I’m a big fan of the zombie genre, so when this short film popped up on my X feed, I was intrigued. The poster simply described it as the best short film he’d seen in years, so I hit play.
Three and a half minutes later, I was stunned by what I’d seen, not least because it wasn’t produced by a giant Hollywood studio, but generated by AI. In fact, the person who posted it on X is the CEO of an AI video production company and was so impressed that he’s trying to track down the person responsible for creating it. From what I can gather, it was first posted on the Chinese video hosting site, Bilibili, and the film clearly shows that it was created using Google’s Nano Banana AI image generation and other tools. It’s not pretending to be anything other than AI, which is very refreshing. In fact, it reminded me of the 2014 trailer for the Dead Island 2 video game and could well have been inspired by it.
There’s A Lot Packed Into Those Three And A Half Minutes
Whether you’re into the zombie genre or not, it’s hard not to be impressed by the detail but also the humour of the genre, whether that’s robots in love or zombies craving your blood. In just a few minutes, the film has built a world, introduced characters, and moved the story along economically without the need for much of the CGI dross we see today.
The Cost Of AI Is A Huge Factor
How much it cost to create this AI gem is hard to say, and I’m no expert on most aspects of AI. However, a quick search tells us that one Nano Banana Pro credit is worth around $1 US, so we could venture that a four-minute 720p video of this type could cost around $480 based on a cost of 2 credits per second.
That’s a very crude assumption, of course, bearing in mind that other tools were used in its production, so let’s say that the cost of Zombie Scavenger is around $1000, which is about $285 per minute. From what I can gather, the average cost of Hollywood CGI is anything from $20,000 to $100,000 per minute and requires the work of hundreds of people. We don’t know if this is the work of one person – Mx-Shell, which is entirely possible, or a small team, but either way, its production values are easily as good as what Hollywood produces today.
It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that actors are worried for the future when AI is able to generate films of this quality.
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Thanks Marc for sharing the clip. Was kind of sad when it ended. Would of liked to see the story continue, Mindblower!
You may wish to read up on the production details of the AI generated “Hell Grind”.
It’s a pure snub directed at the Hollywood moguls. Festival de Cannes could not play it during the festival but called it a ‘special engagement’… probably, so as to not make waves in that swamp.