Curious Refuge Horror Competition

I’ve just finished my short film for the Curious Refuge Horror Competition! 🎬👻

My film, Echoes of the Hollow:

Ava returns to her abandoned hometown, drawn back by haunting memories and a dark presence that lingers in Hollow Manor. As she confronts the house—and herself—an ancient evil begins to unravel her past, distorting reality and threatening to consume her completely.

In a battle against her memories and a sinister force, Ava must face the terrifying truth that not everything can be left behind.

Here’s the story behind my film and how I brought it to life.

It took me around two weeks to complete, and I’m still amazed at what I could accomplish. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have even considered making a short film—AI tools have indeed opened new possibilities.

How I created the short film:

1 I started by writing the story in Claude, then used ChatGPT to break it

down into scenes and dialogue.

2 I created the visuals in MidJourney, which took longer than expected to

capture the right eerie, dark atmosphere.

3 I brought those scenes to life using Luma—though it sometimes added its

spin to the visuals, which required some fine-tuning.

4 For dialogue and sound effects, I turned to ElevenLabs and then used

Luma’s lip sync feature to sync the characters' dialogue. I got great results

about 80% of the time!

5 Finally, I combined everything in CapCut, which took longer than

anticipate, but it was worth the effort.