Nexus: Prison Break, Part I

The first Nexus story told across connected episodes. After seven standalone episodes that PJ Accetturo called R&D, a way of finding out which characters and plots the audience responded to, Episode 8 brings together Anika from Wet Markets of Kafar and Jace from the Cloud City heist as prisoners on an imperial ship, planning an escape and the theft of a resource the empire cannot afford to lose. It is an homage to Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, his favorite film, which he said he had wanted to make something like for twenty years. Parts II and III follow over the next two weeks, and the season runs as one linear story to a finale at the end of January.

It cost $102,725 and took 45 days, and PJ claimed major breakthroughs in audio and cinematography. Claude listed every character, prop and vehicle the script needed; the team went wide on character sheets with GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst and deep with Seedream 5.5, whose 21:9 location plates, prompted with every anamorphic descriptor they could find, gave the film its anamorphic look. Claude then split the script into scenes and 30-second Seedance prompts. With no 3D at all, Seedance made a first pass at each scene from many angles to lock where everyone stood, and screenshots of the best angles anchored a second pass for closer coverage, with animators working scenes in parallel on a shared canvas while director Beau Fipke gave notes in real time. Steven Quach led the animation with Giulio Fulchignoni and Joe Sill, and Tyler Messervey edited. Within a day the post passed 2.8 million views on X.