Devin

I've been building an animated short film from scratch using AI tools, no studio, no team, just me figuring it out one shot at a time. The project is called "Don't Judge a Bark by Its Bite", a 3-5 minute animated short. 7 characters. A real story. A real script. Real stakes. Here's what nobody tells you about AI filmmaking: The tools are incredible. And they will humble you daily. I started with a locked screenplay, 7 character design sheets, 3 environments, and a 24-shot list. I thought the hard part was behind me. Then I started generating.Shot 1 alone took 6 attempts. Background dogs with glitchy paws. Characters appearing out of nowhere. A ball that kept deflating mid-shot. An engine that kept making my lead look angry when he was supposed to look warm. I switched video models entirely halfway through production. Rebuilt my entire workflow from scratch. I learned that "soaking wet" triggers NSFW filters. That circular pipe openings cause problems I won't describe here. That getting a small dog to look stuck, actually stuck, in a drainage pipe took 11 separate prompts over two sessions. But then it works. And when it works it's genuinely cinematic. A dog painting a portrait of his friend in a sunny park. Two dogs bumping into each other at a fence line. A little dog choosing kindness when she didn't have to. None of this is finished. But it's real. And it's getting better every session. If you're building something hard and slow and worth it, I see you. More to come. 🐾