Sahana Vijai

Experiments

The Dawnkeepers

I directed an original animated short while developing a repeatable AI-assisted production workflow.

Project
Independent project
Role
Creative direction and editing
Format
41-second animated opening
Story
Three young guardians answer their mentor Sensei Hoshin’s warning and defend a harbour city from an advancing Black Mist.
My role
Story, visual direction, character approval, shot design, generation review, and editing.
AI’s role
Generate image and motion material from the direction and references I supplied.

From concept to animation

  1. Story and visual world
  2. Character sheets
  3. Timed still animatic
  4. Motion generation
  5. Edit and sound
Tool or modelContribution
OpenAI image generationVisual development, character sheets, keyframes, and still corrections.
Luma / Luma AgentMotion generation and model testing, including Seedance 2.0 and Ray 3.2.
Seedance 2.5 Edit through LumaTargeted hairstyle correction while preserving the selected performance.
ElevenLabsSoundtrack generation.
DaVinci ResolveAnimatic, clip selection, pacing, sound, and final edit.

Character sheets provide a reference for correcting drift

Character details could drift when generating a new shot. Approved character sheets gave me a consistent reference for reviewing and correcting the frame before using it to generate motion.

Aki's character sheet on parchment: front, three-quarter, side and back views in a red jacket and black hakama holding two fans, six facial expressions and fan details. His red hair is short and messy with a high-tied tuft.Detail of the character sheet: Aki's short, messy red hair with a compact high-tied tuft.

Character reference

The three guardians crouch on a wet rooftop above a lantern-lit harbour city at dusk. Aki, on the left in red, has a long looping ponytail streaming behind him.Detail of the generated frame: Aki's long red ponytail loops out behind his head.

Generated frame

The same rooftop frame after correction: the composition is unchanged and Aki's hair is now short and messy.Detail of the corrected frame: Aki's hair is short and messy with a compact high-tied tuft, matching the sheet.

Corrected frame

The character sheet provided a reference for correcting Aki’s hair before motion generation.

Preserve the performance when correcting a detail

Seedance 2.5 Edit corrected Tsubame’s bun and side braid while retaining the selected choreography. I compared the correction with the source to check that the performance was preserved.

Source motion

Seedance 2.5 Edit

Close crop, source: Tsubame's hair falls loose behind her.Close crop, after the edit: her hair is up in a bun.

Hairstyle

A targeted correction preserved the performance I wanted to keep.

The start frame determines what can happen next

I wanted Tsubame to enter from off-screen and land on the roof. With him already on the roof in the start frame, repeated prompt changes did not produce the intended entrance. Starting with an empty roof allowed the action to begin before his arrival.

Intention Enter from off-screen and land on the roof.

Original setup · Character already on the roof

Start frame: Tsubame already stands on the rooftop in a low stance, bow in hand, an arrow flying away at the upper right.
Start frame
Result

Revised setup · Empty roof before the entrance

Start frame: an empty rooftop and dusk sky, with no character in view.
Start frame
Result
To generate an entrance and landing, I needed a start frame from before the character arrived.