The funny thing about making AI videos is that I rarely start with a plan.
I start with a feeling.
This one started with a song: Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams.”
Not the whole song. Just a small piece of it.
The line that grabbed me was:
“Listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness.”
Ouch.
That one landed.
Because loneliness is a strange thing. It isn’t just being alone. Sometimes it is remembering that you weren’t alone.
And then suddenly you are.
That lyric opened a door, but it wasn’t the destination.
Somewhere during the process, I realized the film wasn’t really about loneliness. It was about the strange things we keep searching for. The people, places, memories, and possibilities that continue pulling us forward long after we’ve lost sight of them.
That’s when the title appeared.
What You Had.
That emotional seed became something completely unexpected: an ancient alien world, a lone warrior searching through the ruins of a forgotten civilization, and a woman trapped deep beneath the surface waiting to be found.
No, I did not plan that.
My subconscious apparently has a screenwriter hiding in the basement.
2/9
Step 1: The emotional blueprint
When I create these little cinematic experiments, I have learned not to start with “What should happen?”
I start with:
“What should it feel like?”
The song created the emotional landscape:
- isolation
- memory
- searching
- connection
- the strange ache of missing something meaningful
The first visual idea was actually much more literal. A woman singing the Fleetwood Mac lyrics.
It sounded good on paper.
Then I tried it.
The AI lip sync was… well…
Let’s just say the digital woman and her mouth were having a small disagreement about reality.
Lab note:
Sometimes AI shows you what you should not do.
The failed experiment was useful because it pushed me away from illustrating the song directly and toward creating a metaphor.
That is where the alien planet appeared.
Step 2: Building a myth instead of a music video
I have always loved classic heroic fantasy.
The old “lone warrior walking into the unknown” imagery.
The Conan-inspired worlds where every mountain is enormous, every ruin has a forgotten story, and every shadow probably contains something that wants to eat you.
Those stories work because they are not really about swords.
They are about searching.
The warrior became a symbol.
Not a superhero.
Not a conqueror.
Just someone walking through an empty world looking for evidence that something mattered.
That felt much closer to the emotion of “Dreams.”
3/9
Step 3: Creating the alien world
The first challenge was consistency.
AI is amazing at creating individual images.
But ask it to remember the same character, the same planet, the same clothing, and the same visual language over 30 shots?
Suddenly AI develops a terrible memory.
Apparently, every new image prompt is like waking up with amnesia.
So I created a visual bible.
The world:
- ancient alien civilization
- abandoned stone cities
- black mountains
- vast desert landscapes
- mysterious cave systems
- forgotten symbols carved into stone
The style:
- Conan-inspired heroic fantasy science fiction
- 1970s sword-and-sorcery atmosphere
- painterly realism
- cinematic composition
The lighting became another character.
The surface world used:
- golden alien sunlight
- warm bronze and ochre tones
- long dramatic shadows
The underground world shifted to:
- deep blue-black shadows
- ancient stone textures
- faint mysterious mineral light
Lab note:
The best AI images are not usually created by adding more adjectives.
They come from creating a consistent world.
AI does not need more decoration.
It needs direction.
4/9
Step 4: The character problem
This is where things get interesting.
Saying:
“a warrior”
does not create a character.
It creates a costume rack.
The AI needed details.
So the warrior became:
A 40-year-old Caucasian man.
Long dark brown hair.
Thick dark beard.
Weathered face.
Gray-green eyes.
Massive muscular build.
Dark brown leather armor.
Black fur shoulder mantle.
Torn charcoal cloak.
The woman became:
A 35-year-old Middle Eastern woman.
Long flowing black hair.
Olive skin.
Brown eyes.
Ivory and bronze desert clothing.
A faded blue scarf.
Simple leather bracers.
Those details may seem excessive.
They are not.
They are the difference between:
“random barbarian guy image #47”
and
“the same person moving through a story.”
4/9
Step 5: The cave beneath the world
The cave became my favorite part.
Originally, I thought the cave was just a location.
But while creating the shots, it became the emotional center.
The surface world is empty.
The cities are abandoned.
The warrior searches through a civilization that is gone.
Then beneath everything…
he finds someone.
Not a treasure.
Not a weapon.
Not an ancient machine.
A person.
That was important.
I did not want a sci-fi explanation.
No mysterious energy source.
No alien technology.
No complicated mythology.
Sometimes a person is simply lost.
Sometimes another person finds them.
That is enough.
Lab note:
AI loves complicated.
Humans often connect with simple.
I had to keep removing things.
The less I explained, the more emotional it became.
5/9
Step 6: Building the shots
The final visual plan became around 30 cinematic moments.
The shots included:
- panoramic alien landscapes
- abandoned cities
- ancient monuments
- cave entrances
- underground chambers
- the first glimpse of the trapped woman
- the rescue
- the return to the surface
The goal was not to show everything.
The goal was to let the viewer imagine what exists beyond the frame.
That is one of the things I love about filmmaking.
A single image can sometimes hold more mystery than a moving camera.
6/9
Creative stack
Tools used:
- Music inspiration: Fleetwood Mac — “Dreams”
- AI image generation: Midjourney
- AI image-to-video generation: Grok Imagine
- AI voice experimentation: ElevenLabs / AI narration tools
- Video editing: Kdenlive
- Audio editing: Audacity
My workflow is still gloriously messy.
A little bit of planning.
A little bit of experimentation.
A little bit of:
“Wait… why did the AI make that?”
Then fixing it.
Then realizing the mistake was actually better.
That happens more often than I want to admit.
7/9
The happy accidents
The original idea was about a song.
The final video became about a planet.
That is the weird magic of this process.
I am not simply telling AI what to create.
I am having a conversation with a machine that has strange ideas of its own.
Sometimes it misunderstands.
Sometimes it fails.
Sometimes it gives me something I never would have imagined.
That is the collaboration.
The AI is not the artist.
I am not the artist alone either.
It is more like conducting an orchestra where half the musicians occasionally wander off and play something completely unexpected.
Sometimes those are the best notes.
Lab note:
The creative process is not about controlling every pixel.
It is about recognizing the moment when something surprising becomes meaningful.
8/9
The real lesson
This project reminded me of something simple.
Stories about loneliness are rarely really about loneliness.
They are about searching.
The warrior crossing the empty planet.
The woman waiting beneath the surface.
The two figures walking into an unknown future.
That is the emotional journey.
The world does not become less empty.
The ruins do not disappear.
The past does not come back.
But suddenly there is someone beside you.
And sometimes that is enough.
The AI did not create that idea.
The song did not create that idea.
Life did.
The tools just helped me turn a feeling into something I could see.
9/9
TL;DR:
I started with Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” and ended up making a myth about an alien world, a lonely warrior, and the discovery that connection can still exist in forgotten places.
The funny thing about creativity is that you often begin by looking for an answer.
Then somewhere along the way…
you discover you were actually looking for a story.
I am still learning how to do this.
Still experimenting.
Still breaking things.
Still finding unexpected paths through the creative wilderness.
And honestly?
That is the fun part.
The machine can generate images.
But finding the meaning inside them?
That is where the human part begins.
Steve Teare
video alchemist
TerminallyBored.Monster
Palouse, Washington USA