Director Brent Bonacorso guides Stash fans through the production steps involved in his latest work to integrate AI into the production pipeline, a short film that sweeps back through time on a mission to recreate prehistoric creatures.

Brent Bonacorso: “Moments Ago began as a challenge; I wanted to see if good paleoart could be created using AI. As of now, AI can’t create accurate depictions of prehistoric animals, as that requires a unique combination of scientific knowledge, informed speculation, and artistic license.

“The parts we know of, the bones or skeleton, skin impressions, phylogenetically similar animals (if any), the ecology at the time – all have to adhere to the facts and be 100% accurate. But then there’s so much we don’t know about these creatures that needs to be speculatively filled in; plausible coloration and coverings, postures, interactions in their world, etc.
 

“The image needs to be artistically compelling, it needs to create an evocative piece of art that says something conceptually about the subject. AI just can’t do all of this on its own.”

 
“And then, the image needs to be artistically compelling, it needs to create an evocative piece of art that says something conceptually about the subject. AI just can’t do all of this on its own.

“So I invented a process using Midjourney’s ‘blend’ feature where you input many different images and the AI will merge them together using no prompts or text. In this way it’s like working with a recipe, adding and subtracting different animal images to get hybrid parts that work for the Photoshop composite.

“These are then selectively combined to bring out the features and raw elements that I’m looking for, and are then cut apart and carefully combined in Photoshop with standard ‘photo-bashing’ techniques, to produce very detailed and accurate images.
 

“These AI photo-collage images were then animated with AI to produce realistic motion, bringing these long-gone animals to life. This is the part that AI is quite good at; if it recognizes that an animal is ‘bird-like’, it will naturally bring more bird-like animation to it. Likewise, if one tells it that an animal is massive, it will adjust the physics appropriately.

“It’s a convoluted process, but necessary and oddly meditative and satisfying. All paleoart is interpretive and speculative, and in this way I can bring my particular vision of an animal and its environment to life while controlling each and every element of the final product.

“I recorded the narration myself based a quote by Carl Sagan and then used Eleven Labs to alter my voice into something rather different.”
 
 

 
Director: Brent Bonacorso

Music: Volker Bertelmann.
VO: Brent Bonacorso