underwhelmingly hollow story. A film should earn your investment in its world and characters, Wildwood takes it for granted."
REVIEW: WILDWOOD didn’t work for me
It’s the kind of clean, well crafted “magic” that many critics only see value in animation for, but below that is a hollow, rote story lacking personality
Check it out on @skwigly
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The French Dispatch is five years old today with a secret gift.
3 minutes of hand-drawn car chase, styled after Tintin and Blake & Mortimer. 15 animators worked over seven months in Angoulême, the same French town where they shot the whole film.
I was never into 2D animation. But f noir on it and I'm in.
3 minutes of hand-drawn car chase, styled after Tintin and Blake & Mortimer. 15 animators worked over seven months in Angoulême, the same French town where they shot the whole film.
I was never into 2D animation. But f noir on it and I'm in.
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Making The Lover's Coin meant building a strange world that could carry grief. The faces had to reveal thought. The magic needed consequences. And the music needed room to surprise you.
The choices and revisions behind the film are in my latest Dispatch. ⤵️
The choices and revisions behind the film are in my latest Dispatch. ⤵️
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wellervision.co/making-the-lov…
New Dispatches go out by email if you want the next one.
New Dispatches go out by email if you want the next one.
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Animating with code. Part 2.
The Bog Witch tests are very interesting to me. Take an image from MJ and focus on light, camera work and depth. Each piece is turned into a flat card at its own depth, and the camera flies through them.
The style is not flexible at all being an cus on light, depth and camera (aside from being the basis for a lot of animation) was determined by the styles’ limitations.
If you're curious about the prompt - I don't prompt Opus 5.5 using this method. We talk and test.
Before the video I ran two tests. Test A cut the picture into layers. It kept the drawing exact, but it could only move a little. Test B rebuilt her in 3D in Blender. That gave a freer camera, but she looked flat and CG once it turned.
So we leaned into the part which was limiting and made it the story. We used her stillness as the threat.
The Bog Witch tests are very interesting to me. Take an image from MJ and focus on light, camera work and depth. Each piece is turned into a flat card at its own depth, and the camera flies through them.
The style is not flexible at all being an cus on light, depth and camera (aside from being the basis for a lot of animation) was determined by the styles’ limitations.
If you're curious about the prompt - I don't prompt Opus 5.5 using this method. We talk and test.
Before the video I ran two tests. Test A cut the picture into layers. It kept the drawing exact, but it could only move a little. Test B rebuilt her in 3D in Blender. That gave a freer camera, but she looked flat and CG once it turned.
So we leaned into the part which was limiting and made it the story. We used her stillness as the threat.
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