I Stopped Using AI Characters and Hired Professional Actors Instead

It’s been exactly one year today since I last posted about Skyglass, my original sci-fi streaming show. If you’re still here, thank you for not giving up on me! My filmmaking approach has changed dramatically. I’m excited to share what I’ve learned.

First things first, Skyglass is happening!

• I finished the script.
• I put out a casting call and hired a cast of extraordinary actors.
• Over the course of two weeks, we shot the entire six-episode first season.
• I’m deep in the editing process, aiming for a premiere later this year.

If you’ve been following along, you might be surprised to hear about hiring actors and shooting film. Last year, I was talking about drafting character sheets and prompting AI video. What happened?

As I made progress on my script, one concern kept coming back to me. While AI-generated video can be amazingly realistic, my attempts at generating authentic emotional dialogue with AI prompts continually fell flat. My show is not an action showcase—it’s a drama about human connection. And I wasn’t able to tell the story I wanted to tell with purely generated video.

At the same time I was having these concerns, new AI models were released with an impressive capability—they could edit the background of a video while preserving the appearance and performance of the characters in the foreground.

So I posted a casting call on Backstage, a website for finding and hiring actors, and got hundreds of applications. The audition tapes these professionals submitted blew me away. They took the script I had written and layered it with visceral emotion drawn from their craft and life experiences.

Meet the cast bringing Skyglass to life.

I rented an Airbnb so the actors flying in from out of state had a place to stay. It also served as our set for shooting almost every scene over the course of two weeks.

Now I’m editing the footage together and replacing the Airbnb in the background of the shots with the locations from the script.

Here’s a scene I recently finished. Above is the original footage; below is the final scene after replacing the environment.

I can’t wait for you to see the rest of the story soon!