🎬 The most expensive video on my YouTube channel 💰

on March 21, 2026

I recently published a first draft of the Darkwood trailer:

👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWrGwZrW4As

And yes… you could say that this is probably the most expensive video on my YouTube channel.

Why make a trailer now?

It's something I've had in mind for a while.

Currently, the gameplay shown on Darkwood remains quite limited: 👉 https://darkwood.com/rules-of-the-game

The system works, but it still lacks the substance to truly immerse players in the universe.

👉 That's what the trailer is for.

A 100% AI-generated trailer

This trailer was entirely generated from:

  • a handwritten script
  • of AI video generation models
  • audio generation AI models

👉 The result?

  • It's not yet at the expected level
  • It's even far from what I imagined

But for an MVP:

👉 That's acceptable

And most importantly:

  • I spent several hours iterating on the scenario
  • to understand the limitations of the models
  • to structure the generation

⚠️ Why the video is difficult to understand

If you watch the trailer:

👉 You will probably find that it lacks consistency

And that's normal.

Each scene is generated independently, which creates:

  • visual breaks
  • inconsistent characters
  • a narrative that is difficult to follow

👉 So, I'm going to spoil the initial scenario to explain what I really wanted to produce.

Here is a more narrative, immersive and deliberately mysterious version, without explaining the purpose:

🎭 The scenario

The trailer unfolds in three movements.

🌑 Darkwood

It all begins in silence.

A cold glow illuminates the surface of the moon. Then, slowly, the fall.

The camera descends, passes through the clouds, and crashes into a dense, black, almost living forest. Lightning flashes across the sky. The trees are trembling. Something is leaking into the darkness.

A path appears.

Winding. Narrow. He guides the camera, as if he had been designed for it.

At the end: a gate.

Forged from iron, eaten away by brambles. It opens without being touched.

A squeak. Long. Metallic.

Beyond that, a manor house. Isolated. Frozen. Observer.

The door opens a crack.

Inside, the air is heavy. A vast hall, shadows gliding along the walls. Laughter. Quiet. Almost muffled.

A staircase. Then a corridor. Then a door.

It opens.

A library.

And there, in the dim light, a silhouette. Motionless, then slowly animated.

A pot is boiling. Impossible colors dance across its surface.

A voice is raised.

“Finally… finally… the time has come…”

A laugh. Too forced. Almost fake. Then another one.

The words repeat themselves, follow one another, and are lost in the echo of the room.

The potion reacts. She trembles. She swells.

Then she gives in.

In this liquid chaos, something is taking shape.

“You… insignificant…”

Other names follow. Other silhouettes. Forms barely defined, but already present.

And the voice continues.

Always.

🌈 Happyland

The light returns.

Soft. Warm. Almost too much.

A forest. Calm. Welcoming.

A man is walking. Quietly. He picks. He observes.

Then he falls.

A simple misstep. A root. Nothing more.

A voice suddenly appeared.

“Oh… you fell?”

A smile. Then a laugh.

Another laugh responds. Then another one.

They are spreading.

The man gets up.

“It’s nothing.”

But already, something has changed.

On the way back, glances were exchanged. Murmurs.

“It’s him… he fell…”

In the village, everyone seems to already know.

The baker smiled. A bit too much.

“Is everything alright?”

He answers yes.

But the laughter doesn't really stop. They move.

They accompany him.

At home, finally alone, he stops.

Back against the door.

Silence.

Then the thoughts.

They arrive quickly. Too quickly.

“Why…?”

The sentences follow one another, become distorted, and blend together. Logic. Absurdity. Mathematics.

“What if…?”

A doubt. Then another one.

And finally, a smile.

A real one.

“Yes… the time has come…”

A laugh escapes him.

⚖️ Narrator

Two figures.

One in the shadows. The other one in the light.

Or perhaps the opposite.

A suspended moment.

Then a voice.

“And now… what do you think…”

Silence.

“…which one is the most benevolent?”

⚙️ Technical Stack

🧠 Architecture

The project uses a Domain-Driven Design approach:

  • Trailer
  • Scene
  • Asset (audio / video)

With a clear pipeline:

  • scene generation
  • generation of assets
  • fallback fake
  • final rendering

The open source project

The repository used to generate the trailer is available here:

👉 https://github.com/darkwood-com/darkwood-trailer

🔁 Orchestration with Flow

👉 https://flow.darkwood.com/

Flow allows:

  • to parallelize the scenes
  • to accelerate generation
  • to structure the pipeline

🤖 Provider AI: Replicate

👉 https://replicate.com/

🎥 Video

  • bytedance/seedance-1-lite → used for the MVP ✅
  • minimax/hailuo-02-fast → requires additional parameters
  • p-video → requires an input image

🔊 Audio

  • minimax/speech-2.6-turbo → used for the MVP ✅

👉 Seedance was chosen because:

  • easy to use
  • Only works with a text prompt
  • fast enough to iterate

Generate your own trailer

You can generate your own video from the project.

The scenario is defined in a YAML file:

examples/trailer.yaml

Then start the generation:

php bin/console app:trailer:generate examples/trailer.yaml --video-model=seedance

💸 Actual cost

After several tests:

  • Approximately 30 minutes generated
  • ~10 iterations

👉 Total ≈ €75

⚠️ Tip

A flag allows you to: 👉 generate only the first scene in real life

The rest is fake.

✔️ avoids blowing the budget

🧩 Problems identified

  • Add pvideo and hailuo support
  • Add FX + soundscape
  • Multiple voices (characters + narrator)
  • Rework Flow orchestration

👉 Contributions welcome

Conclusion

Today, Darkwood is able to generate a complete trailer from a script.

The result is not yet at the expected level:

  • lack of consistency
  • difficult-to-follow narrative
  • model limitations

But :

👉 The pipeline is working 👉 Costs are controllable 👉 and most importantly, the system is iterable

This trailer is not the end.

👉 This is a starting point.

⚠️ Access to the Darkwood beta

The API keys mentioned here:

👉 https://blog.darkwood.com/fr/article/darkwood-creer-un-jeu-tactique-axe-sur-les-api

⏳ Valid until March 25th at midnight

After : 👉 No more access to the beta

👉 Remember to collect your key on Bonzai.

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