By Novae Caelum · Originally published
I have learned a ton
Every single episode I make of my by-hand show is a Capital L Lesson. None of them are easy. Every single one comes with something new gained, not the least of which because the tech landscape has changed between them.
This time: I primarily rolled my 4th episode of The King’s Weaver show with Seedance 2.5. Which was a REVELATION. It’s the first time I felt like I was hallucinating working with an actual cast on an actual set (and yet it’s the weirdest feeling, because of course I didn’t). Somewhere, in a dream.
It’s the first time I felt like I could really direct the emotions, really got surprised by the performances, really flowed through the movements I wanted to. Seedance 2.0 was (is!) really good. But Seedance 2.5 is on a whole other level.
And—AND I found that when I was editing it at the end, pulling all the sound design together, and finding places where things went off for whatever reason, the mistakes hit so much harder than when I rolled my first episode in Veo 3.1.
My brain believed this one was real. So when non-reality showed up, it was a jarring interrupt. Which meant I had to work a bit harder to maintain the illusion of reality.
Which is what we’re doing here anyway, with any kind of filmmaking, or any kind of storytelling, really, making carefully crafted illusions of a stylized version of reality. Whatever that reality might be.
I’m upscaling everything now, and even that’s going to be different - it’ll be the first time I use Topaz’s Starlight Precise 2.6 on one of my show episodes, and I can’t wait to see it (but it takes a few hours).
This time, too, I had to figure out a way to test tracks from Suno without downloading them (the fuckers) because now you only get 20 downloads a month, or 60 on the highest plan. (the. fuckers.)