We like to get a little experimental with our 48 Hour Film Project shorts. There’s nothing quite like testing out new techniques and tricks in the heat of a timed filmmaking project, and for 2023’s Washington DC 48 Hour Film Project I decided to put the generative AI app Midjourney to the task of helping us create several scenes for our short, INFORMATIONAL HUMAN CENTRIC VACATION FILM.
As an image generator, the way Midjourney works is that when prompted with a few lines of text, it uses machine learning to create a new image, drawn from patterns learned by sorting through a dataset of many, many other images, and Vox made a great video explaining how this all works much better than I can, available here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVcsDDABEkM
The first time I used it, it felt almost like magic (and much like magic, it has a bright side and a dark side, something I’ll be talking about in another post, soon). In the interest of transparency in the face of a new technology, I wanted to share the prompts we used for each of the Midjourney generated images included in our short:
PROMPT: A massive flat flying saucer with black windows and red stripes hovers over the US Capitol Building on a bright sunny day, blue cloudless sky
PROMPT: Ice palaces on an alien world, towering spires made of translucent ice amid a snowy alien landscape, realistic photograph, drones shot, --ar 16:9
PROMPT: Looking down on a snowy alien landscape, blizzard blowing, spires of ice rising up towards the sky --ar 16:9
PROMPT: Looking down on a snowy alien landscape, blizzard blowing, spires of ice rising up towards the sky --ar 16:9
PROMPT: Two people sip wine as they look over a fancy modern architechture balcony at a sea of endless sunset thunderstorm clouds, golden hour lighting --ar 16:9
PROMPT: An industrial platform floating among the clouds at sunset, golden hour, beautiful view, --ar 16:9
PROMPT: A spider-webbed beach at night, dark blue, alien world. Chittering arachnids. Thick clumps of webbing on alien trees. Landscape shot. --ar 16:9
PROMPT: Futuristic Sci-fi space station with large rectangular picture window looking out on the Earth's horizon from orbit --ar 16:9
PROMPT: A futuristic science fiction mineshaft. Underground. LED lighting. Rock walls. --ar 16:9
PROMPT: Propaganda poster design for an alien empire, black background, stylized red graphic of a flying saucer firing energy beams --ar 3:4
(Used as the poster in the background of a couple of shots, the flag over the White House in the ending credits, and also the background for the film’s poster)
PROMPT: people at a fancy high-tech restaurant biting into squid and tentacles, photograph, full frame camera, realistic, shallow depth of field, led lighting --v 5.1 --ar 16:9
PROMPT: A buffet inside a restaurant where all the trays are filled with carnivorous alien creatures --ar 16:9
PROMPT: A buffet inside a restaurant where all the trays are filled with carnivorous alien creatures --ar 16:9
Side note, the first time I did this prompt, I accidentally misspelled it as ‘Buffett’, which led to this hilarious image of Warren Buffett at a Buffet:
PROMPT: an all-that-can-eat-you buffett
PROMPT: A dinner plate with a sentient vegetable begging not to be eaten --ar 16:9
PROMPT: alien-newt-squid-starfish-monster having a great day terrorizing tourists on the national mall with its many claw tendrils
(There were several variations of the aliens in the end credits, something Midjourney makes remarkably easy. I also further modified them in Procreate to give them eyes)
If you’re interested in a more in depth look at the process of generating each of these images, and the practical aspects of how we integrated them into the short, drop a comment below and I may make a behind-the-scenes video of how we used Midjourney in the edit in more detail!
And if you haven’t seen the short, here it is!