ScriptFlow: The start of my Journey Integrating AI into Filmmaking

As AI video generation accelerates at an unbelievable speed, with new models and tools emerging almost weekly, I’ve decided to jump in and test some of these out by creating a short film that mixes in AI generated elements. In doing so, I hope to explore potential use cases for the technology, discover and create new workflows that can be integrated into current production pipelines, and see how well these tools could help companies and brands save on costs, speeding up deliveries and pushing creativity.

For this project, I chose to adapt a short film story from my ideas book (written with an old-fashioned tool called a pen!). This story, I believe, would have been expensive and very time-consuming to execute fully in the traditional way, making it a perfect fit for this AI-integrated approach.

To get started, since I no longer had access to professional scriptwriting software, I decided to code a custom web-based script writer myself, called ScriptFlow. It offers a basic writing experience, but for now, that’s all I needed.

The ScriptFlow app along with the script for the short film.

From there, I’ve chosen to use Veo3.1 inside the Google Flow app. I liked its clean user interface and features like the timeline to build scenes, 'ingredients,' to video, 'frames,' to video and 'extend,' the clips into a newly generated video, which I thought would be ideal for this project.

I also utilized AI in other ways including Claude Sonnet. Writing dialogue has always been the hardest part of the screenwriting process for me, and since my two main characters were seasoned professionals (a News Anchor and a Field Journalist), the tool helped me quickly find the correct terminology and tone of voice for each character.

In addition, I used Nano Banana to brainstorm logo designs for the various fictional companies appearing in the film. I then took the ones I liked and polished them up in Photoshop.

The current plan is to split the film up into either two or three parts, and I hope to share the first part soon. I’ll also dive into some details of what the experience has been like and share the new tools and workflows I’ve created to help work with this new technology moving forwards.

We boldly go into a new year! Happy New Year to everyone.

Below are a few early screenshots.