Sometimes a project arrives disguised as something else.
I thought I was making a video about connection.
Then I thought I was making a video about loneliness.
Then I thought I was making a video about a woman I’m curious about.
As usual, the project politely ignored all my assumptions.
What emerged was something simpler.
A question.
What if the thing we’re all afraid of isn’t rejection?
What if it’s believing we’re the only one?
That was the seed that became Not the Only One.
And strangely enough, the visual language that finally unlocked it wasn’t science fiction, AI surrealism, or some elaborate symbolic masterpiece.
It was Little Red Riding Hood.
Yeah. That Little Red Riding Hood.
Sometimes creativity feels less like invention and more like accidentally opening the wrong door and discovering it was the right one all along.
2/9
The original narration started as an imagined conversation.
Not a real conversation.
More like an emotional relay.
I imagined someone speaking on my behalf. Not explaining me. Not defending me. Just translating something I was having trouble saying directly.
The resulting narration wasn’t about romance.
It wasn’t even really about relationships.
It was about recognition.
The moment when you realize there are other people walking around carrying the same questions, fears, hopes, and contradictions you thought belonged exclusively to you.
Lab note:
The older I get, the less interested I become in certainty.
Recognition is far more interesting.
3/9
My first visual ideas were terrible.
Not technically terrible.
Cinematically terrible.
The usual suspects showed up immediately.
Fog.
Hallways.
Abstract particles.
Lonely silhouettes.
Mysterious windows.
The entire Cinematic Meaning Starter Pack.
Every image looked impressive.
None of them felt true.
The problem wasn’t aesthetics.
The problem was that they were illustrating the narration instead of carrying it.
The video didn’t need explanation.
It needed a story-shaped container.
4/9
Then Little Red Riding Hood wandered into the room.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
A young woman.
A red cloak.
A wolf.
A grandmother.
A woodsman.
The moment those elements appeared, the project suddenly had gravity.
Not because I wanted to retell the fairy tale.
Because fairy tales are already compressed emotional architecture.
Everybody understands them instinctively.
A person leaves home.
They enter uncertainty.
They encounter something they don’t understand.
They arrive somewhere changed.
That’s practically every human story ever told.
Lab note:
The best visual concepts aren’t usually invented.
They’re recognized.
5/9
The biggest challenge wasn’t writing.
It was consistency.
AI image generation is remarkably good at forgetting what you told it thirty seconds ago.
The solution was building a locked character system.
The young woman became:
• White female
• 19 years old
• Shoulder-length auburn hair
• Pale skin
• Blue eyes
• Worn red hooded cloak
• Beige linen dress
The grandmother became:
• White female
• 75 years old
• Gray hair in a loose bun
• Thin build
• Gray wool dress and shawl
The woodsman became:
• White male
• 45 years old
• Rugged build
• Short dark hair
• Light stubble
• Work jacket and gloves
The wolf remained a wolf.
A lesson many AI filmmakers learn eventually.
You don’t get continuity by asking for continuity.
You get continuity by obsessively describing continuity in every prompt.
6/9
The visual design became surprisingly simple.
Everything lived inside one visual rule set:
• Overcast daylight
• Muted earthy colors
• Soft forest fog
• Documentary realism
• One strong red focal point
That red cloak became the visual heartbeat of the entire piece.
Every frame had a reference point.
Every scene had an anchor.
Every composition knew where the eye should go.
It’s amazing how often creativity is really just constraint wearing a fake mustache.
7/9
Tools & Creative Stack
Visual Development
• ChatGPT
• Midjourney
Voice
• ElevenLabs
Editing
• Kdenlive
Audio
• Flow Music – Ambient drone textures
• Layered atmospheric sound design
Writing
• ChatGPT
• Human stubbornness
Budget
Software costs already covered through existing subscriptions.
Actual project cost:
Mostly time.
8/9
The discovery wasn’t technical.
It was emotional.
At some point, I realized the wolf wasn’t really the wolf.
The grandmother wasn’t really the grandmother.
The woodsman wasn’t really the woodsman.
They were emotional positions inside the story.
The viewer gets to decide what they represent.
Fear.
Recognition.
Memory.
Hope.
Another person.
A younger self.
An older self.
The project works precisely because it doesn’t answer the question.
It simply creates a place where the question can exist.
And sometimes that’s enough.
Maybe more than enough.
The best art doesn’t hand us conclusions.
It hands us better questions.
9/9
The real lesson
As the video alchemist conducting this particular AI orchestra, I kept trying to steer the project toward meaning.
The project kept steering me toward recognition.
That’s a different thing.
Meaning says:
“I understand.”
Recognition says:
“I’ve been here before.”
“Not the Only One” ultimately became a meditation on that distinction.
A reminder that even our most private thoughts are often shared territory.
Somewhere out there is another person carrying a question remarkably similar to yours.
They may never say it out loud.
You may never meet them.
But they’re there.
And somehow that makes the woods a little less lonely.
TL;DR
I set out to make a video.
I accidentally made a fairy tale.
The fairy tale turned out to be about recognition.
Steve Teare
video alchemist
TerminallyBored.Monster
Palouse, Washington USA