Two actors on the LED stage, lit in warm orange, with old televisions and props around them
The full film.
A man in a denim jacket stands with his back to a wall of video-call faces on the LED screen
A Midjourney backdrop of video calls, played on the LED wall.
A factory worker in a flat cap, lit warm against a blurred 19th-century factory
The 19th-century factory, in camera.
The lead actor in a light denim jacket and tie, standing alone against black
The lead, in wardrobe I picked for the opening.
A woman with long braids works at a laptop under a desk lamp, in blue evening light
The present day, at the desk.
A close-up of the lead actor's face, looking into the lens
Close and quiet before the turn.
A newspaper headline in heavy serif type: Factories replace steam engines with electric motors
Period type for the history section.
A paper card reading 30 years over a newspaper page with a rising production chart
The 30-year lag, set as a printed card.
Pages fly past an actor as the words scattered documents appear in bold white type
Bold sans type over live action.
The words missing context in white over a large red X, with a silhouette behind it
The problem, in three frames.
A Lucid flowchart in glowing blue lines on black
Lucid's diagrams, glowing on black.

Art direction

AI transformation, on an LED stage

A Lucid brand film about AI at work, shot on an LED stage with backdrops I generated in Midjourney.

Role
Concept and Art Director
Client
Lucid Software
Year
2026
Tags
  • Art direction
  • Brand film
  • Virtual production
  • Midjourney
  • Typography
  • B2B SaaS

The brief

Lucid wanted a brand film about AI at work that went past the usual promise of doing everything 10x faster. The story compares this moment to the move from steam engines to electric motors. The technology arrived quickly, but it took factories about 30 years to change how they worked. It ends on Lucid as the place where teams map their work so AI has the context it needs.

I worked on it from the first concept through the shoot and handoff.

Backdrops on an LED stage

We shot on an LED volume instead of a green screen. I created the backdrops in Midjourney, from a wall of video calls to a 19th-century factory floor, and they played on the screen behind the actors. That put each scene in camera, with the light from the backdrop falling on the actors.

Casting, wardrobe and styling

I cast the actors, picked the wardrobe and styled the whole shoot on set. Each era needed to read in a single shot, from period workwear in the factory to the clean, present-day looks around the laptop.

Typography and styleframes

I designed the typography and the styleframes that the motion designer built the animation from. The history section borrows from old newspapers, with heavy serif headlines and hand-drawn charts on paper. The present day switches to bold sans-serif type over live action, then to Lucid's diagrams glowing on black.