nienko
ABOUT
TOGA VIRILIS is a near-future science-fiction coming-of-age romance currently in development. When trans college freshman Harper feels alienated by college life, his personal AI builds him an escape into Ancient Rome — until the fantasy begins to collide with his life in the real world. This is the visual development and pre-production proof of concept built in Runway (using Nano Banana 2, Seedance 2 and 2,5, Aleph 2) based on my original story and sketches. The full TOGA VIRILIS treatment has been registered with the WGA and U.S. Copyright Office. I’m currently writing the full feature screenplay. Final production methods and casting are in development. Find out more at https://nienko.com/toga-virilis
SELECTED FRAMES — 8 OF 8
PROCESS
TOGA VIRILIS started as a graphic-novel script. I wrote the story first, then developed the characters through comic-panel sketches. A number of shots in the trailer began as those drawings. The trailer took well over 1,500 image and video iterations. I select aggressively for performance and the small accidents that make a shot feel photographed. Character continuity is built from contact sheets and character references. The Roman material is researched around the period of c. 219–218 BCE. I wrote dialogue in Latin and directed pronunciation: modified spelling and capitalized stress markers worked better than either English respelling or IPA. Visually, I’m trying to get away from the smooth, frictionless surface of generative imagery. Guadagnino, Fellini and Pasolini are important references: sensual natural light, bodies sharing space, heat, textured materials. I’m particularly interested in ritualistic intimacy: interactions that carry emotional meaning without explaining themselves. I use very detailed prompts. For this project (generated in Runway, mainly in Seedance 2 and 2.5 with image refs created in Nano Banana and ChatGPT Image 2), I aimed for a look as if photographed on 35mm Kodak Vision3 250D (5207) and finished with a restrained Kodak 2383 print-film response. The prompts also include a lot of instructions regarding camera, staging, lighting and filmic character (like “soft highlight rolloff”). I also add a lot of negative prompts, mainly to avoid the evenly lit HDR look. I edit in Premiere and After Effects. Much of the finishing happens through adjustment layers: reducing synthetic sharpness, adding restrained grain and halation, and pushing the image toward the behavior of photographed and printed film. This is also the stage where I add many more sound layers. I’m interested in photographic emulsion and the slight loss, texture and unpredictability introduced by reproduction.
Credits
More Trailers Work
Amber
Craig Lew
Grand Theft Auto: Tokyo
Elliot Quartz
REPLACED
Jessé Miceli