Building LEOM | Day 6-9 | Multiple workflows/styles & proof of concept Background
Posted 2026-07-29 · https://youtu.be/Gw58XOBO_sw
Transcript: YouTube auto-captions, cleaned of filler and obvious mishearings, otherwise verbatim. A build diary spoken to camera, not the film's script.

Boom. Let's do this. All righty. Back with days 6 through 9. I have a mind map here I want to walk through, but I want to talk real quick about this idea of I want to start with this idea of the eye test. The eye test is a phrase that I guess I learned through competitive high school athletics and whatnot in the context of trying to get recruited for the next level, the D division one level. And over and over, you go to these tournaments, you go to these practices, you get these looks and you hear over and over again about the eye test and, as a way to upon a scout recruiter taking an initial look, or right away they should be able to tell if, does this kid look D1 or, like a college athlete or, doesn't doesn't he, don't they?

And I kept thinking about this cuz I'm like, all right, essentially does my intended route, and it's been a couple days, this is the first time, days 6 through 9, I'm doing four days in one, but I've I've been giving a lot of thought because it's like, all right, extrapolating out based on the resources, everything, when I, go to shoot it, and this is being the original plan here. It's a weekend shoot on green screen. So, we capture the live performances, when I say live performance capture, usually that to me rings a bell of like, dots and whatnot for CG later. But no, I'm talking about like actual, human performance capture and as opposed to generated as in AI capture of a character's performance or CG or whatnot animation or other.

So, it's going to be on a green screen, real people wearing real stuff, wearing real Do a little example. I'm a little immobile due to a surgery last week, but real actual costume design and whatnot. Real people, green screen, key out the green screen, and compo- and then generate these backgrounds, right? Generate main, AI these backgrounds. Composite them in after the point. So, you light the subject, and then you have to meet, with the intention of knowing what the background is, what the, lighting situation of the background you're putting that actor into. And then after that point, actually doing like a massaging the lighting situation of what you're working with that actual film that you've captured and the lighting and all the data that you have available there.

And as well as, tweak the background if needed, too. So, that's the original plan and use, 3D printed costume design and go for it in that way. And, this is was I'll get into the thinking real quick here of before, I tie all this back to the eye test and will this be good enough to base off of the average person, consumer, whatever, your average viewer they people who's to say who the average viewer is, demographic everything in terms of that, what their age is, male, female, what their story is. But you got to imagine that they frequent to some degree social media and YouTube is another thing and then also, television, film to what degree genres plays a role in, how their eye test of does this pass to them or not.

In terms of the visual effects and these, this formula, this recipe to piece all these things together to sell the vision, this vision that, this is an entire proof of concept to this film I'm making and I really want to it's super important, right? It goes without saying that it you want it to be believable and not, look, half-assed or cheap. You know, that's like a, bad word. Okay, so let's we could talk about this. I wrote this down, didn't know if we're going to talk about it, but all right. LEOM was a proof of concept, or LEOM is a story that I've had that I've been building. Check out previous videos to first video on this series, on this sprint.

But this proof of concept has been in the works. Right? Although nowhere documented publicly it's gone through a couple renditions. So, I graduated school in 2022 and basically committed to this idea of a proof of concept in early 2024. The script had been there for a while, before 2022, but, now I have the time when I'm in school, now it's like, I have the means to actually earn and support this effort. In 2024, I was like, all right, let's do it. Late 2024, however, is when it became financially, okay, we could do it. You know, maybe not the smartest, but we could do it. And I wanted two things from this, right?

And very quick, go through this very quickly, but one I wanted to get the experience to, own the directing process, actually manage that and own that process. I've looked up to, directors and stuff and, behind the scenes, all this and interviews and this and that, where piqued my interest. It's like, okay, no, you can't really, to do this story, I'm not going to JK Row, I'm not going to just write something and then hope, go through the me No, it's like, when I actually make it happen, right? So, okay, so I have to own the directing process because there's no other way to really ensure that someone else is capturing the vision, right?

And the vision is what it needs to be. So, I got to own the directing process. That's what I'm hoping to get out of, a proof of concept. And I want to differentiate from small budget stuff, even though we're talking about, obviously thousands of dollars, but I wanted to differentiate from small budgets or what I coined or nicknamed for myself the bronze screen. You got TV, silver screen, bronze screen, being the YouTube short film scene, and whatnot. So, and I look, had some, I was always into the super high production YouTube distributed storytelling and whatnot, all the way from and just productions in general, Chicago guy, Lyrical Lemonade, I'd watch that in school and think that was awesome and I was like, what?

Yeah, like something like that, it has to be differentiated in the way that a these are some examples, but there's also like some actual like independent short film things, but a series like that you could rely on would be a Awge, A W G E, and Lyrical Lemonade for like you they build that trust that there'd be a certain expectation of delivery of the production value. So, something on to stand out to be like on a level of, catch the eye and do well on the bronze screen. So, like I said, feasibility financially late 2024 and, that Basically, I start thinking at this point like, all right, what if it wouldn't have to just be a sunk cost though?

Like, what if this could be if I could make it back in whatever way. So, then it became an entrepreneurial thing of, okay, what business ideas go along these lines and could actually pay it back. So, this is around the time of the Tesla Cybertruck that it was actually, it had been announced prior, I believe, but I think more like production line, like more photos in the wild were coming out and whatnot. And I noticed something owning a truck of like, oh wow, there's no wheel wells. And obviously, the design, I'm like, okay, and it's Elon, so it's like, okay, like this is cool. I'm not so sure anymore.

I really stamp it as highly as when it first came out where I was like, this is pretty damn cool. But, the no wheel wells, I was like, every truck has wheel wells, like this has got to be the first truck ever to not have wheel wells. So I'm like, "Ooh, maybe there's a business there of a truck toolbox that could slide to the edge of the tailgate. You dock it at the thing, you could separate different payloads of dirt and this, whatnot. And you could bring it and have like a little work station once you got to it and it would slide on this L track that it had built in already to the truck. Like, okay, maybe there'd be like a handle thing and you could lock it in position and it would just wheel down, lock it in, you got your tools right there, and you got a little station, you don't have to hop in, hop out of the truck.

It's a good idea. So I'm like, okay, we'll do the space ad at this point. It's called the space ad, my William proof-of-concept because I'm like I don't want to just do a sunk cost at this point right now. And maybe, higher ticket item this could, actually go ahead and get some traction. At that point I did a like finals like Phoenix Suns finals video when they then they won the Western Conference finals against the Clippers and it's a whole thing at Sky Harbor Airport when they got back. And I went down there, filmed some stuff, put together a little edit, and that was my first exposure to getting some Twitter, actual traction or for that matter anything.

I've I had posted a number of times. I did stuff for my fraternity in school. I did stuff just personal stuff over COVID, made fun videos, and what else? I a thousand, small stuff. But I got some Twitter thing. I'm like, okay, this I think this would differentiate on Twitter of a hardware product that could actually do it. Okay, so that doesn't work out, right? I learned a lot in that process of, CAD computer aided design, excuse me, design, and actually going from more of like Blender, which I knew in the 3D space and used a little bit, to okay, transitioning into actual measurable communicating with my buddy's old roommates of fabric and metal manager of a metal fabrication shop, my other really good buddy, he's super talented, actually like wizard in Fusion 360, SolidWorks, all this.

So, went through that process, they coached me up of all the steps to do that, go through it, have a prototype in the R&D, at a certain point is like, "Okay, a five-figure quote for a prototype for the locking mechanism." Okay, and then I fully think through the logistics of, "Okay, this thing there's no way to fold it down to make it package packaging really just viable. I'd be like literally shipping and paying for like a crate for all this empty air." You think of a toolbox, like all this empty air. And there's no way to compact that by folding and some assembly required type deal. So, killed that, killed that idea.

But yeah, proof of concept, it had not really been it been shelved, right? At that point. So, but it was the same things along the lines of this original plan, like really nothing's changed. The this Future Vision XPRIZE, you could see where this was the same copy-paste plan as a proof of concept for a short video. Stunt rigging, this was like the differentiator in my eyes of, this is nobody else really nobody else really does that and then when you do that you're just you're allowed, everyone tries to break down shots and whatnot and if I was like, okay, imagine zero gravity. And that was the whole idea of the space ad, guys floating, jetpacks still, but we'll put it in space, we'll we'll tie it to the Cybertruck and we'll do like, it'll just be like I said, like the number one thing was just getting the director experience to like do things like I know I would need and like the full live action stunts for sure.

It's a jetpacking world and all this and it's like very tied to our main characters. So, knew that getting this down was a huge piece and that was the original plan, but as I've been sitting here, back to the point here, day 629, what I've been going over more and more is shoot, there are I have a, even for like a distilled trailer, as I've been like getting closer to that and getting there's no need to the beauty of this competition is that the carrot at the end is a possibility of winning and actually securing financing for a full feature project with, a budget that is considerable and by all means would, could accomplish my vision.

So you look at it and I even distilling down to a trailer, I have all these shots and, I'm hugging closer to the script because that's, what, I think will be the differentiator is just the story. It's it's I got to get back to sticking to my guns. There's no like, abstract. I can't do the one-to-one space ad for the, this like campground site of everybody hanging out with their blasted off in a space with their Cybertrucks. It doesn't That's not the vision. That's not the story. And, the story is and the mission of the competition is to actually sell a abundant future. And, when this came out, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, like this is my This is my overarching project." Like, I was distilling it down into making something workable.

And now there's a, chance to actually go for it. So, what's the feasibility in terms of this original plan here? Right? Of it not of its passing the eye test, though. And, like I said in other videos, no directorial experience. No, I have conversations like my team like my guys like I got people in that world that I've, constantly chat and pick brains of. Of their experience and how they go about their process and their work on a day-to-day basis. But, that's not That's just not been my experience. So, when I look at can this really like I need to check myself a little bit. Like, although I think I could do something like this, like is it really going to now that it's tied to the LEOM project, is Is it going to look good or isn't it?

So, I think this like is, this is what it is given resources and give everything else like time, resources I'm talking about time. I'm talking about people. But is the better plan given the constraints of a August 15th deadline, really August 7th deadline for me that I want to get this done. Is the better plan just going full generated. Meaning diffusion models go in and what do you get from that? A controlled environment. I can do 150 takes of my 150 shots of this trailer. That I can iterate later. I can iterate all the way up until the day before. I can add, there's less variables on the day of the shoot.

In terms of, if I didn't get something, I have to totally, even though a certain shot, right? Let's say a, live actor performance that's, you really want to see the conveyed emotion by the actor. Say just got cut off. Like it these are 12-hour days from the studios. But say it just got cut off and there was just no way to get that last shot in. That, thought would get to. Other things, could adapt, but say, there were certain things that did not, check the box. And I have these live performances and then I have these and then I have a couple things that I'm now forced to do generated. So now I have this weird split.

So then do I ax all of, the other live performances and then just go for consistency sake full generated? You know, less variables in terms of what could go wrong and that's always a plus. So then yeah, like I said, more iterations. So is that the better plan? >> Someone like, "Okay, like, dumped a lot of like, there's guys, ready to go on like, on this stuff. But this would probably this is probably the safer call. This is probably a great call right here. And then it comes into a question of, "Okay, if we're going to go generative, is it generative animation or live action. Right? And I you probably understand what I'm saying there, but animation like, Avatar Invincible proper two-dimensional care like almost hand-drawn looking animation versus generated so, right?

Versus live action the shadow it's super contrasty like the generated and it's shadows and classic AI videos with you see and weighing those two things. So, what I think the best plan is in and where I'm landing on is let's do it all, right? Let's just do it. Let's let's do all the above and which could seem silly, but if I if what really matters, how I've and I and why I went through the story of giving some more context to the proof of concept previously called Space Ad now, my Future Vision XPRIZE submission is I walked you through it to give the beat of I the experience, the experience is what really looking for here and the workflows of these, everybody is adapting to this.

So, like it's a breath of fresh air that I don't have to there's no sense of like that I'm incredibly behind, I think I'm still early in terms of coming from the coding world and taking on clients and actually building products and services and data, lead flows and all this and whatnot. There's that component and now I'm folding it into like all of that real like utility in the world into my actual goal here of instead of a VFX route that would cost, you look it up. Like Yeah, do your own research on this. But like a simple prompt to Gemini, you could plug it ask for a table format responsive the last movie you watched in theaters and what the just the VFX budget was and then ask how many people were in that department that made that happen.

And then it's not VFX is not in a vacuum, so it requires a like we're talking about, it requires a lot of things and being proactive on the day of the shoot in pre-production that bleeds into other departments. So, wild commitment there. And with the tools that are coming out and the new capabilities, I already knew what George Lucas would say, what Ron Berry would say, what Gene would say about, the tools coming out even though there's some drama with it, but I think I saw a headline that Netflix has already folded it into, over at least 30, but why am I thinking 300? That seems a little high. Seems way high.

Projects to date generative instead of opting for the VFX route. And I love VFX and I've listened to podcasts for years on VFX these channels YouTube channels for years about VFX. But really, I'm still early and anyone listening to this is still early in terms of folding these workflows and getting this experience with these new tools. So, that's my only point there. So, why would I not double click, dive super deep into, things like animated versus a live action under the generated umbrella? Why would I not go for the if the overall goal in And vision is live action? Why would I not shoot live action and get that directorial experience and then meld it with the tools at different levels of implementing the tools and the new capabilities, in the workflows.

I'm just going to, go for it all. And, if I don't make it in time for the August 15th, deadline, then so be it. But, I'm confident that something will emerge there and I'm, going to come out on, having a way better understanding instead of committing to the workflow, why don't I just push dig these three holes and, a little unconventional. If if we weren't so early, I would say, picking one route and, you dig one hole very deep so you can reach water instead of digging many holes however far. But, because it's so early, it feels necessary to get all, soak up all this experience and go for all different routes here.

So, yeah, and my suspicion is we don't actually use any of these three that I'm laying out, the live shoot with the composite background, the full generated animated and the full generated live action, but it might be some something in between there, that workflow that I get to that is not what I'm maybe I'm not articulating now. We don't I don't want to, spend too much time here, but on this video and let me just get to the point. But, I think it could morph into a totally new workflow that if I hadn't, gone this direction of pursuing the three, I wouldn't have stumbled upon at all. So, yeah, this is the first comment, by the way, that I got from Stars of the Void.

He has some audiobooks on his, channel there. But, first comment on my on this YouTube channel after posting, a lot of, throughout the last, 6 months. And first comment, so just highlighting it, but good words of encouragement. And yeah, so here's a little bit more about the eye test. And here's like a in the deciding, process here of like, let's let's deviate from the original plan. And it took me a couple days here. So, it was weighing on me. And there's some pressure to, to really think this through. But, I go I'd like three calculations portraying my concerns of quality of project stepping up in complexity each of the three.

I'd like three calculations step up each of the three starting with the basic fifth grader level. And then this is like and then I would look at the second. It's a cool way to, think of a decision process. And distill it down and just see this visually, but, this is what I reached with the eye test. So, called W the weighted eye test score. So, W equals, 0.25 V being visual credibility a variable, and does the image immediately look believable and professional? Right? Continuity and coherence. Does the lighting environments blocking, right? Details. Does everything stay consistent in the world or is it jumpy?

Performance and motion. Does movement feel intentional, physical, believable? This is a main theme of the movie. Like, how things move, does that feel natural? And then art direction, and it's this is just a sum of, different weights on these, but, does the world feel specifically designed rather than assembled, art direction, yeah. And then directionally specificity. So, does it feel authored? So, W equals 0.25 V plus 0.2 C plus, whatever. Good visual though to think things through and have the visual. So, yeah. I think we can go ahead and cut it off there, but I think this is going to result in just a much stronger just what I'm looking to get out of this experience in terms of in terms of just my experience and getting into some new workflows, but really the eye test.

And taking a really critical look at my original plan and, coming to the conclusion and the consensus that it's okay that, something that the same exact workflow that maybe I had a couple years ago is it, these things move quick. And, I have to stay light on my toes and the ability to the ability to name of the game pivot. I'm a little constrained here with the whole surgery. I got to elevate. I can't really get the keyboard, but pivot. It's not bad to pivot, man. And I'm having to pivot into I want to I want to go through these other workflows, too, which just means, you'll see them if you follow this series of sprint.

So, we'll wrap there, but all good stuff. Keep it pushing. Sound off below especially if you're competing in the competition, the Future Vision XPRIZE. This is what I'm talking about. If this is the first time hearing of it, you can look it up. Future Vision Xprize put on by Xprize. And very cool competition, important goal, optimistic future. How can we get there? Something very important today that just, I won't get into it, but it's it's something that's much needed right now when you, look at the news and take a look around and an era of abundance is, it would be a beautiful thing. So, bringing that to life.

And yep, so all good stuff. Sound off below, especially if you're competing in it. I'm looking up other people. I just go on to YouTube and search the same thing, looking at the landscape, looking at the competition. So, it's all good stuff though. But yeah, all boats rise on a high tide. Sound off below, especially if you're competing, maybe we could chat. And learn something from you, learn something from the videos I put out and yeah, all good stuff, but yeah, stay tuned for tomorrow. Boom. Peace.