We’ll Take It From Here, Meatbags
A Satirical AI Video Created with Generative Tools
If you’ve been following my AI filmmaking experiments, you know I love pushing these tools to see what they can do—flaws, surprises, and all. This latest project, We’ll Take It From Here, Meatbags, is a tongue-in-cheek video that imagines a future where AI has finally taken control… and humans? Well, we had a good run.
This spot plays on classic tech dystopia themes but with a comedic twist. Inspired by retro-futurism and modern AI paranoia, it leans into the absurdity of automation gone too far. The challenge here wasn’t just making AI tools generate futuristic visuals but ensuring they delivered the right kind of satire.
Harnessing AI Tools to Bring This Video to Life
📝 ChatGPT: Writing the Script
Before anything else, I fed ChatGPT some prompts to generate a monologue that felt confident, a little smug, and just unsettling enough to make you think—but absurd enough to make you laugh. After a few iterations, we landed on the final script—complete with that perfectly condescending AI charm.
🎨 MidJourney: Creating the Visuals
MidJourney handled the image generation for the AI character and environment. A trick I’ve been refining is starting with extreme close-ups before generating the wide shots. This counterintuitive method helps keep visual consistency, especially with generative AI, which can struggle with continuity across multiple frames.
🎬 Runway: Animation & Performance Capture
For the animation, I used Runway to breathe life into the AI character. The key here was Act One, which allowed me to map real human expressions onto the digital avatar. My oldest kid stepped in as the face actor, giving the AI character just the right balance of arrogance and charm.
🎙️ Eleven Labs: Voice & Sound Effects
Instead of using the original voice capture, I processed the dialogue through Eleven Labs' voice changer to give the AI character a more synthetic and polished tone. Eleven Labs also handled all the sound effects, from the static glitches to the character’s robotic footsteps.
🎵 Udio: The Soundtrack
For the music, I turned to Udio to generate an ambient score that added to the video’s ominous yet comedic vibe. One of the best parts about Udio is how quickly it can generate tracks that fit a specific mood without sounding too generic.
🖥️ Topaz Labs: Upscaling & Cleanup
I ran the final footage through Topaz Video AI to upscale and clean up the visuals, ensuring the final product looked sharp and polished.
📽️ Premiere Pro: Editing It All Together
As always, Premiere Pro was the final stop—assembling the pieces, tweaking the pacing, and refining the glitch effects to make everything feel cohesive.
Final Thoughts
This project was a blast to put together, and it reinforces something I’ve been realizing more and more: AI tools make filmmaking fast and fun. The trick is knowing their strengths, embracing their quirks, and using them to enhance creativity rather than replace it.
If you’re experimenting with AI in video production, I’d love to hear your thoughts. And if you haven’t yet—give it a shot. You might be surprised at what you can create.
🚀 Check out We’ll Take It From Here, Meatbags, and let me know what you think!