PIKE

an AI animation short created in under 48 hours as part of Runway’s Gen:48 competition

mp4, 00:03:09, 4K, 29,97 fps, Runway Gen-4, ChatGPT 4o, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Photoshop

In a remote, snowbound cabin, a reserved man named Cranberry quietly transforms into a pike fish—a surreal shift that mirrors the subtle, insidious violence of ordinary life, isolation, and fractured relationships. “Pike" gently but pointedly explores how easily cruelty swims beneath the surface of daily existence.

An intimate exploration of identity, isolation, and the bittersweet pain of letting go.

Trigger warning for depiction of panic attack.

If someone gave you unlimited credits on a top video gen platform, what would you create? This was exactly what happened this weekend, during Runway's Gen:48 competition when all registered participants got access to unlimited Gen-4 magic, challenged to produce a finished short film in under 48 hours. Very little sleep but I think it's been one of the best 48 hours of my life.

Besides the obvious excitement of feeling like Cinderella at the ball, what really fascinated me throughout this experience was the opportunity to really probe in an intense, immersive way what video gen ai does with ease and where it's really struggling to understand the task. I think I have gained better awareness of the ways such models "see".

One of the biggest challenges in ai animation is consistency: at a certain point, after many iterations, you suddenly get it that the model doesn't just edit your character as you would when working traditionally but recreates your character from scratch every time and it's an emotional realization. At that moment, you see how fluid everything is.

Also, it's the worst at understanding that the door does not open at the same side it's hinged to the wall. Seriously, that scene took over an hour. The same goes for having the character take off their coat, that was challenge number 1. Turning someone's head into that of a fish, on the other hand, is easy as pie. Really changes your perspective on the world.