Archaeologists Animated Series

An animated-series experiment with scripts, reference art, generated shots, and failed takes.

Format: Writing / image generation / video
Status: PILOT EXPERIMENT

Approved animation start frame of gloved hands at a workbench beside a tray and dark case — Actual approved start frame / episode one, shot 001.

01 / The project

What I made

The project goes from a series bible and character references to episode scripts, storyboards and individual generated shots.

Episode one, The War Theory, reached a six-shot pilot batch. The files preserve selected clips and the attempts that failed. A completed episode is a separate milestone.

02 / Workflow

How it works

Plan the shot

Define the story purpose, start frame, action and ending state before generating video.

Generate and inspect

Use image-to-video generation, then check identity, hands, objects and continuity.

Keep the evidence

Record why a take failed, select usable output and carry the result into the edit.

03 / Evidence

The work behind it

Selected take, shot 001. Five seconds, silent. A gloved hand releases the already-placed dark case beside the tray. Compressed from the original production file.

Shot 001 took four attempts. Early versions split the tray into lid-like parts, moved objects through the table, or pushed the case over the tray. The usable version started with the case already placed and asked the hand to release it.

Another shot made part of an artifact disappear during a hand interaction. Dialogue also needed a separate lip-sync pass rather than relying on prompted mouth movement. These failures changed the production method.

Series bible and episode scriptsCharacters, world, story structure and dialogue.
Storyboards and shot promptsStart states, actions and end states for individual shots.
Generation manifestSelected takes, rejected attempts, continuity problems and repair decisions.

04 / Status

Where it stands

A pilot batch has selected outputs; the full episode is unfinished. The generation records document six usable shots and 48 planned generated-video units remaining before the episode rough edit.