Editorial illustration for Animators and AI Researchers Build ‘Dear Upstairs Neighbors’ Despite Unique Style
AI and Animators Craft Unique Short Film Experiment
Animators and AI Researchers Build ‘Dear Upstairs Neighbors’ Despite Unique Style
The short animated short “Dear Upstairs Neighbors” emerged from an unlikely partnership between traditional animators and a handful of AI researchers. While the premise sounded straightforward—a story told through hand‑drawn frames enhanced by machine‑generated textures—the reality proved anything but. The team quickly discovered that the film’s visual language didn’t fit any existing model.
Its color palette shifted on a beat, line weight thinned and thickened with each character’s emotion, and background details morphed in ways that standard tools simply couldn’t predict. Here’s the thing: the animators had spent months refining a style that felt almost tactile, yet the AI systems they turned to were trained on far broader, less idiosyncratic data. As the deadline loomed, the collaborators faced a choice—compromise the aesthetic or push the technology further.
The answer would require building new capabilities from the ground up, a move that would test both artistic intent and technical limits.
*We expected that AI could help fill the gap, but soon found that these styles were so unique, and our design choices so specific, that our researchers would have to develop new capabilities to provide the customization and control that we needed to bring the film to life. Tune for new visual styles*
We expected that AI could help fill the gap, but soon found that these styles were so unique, and our design choices so specific, that our researchers would have to develop new capabilities to provide the customization and control that we needed to bring the film to life. Tune for new visual styles Our first challenge was to produce shots consistent with Ada's character design and the painterly styles that defined each scene. To achieve high quality and consistency, our researchers built tools that allowed our artists to fine-tune custom Veo and Imagen models on their artwork, teaching the models new visual concepts from just a few example images.
Will AI ever match a hand‑crafted aesthetic? The Sundance preview of “Dear Upstairs Neighbors” suggests a tentative step forward. Animators and researchers discovered that off‑the‑shelf models fell short; the film’s visual language demanded bespoke tools.
Consequently, the team built new capabilities to grant the precise control they required. The short follows Ada, a sleepless tenant tormented by noisy upstairs neighbors, and it leans on a style that feels both intimate and technically ambitious. Yet, the need for custom solutions raises questions about scalability.
While the Story Forum platform emphasizes artist‑first technology, it remains unclear whether similar projects can rely on these bespoke systems without extensive development. The collaboration highlights both promise and limitation in current AI‑assisted animation pipelines. As the film reaches audiences, viewers will see a concrete example of what can be achieved when creators push the technology to fit their vision, rather than the other way around.
Only the reception at Sundance will reveal how the industry judges this balance.
Further Reading
- How animators and AI researchers made 'Dear Upstairs Neighbors' - Google DeepMind Blog
- Google DeepMind Previews 'Artist-First' AI Animated Short at Sundance Story Forum - Animation Magazine
- Google DeepMind's AI-Powered Film Debuts at Sundance - TechBuzz
- Dear Upstairs Neighbors: How Controlled AI Changes Animation - Longbridge
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Common Questions Answered
How is OpenAI planning to compete with traditional animation studios like Pixar with the 'Critterz' film?
[theankler.com](https://theankler.com/p/openai-30m-animated-film-coming-challenge-pixar) reveals that OpenAI is producing 'Critterz' with a budget under $30 million and a remarkably short nine-month production timeline. The film aims to demonstrate AI's capability to create feature-length animated content quickly and cost-effectively, potentially challenging traditional animation studios' production models.
What was the origin of OpenAI's animated film project?
The project began in 2023 with a modest experiment using DALL·E to generate a short animated piece about woodland creatures, created by OpenAI creative specialist Chad Nelson. [theankler.com](https://theankler.com/p/openai-30m-animated-film-coming-challenge-pixar) reports that this initial short caught the attention of OpenAI leadership, who saw an opportunity to showcase AI's potential in full-length film production.
What challenges is OpenAI facing in the development of generative AI for film creation?
[openaccess.thecvf.com](https://openaccess.thecvf.com/content/CVPR2025W/CVEU/papers/Zhang_Generative_AI_for_Film_Creation_A_Survey_of_Recent_Advances_CVPRW_2025_paper.pdf) highlights key challenges including maintaining character consistency, achieving stylistic coherence, and ensuring motion continuity. Artists have also expressed desires for improvements in controllability, fine-grained editing, and motion refinement in AI-generated content.