A satirical yet hopeful piece featuring Frank Sinatra-style holiday jazz critiquing Boxing Day consumerism. Central message: "Boxing Day was meant for giving, not consuming."
Shot in a Fujifilm Kodachrome 64 aesthetic with a three-act color progression — warm golds, cool teal, balanced earth tones — creating a hyperrealistic, documentary-authentic visual style. Fully AI-directed production: original music composition, storyboard generation, video production, word-level lyric synchronization, and iterative refinement across 5 versions. Inspired by David Katz and Plastic Bank's mission.
The video follows a deliberate emotional journey mapped to color temperature — the same technique used in cinema to guide audiences through a narrative without saying a word.
Warm golds. The allure of consumerism. Inviting, nostalgic, familiar.
Cool teal. The reality behind the excess. Documentary clarity. Worker dignity scenes.
Balanced earth tones. The alternative. Giving over consuming. Resolution.
12 agents activated from the 40+ system. This project's unique challenge: word-level lyric synchronization with karaoke-style highlighting — something that normally requires specialized motion graphics software.
The 5 iterations: v1 (font too bold, lyrics late) → v2 (Futura 48px, -150ms offset) → v3 (shorter phrase breaks) → v4 (manual timing fixes) → v5 (combined choruses — final).
Word-level lyric timing is normally done in After Effects or specialized motion graphics software. We built it entirely with Whisper + ASS subtitles + FFmpeg.
What the AI did: Composed original music, generated video from storyboards, extracted word-level timestamps, built karaoke subtitles, assembled and color graded the final video.
What the human did: Wrote the creative brief, defined the social commentary angle, curated the three-act emotional arc, set demographic requirements for authenticity, and made the final call on lyric timing across 5 iterations.