I spent hours trying to get a short AI cartoon right. The idea was affectionate and simple: congratulate MA on becoming a grandmother, have a baby float safely into her arms, and let the animals gather around to admire her granddaughter. Some of the images were beautiful. Getting the characters to behave naturally was another story.
My character was supposed to wave at Uncle D, put both hands to his chest while talking about his experience, then turn toward the house. On “Come on,” his arm should swing backward, up over his head, and forward as he starts walking away. I described that movement repeatedly. We got awkward gestures, changing poses, and a cut that made the walk feel disconnected.
Then there was the lip sync. MA was supposed to speak while holding the baby. In the result, it looked as though the baby was delivering her lines. There were rounds of revisions, exports, and checks. I was told changes were ready, but watching the video revealed problems that were still there.
When I looked at the time, it was about five or six minutes to midnight. I wanted to send her a text with a public link to the video. After hours of work, we still had not gotten it right. That is the experience I want to record here: the lovely scenes, the repeated corrections, the time spent, and the frustration of an ordinary hand gesture becoming a production problem.
She’s Just on Loan is public. The remaining problems are part of this account of making it. I still want the affectionate little cartoon I pictured, and the work has shown me how much attention a few seconds of AI video can demand.
Beautiful Angel whispered commercial to me.
A Comical Commercial Break
The cartoon includes our playful Credible spot, complete with the animation problems described above.
Sometimes, restarting from the beginning is hard. But you just gotta do it.
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