How I Pre-Visualize a Whole Film with Midjourney and Claude
Walking through the sets of Ghostbirth 2 before we even shoot
Dear friends,
I am currently preparing the production of Ghostbirth 2.
Here I want to give you a look of how I am preparing the visuals and concept-art.
Define the mood
Ghostbirth 2 will be a thai-giallo. That means Dario Argento, and especially his movie Suspiria, is a main reference.
I rewatched Suspiria and took screenshots of all the strong visual moments I want to have in my movie too. Then I put all of these images into a moodboard in Midjourney.
By putting a reference to this moodboard into my prompt, I was able to generate images in this specific mood. But it did not stop here.
Building the prompt
Just freestyling a prompt and making a reference to the moodboard is not enough to get the results I wanted. I wanted to be more in control.
So I created a new project in Claude and called it: Ghostbirth 2 – Visual Builder. I wrote an instruction prompt which applies to all the chats within this project.
(By the way, I used Claude to write me this instruction prompt and gave it some visual inspiration, so it understands the style I am looking for.)
I also uploaded the current version of the script and the synopsis to the Claude project. Like this the project knows which scenes I want to build.
Once this was done, I just had to tell Claude to generate me a prompt for a specific scene. For example the massage-lobby.
This long, structured and precise prompt I copy-pasted into Midjourney and added the moodboard reference from above.
The results were images which I could really see in my movie.
From there it was easy to explore different parts of my movie-sets and get visually inspired.
I even uploaded a floorplan of my set to the Claude project, so I can really control how the rooms are set up.
From the experience of my last movie Spacebirth 2 I learned that visual references are very important for me. Because I want to show my DOP (camera-man) what look I want to achieve.
It is a funky creative process which feels very playful and intuitive.
But AI only helps me prepare. The film itself I want to shoot for real. With practical effects and no AI.
Thanks a lot for reading!
Much love,
Marius