# Genesis

- Date: 2023-07-26
- Type: film
- Credit: Nicolas Neubert
- Artists: [Nicolas Neubert](https://aifilmhistory.org/artist/nicolas-neubert)
- Made with: Midjourney, Runway Gen-2
- Post: https://x.com/iamneubert/status/1684262309340774407
- URL: https://aifilmhistory.org/entry/genesis-neubert

A 48-second trailer for a film that does not exist: humanity hands everything to its machines, is enslaved and hunted, and rises to take the world back. Nicolas Neubert, then a product designer at Volkswagen, posted it on X on July 26, 2023 and it passed a million views within days. Every frame is a Midjourney still animated in Runway Gen-2, cut in CapCut over a royalty-free track, about seven hours of work in total: 316 Midjourney prompts, 310 Runway generations, 44 clips in the final edit.

Genesis was the clip that made the summer of 2023 feel like a turning point. The teal-and-amber grade, the slow pushes and the sense of scale looked like a studio tease rather than a tech demo, and it traveled far outside the AI community, with coverage in Forbes and VentureBeat. Neubert's making-of thread two days later became one of the most shared workflow breakdowns of the Gen-2 era, and the Midjourney plus Runway recipe it laid out was the standard pipeline for the rest of the year.

Links:
- The making of Genesis (thread): https://x.com/iamneubert/status/1684989102213476359
- VentureBeat: Meet the AI creative: https://venturebeat.com/ai/meet-the-ai-creative-senior-product-designer-nicolas-neubert-creator-of-sci-fi-movie-trailer-genesis
- 80.lv: Genesis, a cinematic trailer made with Midjourney and Runway: https://80.lv/articles/genesis-a-cinematic-trailer-made-with-midjourney-runway

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Source: https://aifilmhistory.org/entry/genesis-neubert
Era: 2023 · The Cambrian Explosion
Last updated: 2026-09-21