An AI Story
Director: David Leitch
Studio: UPP Visual
Role: Concept & Styleframe Artist, AI-integrated concept and design
Background
Palo Alto Networks built an A-list campaign to launch Precision AI: Keanu Reeves starring, David Leitch directing, a sci-fi world where AI treachery gets fought in the desert. Several :60 spots, one continuous universe, broadcast and digital worldwide.
Before any of it could shoot, the world had to exist. That was my job.
Problem
The concept phase needed a whole cyberpunk world: environments, characters, vehicles, story beats. Data-ships crossing the desert. Network zombies. A security operations center. And it had to be good enough to sell a campaign at this level, with this cast. Normally a world that big eats your entire timeline just building it.
:30 Spot: Network
:30 Spot: Origin
:30 Spot: SOC
Challenge
AI image generation gets you fragments, not worlds. Midjourney will hand you a hundred gorgeous, disconnected frames, each one its own universe. The job was coherence: one desert, one light, one design language across every environment and character, so the boards read as a single film and not a pile of separate prompts.
Approach
I built the concept art and styleframes in AI, then made them one world by hand. Environments out of Midjourney, every frame taken through Photoshop and Firefly, unifying palette, light, and design logic across the set.
And here's what working in AI actually bought: time to think. Instead of burning the window rendering, I spent it on the character moments, the tech guy stopping for a selfie with the zombies trying to kill him, baby heroes on ATVs attacking the ship, the old man chasing a train going five miles an hour. The funny, human beats that make a spot land.
AI can't come up with those. It handled what it's good at, and that's exactly what gave me room to chase what it isn't.
The Results
The campaign shipped with Hollywood's A-list attached, Reeves, Leitch, composer Daniel Pemberton, and ran globally across broadcast, CTV, and digital, covered by Adweek, Marketing Dive, and MediaPost. It was also aired during the Super Bowl.
And the part worth saying plainly: a campaign about precision AI, concepted with AI, directed by a human. That's the division of labor I believe in. It's how I work now.