Nick Kukaj
Production breakdown · 2026
Night Run — Spec automotive spot — 43 shots kept from 54 generated, built on a single rule: if a frame could not hold its own next to live-action, it did not make the cut.
Pre-production
The brief
Everything served one visual idea: commercial texture, controlled contrast, and compositions that hold still long enough to read.
The hard part was consistency. Subject, wardrobe, and light had to survive every cut, so the references were locked before a frame of the final was generated.
- Shots in cut
- 43 of 54 generated
- Primary model
- Pixio AI
- Build time
- 16 days
- Year
- 2026
Design
Locking the look
The reference set came first — subject, palette, and a light test — locked before anything moved. It cost less than two full runs and saved re-rolling every shot that would have drifted.
Front
Profile
Wardrobe
LightingBuild the reference set before generating anything final. It is the cheapest step and it decides whether the rest is usable.
Production
Shot construction
The working loop never changed: still first, approve, animate. Because the frame was already signed off, roughly four in five survived the motion pass.
Prompt structure
subject: who or what is in frame, one action only
camera: lens, height, movement
lighting: source, direction, quality
grade: stock or reference
negative: drone shot, orbit, lens flare, slow motionConcrete beats evocative. "Cinematic" produced a different look every run; a stated lens and light source produced one.
The expensive habit is re-rolling a prompt hoping for a better frame. Fix the reference instead.
Highlight
The set piece
The strongest section is the one built as a continuous run rather than isolated pieces — each part picking up from the last so the geography holds and the joins stop being visible.
The cheap step decides whether the expensive ones are usable.
Post
The cut
Cutting revealed which shots were working and which were merely pretty. Several of the expensive ones went.
Sound did more work than any single shot. Room tone and small practical details are what convince the eye that the spaces are real.
Team
Credits
- Director
- Nick Kukaj
- Motion
- Pixio AI
- Edit
- Nick Kukaj
- Sound design
- Nick Kukaj
- Platform
- Pixio
