This is my first video production of a horror story. I wrote two novellas as part of a series in 2021, and for Halloween I got bitten by the bug again to produce horror fiction, but this time as a video. Using ElevenLabs and Piclumen AI platforms as production tools, this is the first fictional video presentation I’ve done where I am creating graphic elements using Artificial Intelligence, and putting my meager graphics skills and video editing skills to the test. Generally when editing our documentaries and podcast shorts, the graphics are composed from the images of current events and don’t require much attention at all, and there is no real creative element other slapping things together and adding some music. Or placing a photo on a page for Show Notes or an article. Our book Severed Conscience made use of lots of graphics. But this video was different. A lot different.
As with a lot things, I run the ball first, get into trouble, then figure out how much really I don’t know. This first foray, while entertaining and with good dramatic elements, is a maiden flight. The story is part of a series that I’ve published on Amazon and have left on the back burner, but the characters and pieces of plot still live upstairs in my head. Since I’ve wanted to level up regarding my AI image generation skills, I decided to bite the bullet and see what I could whip up for this existing story. It forced me to improvise and learn on the fly. I’m eager to start the next one, as the characters renderings will evolve as I hopefully improve. Currently the characters almost resemble the faces I see in the story that runs in my mind’s eye. The technology can be a bit daunting, and while I am a software developer, I can’t gain complete control and just do what I want. Yet. It will take time.
You may recognize the narrator’s voice. I’m going to let you guess who it is. When I heard the final narration for the first time I was grinning from ear to ear. The story presented here is part of a broader series, but the funny thing is I always heard the narrator’s voice while I wrote the first novella’s back in 2021. I started the series on my iPhone in Starbucks on a cold January morning while I waited for the office to open up. And the voice that you hear was the voice that spoke the words that I wrote on those early mornings.
This photo is something I bought at a gallery in Orchard Lake, north of Detroit. My wife and I had been to Prague for our honeymoon, it is one of the few cities in Europe where the medieval portion of the city was left undamaged by World War II. We toured the city just a few months before the country split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia If you like the Gothic vibes of vampire tales and other horror stories, Prague is the city for you. Years later we attended a showing at a gallery, the photographer told us he just returned from Prague. I couldn’t pass the photo up - it hangs in our living room downstairs, observing us night and day. There is an eerie element to it that my kids have always commented on, and the building there is indeed from Prague itself. Sometimes that is how I returned to setting of this tale, is by this vision of the eye in the photo.
This tale of terror takes place in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1750s, the main characters are a young rabbi, Pavel, and his cousin, Sasha, who come into a possession of a map and artifacts that lead them on a chase across mid 18th century Europe. Pavel must flee his home in Prague to protect his family from elements that wish to possess the map, and who are willing to kill whoever stands in their way. Sasha and Paval, while they flee for their lives, must figure out who, or what, is really pursuing them.
The Jewish Quarter of Prague is the center of many legends. According to myth, Prague was guarded by creature created by a rabbi who discovered a form of spell, or perhaps a form of forgotten science, that could create a being that would be indestructible. This legend is known to many as the Golem. The Golem is reputed to have patrolled the Jewish Quarter during the 16th century and protected the inhabitants. Prague is home to a beautiful cemetery located in the Jewish Quarter in the vicinity of synagogue, and by looking at the photos below it’s easy to imagine a creature lurking in the shadows of the cemetery and surround stone structures.
I hope you enjoy this project, the idea of producing a narrated video has been on my mind for about a year, but the idea of returning to these dark corners of Prague just came to me earlier this week, so I let it be a muse for me, and I hope the result is something you will find entertaining.
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