Some videos arrive fully formed.
This one argued with me for a few hours.
It started with a handful of private messages, wandered into philosophy, took a detour through psychology, and somehow ended as a three-minute film called “Between Messages.”
The strange part wasn’t making it.
The strange part was discovering that what interested me wasn’t what was being said.
It was everything that wasn’t.
2/9
The seed wasn’t romance.
It was curiosity.
I became fascinated by what happens after someone reads a message.
Not while they’re typing.
Not while they’re replying.
After.
The message is gone.
The conversation has ended.
But the mind keeps working.
Sometimes for minutes.
Sometimes for days.
That’s the movie I wanted to make.
Not two people talking.
Two people thinking.
3/9
The first mistake I made was treating it like dialogue.
It wasn’t.
It was two independent weather systems drifting through each other’s atmosphere.
That completely changed the structure.
Instead of writing conversations, I wrote thoughts.
Then I cut them apart.
Then I wove them back together.
Neither voice answers the other.
Neither voice even knows what the other is thinking.
And somehow… they still feel connected.
Lab note:
The moment I stopped writing dialogue and started writing parallel inner monologues, the film finally came alive.
4/9
The next challenge surprised me.
Both voices sounded like me.
That wasn’t going to work.
The woman became quieter.
She notices things.
She doesn’t rush to explain them.
She lets thoughts arrive and leave.
The man…
Well… he loops.
He revisits.
He wonders if he missed something.
He’s fascinated by patterns that other people might walk right past.
Neither one is right.
They’re simply different ways of carrying attention.
5/9
Visual style became just as important as the words.
I avoided obvious romance.
No sunsets.
No longing stares.
No dramatic embraces.
Instead…
Empty streets.
Warm windows.
Quiet bedrooms.
Soft pools of light.
Places where thoughts have room to exist.
Sometimes the most emotional image in a film contains no people at all.
Lab note:
Negative space became another character.
6/9
The soundtrack needed the same restraint.
I almost ruined it.
My first instinct was emotional piano.
Too obvious.
Then cinematic strings.
Too manipulative.
The answer turned out to be minimal ambient electronica.
Soft synth pads.
Barely-there piano.
Long reverbs.
More silence than music.
I wanted the soundtrack to feel like it was listening instead of speaking.
That tiny shift changed everything.
7/9
Tools & Creative Stack
• ChatGPT – concept development, narration refinement, dual-perspective structure
• Midjourney – cinematic character portraits and environmental imagery
• AI music generation – minimalist ambient electronica soundtrack
• Grok imagine – video generation with voiceover
• ElevenLabs – bulk voice changer
• Kdenlive – editing, pacing and final assembly
The funny part?
None of these tools knew what I was trying to say.
They only knew how to help me discover it.
That’s becoming my favorite part of working with AI.
8/9
The biggest discovery wasn’t technical.
It was human.
I’ve spent years trying to understand conversations.
This project reminded me that conversations don’t really end.
They echo.
People continue editing each other’s words long after they’ve been spoken.
We replay tone.
We imagine pauses.
We assign meaning.
Sometimes we’re right.
Sometimes we’re beautifully wrong.
Either way…
The story keeps unfolding inside us.
Lab note:
Creativity isn’t always inventing something new.
Sometimes it’s noticing something that’s been happening your entire life.
9/9
I call myself a video alchemist because that’s what this process feels like.
Not commanding machines.
Listening for patterns.
Following accidents.
Letting AI throw sparks into the workshop while I decide which ones deserve to become fire.
Between Messages isn’t really about texting. It’s about thinking.
It’s about the invisible space where human beings slowly become real to each other.
That space has no soundtrack of its own.
So I made one.
TL;DR
The best part of the conversation might be the part that happens after everyone says goodnight.
Steve Teare
video alchemist
TerminallyBored.Monster
Palouse, Washington USA