“Make It Real” — LA 2028 Brand Anthem

The Challenge In the crowded landscape of sports marketing, "inspiration" has become a commodity. Global perceptions of Los Angeles are stuck in stereotypes: plastic culture, movie magic, and lazy sunshine.

My goal was to pivot the identity from "Hollywood Plastic" to "Cinematic Grit," achieving a tactile, high-fidelity aesthetic entirely through generative means.

The Workflow Unlike standard workflows, I treated each AI model as a specialized department head.

1. Strategy (Gemini) I used Gemini to reverse-engineer the visual prompts. We co-authored complex lighting instructions using terms like "chiaroscuro," "rim-lighting," and "volumetric fog" to ensure the visuals looked grounded.

2. Visuals (Nano Banana Pro) To avoid the "AI sheen," I used Nano Banana Pro for its texture handling. I engineered prompts focusing on tactile imperfections—sweat, concrete dust, and rust. These "Hero Stills" served as visual anchors.

3. Motion (Super Grok) I fed the stills into Super Grok to emulate cinematic camera moves (slow tracking, dutch tilts) rather than generic morphing.

4. Audio (ElevenLabs) I used Speech-to-Speech to act out the script myself, capturing human cadence and breath. Then I generated diegetic textures (hissing breath, humming lights) to build the soundstage.

5. Edit (Premiere Pro) Assembled and graded to crush the blacks and blow out the highlights, matching the "Anti-Gloss" direction.

Takeaway The future isn't prompting; it's orchestration. Happy to answer questions about the specific lighting prompts or the audio workflow in the comments!