Method
Seven steps, always in the same order. Each one is illustrated by a real case from the catalogue, with a link to the film. Technical terms link to the glossary.
- 01
Write and break down
A short film fits on one page: the idea, the ending, then the shot list, shot by shot, with the length the voice will leave each one. No generator is switched on before that page is settled.
Real caseHors-Jeu: seventeen shots written and numbered before the first image; the twenty-second teaser keeps that structure.
Teaser - 02
Sound first
The voice or the music is recorded before any image. It sets the length of each shot; the other way round produces images cut with regret or stretched.
Real caseROUVRAY 1: the recorded narration ran thirty-five seconds instead of the planned twenty-two. Two shots were redone at ten seconds. That is where the rule comes from.
The Sandwich War - 03
One still image per shot
Every shot starts with a still image, generated, checked and corrected until it is right: frame, costume, light, period, no face to camera. A defect is fixed in the image, never in the video. The approved images are assembled into a storyboard, in shot-list order: that is the document you sign off before animation.
Real caseROUVRAY 1: the empty cabin behind the inspector and the doubled sandwiches were fixed on the start frame, then only animated.
The Sandwich War - 04
Animate and sort
The approved image becomes a four- to ten-second shot. We generate several takes, keep the right one, note why the others fail. Sorting is the real work.
Real caseROUVRAY 2: nineteen generations for five kept shots, including three versions of the Orly terrace alone.
A Sunday at Orly - 05
Edit
Cuts are set on the words of the voice, not on the length of the shots. Subtitles, speech balloons and title cards are placed here, so they stay editable. Text that belongs to the set, a shop sign, a label, initials on a jacket lapel, is generated inside the image, and that is where a brand takes its place: its logo and product are built into the images, just as our own films carry the Studio's mark.
Real caseVARENNE: the pause between two speech balloons was set on the first episode and holds for the whole season.
Influencer or entrepreneur? - 06
Mix
Voice, ambience, music: the voice is treated like a real recording, ambient sound comes from the shots themselves when it exists, music stays in the background.
Real caseROUVRAY 2: a voice passed through a period microphone, and the shots' native sound (jets, crowd) kept under the narration.
A Sunday at Orly - 07
Grade and dress
The colours of all the shots are brought into one palette, then come the grain, the title cards, the subtitles. That is when a sequence of shots becomes a film.
Real caseROUVRAY 2: the 8 mm ageing is applied in the edit on sharp generated images; VARENNE: the panel design is the same from one episode to the next.
A Sunday at Orly
What AI cannot do yet
We say it, and we say how we work around it.
The real speed of a fast object. Workaround: describe speed in fractions of the frame, measure, regenerate.
Holding a character's identity from a description alone. Workaround: always an already approved image as the starting point.
Long lines in French with synced lips. Workaround: six words at most, the rest from behind, in profile or in voice-over.
A detail that stays identical from one shot to the next: hair colour, an object in the hand. Workaround: lock it in every start frame, and flag what drifted.
Transparency and rights
Every film carries its “AI-generated images” disclosure, on screen and in the files. No real person, brand or work is imitated. Music is generated under a commercial licence, never borrowed. For a commercial, the brand that airs it is the one bound by European regulation: we deliver the disclosure and the metadata with the film.