Finished video
"Notebook Doodles Become a Movie": social brand film
A 37-second brand film for social media in which a child's stick-figure drawings in a notebook turn into cinematic scenes with the same composition
Narration and on-screen text are in Japanese. The sections below describe the video in English.
How it was made: The stick-figure lines in the notebook were drawn one stroke at a time with code. Cinematic scenes and shaded pencil drawings with the same compositions were created with an image generation model (Nano Banana Pro) and animated with a video generation model (Kling v3). Music and sound effects were made with generative AI (ElevenLabs), and the edit moves back and forth between line drawings, pencil shading and photorealistic footage (no filming)
A video like this$1,000 (excl. tax) · As few as 5 business days37 seconds, landscape (videos under 60 seconds are priced at the 60–90 second rate) | Pricing
Overview and production conditions
- A stick-figure hero comes to life from a child's note that reads "Night. Rain. Explosion!"
- Each time the child redraws the scene, the pursuer changes from a police car to a UFO, a giant robot and then a Shiba Inu.
- Over 37 seconds, the child's imagination grows as the film moves between doodles and the world of the movie.
- Where it runs
- Posts on X and other social media (16:9, 1920×1080)
- Structure
- Six parts: the scale of a film set, the source materials, line drawing to live action, the redrawn pursuers, a rapid run of finished shots, and the dinner-table ending
- Approach
- The only on-screen text is the child's note. No narration, subtitles or logo. The hero's face is never shown, and a red scarf makes it clear it is the same person throughout
- Production time
- About 4 hours on record from the first instruction to exporting the final cut (around 23:00 on October 8 to 1:50 on October 9, 2026, and around 10:30 to 11:45 on October 9)
The 37 seconds, scene by scene
0–3 s: A film set in a city at night. A large camera on a crane, a pillar of fire from a blast, and a director holding a radio under a helicopter, one second each.
3–4 s: The set noise cuts out and we are at a free-drawing notebook on a desk in a child's room. A small hand picks up a pencil.
4–9 s: "Night. Rain. Explosion!" is written in the notebook, followed by a black toy SUV and a daytime photo of an apartment-block rooftop. The rooftop photo turns into a rainy night.
9–14 s: A stick figure in a red scarf is drawn standing on the rooftop in the same composition. After frames of a jump from a helicopter and a tire, a shaded pencil drawing becomes the hero, seen from behind, standing on the rooftop on a rainy night.
14–25 s: A car chase with the black SUV on an elevated highway at night. Each time the pursuer is erased and redrawn in the notebook, it switches to a police car, a UFO, a giant robot and then a Shiba Inu.
25–34 s: Scenes matching the stick-figure frames cut in at about one second each: a descent from a helicopter, the hero running with an explosion behind, a monster between buildings, a rainy road seen through the wipers, a leap from rooftop to rooftop, a rocket launch, and outer space with Earth behind. The last shot lingers on the hero facing a giant monster in a ruined city.
34–37 s: A drawing of a stick figure eating turns into the dinner table. The child, wearing a red towel as a cape, closes the notebook while a Shiba Inu looks up from the floor.
First rough cut vs. final cut
The first rough cut was 36 seconds. For the final cut, the note scene was extended by one second, the dinosaur pursuer was changed to a UFO, and a car that appeared behind the dog was removed. Images were also reviewed and fixed before they were turned into video.
Full video
Hiding the hero's face in shadow before animating
Before
After- Goal
- Keep the hero's face hidden and use the red scarf to show it is the same person
- Adjustment
- Reviewed the 25 test images and regenerated the two where the face was visible (the jump from the helicopter and the run in front of the explosion) with the face in shadow
- Fixed in the same review
- Removed a real carmaker's emblem that appeared on a car grille, and changed a monster that resembled an existing one into an original design
Extending the note scene by one second
- Goal
- Let viewers finish reading the child's note before moving on to the next material
- Instruction during production
- "Extend the 'night rain explosion' text at 0:04 by one second. I want to look at it a little longer."
- Adjustment
- Changed the note scene from 4–5 s to 4–6 s and shifted all footage, music and sound effects after 5 s by one second (total length from 36 to 37 seconds)
Changing the dinosaur pursuer to a UFO
- Instruction during production
- "At 0:18, I want to change the Tyrannosaurus to some other creature. Aliens, for example."
- Adjustment
- Settled on a saucer flying low and chasing the car while lighting the road with a beam, then replaced the notebook line drawing (saucer, alien in the window, beam), the cinematic scene and the sound effects together
Removing the car behind the dog and restoring the driving motion
- Instruction during production
- "There's a car behind the dog at 0:22, remove it."
"There's still a car behind the dog at 0:23, remove it."
"At 0:22 the car isn't moving anymore, put the motion back." - Cause
- The dog image had been redrawn from the police car image, so traces of the car remained, and video generation also added a car to the road. In the version that suppressed the car, the road lost its motion and the SUV looked like it had stopped
- Adjustment
- Redrew the dog on an image of the road with no pursuer and regenerated the clip using car-free images for the first and last frames. In the edit, lowered the saturation and contrast of the overly strong colors and layered rain streaks on top
Stick-figure storyboard and production steps
The flow was first checked with stick-figure panels. Following the instruction "Don't stop at stick figures, try generating images too," photorealistic frames with the same compositions were generated and then redrawn as shaded pencil drawings, so the line drawing, shading and live-action frames all share one composition.
- 01Set the flow with stick-figure panels
- 02Generate photorealistic frames with the same compositions
- 03Review faces, emblems and monster designs
- 04Turn 19 shots into video and connect them with the line drawings
- 05Add music and sound effects and fix each scene
Related articles
More work
Talk to us about your video
You don’t need a finished plan to get in touch.
Ask about a video like thisSee pricing and the production process