I teamed up with my favorite folks at Wistia to tackle a fun challenge: use AI to recreate one of their classic ads starring their lovable mascot, Lenny. It started as a shot-for-shot recreation…but soon took on a life of its own.

I leaned into my “vibe animating” workflow: Toss out ideas - test quickly - keep what works - sculpt it to the flow / music track Here’s how the tools stacked up: Midjourney = unmatched aesthetic Nano Banana = angles + edits Seedance + Kling = motion Midjourney = surprisingly

Then off to home sweet home in After Effects for some clean up. One of the favorite shots involved google street view + a green screen run cycle produced in nano + MJ - finished in AE. The real unlock: think in assets. Use multiple tools to build your start/end frames. Stitch

With the launch of Sora 2 I had to know how it would fair against the tools I used to create this - Seedance / Kling. to be honest - I was incredibly hopeful that it was going to be a serious level up....buuuuut The first is Kling and the second is Sora 2 - both using the same

And since After Effects is my first love I figure it's worth sharing a walkthrough of what @crlvideo and I lovingly refer to as the 'Hakuna Matata' sequence. There's serious power is taking your generations - breaking them into assets - and then crafting your start/end frames in

@crlvideo As promised, here’s the custom GPT I built to assist in crafting prompts for each LLM. So far this has coverage for Midjourney, Nano Banana, Kling, and Seedance. I'm adding to it all the time! Last thing: the way I like to engage it is simply type the model you want the custom

@crlvideo And finally - here’s the original Wistia ad with our pal Lenny What started as a shot-for-shot AI recreation evolved into a full short of its own Reinterpreting past content with these tools feels like a huge opportunity moving forward. More soon!

@billywoodward OMG this adorable. You killed it!

@RayFernando1337 thank you kindly Ray!

@billywoodward very nice. but what is that object the dog is delivering?

@aRealCapitalist ahh you mean the relic from days of yore? funny enough, when showing it to our kiddos the VHS had to be spelled out. minds were blown

@billywoodward So adorable! Great work

@pressmanc thank you Chrissie!

@billywoodward love this! So good!

@PJaccetturo appreciate you!

@billywoodward Can you imagine, sneaking this tech back to 1987, and just creating material like this! And keeping the production methods secret! With Color TV sets being 720x480 pixels interlaced! You would control the entire kids market when characters were running by the same couch 13 times

@JeepersMedia you're a legend Wolf! and what you said is so true - we're in exciting times for the creative

@billywoodward two paws up from the original IRL Lenny!

@crlvideo there he is - the proper pup himself! A Titan among Canines

@billywoodward Nice job !!!

@CodyBaker_xx Thanks Cody! 🙏

@billywoodward Very well made Billy! Nice short 👏🏻

@EccentrismArt thank you!

@billywoodward Great work! Even anamorphic bokeh present in some shots!

@MatiCollado thanks! right?! I think we'll be able to dial in minutia more and more as these tools evolve

@billywoodward Do you have a youtube video explaining step by step how you did this? It really looks amazing! I bet there are a lot of graphics designers at Pixar having a bad week... (If they hadn't already see this coming of course).

@FutureAtX thanks a lot! I don't as of yet but since there's such demand I'll be putting together an overview

@billywoodward Great work Billy!

@JeffSynthesized thanks Jeff!

@billywoodward fantastic thread and workflow Billy followed for more great content

@awesome_visuals Thank you kindly!!