caliban
A comic reborn with AI
A comic reborn with AI
In 1998, digital painting was the new tool, and I used it to draw Caliban, a sci-fi noir comic, as my final university project. Decades after, I found the files on an old hard drive and asked a simple question: what would this story become with the tools of today? The answer is a 2:33 cinematic trailer, written, directed and produced by one person with generative AI.
In 1998, digital painting was the new tool, and I used it to draw Caliban, a sci-fi noir comic, as my final university project. Decades after, I found the files on an old hard drive and asked a simple question: what would this story become with the tools of today? The answer is a 2:33 cinematic trailer, written, directed and produced by one person with generative AI.
A comic reborn with AI
caliban
In 1998, digital painting was the new tool, and I used it to draw Caliban, a sci-fi noir comic, as my final university project. Decades after, I found the files on an old hard drive and asked a simple question: what would this story become with the tools of today? The answer is a 2:33 cinematic trailer, written, directed and produced by one person with generative AI.
The Challenge
The Challenge
The Challenge
AI looks backwards. It’s trained on what already exists, so left alone it gives you the average of everything it has seen. Caliban needed the opposite: a whole universe nobody had seen before, built from scratch and held together across dozens of shots and four different models. I knew it would be hard. So before generating anything, I designed the process.
AI looks backwards. It’s trained on what already exists, so left alone it gives you the average of everything it has seen. Caliban needed the opposite: a whole universe nobody had seen before, built from scratch and held together across dozens of shots and four different models. I knew it would be hard. So before generating anything, I designed the process.
AI looks backwards. It’s trained on what already exists, so left alone it gives you the average of everything it has seen. Caliban needed the opposite: a whole universe nobody had seen before, built from scratch and held together across dozens of shots and four different models. I knew it would be hard. So before generating anything, I designed the process.
Regular Prompt
Designed Prompt
The Approach
The Approach
The Approach
Treat AI like a film crew, not a slot machine: a production bible, a camera language, the right model for every shot, and human craft wherever the machine falls short.
Treat AI like a film crew, not a slot machine: a production bible, a camera language, the right model for every shot, and human craft wherever the machine falls short.
Treat AI like a film crew, not a slot machine: a production bible, a camera language, the right model for every shot, and human craft wherever the machine falls short.
Director
Director
Director
Rodrigo Mavu. No AI counterpart.
Rodrigo Mavu. No AI counterpart.
Rodrigo Mavu. No AI counterpart.
Casting Director
Casting Director
Casting Director
Seedream, with locked character sheets
Seedream, with locked character sheets
Seedream, with locked character sheets
Production Designer
Production Designer
Production Designer
Seedream, from the world spec
Seedream, from the world spec
Seedream, from the world spec
Costume Designer
Costume Designer
Costume Designer
Seedream lookbooks
Seedream lookbooks
Seedream lookbooks
Props Master
Props Master
Props Master
Seedream kit plus Photoshop compositing
Seedream kit plus Photoshop compositing
Seedream kit plus Photoshop compositing
Cinematographer
Cinematographer
Cinematographer
Kling and Seedance, under my camera language
Kling and Seedance, under my camera language
Kling and Seedance, under my camera language
Gaffer
Gaffer
Gaffer
Relighting passes, light built into the prompt
Relighting passes, light built into the prompt
Relighting passes, light built into the prompt
Script
Supervisor
Script
Supervisor
Script
Supervisor
Claude, catching continuity frame by frame
Claude, catching continuity frame by frame
Claude, catching continuity frame by frame
Designing a world that never existed
Designing a world that never existed
Designing a world that never existed
A city of white sculptural towers, conceptual police cruisers, the Special Corps uniform, the pistols, the robots and drones, and what it looks like when people dream for a corporation. I designed every one of them, then used Seedream to render the turnarounds, lookbooks and prop kit that kept them consistent. Once a design was locked, it was never regenerated: the pistols were composited from the kit in Photoshop, so they kept their exact shape in every shot.
A city of white sculptural towers, conceptual police cruisers, the Special Corps uniform, the pistols, the robots and drones, and what it looks like when people dream for a corporation. I designed every one of them, then used Seedream to render the turnarounds, lookbooks and prop kit that kept them consistent. Once a design was locked, it was never regenerated: the pistols were composited from the kit in Photoshop, so they kept their exact shape in every shot.
A city of white sculptural towers, conceptual police cruisers, the Special Corps uniform, the pistols, the robots and drones, and what it looks like when people dream for a corporation. I designed every one of them, then used Seedream to render the turnarounds, lookbooks and prop kit that kept them consistent. Once a design was locked, it was never regenerated: the pistols were composited from the kit in Photoshop, so they kept their exact shape in every shot.
What I Did
What I Did
What I Did
Locked Model Sheets
Locked Model Sheets
AI drifts. Faces shift, lips change colour, suits gain belts that were never designed. So every character, prop and vehicle got a locked model sheet, and every frame was checked against it. Stills were composited first in Photoshop, then unified in a single lighting pass, so only the parts that needed to change ever changed. When a take drifted off-model, it was thrown out, no matter how good the shot looked.
AI drifts. Faces shift, lips change colour, suits gain belts that were never designed. So every character, prop and vehicle got a locked model sheet, and every frame was checked against it. Stills were composited first in Photoshop, then unified in a single lighting pass, so only the parts that needed to change ever changed. When a take drifted off-model, it was thrown out, no matter how good the shot looked.
Camera as Language
Camera as Language
One rule: it must never look like a video game. I gave every part of the story its own camera voice. The system moves in smooth, frictionless glides. Ariel's body is handheld. Her mind drifts, tilts and finally breaks into a dolly zoom. Bear, who sees everything, gets the only locked-off camera.
Model Orchestration
Model Orchestration
Four video models, each shot routed by what it needed and what it cost: Kling 3 for simple moves, Kling 4 for crowds and rack focus, Seedance 2 for physics and lip sync, and Seedance 2.5 for native slow motion, precise audio lip sync and on-screen text that stays legible. The hardest shots went first, as risk tests.
Human Craft Where It Counts
Human Craft Where It Counts
Muzzle flashes, glitches, interfaces and camera moves were built in After Effects. Voices were designed in ElevenLabs and swapped in with Voice Changer to keep the lip sync. Claude worked as a production partner on shot planning, prompts and frame-by-frame critique. When the first test audience missed the twist, I fixed the story in the edit, not with more footage.
Two souls that dwell in the caverns of a brain.
Two souls that dwell in the caverns of a brain.
Álvares de Azevedo, Lira dos Vinte Anos (1853)
Álvares de Azevedo, Lira dos Vinte Anos (1853)
Álvares de Azevedo, Lira dos Vinte Anos (1853)
The Takeaway
The Takeaway
The Takeaway
The tools generate the pixels. The decisions are still the creative's: what the camera means, what the audience needs to know and when, which shot a model can carry and which one it can't. Caliban isn't ILM. It's one person, one vision and one computer, and that's exactly the point.
The tools generate the pixels. The decisions are still the creative's: what the camera means, what the audience needs to know and when, which shot a model can carry and which one it can't. Caliban isn't ILM. It's one person, one vision and one computer, and that's exactly the point.
The tools generate the pixels. The decisions are still the creative's: what the camera means, what the audience needs to know and when, which shot a model can carry and which one it can't. Caliban isn't ILM. It's one person, one vision and one computer, and that's exactly the point.
about this project
about this project
about this project
Project: CALIBAN (personal, non-commercial)
Writer, Director, Editor & VFX: Rodrigo Mavu
Music: "Never Tear Us Apart," performed by Dia Frampton (written by Andrew Farriss and Michael Hutchence)
Tools: Seedream, Kling, Seedance, ElevenLabs, Claude, Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere Pro
Project: CALIBAN (personal, non-commercial)
Writer, Director, Editor & VFX: Rodrigo Mavu
Music: "Never Tear Us Apart," performed by Dia Frampton (written by Andrew Farriss and Michael Hutchence)
Tools: Seedream, Kling, Seedance, ElevenLabs, Claude, Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere Pro
other campaigns.
other campaigns.
©2026
©2026