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A short film in 48 hours: our Runway Gen:48 entry T.E.

Lab note · Tested April 2025 · · 3 min read

In April 2025 we made a short film for Runway Gen:48, a contest where teams make a film in a 48-hour window. The film is called T.E. It is 3 minutes 40 seconds long. Our project files are dated 27 and 28 April 2025. The project page tells how the team spent the 48 hours.

Two days, about 45 shots

Could a small team make a complete short film with AI tools in two days? A film needs scenes, speaking characters, sound and a title. These are the tools:

  • Scenes. Runway Gen-4. In many shots we started from still frames that we made first, and the prompts refer to them with words such as "this shot" and "the reference image". Prompt names in the files include a cowboy, a barn door and a trench.
  • Close-ups. Runway Gen-3 Alpha Turbo with Act-One. The files contain talking-head recordings made for this tool. Act-One was also part of our work on Alice in Node-Land.
  • The rest. Folders for posters, audio, stage and images.

The film is 1920 × 1080 pixels at 24 frames per second. It has about 45 shots, so a shot lasts about 5 seconds on average.

It opens with the yellow title over a desert. An old man and a boy walk to a barn. A jar of round, eye-like objects stands on a shelf. At night a cowboy rides under the stars. A small alien with many eyes stands in front of a glowing crater, and later lies on a bed in a cabin. At the end the old man and the boy walk out of the barn. A credits card fills the last 14 seconds.

One look holds the film together

Every shot sits inside the same dark rounded frame, with warm colour and film grain. About 45 generated shots read as one film because of this shared look.

Where the characters changed

The characters are less steady than the look. The alien changes in three shots. At 1:30 it is teal green, with many small eyes and two large ones. At 2:10 it is golden, with fewer and larger eyes. At 2:34 it is olive green.

The alien at 1:30: teal green, standing in front of a night sky, with many small eyes and two large ones
T.E. at 1:30: the alien is teal green, with many small eyes and two large ones.
The alien at 2:10: golden, in a desert at night, with fewer and larger eyes
T.E. at 2:10: the same character is golden, with fewer and larger eyes.
The alien at 2:34: olive green and lying down, seen close up
T.E. at 2:34: the same character is olive green, and lying down.

The old man also changes. In the barn at 0:42 he has a tan jacket and a stubbled face. At 2:58 his face looks like another man.

The old man at 0:42: seated on hay bales in a barn, in a tan jacket and a brown hat
T.E. at 0:42: the old man sits in the barn.
The old man at 2:58: smiling and holding a jar, in front of a shelf in a barn
T.E. at 2:58: the old man again, with what looks like another face.

What we learned

  1. A shared look hides seams. One frame, one colour and one grain tie about 45 generated shots into one film. Decide the look early.
  2. Simple costumes hold; odd designs drift. The boy's overalls and red shirt, and the cowboy's hat and jacket, stay the same. The alien has complex skin and many eyes, and it changed each time.
  3. Prepare a reference picture for each character. We would do this first next time, for the alien and the old man.
  4. Keep the settings few. An old city street at 1:46 and a card table in a wooden hall at 1:54 look like another film. Barn, desert and cabin work together.

What it means for a marketing team today

  • Use a deadline as a test. A short window forces a team to finish something.
  • Plan sound, titles and posters early. They take time.
  • Design recurring characters before you generate. A mascot or spokesperson needs the same face in every shot.
  • Check the current tools. These are from April 2025. Test the newest ones first.

Want to try this with your team? We run hands-on AI workshops where teams practise on a real brief.

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