Jessé Miceli
ABOUT
In a world where everyone perceives reality through a personal implant, Kai's brain rejects it, and he alone sees the raw world beneath. An old camcorder found in a forgotten basement becomes his way of seeing, and of giving that world a meaning. Written, directed and produced by Jessé Miceli. Made with Seedance 2.5 and GPT Image 2, sound with ElevenLabs, edited in DaVinci Resolve.
SELECTED FRAMES — 4 OF 8
PROCESS
Before the first shot, I locked the world's rules in a production bible: a vocabulary (Bloom, Weave, Substrate) and one visual law. In the raw world, everything inert is a matte grey placeholder shape, while living beings keep real skin and texture. Every image in the film was judged against that law. References came first. Each character exists in two states, as Kai sees them (bald, thin grey base layer, eyes emitting pale blue light) and as rendered inside a Weave, each with its own character sheet, cropped into single full-frame views so the model holds face and build. Locations were built from real spaces (a bedroom, a basement, a garden) converted into greybox while keeping their geometry. The camcorder at the centre of the story went through several versions before its final design. Shots were written strictly as camera-visible action, with a continuity line repeated at every cut. The render transitions took the longest: the Weave had to settle onto the characters like a coat of colour and texture, then lift off like a thin film, with the actors in motion throughout. Risky shots were tested at 10 seconds before any full-length generation. 641 generations in total. Discarded along the way: a first story concept, a teddy-bear version of Kai inside a neighbour's Weave (replaced by a little prince, so his face survives the render), and a separate camera and projector, merged into one object. Brand marks that appeared on generated props were cleaned by hand at pixel level. Almost no music: each Weave carries its own ambient bed, and the raw world is amplified room tone. Sound partly generated with ElevenLabs, edit and mix in DaVinci Resolve.
Credits
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