Filmmaker Chris Capel told the AI Creator Day audience that he and his writing partner wrote a dry comedy sketch about living with a merman 20 years ago, then shelved it.
Part of the problem was a sea lion. “It would have cost like 10 grand just to rent the sea lion, and we refused to do it without that sea lion,” Capel said.
This year they brought it back to test whether AI could carry understated comedy. “We could never make it for obvious reasons, you’ll see afterward, budgetary reasons, and so AI really allowed us to sort of resurrect it,” he said.
Capel built every angle from start frames and found the tools work best at the edges. “AI seems to be really good at both extremes, like really heavy, high, broad, big things, and really reserved sort of quiet, quiet moments,” he said.
Working in spare weeks turned out to be an advantage. New video models arrived mid-project and made shots possible that weren’t before.
He didn’t claim a shortcut. “I wish there was some kind of secret recipe or magic bullet here for what we did, but it seems like everyone’s sort of using the same five tools,” Capel said. “It’s just a matter of having the patience to just run it again and again and again until you magically get that one.”
TheWrap and What’s Trending presented AI Creator Day 2026 at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles on Sept. 29, the day before TheGrill. Sponsors included Artlist, Cantina, CapCut, Fairground Entertainment, Native Foreign, pocket.watch, Rebel Audio, UTA and Wispr Flow, the official voice partner, whose Notetaker captured the quotes in this story.
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