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Isaac Irvin had been carrying an idea for years — a music video for his band, Los Pochos, laden with surreal imagery and well-animated storylines.

He knew the version in his head would require a team, time, and a budget the size of a small indie film. Instead, he created it alone, at home, while enrolled in a remote course at none other than Lighthouse AI Academy.

The skeleton-shaking result, Nocturna, is an AI-driven music video that combines visual storytelling, performance, and world-building, all developed by using a custom pipeline and incorporating ComfyUI, custom LoRA models, GPTs, and multiple AI animation tools.

What catapults Nocturna beyond the realm of a "passion project" is that it's a blueprint for a new kind of creative production: one that redefines what it means to make something real.

Built entirely during Isaac's time as a student at our Academy, Nocturna shows how far one can go when structured learning meets personal vision.

No crew, no gatekeepers: just a laptop, a deadline, and a dream with clear direction.

Vision First, Tools Second

Like most long-delayed projects, Nocturna first began as a fragmented concept: just moods, moments, and aesthetics.

Irvin, a CG and VFX Supervisor at Kevin Visual Effects, started out with visual vignettes (a surreal hotel, a red-lit jazz lounge, a rooftop concert), each centered around the rhythm and tone of the music.

Rather than sketching, he turned to AI, with ChatGPT helping him build the narrative arc.

Custom GPTs, including one trained to act as a "cinematic shot designer", transformed loose scenes into full sequences. Dialogue, action, and camera language were all broken into shot lists and stage direction. From there, storyboards were generated using Katalyst AI, then refined and batch-rendered inside ComfyUI.

A radical inversion of the usual pipeline, making way for new-age creatives.

This is the epitome of AI-enhanced creativity: The script didn't lead the visuals, the music did; the tools didn't dictate the style, they followed it.

The Production System Behind Nocturna

Rather than a series of AI experiments, this was a deliberate pipeline that was designed, tested, and executed like a real production.

Irvin went far beyond merely using AI tools, instead building a creative system from scratch, treating each step with the same rigor he brings to professional VFX work.

Production Component	Implementation & Impact
Storyboard as structure	AI-generated boards became ControlNet anchors, not just concept art. They locked in framing and visual consistency across sequences.
Style control baked into the workflow	Instead of style guides and art teams, Irvin embedded visual rules directly into generation logic.
Custom LoRAs for environments	For the "MC Escher Hotel," he trained a LoRA on a real hotel in China, reproducing the geometry and lighting with tactile precision.
Character design through asset training	Band members were rendered as stylized Catrina puppets and marionettes, with each animated in loops tied to the music's rhythm and mood.
Batch rendering for velocity	Irvin aspired to a daily goal of five animated shots. ComfyUI's batch processing enabled fast iteration and selective refinement.
Creative use of glitches	"AI quirks" weren't edited out and were used as texture, adding surreal tension between control and accidental perfection.

Enter Authorship: Going Beyond Automation

The outstanding factor in Irvin's process is authorship.

This wasn't "AI-made" in the dismissive sense.

But it was authored, with each step — from training LoRAs to refining in Photoshop to building story arcs with GPTs — being intentional, even if the result was a "mistake".

Irvin relied on iteration, often photobashing initial outputs, adjusting them in Photoshop, then re-running them through the generation model using saved seeds and swapped control nets. Final shots were animated in Kling, HailuoAI, and Hedra, with upscaling being handled in Magnific.

This hybrid process (AI-assisted, artist-directed) delivers a result that feels distinct because the tools didn't remove creative labor; they redistributed it.

And that's why we always speak about creatives using AI to enhance, not replace!

An Academy and Film School in One

Nocturna didn't emerge from a studio or grant, but was instead built inside our course.

Irvin had enrolled in a 12-week program focused on advanced AI workflows for creative professionals, and the music video was his capstone.

"I wanted to challenge myself to build a full production pipeline with AI. What I learned wasn't just tools, it was process thinking. Given a problem now, I feel like I know how to break it down and build a system around it."

That insight into the shift from linear storytelling to modular system design is central to the emerging language of AI-native filmmaking.

Creative direction requires more than masterful aesthetics.

It needs orchestration: structuring inputs, tuning outputs, and finding stability inside noise.

A Music Video Morphs into a Map for the Future

This is a case study in what's possible when AI workflows are taken seriously.

And make no mistake: Nocturna goes well beyond a single project.

It blends procedural thinking with artistic intent, sidestepping the traditional blockers (budgets, teams, timelines), and replacing them with precision tooling and personal control.

The aesthetics are stylized and the logic is industrial, with Irvin taking away a lot more than a music video. He now knows how to build the machinery to develop one and make them available, replicable, and open to others.

His custom LoRA for the Escher Hotel is published on Civitai, and his storyboarding process has already informed his next project: a short film for his wife.

The knowledge is portable and the method scales.

Rethinking What "Production" Means

The creative industry tends to divide projects into two categories: real and experimental.

Nocturna challenges that binary by being both.

It was made with intention, technical rigor, and clear aesthetic goals. It plays like a finished piece, but it was also a form of self-education, an experiment in pipeline design, and a test of how far one artist can go with the right mix of tools and vision.

The fact that it works, not as a sketch, but as a film, is a sign of what's coming next.

A Learning Experience to Die For

This all started as a student project at Lighthouse AI Academy.

Isaac Irvin's Nocturna went well beyond another creative made by chasing trends: It is the product of clear vision, structured learning, and seriously fun experimentation.

If you're a creative professional ready to build your own AI production system, from LoRA training to ControlNet workflows to multi-tool animation pipelines, then join us for a complete learning journey like no other — just as Isaac did.

Ready to start your own AI creative journey?

→ Explore the AI for Creative Leaders Course and bring your dreams to life (or death, like Irvin did)

→ Got questions or need some help? Contact us today.

Get ready to start building your system and owning the process from end to end.

Follow the light!

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