“What Is Love?" Video
- Tools:
Overview
My work lives at the intersection of learning design and creative tech. Some days I’m mapping course flows, other days I’m testing AI prompts just to see what sparks. So when I gave myself a challenge to create a fully animated video using only AI tools, it wasn’t just for fun. It was a mini case study in what’s possible.
The goal?
To explore how instructional designers can leverage AI across the entire production pipeline. Brainstorming, scripting, voiceover, animation, editing. Start to finish. The result needed to be both polished and scalable.
Spoiler: it took just 12 hours.
Whether you’re building your own course content or designing AI-friendly learner projects, this breakdown offers a peek at how generative tools can help you move faster, create smarter, and maybe even enjoy the process a little more.
The Workflow: AI As My Design Team
Here’s how each AI tool stepped in like a member of the creative crew to support the project.
ChatGPT: The Scriptwriter & Storyboarding Buddy
Before anything else, I needed a story. ChatGPT was my creative writing partner. I prompted it to help me write a voiceover script with a warm, reflective tone, and iterated until the message landed. I also asked it to suggest visuals for each scene, which became the foundation for a storyboard.
ElevenLabs: The Voiceover Artist Extraordinaire
Once the script was ready, I used ElevenLabs to generate a natural-sounding narration. The magic here is in the tweaks. I could adjust pitch, pacing, and tone to match the vibe I wanted. The result felt polished and professional without recording a single line myself.
Midjourney: My On-Demand Illustrator and Animator
For visuals, Midjourney became my personal illustrator. I used it to generate key frames for each scene, treating every prompt like a mini creative brief. Once I had the images, I refined the prompts until the entire set felt cohesive—same style, same color palette, same mood. Then came the fun part. I animated the stills to create movement within each scene.
Pika 2.2: Scene Transitions
Pika added that “in-between” magic: motion transitions between key frames of animated scenes to give the video flow. Think of it as the bridge between static and dynamic.
Finally, I used Adobe Premiere to assemble the audio and animation, bringing everything together. This was the only “traditional” tool I used, and it served as the glue to unify the AI-generated elements.
Result: A solo creator condensed a two-week, multi-role production into a two-day sprint, without sacrificing clarity, creativity, or story.
Traditional Production vs. AI-Driven Workflow
To gauge AI’s impact, I compared this project to a similar 1-minute video I had made for a client with traditional methods. The breakdown below shows average time spent per phase.
Detailed Time Comparison
| Phase | Traditional Time | AI Workflow Time |
|---|---|---|
| Scriptwriting & Storyboarding | ~8 hrs | ~2 hrs |
| Illustration (Characters, Backgrounds, Scenes) | ~80 hrs | ~4 hrs |
| Voiceover (Recording, Editing) | ~4 hrs | ~1 hr |
| Animation (Frame-by-frame or animating illustrations) | ~40 hrs | ~3 hrs |
| Post-Production (Sound, Edits, Revisions) | ~8 hrs | ~2 hrs |
| Total | ~140 hrs | ~12 hrs |
With AI, I completed the entire video in just two days, an 85% time reduction, by turning a multi-person, labor-intensive process into a streamlined solo workflow.
While traditional methods still offer greater control and artistic nuance, this project demonstrates how AI tools can dramatically accelerate the production of high-quality, short-form video content—especially for creators working independently or on tight timelines.
Why This Project Matters
This wasn’t just a creative experiment; it was a practical exploration of how AI can reshape instructional design workflows, content creation, and learner experience design.
For organizations navigating tight budgets, AI tools like the ones I used offer a scalable way to reduce reliance on external vendors while still producing high-quality, multimedia-rich learning assets…faster.
This project reflects the kind of design thinking that’s important to me: resourceful, experimental, and always aligned with practical application. It’s not just about the tools. It’s about how we use them to support better learning.
Video
Check out the video below.