Can you share what initially drew you to explore the intersection of AI and crime-noir, particularly focusing on the personal account of a female protagonist who kills for money?
Dan Trimarchi: In late 2023, I was diving into screenwriting and
directing just as AI filmmaking was gaining traction. AI became a way to test out my vision at relatively low financial stakes. I needed a story that embraced AI’s limitations—particularly its struggle with realistic dialogue animation—while also breaking away from the overly VO-driven work I’d seen. That’s where the podcast idea came from.
Then, I started thinking about cultural moments on the horizon. Valentine’s felt like a timeline I could meet, and I’ve always loved Tarantino, so I wanted to try a justice-driven story. And voilà—my AI-meets-crime-noir story was born.
How did you integrate technology into your artwork? What specific tools or techniques were crucial in achieving the distinctive style of Love and Lethal Endings?
Dan Trimarchi: My goal was to use technology for what it does best. AI was never going to write a better screenplay than I could, so I did that myself. But after that, it became critical to nearly every aspect of the production. I fed the screenplay into ChatGPT to generate an initial shot list.
My Director of AI Photography, Alexandru Sanfira (Alterverse Studio), and I then tag-teamed the process of turning the shot list into a detailed storyboard using Midjourney, generating over 1,000 stills just to get to the 60-something frames that made up the film. We then used Runway to animate each frame, generating over 500 videos and selecting only the most realistic ones.
Alexandru is truly a wizard with AI. He took all the footage we had generated and upscaled it to make it look that much more cinematic. While he was doing that, I generated all the voiceovers using ElevenLabs. Then, our fantastic editor, Mobil Rosales, brought it all together, and finally, the incredibly talented Camilla Ciappina designed a brilliant title treatment for us.
The visual style of Love and Lethal Endings is striking and beautiful. How did you approach the aesthetics of the piece, and how did this approach evolve over the course of its creation?
Dan Trimarchi: One of the best things about using AI to create a film on a relatively low budget is that you can “shoot” on any equipment you want, and it doesn’t cost a thing. So, in our prompts, we used an Arriflex 35 III camera and Eastman EXR 50D 5245 film with Canon lensing, which is what Tarantino used in Reservoir Dogs.
Ultimately, I think that, plus our commitment to selecting only the best frames and animations, played a huge role in shaping the film’s visual style.
Finally, what message or experience do you hope viewers take away from Love and Lethal Endings? How do you envision your work influencing their perception of how AI can be used to tell exciting crime stories?
Dan Trimarchi: My biggest goal in making this film was to craft something with AI that felt more cinematic, more intentional than most of what was out there. I wanted to prove that AI could do more than just churn out Wes Anderson x Star Wars mashups—that it could be used to create a truly original cinematic piece, one that was both an engaging story and beautifully crafted eye candy.
Since the 2024 award, we’d love to know what you’ve been working on. What’s next for you, and how has your use of AI progressed over the year?
Dan Trimarchi: Since then, I’ve been focused on transitioning from my 2-minute short to longer-form storytelling. I spent most of 2024 writing a 30-minute live-action short film, which I hope to direct this year (with some AI enhancements, of course). More recently, I’ve started writing my first feature-length film, which I hope to get out into the world within the next year or two.
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