Sometimes you have to leave home to find where you belong.
Cuckoo: An original short film about purpose, belonging, and finding your way home.
Cuckoo has spent his whole life doing exactly what he was made to do. But when he begins to question where he belongs, he leaves the safety of his clock and ventures into a world he doesn’t understand.
A story about purpose, belonging, and sometimes needing to get lost before you understand where home really is.
Written, directed, and produced by Superflai using AI filmmaking tools, with an original score created for the film.
HOW IT CAME TO LIFE
DIRECTED BEFORE IT WAS GENERATED.
Cuckoo was planned as a film before it became a series of generated shots.
I worked through the story, performances, framing, camera movement, and emotional beats in storyboard form first. That gave every shot a clear purpose and helped keep the film focused as the production became more complex.
The goal was never to discover the story through prompting. It was to direct the story first, then use AI tools to bring it to life.
GIVE THE STORY A VOICE.
Cuckoo has almost no dialogue, so the music had to carry much of the emotion.
An original score was created around the arc of the film, from curiosity and isolation to urgency, hope, and finally homecoming. Piano, strings, and a recurring muted trumpet motif helped give Cuckoo an emotional voice without needing words.
The score became part of the storytelling, not something added after the film was finished.
BUILD THE WORLD.
THEN PROTECT IT.
One of the hardest parts of making Cuckoo was protecting the world once it had been established.
The film moves between humans, birds, interiors, landscapes, and a five-inch hero character. Small changes in scale, proportions, materials, or facial features could make a shot feel like it belonged to a different film.
I built character consistency sheets and scale references for the main cast and environments, then used them throughout production to protect the heroes and keep the world visually coherent from shot to shot.
Cuckoo always needed to feel like the same bird. The girl needed to remain the same character. And their relationship to the clock, the room, and the world around them had to stay believable.