Where Leo Went | GenAI Short
A man awakens to a chilling new reality: a vast, empty void dominated by a colossal, unyielding wall that stretches to infinity. His desperate attempts to understand his confinement and find an escape lead him through vivid, fragmented echoes of a life he seems to have left behind. To breach the impossible barrier, he must first decipher the meaning of these surreal incursions from his past before he is consumed by the silent emptiness.
Because the only way out is in…
Narrative Short
4:51
Released
16 June 2025
Google Imagen 3
Runway Frames
Leonardo.Ai
Kling 2.1 Master
Higgsfield
Runway Act One
Topaz VideoAI
Elevenlabs
Due to Festival guidelines, the film cannot be made available publicly until after the screening event in September 2025.
Improved Continuity in AI Filmmaking
One of the most significant breakthroughs in the making of this film was achieving cinematic continuity, a challenge that has historically plagued AI-generated films. This was crucial for creating believable, multi-shot scenes.
By using Runway's references feature, it was possible to take an establishing shot created in Imagen 3 and generate varied camera angles and viewpoints of the same scene.
This workflow delivered perfect character consistency and environmental accuracy across different shots, allowing for much better scene coverage with far less headache.
In practice, Runway's references feature proved incredibly robust and superior for this task, yielding more consistent and usable results than other contemporary tools like Midjourney's omnireference feature.
AI's Impact on the Creative Process
Artificial intelligence was not merely a tool in the creation of "Where Leo Went"; it was a foundational creative partner that made the film possible. From the project's inception, AI assisted in brainstorming the core premise and developing the intricate psychological layers of the script. It enabled the creation of highly specific, photorealistic character visuals, ensuring consistency across different ages and emotional states, and brought them to life through AI-generated voices.
Furthermore, AI was instrumental in the pre-production and visualization process, generating a detailed shot list and creating scene-specific visual prompts that translated the script's text into a cinematic blueprint. This synergy allowed a solo filmmaker to achieve a scope and level of intricate detail - from the oppressive vastness of the void to the subtle emotions on a character's face - that would have been unattainable without its assistance, accelerating the journey from concept to reality.
Why It Matters
CONTAINS SPOILERS - The film seeks to illuminate a critical aspect of human health and our ongoing quest to understand the complexities of the brain: the experience of 'hidden consciousness' as seen in Cognitive Motor Dissociation (CMD). By portraying a journey through a trapped awareness, the film underscores how much we are still learning about consciousness and the urgent need for continued research for individuals who appear unresponsive. This challenge directly resonates with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 (Good Health and Well-being), as advancing our understanding is vital to ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all.
