Siesta Studios

Set during the height of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln must bring comfort to a people enduring profound turmoil. The weight of America’s struggles drives him into a deep emotional state as he journeys toward Cemetery Hill. Inspired by the works of D.W. Griffith, John Ford, and Abel Gance, this silent film mini-epic transports audiences to a defining moment in U.S. history. Created in honor of America’s 250th Anniversary, it stands as a love letter to our beautiful nation. Credits Executive Producer: Steven Bratter (“Demolition Man”) Writer: Ethan Padgett (Film Threat) Director: Amit Hiremath Made with AI tools including: Midjourney, Runway, Magnific, Google Veo, Reve and Kling Presented by Siesta Studios™

WhatsApp founder Jan Koum explains why he charged $1 to intentionally slow growth Sam Altman recalls: “I remember in 2011, people would say WhatsApp is never going to work because they charge a dollar and it’s a viral app and that’s just going to kill it right there.” But Jan explains that charging $1 was a very intentional lever WhatsApp used to slow growth: “I know it sounds very counterintuitive - why would you want to slow your growth? We wanted to slow our growth so we could better support our existing users. So we could build servers that don’t crash. So that we could build a product that doesn’t drop messages. So that we could answer their customer support emails.” A lot of people told Jan and the WhatsApp team this was a bad strategy, but Jan compares it to what Facebook did in the early days: “They were doing colleges only, and they weren’t open to the entire world.” WhatsApp wanted to do the same thing: “We wanted to make sure that we have our existing users happy, and that when people sign up, they have a great experience, and that the app works, and it’s fast, and the servers are up and running all the time. And I think that worked for us because we were really able to focus on the product.” Video source: @ycombinator (2014)

Brie Larson says Hollywood can learn from video games 🎮 "There's so much that video games are taking from cinema, and I think it's really time for us in cinema to recognize what we can take from video games" "The gaming community is much bigger than the film and television world ... people say, ‘what movies did you see? What book are you reading?’ But not so much do you think to ask, ‘what video game are you playing right now?’" (via @Fandango)

JUST LAUNCHED: Starlight Precise-2.5 🔥Your GenAI characters just took a major step forward. ✔️Improve realism ✔️Reduce plastic look and artifacts ✔️Upscale footage from the latest GenAI models to 4K. Access Starlight Precise 2.5 in Astra (astra.app), and in @HeyGen, @higgsfield, and @ComfyUI. See every detail in the thread below.

Multi shot is soo fun

Exploring a soft pink blue hazy color palette here in this cinematic set. Here’s the master prompt: “dreamy cinematic wide shot of a [SUBJECT], soft ethereal glow, light leak effect, film burn highlights, overexposed sunlight, pastel pink and blue color wash, soft haze diffusion, glow bloom, low contrast, lifted blacks, subtle motion blur, shallow depth of field, nostalgic mood, 35mm film grain, shot on Kodak Portra 400, analog film texture, poetic, serene, surreal, soft focus” If you try it out, share it with us! We'd love to see what you come up with 👀

I fed 61 of my songs into Suno's v5.5 custom model. Before AI, I produced music. Mostly Arabic Deep House under a side project. It's freaky how close it is to my music, yet sounds new. Feels like I entered a world of my own sound and can explore it endlessly. Fascinating!

This is really interesting... ⬇️ It looks like @MrBeast has been testing a new thumbnail style, moving away from his typical over-polished look and leaning more into hyper-realistic imagery. And this isn't random. MrBeast has always been at the forefront of YouTube innovation - constantly testing, iterating, and refining based on what actually gets people to click. So when he shifts something like this, it’s worth paying attention. Over the past few years, viewers on YouTube have gotten so used to these "MrBeastified" thumbnails, that everything just blends together on their feed. BUT... When you introduce something that looks hyper-realistic, it disrupts that pattern. It feels new and fresh and even, more believable. That's what stops the scroll. I’ve actually been pushing creators over the past few months to experiment more with hyper-realistic thumbnails for this exact reason. This doesn't change the fact that you still need great ideas behind your thumbnails but - it shows us where things are going on YouTube. What do you think about this?

@rguiterman Looking forward to it! 🎬

Yes we are!

@henrydaubrez That’s cool Henry! Looking forward to seeing it!! 💪

Tomorrow. Testing a new original IP. 1 minute. Not a full story… yet.

Did you know that @dustinhollywood and @rguiterman are amazing and a must-follow if you’re in AI video? :) ❤️

@janekm @javilopen Good to know 👍

@TheRealSiesta @javilopen No close-ups for the most part, but if you stick to mid-shot or further away it’s ok about 50% of the time.

I shared some secret tips with Anna about Seedance 2.0, Magnific and a super pro way of achieving PERFECT consistency using "smart image references" and now she's sharing them with everybody! 😅😘

@AVARY That’s true! Budgets should be going down, not up!!😂

“Cutting edge CGI” means AI, by the way.

YouTube Shopping Affiliate is now available with 500 Subscribers and earn affiliate commission when viewers purchase products!

the uncanny valley is over for text and photos. I can't tell the difference. Video next. What happens after that?

Former Disney CEO Bob Iger on how he betrayed George Lucas' Star Wars vision: "George immediately got upset as they began to describe the plot and it dawned on him that we weren’t using one of the stories he submitted during the negotiations... George knew we weren’t contractually bound to anything, but he thought that our buying the story treatments was a tacit promise that we’d follow them, and he was disappointed that his story was being discarded... Now, in the first meeting with him about the future of Star Wars, George felt betrayed, and while this whole process would never have been easy for him, we’d gotten off to an unnecessarily rocky start.” What was Bob Iger thinking?

I joined Dreamina AI CPP and got early access to use Dreamina Seedance 2.0! Dreamina Seedance 2.0 is now available on both Dreamina AI WEB and APP. Just a heads-up: it’s currently rolling out in select countries and regions only. Stay tuned to @dreamina_ai 's official announcements for the latest updates! #DreaminaSeedance2 #DreaminaAI #DreaminaCPP #Seedance2 #Seedream5Lite

Experiments with Midjourney v8 Drawing on inspiration from my weekend in Melaka, Malaysia

@markgadala looks very realistic and the sound effects are spot on 👏

Stunning. Someone used Seedance 2 to recreate a battle seen from WW1 that looks like its straight out of a Hollywood movie. Credit u/SToMBG