The Impossible Dream using A.I. to make an indie film using A.I. today.

[Rick1234567S]

So you can go to google use the A.I. and try to get it to do things and ask it questions you will soon find out that what I am saying is true.

It can do some things. And it can recommend things that you might try. But you will need to find a method maybe yourself for how you can do it.

How helpful is this as an example...

It is absolutely not too much to ask. You are pushing for precise visual continuity and exact character blocking—which is exactly what a real director does.

To answer your question honestly: The chances of someone making a successful, high-quality film solely by typing text prompts into AI today are zero. But using AI for storyboard sheets like this? It is happening in Hollywood right now.

The reason the AI keeps failing to get your panels exactly right is a technical limitation called spatial and narrative continuity. AI image generators do not actually "know" what a car, a duck, or a dad is; they just guess the next pixel based on patterns. When you ask it to place the mom in the passenger seat, have the dad instinctively block his face, keep the rock hidden under the chassis, and maintain the exact same characters across 6 panels, the AI's "brain" short-circuits. It struggles to hold that many specific rules across multiple frames simultaneously.

However, independent filmmakers and workshop directors are using a hybrid approach to make this work perfectly. Here is how your workshop crew can turn your exact vision into flawless storyboard images using AI right now:

The Secret Hollywood "ControlNet" Workflow

Instead of asking the AI to draw all 6 panels at once from scratch, professional directors use a step-by-step method:

1. The Human Sketch (The Blueprint): You don't need to be an artist. A director draws basic stick figures on a piece of paper: a stick-figure dad with an arm up, a circle for the steering wheel, and a rough blob for the duck on the windshield.

2. AI Pose Copying (ControlNet): You feed that crude stick-figure drawing into an AI tool like Stable Diffusion or Leonardo.ai using a feature called ControlNet or Image Guidance. You tell the AI: "Keep the exact human poses from my sketch, but render it in a classic cinematic comic-book drawing style."

3. The Result: The AI handles the shading and texturing, but you control the blocking. The mom stays in the passenger seat, the dad's arm stays up, and the narrative continuity remains perfectly intact panel by panel.

Adjusting Your Pitch Panels

For your workshop deck, if you want to generate these panels individually using an image generator to get that beautiful hand-drawn sketch aesthetic back, use these precise, single-frame prompts:

• For the Dashboard Shot:
  Cinematic storyboard drawing, interior vehicle shot from the center console looking forward. A 35-year-old man is driving on the left, his arm instinctively raised to block his face in sudden shock. A 35-year-old woman sits calmly in the passenger seat on the right looking at papers. A wild duck is impacting the front glass windshield directly in front of the driver's face. Clear line art, dramatic shading, comic book style.

For the Crash Angle:
Cinematic storyboard graphic novel sketch, wide shot. A green 1990s Ford Explorer SUV swerves sharply to the left at a 90-degree angle, nose-diving into a grassy roadside ditch off a paved country highway. The front bumper is intact, but the vehicle is tilted down into the ditch, stranded. Timeless rural landscape, clean sketch ink style.

And then he gives me this after I give him the scene...

The road there is more open but it is in a valley, a small depression, not a large one, and a duck hits the windshield in front of the dad's face while driving, he swerves into the ditch on the left, 90 degrees into the ditch sitting on a rock the motor is damaged under neath. Here is the scene...they are driving through the country and the kids in the back are playing rock paper scissors, and laughing when John says lets play rock paper scissors tickle! And tickles his sister under her chin and they are laughing, mom is talking almost to herself while doing something in the front seat with stuff out of the glove box talking about Aunt Clara and Jack the dad is driving with all this noise and a duck flies at the windshield, hist the windshield right in front of his face it shocks him he swerves, into the ditch on the left hits a big rock under the front of the car and the motor is wrecked. And it is sitting on that rock in the ditch 20 feet off the road. Everyone is shaken but not hurt.

She is now driving. Where is dad?

[Rick1234567S]

He did manage to do a very simple scene after plenty of discussion regarding what I wanted....

Of John and Sandra on his motorcycle...

So that alone if you could get it to do that consistently, is going to help you with your indie film including help you raise funds.

[Rick1234567S]

He managed to keep her on the back of the motorcycle for two images.

The fact is it was such a shock to see him do anything useful, you wouldn't notice it right away.

[Rick1234567S]

So what can We do for this course? What can we use to illustrate how the process works, what makes a great story, how to portray it to the people and how to make a great film?

With no budget. Providing you have a computer with 16GB of Ram and a graphics card like NVIDIA in it.

You can download Stable Diffusion A.I. stand alone. And run it from your P.C. it is easy to use and has everything you need to practice.

To run Stable Diffusion standalone and offline on your computer, you need a local client or manager that bundles the AI backend with a user-friendly interface.

The easiest standalone solutions depend on your operating system and technical comfort level. [1]

1-Click Managers (Recommended for Windows & Linux) [2]

These apps manage the entire installation for you. They download the required backend code, install the correct dependencies automatically, and keep everything in a standalone directory. [3]

• Stability Matrix: The absolute best graphical hub for local AI. It installs all files in a single self-contained folder (Portable Mode). It allows you to download and launch popular interfaces like AUTOMATIC1111, Forge, or ComfyUI with a single click. [3, 4, 5, 6]
• Easy Diffusion: A dedicated 1-click standalone installer. It includes a streamlined web interface and does not require you to pre-install complex coding environments like Python or Git. [3, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Native Standalone App (Best for Mac)

If you are running on macOS, you do not need to use terminal configurations. [11]

• DiffusionBee: A fully compiled, standalone application for macOS. It runs 100% locally and offline. You simply download the .dmg file, drag it to your Applications folder, and start generating. [12, 13, 14]

Manual Standalone Installation (Advanced)

If you prefer a direct, pure installation without a package manager, you can install the industry-standard interface manually: [5, 15]

1. Download the AUTOMATIC1111 Web UI Release Package.
2. Extract the sd.webui.zip folder directly to your drive.
3. Run the update.bat file to safely pull down dependencies.
4. Run run.bat to launch the standalone interface locally in your web browser. [15, 16, 17]

---

⚠️ Hardware Requirements Check

Stable Diffusion processes rendering through your local hardware. For a smooth experience, ensure your PC hits these benchmarks: [3, 18]

• Graphics Processor: Dedicated NVIDIA GPU is highly recommended.
• Video Memory (VRAM): Minimum 6 GB VRAM (8 GB+ is ideal for high-resolution generation).
• System Storage: At least 50 GB to 60 GB of free space. AI model files (checkpoints) are large and typically consume 2 GB to 6 GB per file. [3, 5, 15, 19, 20]

Which operating system (Windows or Mac) are you running, and what graphics card do you have? I can give you the exact step-by-step setup for your specific computer hardware.

[1] https://autogpt.net

[2] https://www.reddit.com

[3] https://apps.microsoft.com

[4] https://www.reddit.com

[5] https://www.youtube.com

[6] https://www.reddit.com

[7] https://easydiffusion.github.io

[8] https://vivy.liriliri.io

[9] https://medevel.com

[10] https://sourceforge.net

[11] https://rentamac.io

[12] https://diffusionbee.com

[13] https://babich.biz

[14] https://github.com

[15] https://github.com

[16] https://www.youtube.com

[17] https://education.civitai.com

[18] https://stability.ai

[19] https://www.microsoft.com

[20] https://irendering.net

[Rick1234567S]

So here is an example where I took the storyboard image of John and Sandra and enlarged it using my own graphic software...

Then I entered it into Stable Diffusion (version https://github.com/AUTOMATIC1111/stable-diffusion-webui/commit/82a973c04367123ae98bd9abdf80d9eda9b910e2)

I used image2 image and then it converted that image once I resized it there for stable diffusion to a more common size, 900x512.

With this prompt

"John and Sandra on a motorbike, riding in the country on a country road with trees. john is 16 years old and Sandra is 16 years old. John needs a shave and is attractive, and Sandra has auburn hair and is very beautiful.
It is a winding road."

with this style from the right hand side after installing those styles. (ask an A.I. how to do that)

gouache painting style, gouache vibrant colors, adorable, whimsical expression, playful character, dynamic compositions, professional-grade result, adds depth and texture
Negative prompt: signature, watermark, photo, photorealistic, realism, ugly, off-center, deformed, 35mm film, dslr, cropped, frame, worst quality, low quality, lowres, JPEG artifacts

and using these settings

Steps: 20, Sampler: DPM++ 2M, Schedule type: Karras, CFG scale: 7, Seed: 2767024639, Size: 900x512, Model hash: 1561928fec, Model: Real cartoon Porn blowjob, Denoising strength: 0.75, Style Selector Enabled: True, Style Selector Randomize: False, Style Selector Style: base, Version: v1.10.1

Now since we are using png files and not jpg Stable Diffusion saves all that in the file every time it makes an image, so that you will know what settings were used to make that image.

That is a very handy thing to have.

Now you see we have an image of John and Sandra.

The problem is can the program reliably create images of them answer is no it cannot.

It needs to associate a known figure with those people and until it gets that it will create different Johns and different Sandra's every time.

So here the best option is to cut them out using a paint program, then get a large image of a road and paste them onto that road. And you can get those images from google street view.

And then after a considerable amount of work you will have 5 seconds of film that shows them moving  and if they are going slow their hair won't need to move much.

What good is 5 seconds of film? Useless but it does show you how to do it.

24 frames per second you will need 5x24 = 120 images.

Here a program like Daz 3D allows you to use a cut out on a plane object. And a scenery on a plane object.

But it will not change the scene on that plane object however using a camera you can zoom into that image to give the impression of moving forward. Or in this case move the plane back so that it look like you are moving forward and they are stationary.

Now to get in between frames so you don't have to do it yourself software exists to do those frames, I use my own software I wrote to do that.

So what that is, is called a transition between two frames and any video editing software can do a transition between two frames.

Keep in mind these are skills with a learning curve and you need to hunt down software etc.

[Rick1234567S]

Notice how crazy computer systems are today?

In the previous post it saw a number and turned that into a telephone number link. Beside the word Seed:

I didn't spot it or care about it because I was doing other things.

All I did was post the text into this forum box and it just acted on it's own.

This song will inspire you...

[Rick1234567S]

Notice also that in the story board the A.I. has taken upon itself to write the story by itself ignoring what I told it.

And it titled the scene John and Sandra's escape.

There is no escape. This is a day date on his bike. I changed it using Stable Diffusion to look like a day date on his bike.

[Rick1234567S]

So Stable Diffusion was having trouble giving me an image of them from behind so i used nano banana 2 (google A.I.) and he nailed it. Well I could make his head a little less wide easily enough.

And using Stable Diffusion Inpaint sketch I removed them from the scene and it is generating road now for me to use and paste them onto the road.

[Rick1234567S]

So I tried the music with the motorcycle ride and it seems to fit.

You can see it here

[Rick1234567S]

It did get flagged for copyright by youtube but Sarah lets people post her music on youtube.

Since everyone loves to do a remix of that song and that is a remix.

 I should attribute it. I will go do that.

[Rick1234567S]

Act II

Scene 11

Clack

and roll em...

Sandra was waiting down at the road when John rode up on his motorcycle,

she didn't want him to come up to the house since she was afraid there might be a confrontation with her dad.

both were smiling as they always do as soon as they saw each other.

 

Hop on said John and Sandra climbed onto the bike and off they went.

He wasn't going to drive fast, John is a level headed 16 year old, and they had been in an accident recently on this road.

 

So he was being very cautious. And they rode west towards the larger farms that stretched out some of them as far as the eye could see.

It is beautiful country in those parts with streams and brooks full of fish, and bridges to cross.

The air was fresh and for Sandra she felt like she was in heaven as she held on tight with arms around her beloved.

She almost wished the road would go on forever.

There is something about a motorcycle that makes you feel free.

The wind in your hair the wide open view.

It was a gorgeous day. She knew that she would remember that day for the rest of her life.

For John it gave him a feeling of independence. He didn't mind getting a ride home from the theater

by Janet, but if he had his choice he would rather do it this way, rather than sit in the back seat of the car,

he has his true love with him, and he feels like things are more special, and intimate.

He feels more like a man when he is riding his motorcycle.

They rode for almost an hour, when they came upon a small store and got something to drink.

 

They sat at the picnic table outside for a few minutes as happy as can be, then started back the way they came.

What a gorgeous day to be alive.

All the worries of the world just washed away in the breeze as they rode along those country roads.

This day was theirs to remember always.

They passed on old church and the bell was ringing.

A couple had just got married and a small crowd was gathered around them as they made their way out of the church.

People were all dressed in their Sunday best and throwing rice at the couple.

Sandra smiled and laid her head on Johns neck dreaming that some day that might be them.

John reached behind with one arm to pull her close behind him, in response.

They pulled up to her driveway in uneventful fashion.

No ducks there to ruin their day that time.

Fate was on their side at least for now.

They kissed there on the side of the road and shivers ran up and down their spines.

If you were to look at them, you would see just how good a match they are.

They look like they were made for each other.

Let's go horse back riding tomorrow said Sandra.

Really said John?

That would be excellent.

Meet me here again at the same time, I will have the horses right here, said Sandra.

Where can I leave my bike?, asked John.

Sandra hadn't thought of that, Oh that's right. The next driveway that's  our field driveway you can pull in there and park it inside the gate.

Let's meet there.

Ok said John.

See you tomorrow then said Sandra,

Bye, said John, as he fired up his bike again and headed down the road to home.

[Rick1234567S]

Act II

Scene 12

Take 1: Clack

roll em...

The sound of John's Triumph motorcycle fills the air as he approaches the second driveway at Sandra's farm and there is Sandra with only one horse, but all smiles as he comes through the gate.

The horse starts a bit but only a bit at the sound of the bike.

Hey, says John, hesitantly, only one horse?

Yeah says Sandra, my dad said he needed the other one for work today.

Do you think he knew I was going to ride his horse?

Probably. 

Why doesn't he like me?

He thinks you're weird.

Weird?

Yeah. 

Why ??? I never did anything. 

He says there is something strange about you.

Like how strange?

Like you come from a different planet or something. 

John laughs. 

You know why he doesn't like me. He's afraid of losing you. 

That's part of it but he doesn't trust me, and he especially doesn't trust you.

Oh well says John, so what now?

We ride the one horse! Said Sandra.

It can hold us both?

Oh sure said Sandra, no problem, we will just walk it, we won't gallop.

Have you ever rode a horse before?

Oh sure my Aunt has horses.

So then lets go.

John patted the horse's head, grabbed the horn of the saddle, put his right foot in the stirrup and up he went, holding the reins.

Sandra has up in a second with a hand up from John and pointed west along the road. 

They headed across the lower part of the field this side of a row of trees along the road following a well worn trail.

Where does it go asked John.

It goes down to the river said Sandra.

Skinny dipping?,  asked John coyly.

Sandra smacked him on the shoulder and smiled.

It was such a beautiful day. As they walked along a partridge was disturbed and flew up and the horse startled but just a bit.

The hay in that field to their right was getting high as it was August now and the days were getting warmer.

So tell me about where you used to live said Sandra. What is it like in the future?

It sucks said John. You can't do anything and everything tracks you all the time.

They are so nosey and snooping on everything you do online. It is like there is no freedom anymore.

There was pandemic and everyone had to stay home for like 2 years and it was so boring.

OMG said Sandra. Did a lot of people die?

No, just like a normal year but with a nasty flu because they shut everything down and made everyone wear masks.

They did this school from home thing.

What else happenned?

That's the thing, nothing ever happens. No new movies worth seeing. The music sucks, I like it better here.

Well that's nice to know said Sandra, then maybe you can stay. And she hugged him hard from behind him in the saddle.

I hope so said John reassuringly. I want to stay with you forever.

Sandra looked at John, and said quietly, I love you John.

John turned and said, I love you too. And kissed her on the lips.

She put her head on his shoulder and smiled as they approached a bunch of trees that were alongside the river.

[Rick1234567S]

[Rick1234567S]

We are not going to tell the audience what they did down by the river we are going to just cut to the family where they are not having fun.

A lot of things happen down by the river and many musical artists write songs about it.

We could show them there but the audience is better off using their imagination. Especially girls, and we want to avoid any sort of censor criticisms for this family film so we just keep them guessing.

and so half of that scene would be filled with nice music, but unfortunately I cannot put this to music unless it is free license music.

And I don't have my keyboard and synthesizer set up right now, so I am not going to write the music for it.

So we can imagine that Bruce Springsteen has a song for it and for sure he does.

John plays the harmonica, so the first part I can do using an online synth and add it to the image of them in TikTok.

Bruce Springsteen - The River (The River Tour, Tempe 1980)

[Rick1234567S]

So here I got past the copyright.
So what I did was have John play the harmonica only I used a synth and the song The River is not recognizable by the system, but will be recognizable to the audience.

So then they might put two and two together if you know the song...

Me and Mary we met in high school
When she was just seventeen
We drive out of this valley
Down to where the fields were green
We'd go down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh, down to the river we'd ride

Then I got Mary pregnant
And man, that was all she wrote
And for my nineteenth birthday
I got a union card and a wedding coat

Sandra and John on their way down to the river.

And some lousy synth harmonica to test the bypass of copyright in youtube.

The A.I said even if you do a cover, and play 5 seconds that's a copyright infringement.

They will hijack it place their own ads or shut your channel down.

[Rick1234567S]

So then the question is can A.I. make a film suitable for Cannes?

Answer: Absolutely.

Check this out...all A.I. generated...

With faces that it has enough photos of like famous people it can do that. But could not do Jimmy playing the guitar properly.

So why not just edit out what it cannot do.

[Rick1234567S]

So then here is an example of creating some video using Daz 3D and an HDRI environment sphere and adding some royalty free music.

It took about 20 minutes to make and upload to youtube.

A simple film rotating a camera 360 degrees to music.

[Rick1234567S]

So then I added a car and driver using Daz 3D.

He is driving slow and talking.

see it here....

[Rick1234567S]

Human movement is really hard to do. And there are things in that 1 minute that I would fix but it is just an example.

If you were trying to just show someone a scene you could get by with that as a small project that would only take a few hours maybe 5 hours to do all that with talking through the one minute.

For one person. So that is CGI and hence why it is so expensive it is so time consuming.

That is not ray traced it just uses a simple render and looks cartoonish. 

To get it to look real you would have to use A.I. video or use a camera and an actor or render unreal engine 5 CGI

and the learning curve is quite high for all of these things.

But it can be done. And if it is just to tell a story. Remember the story is everything, and even if it is cartoons as long as it isn't annoying the story is everything.

[Rick1234567S]

So using text to speech with embedded codes and Audacity to try to improve on the voices so they do not sound like all the other A.I. voices out there using regular speech patterns in time, and using lukewarm intonation. Obviously speech actors overdubbing is much better but for proof of concept and idea generation, and trying a scene it can be helpful. Some cop show jibberish I did with a keyboard and synth for the background TV noise. The characters shown are all Genesis from Daz 3D. Animated myself. Simple set. No budget all using free stuff for those who have no budget.

A video of Jack and Jill and Jessica and John in the motel room using CGI

[Rick1234567S]

I didn't want to leave them there all sad so I cheered them up.

Here is where they tell their parents they know what to do.

youtube video

[Rick1234567S]

And one more piece where Jessica tells her mom about the secret in the Bible.

https://youtu.be/Mh6eEdJ4Do8

[Rick1234567S]

So it is not my intention to create a film myself, that's just not my thing.

My talent is understanding what makes a blockbuster, not how to make a block buster in detail.

There are people using A.I. tools to create indie shorts and winning awards. Even large awards.

At the same time the box office for Hollywood is suffering.

Lets ask the A.I.

Yes they are.

For a variety of reasons.

But fortunately for film makers A.I. films are very cheap to make.

[Rick1234567S]

Why the 500 Elite Succeed

The tiny fraction of creators who successfully bridge the gap into Hollywood or prestige distribution—like Ash Koosha or the finalists at the Runway AI Film Festival—do not succeed because of the technology they use. They succeed because they treat the software exactly how a traditional director treats a camera package:

• Traditional Discipline: They do not let the A.I. write the story; they use rigid, human-driven screenplays with traditional pacing and subtext. [1]

• Aggressive Quality Control: They throw away 95% of what the A.I. generates, heavily editing and color-grading the output to eliminate telltale "A.I. artifacts" (swimming textures, morphing hands, sliding feet).

• Sound and Performance Priority: They understand that audiences tolerate average visuals but will immediately reject bad audio. They invest massive amounts of time into voice-to-voice emotional acting and custom Foley sound design.

Ultimately, while A.I. gives 20 million people the tools of a studio, it cannot grant them the taste, narrative patience, or editing discipline of a filmmaker.

[Rick1234567S]

Part 7

Nothing succeeds like success