OpenAI Let Directors Make Short Films With Sora and the Results Are Wild

We've never seen a cross between a giraffe and flamingo this convincing.

Director Access

OpenAI has given a number of directors, production companies, and creative agencies early access to its Sora text-to-video generator — and the results range from astonishing to downright terrifying.

Toronto-based multimedia production company Shy Kids used the next-generation generative AI tool to come up with a whimsical short film about "Air Head," a man who has a balloon instead of a head.

The short film is an impressive example of the tech's capabilities, showing off Sora's striking ability to generate relatively believable and photorealistic video footage in response to a text prompt.

"As great as Sora is at generating things that appear real, what excites us is its ability to make things that are totally surreal," said director of "Air Head" Walter Woodman in a statement. "A new era of abstract expressionism."

Weak Chimera

A different short film showcased by OpenAI highlights how Sora can also be used to generate videos with horrifying results. Digital artist Don Allen III, who started his career at DreamWorks Animation, created clips of grotesque animal hybrids for his pseud-documentary called "Beyond Our Reality."

The short 90-second clip shows footage of a "Girafflamingo," an unholy cross between a giraffe and flamingo, as well as a "Whalepus," a whale with terrifying octopus arms.

While the short films are impressive, we've already seen some glaring inconsistencies in Sora footage OpenAI has shared, suggesting OpenAI may be overselling the tool's real-world capabilities by cherry-picking particularly impressive examples.

According to a recent interview in the Wall Street Journal, OpenAI is hoping to publicly release Sora "later this year." But who will have access and when is still unclear, especially considering just how resource-intensive rendering AI video is.

In short, we'll reserve our judgment until we've gotten our own hands on the tool.

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