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Backrooms Nemoris S1E01: It Eats Light
I've spent the last six months working in secret on this pilot episode for a new Backrooms canon. We premiered this week in Toronto and a it's now available on all platforms: a new Magnific Originals series!
This is quite possibly the most complex project I've ever taken on in my life. Yep, even if that sounds like an exaggeration, it took even more effort than building the first version of Magnific Upscaler.
I had never before tried to bring such a concrete, specific vision to the screen while pushing the current state of the art as far as possible. Every scene you see in this episode, every object, every movement of a character's hands, every space, every hum of the fluorescent lights... it's all there for a very specific reason, with absolute control and intention on my part. I never imagined that something that looks so simple on the surface could be so incredibly complicated.
The script is my own, based on the original Backrooms concept (the iconic 4chan image) but developed to create an entirely new canon from scratch. In this first episode, I reveal barely more around 5% of the overall puzzle, so you may end up thinking: what the f*ck did I just watch? Or you may need multiple viewings to pick up on some extra clues, because several of them are genuinely hidden. The idea is to create a full 10 episode series, an anthology, and have you, the viewers, gradually piece together the puzzle yourselves as the clues are revealed.
Beyond the video and image generations, I did all of the editing in DaVinci Resolve, with particular attention to the sound. I'd say around 60% of the time I spent on this project went into sound. In some scenes, there are more than 13 stereo tracks layered at the same time, using sounds I recorded myself or created and edited from generations and foley libraries. Every sound, every voice, and every gasp is designed to pull you into the world of the story and make you feel like you're actually there. That meant spending an enormous amount of time on sound design, thinking about things like the individual position of each sound in space, EQ, reverb to simulate different environments, the sense of immersion, etc. I've never learned so much about something so quickly.
As for the generations, a few numbers:
• 12 hours of total generated video for 17 minutes of final footage 🤯
• More than 7,000 generations in total.
• An average of around 60 generations for every 15 seconds of final footage.
• 6 months of work, including many weekends, with just one person behind the whole thing... I almost lost my mind.
• Platform: Magnific, of course. Models: mainly Seedance 2.0 and 2.5 for video generations, and Nano Banana Pro and Seedream 5 for image references.
• Approximately $20,000 in total token costs, not including the value of my own time.
For the next episodes, I can't do this alone again or I'll go crazy. My plan is to put together a small team: voice actors, a colorist, 3D VFX artists, a sound designer, and, in general, people from the traditional film industry who can help us professionalize our pipeline and take this story to another level. If you're reading this and you think you might be interested, please leave a comment.
Ah! If you have any technical questions about how this was made, I'd be happy to answer them. Feel free to ask me anything you like!
Anyway, I'll leave you with the episode. For the love of everything holy: please watch it at home, relaxed, on a big screen, with a good sound system or a quality pair of headphones, the lights off, and some popcorn.
And most importantly, enjoy.
Nemus te reddat!
I've spent the last six months working in secret on this pilot episode for a new Backrooms canon. We premiered this week in Toronto and a it's now available on all platforms: a new Magnific Originals series!
This is quite possibly the most complex project I've ever taken on in my life. Yep, even if that sounds like an exaggeration, it took even more effort than building the first version of Magnific Upscaler.
I had never before tried to bring such a concrete, specific vision to the screen while pushing the current state of the art as far as possible. Every scene you see in this episode, every object, every movement of a character's hands, every space, every hum of the fluorescent lights... it's all there for a very specific reason, with absolute control and intention on my part. I never imagined that something that looks so simple on the surface could be so incredibly complicated.
The script is my own, based on the original Backrooms concept (the iconic 4chan image) but developed to create an entirely new canon from scratch. In this first episode, I reveal barely more around 5% of the overall puzzle, so you may end up thinking: what the f*ck did I just watch? Or you may need multiple viewings to pick up on some extra clues, because several of them are genuinely hidden. The idea is to create a full 10 episode series, an anthology, and have you, the viewers, gradually piece together the puzzle yourselves as the clues are revealed.
Beyond the video and image generations, I did all of the editing in DaVinci Resolve, with particular attention to the sound. I'd say around 60% of the time I spent on this project went into sound. In some scenes, there are more than 13 stereo tracks layered at the same time, using sounds I recorded myself or created and edited from generations and foley libraries. Every sound, every voice, and every gasp is designed to pull you into the world of the story and make you feel like you're actually there. That meant spending an enormous amount of time on sound design, thinking about things like the individual position of each sound in space, EQ, reverb to simulate different environments, the sense of immersion, etc. I've never learned so much about something so quickly.
As for the generations, a few numbers:
• 12 hours of total generated video for 17 minutes of final footage 🤯
• More than 7,000 generations in total.
• An average of around 60 generations for every 15 seconds of final footage.
• 6 months of work, including many weekends, with just one person behind the whole thing... I almost lost my mind.
• Platform: Magnific, of course. Models: mainly Seedance 2.0 and 2.5 for video generations, and Nano Banana Pro and Seedream 5 for image references.
• Approximately $20,000 in total token costs, not including the value of my own time.
For the next episodes, I can't do this alone again or I'll go crazy. My plan is to put together a small team: voice actors, a colorist, 3D VFX artists, a sound designer, and, in general, people from the traditional film industry who can help us professionalize our pipeline and take this story to another level. If you're reading this and you think you might be interested, please leave a comment.
Ah! If you have any technical questions about how this was made, I'd be happy to answer them. Feel free to ask me anything you like!
Anyway, I'll leave you with the episode. For the love of everything holy: please watch it at home, relaxed, on a big screen, with a good sound system or a quality pair of headphones, the lights off, and some popcorn.
And most importantly, enjoy.
Nemus te reddat!
17:42
